Scripting For Trailer

Scripting for Trailer

*Alex is walking down the street and texting*

Alex: Guys, parents out of town. How about a movie night at 8?!

Riley: I’m down

Jane: be there after work!

Tiffany: yay can’t wait!

Alex: be at mine for 6! (to Riley)

Riley: ooo... bestie pre-party

*Alex is now at home*

*Riley enters*

*They begin playing music and dancing*                               sound bridge

*knock knock knock*                                                                      - music                              

*enters Jane, Tiffany and two boys*                                         continues

Tiffany: Hey girl

*Music continues + good vibes*

*subtle eerie music begins*

Riley & Alex: Uhh guys you can’t just bring random people to my house

Tiffany: Come on girl lets just have fun

Jane: yeah! They won’t cause any trouble, I promise!

*eerie music intensifies*

*doorbell rings*

Alex; guys c’mon, that’s enough uninvited guests

Tiffany & Jane: umm Alex, we don’t know who that is

*Tiffany looks through the peep hole*

*Tiffany looks again and gasps because of what she sees*

Tiffany: omg guys you won’t believe what I’ve just seen. The weirdest thing ever!

Alex & Jane: Girl please, it was probably just the trees

*They get cut off*

*house phone rings*

Alex: Hello

Phone: crackling/distorted sounds

Tiffany *beings to feel uneasy, goes to the bathroom, looks in the mirror, blood drips, heavy breathing, scared facial expressions*

Living room scene

Boy 1: Where’s Tiffany gone?

Boy 2: Uhh guys what’s happened to the TV

Jane: Tiffany?                     They scream for Tiffany

Riley: Tiffany

Alex: Tiffany?  

*they turn around*

*they scream*

*lights flicker*

*sees tiffany*

*lights off*

*screaming continues*

Alex: omg guys what was that??

Dialogue stops

Music intensifies

Quick cuts of scary scenes

*heavy breathing*

Preliminary Evaluation Task

This clip goes through my preliminary task and highlights good point and aspects we as a group could improve on for our real trailer. 

The Process of Making Our Final Logo for our Production Company

This is our final logo for our production company entrance title shot. 

Here are some behind the scenes pictures from the making process of our logo.

The below images show the post production process which was edited on Premiere. 

Model Consent Forms

 

Props List and Calls List

This photo highlights the types of outfits out characters will be wearing, they all share similarities in terms of style (girly aspects) however, clear archetypes in characters can be established by the viewer. 

These are the props that will be in use for our trailer. A cupboard, fake blood, TV screen, a tripod, a mirror, some makeup for an attacked look, a laptop, a house phone and s knife.  

Storyboarding and Trailer Conventions

Scenes one to six highlight the initial equilibrium stages of our trailer. The trailer begins with a green screen which has fundamental features of a horror film beginning. We then move onto a five to 10 second clip of our logo being illustrated "House of Shadows Productions". The next scene is of our main character "Alex" walking down the road on her phone-texting her friends and sharing on social media that she has a free house as her parents are leaving for the weekend. The next scene moves to her in her room which will appear quite voyeuristic and intrusive as she is a young girl- a time lapse is used to show this. In the next scene Alex's friends - Rilley, Jane and Tiffany arrive. 

In the next scene, two unexpected visitors appear but are let in as they are friends with Tiffany and Jane although Alex doesn't completely agree. Another visitor arrives and the doorbell rings, a fish-eye lens is used to show a eerie figure at the door-through the peep-hole. The next scene shows Alex answering the phone to a suspicious phone call. Shortly after Tiffany goes to the bathroom to check her makeup and notices her eye bleeding and an unnerving character in the small mirror in front of her and she is very startled. 

The last storyboard hughlights one of the boys  on the floor as they have been stabbed and Alex is helping him. The black figure appears behind them. Then Tiffany is in a corner of the cupboard panting as Alex approaches Tiffany reveals her new form and it is no longer the same Tiffany.

Test Shots and Character Profiles

The short clip below highlights the protagonists present in our trailer. Below that, there are some tests shots of the group together along with other ways in which we chose to shoot this piece.

 

Choice of Production Company Name and Logo

When choosing our production company name, my group and I were brainstorming the possibility of potential names from ones which were previously created by horror production companies. We particularity liked names such as "Twisted Pictures" and "Red Letter Studios" as at a first glance, they are evidently horror production names and evoke feelings of fear and intrigue from viewers.

Below is a video which highlights our decision making process of creating our production company name; in the end we came to a conclusion of naming our company "House of Shadows Productions" as it links clearly to elements of our trailer.

Moreover, when deciding how to create our production company logo we found images on the internet of a "haunted house" and initially wanted a house with shadows as our logo like the one below.

However, we soon realised that this would be unrealistic to re-create with our limited access to equipment therefore, we chose a simple silhouette of a haunted house with a "Nosferatu" shaped monter in the doorway. We have chosen to present this is a short clip format with the "Nosferatu" character moving around the house. Below are pictures from the process of creating our haunted house and Nosferatu from pieces of black acrylic which we then cut using a lazer cutter. 

Narrative Writing

Here is a recording of my narrative writing which was created by myself along with my group. 

Research Rationale for Posters

This sound-cloud highlights aspects of my focus groups favourite posters. Below is an image of the range of posters they chose from.

Audience Research into Magazine Covers

Here is an audio clip with my focus group discussing the types of horror magazine covers they enjoy and why.  

Which was the best trailer and why?

This video from my focus group highlights all the most useful elements from their favorite trailer which was MAMA. 

Trailer Research Rationale

The following videos highlight reactions from the horror film trailers Insidious, Mama and Sinister 2 with a focus group ranging from ages of 16-17.

This trailer was for Insidious : Chapter 3. My focus group begin to watch the trailer in a state of equilibrium and seem engaged but do not react to initial elements of the trailer. Further into the trailer, they are shocked and annoyed by the antagonists naivety towards the evident paranormal occurrences as this is typical of horror films and lacks realism. They also remarked on the basic nature of horror soundtrack and found it too generic and widely used within the horror genre. The group generally didn't enjoy the video as they felt it was too typical of horror conventions and lacked depth in terms of intrigue gained from the story line.

  

This trailer was for MAMA. This trailer seemed to engage the group from very initial stages with use of shocking images and clips. One girl remarked that "this seems like a trailer that's based on a true story"; it's evident that realism and moral panics are a real scare within teens.Similarly to the Insidious trailer, the group didn't react to much however for very different reasons, They said that the trailer was very "intense" and focused on a new concept and structure in terms of horror trailers, The trailer didn't give away much which was unique of horror trailers, the group liked this feature. they also felt as thought the acting and general plot was better in this film.

This trailer was for Sinister 2. The group had similar reactions to the soundtrack used for the Insidious movie and said it was quite predictable, However, the group were a lot more reactive to this clip as it features more jump scares and shocking images. Also, the group found that the enhanced element of realism was especially evident when the TV or "imaginary world" was turned off and we as viewer were introduced into the real world. The relatability was also a frightening concept of moral panic picked on by the group. 

The next two clips summerise my thoughts on the reactions from the group and highlight what I would take from this experience when making my own trailer.

Research Rationale

Here is a video exemplifying what I will do to carry out my research for my final project.

Horror Preliminary Construction

When we were constructing our preliminary piece we found it very useful to refer back the original clip in order to make our clip flow better with the narrative, Below I have taken comparative screen-shots from the original clip and our preliminary clip.

We found that the film "Scream" uses the element of foreshadowing frequently to highlight future events and the fate of the protagonists. This is highlighted below with the knife shot in the original film and the knife scene in our clip.

Below is a gif from the final part of the original scream clip against our remake clip.

In terms of mise-en-scene we put our makeup skills (which were previously practiced during our planning stages), to good use. We tried our best to follow a similar layout in terms of setting to the original clip - Kitchen, Dining area, Patio and Hallway.

Horror Preliminary Task Planning

In terms of planning, our groups came together to discuss the movie clip we were going to recreate and how we going to conduct this. We made a group chat on Whatsapp in order to set meeting times for shooting and discuss other aspects of filming whilst we were away from each other. 

Below is a scan of the scene shot list of how we intended certain shots to appear.

Below are images showing us practising post-attack makeup for our preliminary clip.