Here Are A Few Film Title Ideas -

Second Survey

Thriller Survey

1) How old are you?

    15-18          19-21          22+

2) What gender are you?

   Male           Female

3) What is it about thrillers that you enjoy watching?

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4) What stereotypically do you expect to see in a thriller?

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5) What is your favourite thriller film?

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6) Who do you typically go to the cinema with?

    Friend(s) of similar age                      Friend(s) of an older age

    Parent(s)

7) Do you prefer thrillers set in the country or city?

    Country                 City

8) Do you prefer thrillers to be realistic or unrealistic?

    Realistic                 Unrealistic

9) Do you prefer thrillers to be set during the day or night?

    Day                      Night

10) Do you prefer to be following the victim or perpetrator's story throughout the film?

    Victim                   Perpetrator

Recorded Survey Answers

Out of all of the questions which we asked on our survey, we were most keen to find some direction in the responses as to what genre that people prefer. As seen from the pie chart above, the replies consisted on Action, Adventure, Rom-com, Comedy and Thriller. Due to 33% of our sample (who were all of various ages) choosing Thriller, we decided this was the route which we decided to pursue.

The age of participants was vital for us to distinguish where the majority of our answers were originating from. From the pie chart it reveals that the responses were vastly that of 18 years old and over.

By asking the participants what film certificate they favoured, it gave us perspective of how popular and well received are the various certificates are. This enquiry was another deciding point for my group as to where to place our film on the rating scale. We were aware that when asking this question, later we would have to research further into the restrictions of each age certificate. In this respect, carrying out a questionnaire proved effective to a certain extent -- it did not give us all the information we required to advance into our planning process...

The responses to this question provided my group and I the insight to whether individuals go to the cinema on their own or go with people of their own age or even with family members. The effectiveness of this question was to address the thoughts we had on whether to base our film on a group of friends or about a family - where the audience can relate to each character.

We aimed to ask this question to get general feedback as to whether trailers are very effective in enticing people to the cinema, also to find out the average cinema-going rate. The results gathered indicate that in general, individuals experience the cinema 0 - 2 times per month, making our researching/planning/editing process more vital - as our film would have to stand out among all the rest at the cinema to entice the people who go to the cinema 0-2 times per month - as they are the largest category.

In being able to successfully produce and advertise a trailer of a film, we found it essential to recognize why people choose to see the films that they do. As the cinemas mainly feature the most popular type of movies: A-list movies, we knew that Actors and Actresses would be highly rated, as opposed to the plot, film poster or other factors. 

Celebrities dominate social media by going on chat shows, paparazzi shots, having photo shoots for advertising campaigns and magazine interviews, my group were aware that on this aspect we could not deliver what the audience wants, however, we focused on the next highly regarded attraction of a film: The Plot.

For intrigue purposes as well as research, we wanted to ask our participants "When you want to look up a film, what website do you regularly go to?" The International Movie Database posed as the most frequently visited, with the film's official website following. From the beginning of the research stage when we looked at billing blocks and film posters, we were certain to stick to the convention of employing an official film website  to satisfy our target audience's needs if they wished to look into our movie. 

Target Audience

Selecting the target audience is a process which cannot be entered lightly and research into each of the age certificates is compulsory in order to correctly label a film. Before we looked into the age restrictions however, we knew that a thriller commonly is either a 15 or 18, this is due to the fact that the shocking impact and feelings which thrillers produce can only be achieved with a certain amount of horror, violence and violent language.
This is an extract from the bbfc (British Board of Film) website which states the exactly what the classification of a 15 certificate entails.

Having looked at the classification of 15 and 18 rated movies, encouraged our simultaneous development of choosing the 15 rating to represent our film. We felt like we were going to need to apply the use of strong language to show how desperate the men were in catching all of the three girls. Moreover, we anticipated that we would exploit the use of violence to show the physical intimidation that was imposed on the protagonist. 

In addition to just talking about which age rating was suited best to the film, we took into account the feedback we received from the initial survey we sent out, of which 25% (the highest percentage) said they preferred to watch 15's.

Genre Discussion VLOG

Here are the trailers (in order) at which we discussed them...

~ Eden Lake

~ How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days

~ Fast And Furious

~ Sherlock Holmes

Film Survey

 In order for my group to produce a trailer, we wanted to get some primary data instead of secondary as it  is more reliable. Our survey is comprised of questions which would allow us to see what age group goes to cinema more often than others and what genre film they prefer to watch above all the rest. By getting a wide range of ages to fill out this survey it allowed us to see where there would be a gap in the 'cinema market' so that we are making a trailer which would be of interest to a contemporary audience. Furthermore,  a couple of the questions we included  such as "What online Movie sites do you visit?" and "What attracts you to watch a film?" is allowing us to receive information on how effective promotion packages usually are. For example, if people do not usually visit the film's official website, then it is telling my group that we need to advertise the film's website clearly on the official poster, trailer and magazine.  Below is the survey which we handed out...

I Am Legend Poster Analysis

The Dark Knight Rises - Film Poster Analysis



The dark tone of the poster connotes the genre of this film which is crime, action, adventure; it further reinforces the narrative of rge film by the contrast of the light. The shape of the bat, separating itself from the dark crumbling buildings ensures the audience that "The Dark Knight Rises" is going to be about the rise of evil and destruction and the fall of good and civilisation. The symbolism of the bat figure being situated in the middle could be important and show that this film is going to be a lot more personal to Batman and by having the ruin around the bat is suggesting, by trapping Batman, the villians (of Vladimir Propp's Theory) shall be victorious.

The colour scheme incorporated into the poster design consists of black, white and red/orange, all colours combined, give off a sense of ruin and devastation.

The title and tagline "A fire will rise" are written in white, which stereotypically is symbolic of innocence, in terms of this film the word innocence can be defined as - a person who lacks knowledge of evil. In addition to this point, above the release date it says " The Legend Ends". This is also contributing to the narrative of 'the good' failing and 'the bad' prevailing.

The positioning and expression of Batman is effective in this poster. Batman's head is looking down with his shoulders hunched, as if to prepare himself for either, everything to collpase around him, or to fight back...

The different interpretations of Batman's body language can also be translated through his clenched fists. Some may say however, the fact that its not Bruce Wayne standing central to the posterm but Batman in his armour, will suggest he will in fact stand up and restore Gotham to its former 'glory'.

In conclusion, this poster encapsulates the suspension of what will happen to Gotham and its inhabitants, just before the ending...

By analysing this poster, with all of the elements united (such as central character's positioning, the titles and taglines and colour schemes) it creates a strong impact and sense of uncertainty, as an idolised figure in Gotham cannot always stop the threat of crime. From this insecurity, fear arises but still hope.

This film's USP (Unique Selling Point) apart from the star-studded cast, is that superhero film posters usually show the 'Knight' of justice, so to speak, in a strong, fighting crime pose like "Spiderman" and "Superman" do. The fact that this poster breaks the conventions of superhero film posters, makes this far more interesting.

Film Poster Research

To accompany our film trailers we are also producing a film poster and a film magazine cover. In order to start this project on a strong foundation we covered initial research of the three media products.

When reflecting on how we were going to produce a film poster my group and I brainstormed for film posters which we thought were really effective and memorable. When analysing them in detail we considered the following questions:

"Why does this film poster stand out?"       "How does the poster target its market?"

            "What is the film's target market?"                     "Who would distribute our film posters?"

These are a few posters which we looked at in great detail, and drew ideas from...

• Sorority Row
• Wrong Turn
• The Blair Witch Project

Sorority Row is a classic example of how a horror film poster is advertised; with the black background, it sets up the theme of darkness which would be running throughout the film and the fact that the events which feature in the film will be happening during night time. The black theme contrasts with the luminosity of the fire and draws the audience's attention to it. Furthermore, the position of the fire is significant, it is placed at both ends of the sorority house and the girls are central to the poster, it tells the audience that the characters are going to be caught in the middle of the chaotic, death fest. In addition, the colour of the fire is matched with the "IN CINEMAS 8 OCT" and this is an advertising technique to draw the film's target audience to the date and in effect, reinforcing the thought of going to see the  film.

Factors such as the close proxemics of the characters and the tagline "Sisters for life... and death" is effective as it is showing that the link between the girls (who have varied personalities) is their eventual demise which is hinted at with the words "and death".In conclusion, I think that there are many elements which work to reinforce the theme of friendship and crime. It is effective in catching my eye and making me want to know more about the film as the girl's expressions do not give a lot away. The white light cast on the heap of girls works really well in addressing who the victims are and the white contrasts the dark background nicely. 

When evaluating this specific supernatural thriller film poster, I think it is very effective how the face of the supernatural being is all but a shadow, it sums up the stance that the characters had throughout the film, that they felt like they were being watched. In addition, the position of the woman - with her back facing the well trodden path visually portrays the title of the film: Wrong Turn. With these two devices the poster has clearly communicated its genre and plot.

The poster has been very clever in that it channels the fact that the film is set out as a documentary, and this is clear in the poster by the mini paragraph and it sounds like a voice over you would hear from a documentary. Furthermore, the use of the colour red for the website and red symbol stands out and links these two factors together - that the symbol is the mark of the blair witch. The line "A year later their footage was found" sparks enough interest the intrigue the film's target audience to go and watch it, this is backed up by the image of the character looking scared and tearful down the camera. 

Trailer Research

Phase One: Background research into the conventions of film trailers... This exploration into movie trailers was vital for our progression in this project, without this step our foundation for the task before us would not have been a sturdy one and deciding which genre film we would like to do a trailer for would have been a much harder sport. To give ourselves the best chance, our research was broad and covered various genres, ranging from spoofs - tragedies.

These are some of the varied movie previews we touched upon, among others-

After the research session we concluded that it was significantly helpful to our understanding of trailers, that they include the beginning, the middle and the suspense, just before the end, typically. Furthermore, each trailer usually follows along the generic lines of having characters such as protagonists and antagonists who manages to create a problematic "unsolvable" situation for the hero of the film.
In addition, we also gathered that we will have to (when we are planning the structure of the trailer) carefully and intricately note what the characters are going to say, as they have a short amount of time to put across their character's disposition.
From this, in hindsight we have undiscovered details about movie previews we would not have independently thought of and shall now apply this knowledge to our next step.