My Risk Assessment and Job Roles Chart

Constructing my final draft of my horror magazine

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

An evaluation of the main technologies used throughout this process….

YouTube
I used YouTube throughout all of the different stages; research and planning, construction and evaluation stages. I also used YouTube to upload my horror trailer in order to distribute it to a wider audience. YouTube also helped me to research other trailers and without it I would not have been able to have channeled my research appropriately to fit the psychological horror. It gave me a chance to analyse other trailers in detail with ease as I could pause and re-watch the video whenever I wanted. YouTube provided me with an online platform to upload and share my presentations so that I could embed my research and findings into my blog. No other online uploading service would have been in fulfilling my requirements. However, it didn’t run smoothly all the time because it is an online service. I had other issues with the uploading of my trailer as I was not able to upload a version of good enough quality, therefore I will have to burn my trailer onto a DVD disc for maximum quality. Overall, I would definitely say that for all of YouTube’s faults, it was the perfect online uploading service to target and to present my work to my audience.

Slideshare
Slideshare has been one of the most useful online websites for presenting my work, not only to upload my own powerpoints but to access other information, such as for researching and revision purposes that added the creation of my media products. It enabled me to get and produce information in a more simple and interactive way for myself and for my audience. This was most usfull when I found parts of my coursework challenging as often all the information that I needed was neatly and clearly explained in the form of a powerpoint published on slide share, it also simultaneously stopped my blog from being too clogged up with information and allowed me to present large chunks of information in a clearer and better presented way.

Prezi
Although it took me a much longer time to create and share a presentation on prezi, it was a good alternative website that allowed me to present my information on as otherwise using powerpoint presentations for every time I wanted to present my work would have been tedious and boring. Prezi provided me with a more of a professional platform to present my work on and as a result was a perfect website to use in the evaluation stages as it enabled me to present more aesthetically pleasing work.

Photoshop
Without photoshop I would not have been able to explore my creative ability when creating and developing my ancillary products. Photoshop enabled me to expand further than the origional image itself. It allowed me to delve into a world where choice and manipulation of an image and without I would not have been able to have provided products that fitted so well into the psychological sub-genre in horror.

Facebook
In my initital stages of research I could see that the best way to target an audience were through social media websites, therefore Facebook was a perfect platform for me to reach my target audience. Throughout all construction process; my poster, my magazine and my horror trailer, I used Facebook as my main source for generating primary research. Another reason why i used facevbook consistently throughout my courswqwork was because I got a quick  respose from my target audience. I recieved a lot more responses from Facebook than I did survey monkey. I used Facebook mainly for a platform to get audience feedback for when I needed to make a crucial decision in my construction stage, and without this use of techonlogy I would not have done enough research to create perfectly targeted products.

Survey monkey
Survey monkey was another website that I used to get feedback. It helped me to gain a response from a wider audience, however it quite often took weeks until I could close my surveys for analysis as I had to really push my audience to answer it. Survey monkey is an effective way to gain honest feedback from your audience however, for me, it was more important to get immediate feedback so I could make the changes quickly.

I-Movie HD
Upon reflection I-movie HD was perhaps not the best software to use for creating a horror trailer, as the effects were limited and the software was not up to date, I-Movie quite often slowed my creative flow and restricted my ideas because of the limited editing options. It was a moderately easy piece of software to navigate my way around but only because of its simple design.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

(Please ensure that  you click on the links as the information will help you understand my answer more)

Initial audience research:

• Audience feedback was vital throughout every stage when creating my media products, in the research stage I needed to gather data about the demographics of my target audience so that I could see what my audience wanted in all three products. I did this at the research stage as is helped me to achieve what my target audience wanted in all three media products from the beginning of the my coursework. In order to see what my targeted audience wanted in my horror trailer, I created a survey on survey monkey called ‘the horror trailer film questionnaire’.
• Because of this survey I was able to make decisions about the basic things that were to be involved in my horror trailer, such as it being a psychological horror, eerie settings and scary music,  and the man being at large. So, I chose my horror movie to fall under the psychological genre, to be set in the woods and my main character to be a and 18 year man . I did this so the audience could relate to my main character more as he was in the age group between 18-34.
• I also used audience feed back throughout my planning stage as the main purpose of this was to continuously interact with my target audience so that I was able to always see what my targeted audience liked and as a result the audience feedback aided me to make key decisions for when I was ready to start the creation process. I did this by creating drafts for each media product, this allowed me to develop my ideas through my planning as I was able to see what my audience liked and disliked about all three of my products.
• The amendments told by the audience ensured me that I was on the right track for producing very-well targeted products. Within these blogs posts I make known of the amendments made to each media product, so that I could see what I needed to create for my final product and to further achieve the needs of my targeted audience.
• For my poster drafts as I was stuck on how to portray Josh’s psychosis, I gathered a focus group together and asked my class mates which picture was best to use for my poster.
• I think the audience feedback helped me a lot at this stage because it helped me confirm my suspicious about various different things. The audience feed back also at this point was essential as it helped me to confirm ideas for my ancillary products and therefore enabled me to move on with the construction process.

-Trailer
–Poster
–Magazine

• As the medium of a magazine targets a much wider mainstream audience I had to get my front cover just right to meet the needs of my target audience, therefore I did a lot more research for my horror magazine than for any other of my media products because the conventions were not as easy to subvert, therefore in order to involve my audience again, I created a survey on survey monkey once more, to ask my audience what picture they felt best fit my horror magazine front cover called  ‘choosing the main image for my magazine front cover’, as I was unsure about which picture to use, I felt it was necessary to ask my targeted audience as, after all, its not what I want, it what my target audience want
• In the construction process it was crucial to have constant reassurance about what looked good and about what didn’t look good so that I knew that I was on the right track for all of my media products and without it I would have perhaps ended up with products that none of my target audiences wanted; so it wasn’t worth taking the risk. Because of this, audience feedback was very important as it pointed out any issues that I needed to change in order to improve my products that I may not have noticed myself.
• As I chose my product to be distributed by and independent magazine publisher and an independent film distributor it gave me much more of a creative license. However, even though my film magazine was created as the NO1 alternative magazine it was still necessary to fit the fundamental conventions that came along with a magazine as it targets a much wider audience. Because of this, I had to ask for more audience feedback throughout the construction process of my magazine as I wanted to 100% make sure that it was what my target audience liked.
• At the very final stage of the construction process for my magazine I was unsure on what magazine front cover looked best and more striking, therefore I left it to the public to decide, I posted a snapshot of both edited versions onto my Facebook (as looking at my demographic research too Facebook was one of the most ideal places to target my audience) and waited for responses. Overall my audience feedback aided me to make the right decision when picking which version looked best for my horror magazine, and without the feedback I may have made chosen the wrong version.
• Before starting my project there was always an awareness to consciously consider the audience at every stage of pre-production and production. So where decisions and revisions were made I had to put together a small focus group from my audience and consulted them and there preferences were taken into consideration.
• As the people in the focus group were all in my targeted demographic, I used this to my advantage and constantly asked for their advice. This finalised the choice of what draft I wanted to be my horror poster, and as a result gave me more confidence when going onto create my other media products, here are the different versions:

 

• Other than my class mates, I also posted the different pictures on to Facebook, (as looking at my demographic research I saw that Facebook was the most ideal place to target my audience) and left it to people online to choose which image was better in showing Josh’s psychosis for my poster, I got a lot of different responses which aided my decision. I learned after this audience feedback that although it was scary, a connection between the audience and the character will not be easy as his eyes aren’t fully shown.  I also learned that the picture on the right looks more realistic, without this feedback i would have perhaps not have had such an effective combination of products and therefore would not have reached a wide enough audience.

Audience Feedback post-production stages

I put together a focus group of 3 different students, male and female and from the ages of 18 -20. This qualitative approach to asking my targeted audience allowed me to get a more detailed answer and explenation into what I did well and what I didn’t well. I ased a range of people and different genders to mae my feedbac fair and varied.

Overall I learned that the things I did well on were:

1)

Things i did well:

• The use of effects when Josh knocked on the  camera as it portrayed the horror genre and made it more scary
• He was represented well – as he was shown as vulnerable
• I stuck to the psychological horror whilst also still being able to create tension through the minimal use of gore
• Making it scary
• The prominent use of the eyes in all three of my media products
• I haven;t used the stereotypical, traditional horror story

Things i could have improved on

• better quality

2)

Things i did well

• The sound effects
• The typical conventions in a horror trailer
• Josh was represented well and fitted into the psychological horror genre
• Making it scary because the disorientating factor
• Built suspense
• Used the same colour scheme and the same character throughout all media products,
• Deeper meaning

Things i could have improved on:

• The lighting
• The pixalated shots
• Clearer narrative

3)

Things I did well

• different camera angles
• breaking the barrier between character and audience
• Represented as someone who is normal but doesn’t show all underneath
• Making it scary
• The idea of my character being portrayed as normal in all three of media products
• Fulfilling the conventions of a psychological horror.

Things I could have improved on

• Add a couple more of the flashed to add more fear

What have I learned from this audience feedback?

• Overall I learned from this focus group that all three of my media products relate very well and that its definitely scary, however I also learned that perhaps I may have rushed a few things and made the narrative a bit too confusing.
• I also made a questionnaire and handed it out to 8 different people and showed them all of my media products. As I will not be able to build up a rapport with these respondants it will be more honest feedback. However, as the majority of questions asked in this questionnaire the responses may be rushed and not answered in full detail. However, as I’ve used a mixture of quantitative and qualitative such as a questionnaire and a focus group I will have varied responses from my audience.

• In order for my audience to answer these questions I sent the file to them over the internet so that they could reply online, this was a much better way to access my audience as its easier to target them online.

Here is the questionnaire that I handed out: Questionnaire

I have compiled a list of documents of the 8 different responses:

Questionnaire1

Questionnaire2

Questionnaire3

Questionnaire4

Questionnaire5

Questionnaire6

Questionnaire7

Questionnaire8

Here are my responses (this is the link https://infogr.am/post_production_questionnaire)

What have I learned from this audience feedback?

• Overall from this questionnaire I have learned that I have correctly fulfilled the sub-genre of my trailer through the use of editing, props and character types.
• 100% of people from my questionnaire all stated how they thought it falls under the pychological horror genre.
• However, on refelection, I have also learned from the responses of this questionnare that 50% of the people asked didn’t fully understand the narrative of my trailer, and looking back, I should have planned for a more clear story.
• I am very pleased to have found out that 100% of all respondants belived my trailer was scary. Both the focus group and the questionnaire have shown me how my trailer was scary and how I have successfully managed to fulfil the conventions of a horror trailer whilst also being able to experiment and subvert conventions too.

How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary texts?

Here I have put together a prezi presentation, uploaded it to YouTube and added audio over it so that my answer is made clear, please feel free to pause anything in the video if you have not had enough time to look over the points made

Please ensure that its up to maximum quality which is 480p.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of real media products?

So to wrap up the ways in which I used, developed and challenged forms of conventions specifically for my horror trailer were:

• I researched horror magazines, horror posters and horror trailers, mainly Donnie Darko, Shutter Island and Fight club in order to replicate the conventions that were in a psychological horror trailer.
• Initially finding out general horror conventions were an important place to start from, such as, dramatic angles, all titles are at the end of the trailer, Barthes enigma code, all settings must be isolated, costumes hair and makeup, non diegetic sound,
• Psychological horror conventions relied on the characters fears, guilt, eerie sound effects, beliefs, emotional instability and the supernatural
• I subverted the convention of a psychological horror including a lot of blood as I wanted the focus to be around Josh’s psychosis rather than based around the amount of blood he can draw from someones body, I did this by only including small snippets of blood.
• I included other elements of fufilling the conventions of a horror trailer, I added a synopsis with it to as it would put the plot of the story into perspective for when the audience watch my horror trailer.
• I converted the Propps character types as Josh was not a typical villain, so that my audience will be able to relate to him, this was done through the camera shots as whole trailer is seen from Josh’s point of view, as though the audience were seeing if from Josh’s eyes.
• The film Donnie Darko helped me to see how I could challenge the final girl theory as the narrative of my trailer is from Josh’s perspective and converted it in a way that it was perhaps ‘the final man theory’.
• This furthered my idea as it enabled me to challenge Judith Butlers idea of ‘all woman are seen as vulnerable’
• I used the film trailer Donnie Darko to give me ideas on how to portray Josh’s psychosis in my trailer by replicating the idea as he sees flashes through the mirror when he is getting ready for school.
• I challenged Laura Mulveys ‘male gaze’ theory as after researching a lot of horror trailers I could see that there was a definite theme throughout’ the sexualised woman, thus I challenged it and covered the girl in my trailer up.. because again this was something that I didn’t want my trailer to be dictated by as showing the audience Josh’s psychosis was far more important.
• I fulfilled Barthes enigma code through Josh’s flashbacks, Shutter Island enabled me to see how this was an important convention of a psychological horror.
• ‘The un-named protagonist’ is something that I saw in Fight Club and thought that I would have been a perfect way to portray Josh as well – I fulfilled this by using the same convention as there being 1 main protagonist, however also challenged the convention as the 1 protagonist by showing him as vulnerable.
• I also fulfilled the convention of my psychological horror being scary by removing the barrier between the audience and the main protagonist as Josh knocks on the camera…ultimately the dietetic element of my trailer fulfills my horror element

Other ways in which I fulfilled the conventions of a horror trailer were:

• The scary, dark and eerie non-diegetic sound over my trailer, here is the SoundCloud link for my Soundtrack for Lucid, I made the soundtrack myself, as I wanted to make sure that my music matched up completely with my horror trailer to further fullfil the convention of my horror trailer being scary.

• Isolated settings here is an example of where it is an isolated setting, he is on his own, no-one else is around, this was done as I felt it fitted well into the theme of a psychological horror too because the camera shows Josh – the main protagonist as alone, fearful and scared, whilst also portraying him to the audience as though he has psychosis.

• Costumes & binary opposition– costumes were a very important part for my horror trailer. Throughout Josh was wearing normal clothes; black attire, not only does this denote to the audience that he is a ‘dark’ character as it were, but it also shows how Josh is terribly normal. This was another aspect of my trailer that used Levi Straus’ theory of binary opposition as the normal clothes and the eerie settings are juxtaposed thus making my trailer scarier.

• All titles are at the end of the trailer : this convention was really important in fulfilling as seen from most other media products it enabled time narrative to unravel first before the equilibrium has been destroyed (Todorovv’s 3 part structure), this increased tension and suspense therefore also adding to the convention of it being a scary horror trailer.
• A convention that I subverted was; Todorovs 3 Part structure, the structure goes a bit like this:
  -State of Equilibrium
  – A disruption
  – A recognition
  – An attempt to repair the disruption
  – A return to equilibrium
  – New Equilibrium.However, my trailer follows the pattern of
  – A disruption (the girl singing at the beginning)
  -State of equilibrium (Josh getting out of bed)
  -A disruption – Josh looking the mirror
  -State of equilibrium (Josh putting kettle on
  -A disruption (From Josh in the forest to Josh slamming his bloody hand on the door)
  This is shown that equilibrium is not stored, and I wanted to subvert this convention as I found it fitted the psychological genre better, because showing the audience little flashes (disruptions) meant that they could discretely see his psychosis developing, until the longest disruption occurs- when his hand slams on the door.

Here is a PowerPoint presentation showing you how I’ve used real media products, challenged conventions and developed ideas for my ancillary products:

To conclude

• Overall I believe that my main product and my ancillary tasks both challenge, develop and use forms of conventions of real media products and as a result it has aided me to make them look and sound more realistic and, as a result would fit into the sub-genre of my product being a psychological horror. I feel that all of the ideas above have been a necessary part in order for my real media product to also fit into the alternative category. Analysing different media products provided me with a perfect platform to use and develop ideas and too see what the typical conventions are of a psychological horror.

Final production pieces

Trailer:

Poster:

Magazine:

Construction of my Horror Trailer

• Here is a video that I have put together to show you all of the original footage of my horror trailer… I have done this so it makes it easier to show the changes that I have made to the origional clips, these changes include the effects, the diegetic/non-diagetic sound and the editing of the footage.

• Firstly I have imported my footage into I-movie, I did this by clicking on the drop-down menu called ‘File’, i then went to ‘Import’, and then went to ‘Movies’. I made sure that I had all my footage already saved on the computer to easily import it into i movie. This saved me time and effort as importing one piece of footage at a time would have been tedious and time consuming.

• The clips were imported into ‘The clip bank’
• Even though some of the footage that I imported I did not use, I still made sure that all of the footage was there because I may have ended up using other clips
• The clip bank enabled me to navigate with ease around every single clip that I imported, if I decided against using a certain clip after all, I could easily drag the clip up from the timeline and back into the clip bank.

 

When reading my explanation for the construction of my horror trailer, I will be referring to certain clips (they are numbered in the above video) this will make it easier to show the changes that I’ve made and the reasons why.

Here are my clips in list form also:

Clip 1: Josh’s eyes, falling asleep
Clip 2: Josh’s feet
Clip 3: Josh waking up in bed
Clip 4: Josh turning the alarm off
Clip 5: Josh turning the light on
Clip 6: kettle boiling
Clip 7: Josh turning the kettle on
Clip 8: Josh swirling his tea
Clip 9: Josh sipping his tea
Clip 10: Josh in the mirror
Clip 11: Josh tying his shoelaces
Clip 12: Following Josh on his bike
Clip 13: Josh looking at tree
Clip 14: Josh in the woods
Clip 15: Dead girl in the woods
Clip 16: Josh walking up path with bloody toy
Clip 17: Josh’s feet running in the woods
Clip 18: Bloody toy in the tree
Clip 19: Private property
Clip 20: Josh walking towards the camera
Clip 21: Josh slams hand on door window

• To start of even before any of my clips have been added to the trailer, I have added and image of a certificate identifying my trailer as an 18.
• As I chose for my horror trailer to be distributed using an independent film distributor I chose Film 4, to distribute my film
• I know that adding this at the beginning of my trailer isn’t necessary however, I have done it to make my trailer look and feel more realistic for my audience.

• I have added a black transition for 5 seconds ( I had add another one because 5 seconds was not long enough), as seen when i researched ‘Don’t be afraid of the dark’ the first 30 seconds of the trailer have been devoted to just a black screen with a bit of talking over the top of it:

• I felt this suited the idea of a dreamy situation so I decided to put this effect at the beginning of my trailer because it adds tension, it makes the audience feel disorientated and immediately scared.
• Here are the screen shots showing you how I created this beginning bit of my trailer… its very simple, the ‘title’ selection was clicked on and then animated gradient clicked on afterwards. I moved the 5 second long titles to the beginning of the trailer.

• Over the top of the clip I have extracted the audio from one of the clips of Josh moving around in the bedroom and put it over the dark transition, I also added footsteps over the top of this clip (up until when Josh wakes up) as it gives the audience a real sense that Josh is dreaming:
• As I right click on the actual clip (the transition in this case) the extract audio button was pressed
• The extracted piece of audio was then copied and pasted to the beginning of my trailer.
• [ADD] THE EXTRACT AUDIO SCREEN SHOT & ADDED FOOTSTEPS SCREEN SHOT
• Here is what the piece of audio looks like as an extracted sound, as you can see the sound of the footsteps (which has been an added sound effect from i movie
• It has been layered underneath the original extracted piece of audio as shown:

• The idea of my trailer beginning with just darkness initiates the fears of the audience too as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_the_dark explains nyctophobia is a very common phobia of many people, therefore this will increase the horror factor of my trailer, whilst slowly increasing the tension.
• https://a2mediasarah.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/reflecting-on-the-responses-from-the-horror-film-questionnaire/ In my previous blog post called ‘reflecting on the responses from the horror film questionnaire’ the question ‘what scares you the most’ was asked : here were the responses and as you can see, someone replied with ‘the dark’.

• In order to make my horror trailer the best to my ability I have responded to my audiences answers by making sure that a bit of ‘the dark’ is involved in my overall trailer. This ultimately making my trailer scarier and more horrific for the audience to watch.
•  The Clip 1 was used to start my trailer off
• As the name of my trailer is ‘lucid’, this is refered to the idea of ‘lucid dreaming’. Define Lucid: A lucid dream is any dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming. In relation to this phenomenon, Greek philosopher Aristotle observed: “often when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream. The idea of lucid dreaming encompasses the whole idea of my horror film.
• I have used Clip 1 to show the audience that Josh is falling into a sleep, to show the effect of Josh dreaming, I have cut up the clip every 0.22 frames per second (or near to 0.22 frames)  Apple T was pressed at every 0.22 interval.
• I then worked on the clips individually.
• I left the first cut of Clip 1 in its original form

• From then on over as the cuts of Clip 1 went on I increased the brightness of the individual cuts.
• I did this by clicking on the ‘Video fx’

• I then clicked on the ‘Brightness & Contrast’ tool

• I slowly increased the brightness using the drag tool highlighted by red….

• This effect was done because not only does it portray a dream like state, it also portrays Josh’s vulnerability.
• As the audience have immediate eye contact with Josh this enables a connection to occur with the audience and Josh, this is extremely important for my trailer, as the more the audience connects with the main character the more chance that the audience will want to watch on and find out in more detail about ‘Josh’s story’, the extreme close up and dream-like effect stimulates the audiences imagination into thinking whether Josh, the story and the rest of the trailer is a dream or a reality.
• To increase the connectivity between the audience and Josh the ‘letterbox’ effect was also used.

• I have done some additional research into why it is important to get an extreme close up shot, here is the link: ‘6 reasons why to get an extreme close up shot’
• My previous research in the blog post called ‘The different uses of the camera shot, angles, lighting, cinematography and mise-en-scene, I found out that generally extreme the technique is quite common in horror films. This type of shot creates an intense mood and a dramatic effect, thus creating interatction between the audience and the character, this is important for my horror trailer as I want the audience to be involved in the trailer, the more involved they get with the story the more viewers I will get for my horror film.
• The extreme close up intensified by the ‘letterbox’ will also increase tension and unease, adding to the overall horror element of my trailer.
• Another effect added to Clip 1 was the ‘flash effect’
• Again, I went to the ‘Video fx’ option and clicked on ‘flash effect’

• To incorporate the dream-like situation even more, certain clips are used as Josh’s dream to foreshadow the events that are coming up later on in the trailer. I added a small snippet of Clip 12, only for 0.15 of a second, as Josh is falling into his sleep this image will flash up, showing the audience how he is dreaming. Clip 12  is normal footage of Josh cycling to school, but the second flash (Clip 15) is a bit more gruesome. Again this foreshadows to the scenes that will happen later on in the trailer.
• HOWEVER…. as the audience believe that Josh is falling into a dream-like state, we believe that these flashes are just snippets of Josh’s dream. This is not true. Again, the flash of Clip 15 foreshadows to the events later shown in the trailer. As the brightness is extremely high, it again reinforces the idea that Josh is only dreaming.
• As the audience are beginning to gain an insight into what the movie is about now, the confusing flashes and increased brightness of the clips creates more tension, atmosphere and horror for the audience.

• As the genre of horror that I chose was a Psychological horror, therefore, elements of Josh’s psyche has to be involved in the initial trailer as the audience slowly understands and sees Josh’s psychosis turn from good to bad, and in this situation, from his dream, to his reality.
• From the responses that I got on my survey state that 80% of the people asked prefer psychological horror films and 100% said ‘yes’ to having psychological elements in a horror film. Therefore I have made it the most fundamental part of my trailer, and as a result, I have added a psychological element into it. This can be shown through Josh’s psychosis.

• I have used my research to make sure that I am able to provide for my audiences needs and preferred choices of horror.
• I have shown Josh’s psychosis through the different uses of effects, such as; the brightness effect to show Josh’s dream/reality, and the flash effect to show how turbulent Josh can be.
• To distinguish between Josh’s normal side and psychosis side, Clips from 2-9 have not been edited. This has been done so that the audience can really see the opposite sides to Josh. No effects have been added, I have only shortened the clips to keep the fast past of my trailer consistent.
• The clips used have been cut short because I do not want the audience to get bored, as I want to keep them interested so that  they will watch my actual film.
• The lack of effects symbolises Josh’s normal side.

• The start of my trailer Clip 10; is devoted to allowing the audience to see that his psychosis is slowly creeping up on him, the flashes of his dream when he is awake are from Clips 15 and Clip 18, this is a pivotal point of my trailer as it shows the audience how his dream may have been real and that he lived his nightmare. It also foreshadows what the rest of the trailer is going to be about.
• It is imperative to also see from the audiences perspective that Josh is surprised and worried by seeing flashes in the mirror, again showing the audience that is is a psychological horror; playing with their minds.
• I have increased the brightness effect: on both Clip 15 and Clip 18, to show his flashbacks are in a dream like situation- separating the parallels between his dream and his reality. Furthermore reinforcing the trailer as being a psychological horror.
• As there is no effect over the clip of Josh doing his hair, this increases how normal and relatable Josh is which is important for my audience as I want them to feel sympathy towards Josh as a character. To then making the horror of the story (when Josh sets out to kill people) more surprising.

• However, the use of diegetic sound in the trailer has been extracted and layered underneath the video, this is so that I can turn the sound of the alarm clock up:
• It is also to make sure that each sound is the same and in a melodic formation. This was done extracting the audio, and listening to the alarm clock ring. I cut the alarm clock sound after 1 ring, but pressing apple shift T, I then copied the original ring of the alarm clock and pasted it next to the first ring. I did this another five times. I made sure that they were an equal distance apart, I did this by using the left and right arrowed buttons on the keyboard.

• The sound of the alarm clock is a symbol that Josh’s psychosis is always present. As the sound of the alarm clock is used throughout the trailer when Josh’s changes personalities. Or something is shown on screen that reminds the audience that he has psychosis, although the audience may not get this first time from watching my trailer. (After all it is a psychological horror!).
• This can be read in more detail in my previous ‘Foreshadowing in my trailer’ blog post

•  Following on from the beginning of my trailer, the tension increases more by revealing through different clips Josh’s psychosis and what he has done is definitely real.
• Clip 12 of Following Josh on his bike and Clip 13 of Josh looking at the tree have been used here to show this difference.
• I have added a reverse effect and sped up the clip. This is to show the audience that the Josh is trying to ‘go back in time’ as it were to see whether he did actually kill anyone or if it was just a dream. The fast pace of the clip mirrors Josh’s psychosis even more, as though he is on a ‘manic high’, again reinforcing the genre of the trailer as it being a psychological horror.
• As the tension is increasingly building and the darkness of Josh is being revealed, I have made sure that I portrayed that through the effects of the clips by increasing the contrast.
• In all of my clips I have added a White Point Adjust to increase the trippy aesthetics of my trailer. Its also been added to show the audience what its like to be inside Josh’s head.
• In Clip 13 I have added the video effect of reverse and have also increased the speed to again play off from the clip of Josh cycling on his bike.
• I went to ‘Video fx‘ clicked on ‘Fast, slow, reverse‘ and ticked the box for ‘reverse‘ and also increased the speed. I have reversed it to imply to the audience that Josh is trying to go back in time to work out what had happened in his dream, and to then for him to realise that he is actually living his dream whist doing so.
• The clip of Josh staring at the tree also indicates to the audience how he has psychosis, and how perhaps he is ‘lost’ in his own mind – thus reinforcing that my trailer is in the psychological horror genre.

• Clip 1: Josh’s eyes, falling asleep features after Clip 12. This is so that the audience constantly knows that there are two sides to him and that he is split between his dream and his reality.
• Clip 12 also indicates that he is still dreaming even when in a state of psychosis, therefore he is not fully with it.

ADD CLIPS OF TRANSITIONS

• Next text over a black transition has been placed after Clip 13.
• ALSO,  Dead Black Outs (when the screen goes completely black or with text) is a convention of a horror trailer adding this to my horror trailer is important as represents something thrilling is about to happen or is going to happen therefore it adds tension and suspense to my overall trailer.

• After the black out, this is when the pace of my trailer changes… Clip 14 of  Josh in the woods is followed by someone who also is in the woods, and as a result another character behind the camera says ‘hello’ as he is creeping around. A noise triggers the ‘hello’ and the camera moves with it, following Josh round to show him on the camera standing in the woods staring at the character.
  
• Clip 14 of Josh has had added effects to it, to increase the horror of my trailer… the contrast again, has been increased to replicate the scariness of the woods. The colours have been adjusted so that there is a bit of colour, also implying to the audience that the camera is seeing what life is like through Josh’s eyes.
• I did this by going to ‘Video fx‘ and then clicking on ‘Adjust colours‘ and increasing the colour balancing showing the clip being a little bit pink and blue.
• This reinforces the trippy aspect of my trailer too.
• The convention of a ‘rural’ as this part of the trailer is featured int the woods. This also increases the tension of my trailer as it triggers the fear of the unknown and the idea of not knowing what is lurking around in the woods, and in this case, it is Josh following someone.

• The next  black transition has been placed after Clip 17 and the text on top of it says ‘To Hide’ following from the previous transition of ‘There’s no where’
• Again: Dead Black Outs (when the screen goes completely black or with text) is a convention of a horror trailer adding this to my horror trailer is important as represents something thrilling is about to happen or is going to happen therefore it adds tension and suspense to my overall trailer.(stated before)
  

• A snippet of Clip 20 has been used to foreshadow the events later happening in the my trailer
  
• A flash back of Josh is shown before he kills the girl… this shows that he is always present throughout the duration of the whole trailer
• It also adds horror to my trailer as the audience cannot hide from them either, showing that they’re constantly being watched by Josh.

• Next, Clip 15: Dead girl in the woods.
• As the tensions is slowly building a shot of Josh’s psychosis needs to be shown.
• By doing this I left the camera recording in the grass, going hands free on the camera enabled me to be apart of my own trailer… as after all I was the one who did shout ‘hello’ and I can’t just not get killed after saying that especially as I stupidly followed someone into the woods…
• Therefore the close up shot of me falling in front of the camera with the added aspect of a trickle of blood dripping down my face 100% implies that I have been killed by Josh, therefore this increases the tension as the convention of blood (mise-en-scene) is used to show how Josh is psychotic and the terror is starting to happen.
• Now this scene if shown, the flashbacks of me at the beginning of the trailer will start to make sense to the  audience, things start to come clear as Clip 15 is fully shown.
• In all of my clips I have added a White Point Adjust to increase the trippy aesthetics of my trailer. Its also been added to show the audience what its like to be inside Josh’s head.
• Next Clip 18  is shown, which is of the bloody toy in the tree
  

• A flash of this clip increases the pace of my horror trailer, as it is important for a horror trailer to be fast as that is one of the main conventions (to keep a horror trailer fast paced).
• The close up shot of the toy is a symbol to Josh’s psychosis and what is yet to come in the film, obviously showing that there maybe children involved in the actual film, but as my trailer is on a trailer, I do not want to show the full breadth of my film, therefore a short snippet of this clip is only necessary.
• No extra effects have been added apart from White Point Adjust, as the clip on its own is scary and meaningful enough.
• The alternative short shots of Josh running of Clip 16  and Clip 17 have been used this is because the fast-paced shots are used to show that violence has occurred and also the chase/running scenes will make the audience feel disorientated and as a result this will increase the tension in my trailer.
• The speed increases throughout my trailer until it reaches the peak at the end
  
• After Clip 17 a transition called ‘overlap‘ has been added to lead into the next clip, this has been done to keep the flow of my trailer going, as the clip leads nicely into the next one. This is important as its nearly reaching the pinnacle of my trailer.
• This was done by clicking on ‘Transitions‘ and then ‘Overlap‘
• Clip 19: Private property
• No extra effects have been added apart from White Point Adjust, as the clip shows the location of where Josh is and how his psychosis has lead him to a private property which indicates to the audience that he does not know where he is
  
• Clip 20, of Josh walking towards the camera has been cut from 40 seconds down to about 5, keeping in tune with the fast pace and flow of my horror trailer, the shot is a location shot of Josh creeping up to the camera. Finally as the audience we get to see the face of Josh; the face of evil, and the protagonist behind the doings of my trailer.

• The next clip if Clip 20, throughout the clip I have used the effect of ‘N-square’.
• I clicked on the ‘video fx‘ button and then clicked on ‘n-squares‘
• I did this by cutting the original clip into smaller clips so I could edit the clips individually.
• I also copy and pasted some clips to add the tension more and therefore leading into my pinnacle moment of my trailer at the end.
• As the clips went on I increased the amount of N squares on the clips…. along with the dialogue of Josh saying ‘where am I and knocking on the camera’
• This makes the audience feel scared as though Josh is talking to them personally.
• The intrusive knock then leads on to Josh actually knocking on a door
• The fact that Josh is looking directly at the audience makes the audience feel on edge and therefore increases the tension for when the scariest more jumpy bit at the end happens; the knock
• The N square effect also increases the psychedelic feel of my trailer and therefore reinforces the psychological aspect of it too.

• The non-diegetic sound is also very important at this point of the trailer, as Josh starts saying ‘Where am I’ the alarm goes of really signifying the peak of his psychosis. This sound also makes the audience feel disorientated too as its a normal aspect of daily life being brought into a psychological trailer.
• The alarm also triggers the ideas of Josh still being in a dream like situation, when really he has just rein-acted his nightmare.
• The audio was extracted from Clip 4 to show that the sounds are the same and have just looped back round to the end of the trailer.
• This was done by copying the already extracted audio of Clip 4

• The next black transition with the text of ‘From the nightmare’ following from Clip 20, this has been done to build tension and atmosphere, as it is nearly reaching the final point of my trailer.
• The black transition with no sound and clips gives the impression to the audience that there is nothing more to come, however as the transition doesn’t make sense, the audience may feel tense watching and waiting as if there is something to hide from…

• Finally Clip 21, of Josh slamming his hand on the door is a close up shot showing the bloody hand moving slowly down the window of the door.
• This is the pinnacle point of my trailer and as its a loud bang, it has been positioned at the end intending on making the audience scared and thrilled, ultimately making them want to watch the film.
• Again: Dead Black Outs (when the screen goes completely black or with text) is a convention of a horror trailer adding this to my horror trailer is important as represents something thrilling is about to happen or is going to happen therefore it adds tension and suspense to my overall trailer.(stated before)
• No added effects have been added apart from the sound overlaying the footage.

• The final transition after the pinnacle of my trailer is that ‘That never sleeps’ This text implies that Josh is always around us and even though he believes that this is his actual nightmare, its not, hes reliving it in real life.
• The idea of it being split between a dream and a reality situation and all in all it reinforces my trailer as a psychological horror genre.
• Again: Dead Black Outs (when the screen goes completely black or with text) is a convention of a horror trailer adding this to my horror trailer is important as represents something thrilling is about to happen or is going to happen therefore it adds tension and suspense to my overall trailer.(stated before)

• The ending of my trailer finishes with 2 final transitions with text over the top of them, the first one is LUCID, this is obviously to show the audience what the name of my horror film
• The second text transition states that its coming soon, both of these transitions are imperative to being a good horror trailer as they are conventions of a horror trailer, therefore I have done this to make my horror trailer more realistic for the audience.

Soundtrack

• Although I have seen different websites that can provide me with the soundtrack of my horror trailer, I believe that creating my own soundtrack would be more suited to it and therefore increase the tension and horror of my trailer.
• I will be making it using the software called ‘Ableton Live.

Soundtrack research

Here is an article, that helped me in finding/creating a sound track

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/0/24083243

Incompetech is a good website also that i’ll be using to help me search some music for my tailer, as it is royalty free, copyright will not be an issue

http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?genre=Horror&page=1