Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2 - Presentation from AlysLeMoignan

Evaluation - Question 1

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

Delirium - Finished Trailer

Focus Group Video & Presentation

Delirium Feedback from AlysLeMoignan

Focus Group Questionnaire Results

Focus Group Questionnaire Results from AlysLeMoignan

Focus Group Questionnaire

Delirium Soundtrack Influences

Mother's Make-up

I have made a make-up tutorial for the Mother whilst she is possessed. As I have said in the video, the make-up changes depending on the scene we are shooting, but this is the basic look that we use. Here are some images of the Mother with the possessed make-up:

Teddy Bear Transformation

In our trailer, the teddy bear starts to become an evil being, guiding the child towards the Mother. Therefore we needed to make the Teddy more menacing and noticeably evil.  We decided that we would put stitches in the teddy, revealing information about the witch. I found it hard to stitch into the teddy because the fabric was so thick, however I wasn't trying to be neat with the stitching so it didn't effect the way I created the words.

The A.L on the chest of teddy stands for the name Anne Leech, which is the woman we have based our witch character on. I also stitched in a demonic symbol to show the danger the teddy represents. On the teddy's head I created scratch marks to show that the witch was in control of him and she's the one that creates these marks. Although it is unclear in this image, on the forehead of the teddy I have stitched in the date 1645 because that it is the year Anne Leech was convicted of sorcery and killed.

Finished Film Magazine

This is my finished film magazine. Previously, the sell lines were white and grey, but I felt that I needed to integrate colours into these to gel the magazine together. Therefore I decided to add red, and create a pattern of colours. I feel this has made my magazine visually appealing and it fits with the overall magazine cover.
I have changed the pug to a specific interview with the actress in the main image so that she is identified on the page.
I am extremely happy at how my magazine has turned out. I was predominately influenced by the 2008 Empire issue, featuring Harry Potter. In particular the main image and sell lines.

Film Magazine Progress

After referring back to film magazines, I felt that I needed to include more sell lines onto my magazine. Therefore I moved the pug further up on the page and added more on the page. I included an asterix to link the sell lines together to show that they both relate to 2015.
I have added a barcode, issue date, issue number and price of the magazine onto the page, as they are important and conventional. I have also added to the splash 'The past will haunt you' as it links in with the trailer and describes what the film is about.

Film Magazine Process

I have addressed the issue of the splash on the page by making it bigger. I now feel that it looks strong on the page and it fits with the overall concept.
I have added a footer line to the magazine. I used a plus sign as it is visually appealing and after analysing magazines, I noticed that a lot of real texts use this, showing that it looks good on the page. I included the sell lines 'Free horror film poster inside' to appeal to the audience. The colour scheme of grey, red, white and black works really well on the page and creates a sinister atmosphere for the reader. The sell lines are all films that are coming out this year (2015), I ensured that I was including relevant information to make my magazine current.
I added a pug onto my magazine, the positioning doesn't obscure the view of the image and works well, integrating more red into the colour scheme.

Film Magazine Process

Firstly, I added the masthead onto the main image. I wanted it to be across the width of the page so that it conventionally stood out. The red font dominates the page and reflects the horror genre. Underneath the masthead I included a web address for the magazine, to show that it uses different media platforms for their audience to explore.
I didn't want it to be classed as a horror magazine the whole time, I wanted it to appeal to all audiences. Therefore I stated on the banner line that it is the most "Spine chilling issue ever", to show that it is a horror edition of the magazine. I made the words 'spine chilling' larger than the rest of the sentence to make it prominent and emphasise that it is a terrifying issue of the magazine.
I have placed the splash across the teddy bear, however I feel at the moment that it looks quite lost on the page and I may improve this when I continue to produce my magazine. However, I have used the same font for the title of the film to keep it consistent across platforms.

Film Magazine Image

This is the image I have chosen for my magazine. I wanted the character of the Mother to pose for the camera as I like the use of a character for the main image. I was inspired by the Total Film magazine of Alice in Wonderland to include the teddy in my image because it adds another element into the image, creating a better code of enigma.
The Mother is symbolising the teddy bear to be quiet, which makes the audience ask questions such as "What is she stopping him from saying?", "What is the secret?". It links the two characters together, showing they are the main villains in the film with the body language and mise-en-scene.
Although the image is successful, I felt it needed to stand out more, therefore I edited the image on Photoshop. I changed the contrast and exposure in the image to make it darker. The eyes in this image are blue, and I felt it didn't make the character look menacing. Therefore I edited the eyes to make them look red, representing danger and blood. This is the new image:

Finished Film Poster

Since blogging about my poster, I was given audience feedback on it. I was given a lot of positive comments such as "The main image is menacing", showing I am injecting fear into the audience. The one comment I was given on how to improve my magazine was to change the font of the tag-line because it was hard to read. Therefore I listened to my audience, and started to experiment with different fonts. I feel that the white font I have chosen is much easier to read, whilst still reflecting the horror genre. I made the tag-line slightly bigger so it was clear.
After making these last changes, I feel I have produced a poster that would successfully entice the audience to watch the film. The image is intriguing and correctly identifies the main character of the film.

Trailer - The Titles

Magazine - First Draft

After researching real media magazines, I have tried to base my design on what the current market are using to target their audience.
The main image of the magazine would be a medium shot of the mother, in a possessed state, to introduce that side of the character to the reader. She would be holding the teddy bear to show that it plays a big role in the film. Also, it would reveal some clues to the audience via the stitches on the teddy.
I wanted the masthead to have connotations with film. I started to mind map a number of words I associated with film, action being one of them. I felt that the masthead 'ACTION' would link to the well known phrase 'Lights, camera, action", reminding the reader what the magazine is about.  Also, it represents that there are a lot of films that the magazine review, and they take 'action' into making sure their readers have the best reviews and information.
I want the splash to be situated across the main image, so that it is the second largest writing on the page. I want it to be in the same font as it is on other platforms to keep continuity. The sell lines will revolve around the horror genre as I want the magazine to be a horror edition. Therefore, I want to state what films have already/are coming out in 2015.
I included a pug in my design as conventionally, a lot of magazines have them. The barcode, issue date, issue number and price are all situated together at the bottom of the page. I wanted to make sure I included all the small conventions as they are integral for a magazine. I also included the web address for the magazine underneath the masthead to show that the brand have other platforms, and this may appeal to a younger audience. I have used a colour scheme of red, black, grey and white because it reflects the horror genre.

Film Poster Progress

I have got rid of the drop shadow on the title block because it was making the billing-block unreadable. I feel it is a stronger title on the poster without it, as it creates more of a stamp effect on the page.
I have added the release date for the film at the bottom of the page. I wanted it to be big enough for the audience to see, because it is important they know the details of the film. I used a red font because it is eye catching, also, it stands out from the rest of the colour scheme on the page, making it noticeable.
I included a quote from Empire magazine because a review adds to the expectation of the film. Also, because Empire is a successful film magazine, people may trust how they rate the film and then come and watch it when it is released.

Film Poster Progress

I have added in the tag-line 'Fear Her', in the same position I had planned it to be. I feel it is in a good position at the top of the page, however, it is quite hard to read and therefore I may look at increasing the font size.
I have increased the size of the title block so that it is noticeably the film title. It makes more of an impact on the page, it creates a block of writing which I feel is quite strong and bold. I also increased the size of the billing-block so that people could read it, also, I wanted it to stretch across the whole of the bottom of the page because it is more conventional.
To show that there are media platforms I included a Facebook page and a Twitter page at the bottom of the poster, so that the audience can find out more information if they are interested.
Once I had added more detail into my poster, I decided that my image did fall to the back of the page. Consequently, I decided to edit the image and make the eyes stand out. I did this by going on Photoshop and editing the clarity. By doing this, it has made the image the dominant feature on the page, which is what I wanted, and I believe it has improved the image.

Film Poster Progress

I started to create my poster by firstly adding the title block. I went on Photoshop and saved the title as a jpeg so that I could transfer it over onto Adobe InDesign. This meant that I was being consistent, using the same design for the title block on each platform. I put it near the bottom of the page because this is where the title block is conventionally placed.
I also added in the billing block conventionally at the bottom of the page. I created this for our trailer, and again, I wanted to display the same billing block throughout each different advertisement.
I am happy with how I am progressing with my film poster. Now that I have added the title block and billing block, I feel I may need to increase the contrast more on the image, to make it stand out on the page. However, I will firstly add the tag-line to see how it makes a difference on the page.

Film Poster Image

 I started by taking two images of the Mother; one with normal everyday make-up and one with possessed make-up. I made a mark on the floor so I knew where to stand for each picture, so it would be easier to match them up once I had edited the images. I decided to put the Mother in a white top as she wears this in the trailer, it also represents that each image is the same character, just different personalities.
I wanted the mise-en-scene to reflect the trailer, therefore I decided to take the images in the barn; the main setting. I feel the stone walls covered in cobwebs and dirt reflect the darkness in the film, and help to create an eerie atmosphere.






Firstly, I selected the best images that I felt would match together well. On Photoshop, I then cropped out half of both images so that there was only a left and right side of the face. I had to ensure that both images had the right proportions to match up with each other, because I wanted it to look like a complete face/body.












I then started to edit both of the images on Photoshop by changing the contrast and exposure on both of the images. I wanted to make the left side look more sinister, and the right side more innocent. By doing this, it would create a complete contrast between the both images even though it is of the same face. This would cause an audience member to look twice at the image, noticing that although it is the same person, there are two sides to the character.







After editing both images, I placed the images next to each other to create a full image for my poster. I am extremely pleased with how it has turned out, it optimises what the film is about and creates an enigma, with the audience asking questions about this divide of character.

                             

Deliver Us From Evil Influences

Influences for our trailer from AlysLeMoignan

Poster Redraft

After looking at my feedback from my previous draft, I wanted to address the issues and change the design of the poster. This is my second draft:

I still wanted to show the different sides to the main character in the film, but I felt this could be more achievable if it were only two images of the Mother. The left hand side of her face is the possessed side of her character. I wanted to use the left side for this because it is normally associated with villains and bad characters. On the right hand side of the poster, the image would be of the Mother as she is normally, showing the two contrasting sides to the character. I would achieve this by taking two images of the Mother in the same location, and then edit the photos together to fit with one another. I feel this image would show the distortion of the female character effectively, which was one of my areas for improvement on my previous draft. I was inspired by the poster for Spiderman:

Although it is a superhero movie, I liked how it showed the heroic side to the character and the everyday citizen. I felt this could be achieved well in a horror movie poster, especially for a character that is possessed.








I also decided to change the tag-line as there were comments that it could be deemed to formal. Therefore, I decided to use the tag-line 'Fear Her' instead. The word 'Fear' is situated to the left of the image, showing that the audience should fear this side of the character, and the word 'Her' is situated to the right, showing that she is an innocent human being. I feel that this tag-line is short and catchy, and will be memorable for the audience.
I have still placed the billing block at the bottom of the page as it is conventional. The title of the film has stayed the same, as my group and I feel it has strong connotations with the female character and works well with the storyline.

Film Magazine Analysis

Critical Theories

I have created this place-mat to explain the key areas of three important ideas, and the people behind them. I decided to look at Todorov, Propp and Wood because of the horror genre my group have chosen. Whilst developing our trailer, we need to take note of these theories and ideas in order to make our product as professional as possible. 

Animatic Interview with Target Audience

I recorded an interview with a member of our target audience to get some valuable feedback of our Animatic. I believe it has been extremely useful and will help my group and I move forward with our trailer and improve what this person has picked up on.

Analysis of Animatic shots

The image with the child in the corner of the barn was included in the animatic to make the child look vulnerable. The mise-en-scene is chilling because it looks dirty and run down and this adds to the atmosphere of the image. The child is holding a teddy to show that he is confiding in one thing that he loves unconditionally as he is nervous and scared. Although it is not shown in this picture, the teddy will have chants and details stitched into him to show that the witch is trying to get to the child, through the teddy. This will enhance the fear for the audience watching the trailer and they will empathise with the young boy.

The image to the right is canted to show the distortion of the mother's state of mind. In the moving trailer it will be filmed with a handheld camera so that the image is jerky, representing the twisted personality. The image shows the setting that the mother is trapped in. This image shows life from the mothers perspective as she is running away from the house. I believe it is an effective shot because it shows the struggle the mother is going through by the angle and perspective used.

 The establishing shot of the house shows the family as a unit. It sets the scene of the whole film and therefore is important for the audiences understanding. The child is holding the teddy to show he can't go without it, he appears to be holding the teddy by the hand which shows that the child treats the teddy like a family member. The father is carrying a box to show that the family are moving in.

The shot of the mother in the mirror is effective because of the make-up. I drew bruises onto my skin to show the physical pain the mother is going through fighting back possession. Also I used make-up on the eyes to make them stand out. I feel as if I could have made the make-up more prominent, however I feel it works and it is something I can improve on for the moving image. The distorted face will show the differentiation between the mother as herself and the mother being possessed. It is an image that will shock the audience as it will flash on the screen.

I believe this image makes the most impact because of the mise-en-scene. The barn as a setting is perfect because of how run-down it looks. The Mother's face is vacant which emphasises the fact that her body is possessed. It is an awkward positioning of the Mother's body which therefore creates a terrifying image. I, again, used make-up to highlight the mother's eyes and will make it more noticeable in the moving image. At the moment I feel like our trailer is representing a thriller genre, rather than a horror. therefore I would like to suggest to my group that we include new shots in the trailer that represent the horror genre.                                                                              

Analysis of the Animatic Process

Critical Analysis of the Animatic Process of my group’s Film Trailer

A film animatic is a preliminary version of a movie, it is made up of still photos which were planned on a storyboard and it showcases the original ideas of a filmmaker. The function of an animatic is to experiment a number of ideas such as: the narrative, camera shots, angles, mise-en-scene and the length of each shot. By using this process, it allows a filmmaker to decide what works well and what needs to be improved upon. My group and I have created an animatic to get an idea of what our film trailer will look like, if we go forward with our original plan.                                                    

Once I had been put into a group, we all discussed original ideas for a film plot. After debating who had the strongest idea, we came to the conclusion that we would choose one but include features of others because it would include everyone’s best ideas. To develop our narrative we picked out important parts in the plot that could be included in a film trailer, and from this started to create our storyboard.  Together we discussed every shot because we didn’t want to waste time re-designing ideas that not everyone liked. This way it meant that we were all agreed on the design and could start to draw our ideas.                                                                                                                              

We decided that the location of our trailer would be in and around my house because it included features we felt could enhance the narrative, such as an eerie barn. It was useful when planning the shots because I knew where the best location for each shot would be, for example having the rocking chair in the hall because of the lack of personality in the room compared to the rest of the house. It would make it look isolated in an empty room. I drew all of the images on the storyboard and once we had completed this and the planning, we could start to think about the animatic. After finishing the storyboard I went home and posted it on Blogger, using Slideshare to showcase it in the easiest way possible because there were over fifty shots. We could then focus on making the animatic.        

The first discussion we had about the animatic was about the date we wanted to do our first shoot. We wanted to try and achieve our whole animatic in one shoot because it would give us more time to put together what we had got. To be able to keep to our time frame of having one shoot, it meant we had to organise and arrange actors, props and costumes. We had decided to use at least four rooms in the house and sections such as a bedroom to portray each scene. The main location which would inject fear into the audience is the barn which is situated to the side of the house outside. As it hasn’t been used for a long time, the barn looks dilapidated which is key to some of the scenes located in there because it enhances features of the horror genre.  As we had already chosen the location of our animatic, it was easier to locate props. For example in the location we were using there was already a rocking chair, dishcloth, laptop and clock. Overall we had fourteen props that we could use in our animatic, we wanted to wait and see what our location looked like with the props we had before making a decision to buy more. The most important prop that we needed to use in our animatic was the teddy bear because of the significance it has in the story. We had planned to stitch words into our teddy and put it in water however, we would not be able to do this for our animatic because it would ruin the teddy we had bought and therefore we would just have to complete the shots without the extra detail.                                                                                                                                            

I had decided that I would like to be an actor in the animatic because I have acting experience and I had been in a film trailer previously, helping the year above me in school. Therefore I had an understanding of what needed to be done. The Mother as an actor needed to be able to show the difference in the two sides of the character and because I felt I understood the character I volunteered to play this role. We asked Luke Williams whether he would want to be in our trailer  as the Father because he and I are in a relationship and that would have to be portrayed on screen. His character is very helpful and loving, he also has acting experience and he willingly obliged to be this character. In our film plot, there is a child who has a main role in the story, therefore we wanted to try and get a child to play the role. I have a younger brother, Finlay, who is seven years old and would suit the role perfectly. After asking himself and parental permission because of the scary nature of the trailer, we were able to have Finlay to play the Child. However, because we wanted Finlay to enjoy the experience, we didn’t want to use him in the animatic because he would have to do the role twice which may become boring for him. Therefore we decided to use Dora as a representative for Finlay in our animatic.                                                                                                                                 

The costumes we used in the animatic had already been discussed as a group. The character of the Mother needed three costumes to show the different periods of time. Her first costume included a purple dress which represented the character’s femininity and motherly nature as it was easy for her to play with her child. To show the contrast in the character as she is getting possessed, we changed her costume to a white vest with grey joggers to represent that she is being drained of her personality. The Father’s costumes were all pretty similar to show the stability of the character. As we weren’t using Finlay in the animatic we were unable to use any costume that would look like a child’s costume. However we have designed costumes for each character and his costume reflects that he enjoys playing football due to the trainers he is wearing.                                                            

During the shooting of the animatic, the weather affected the order in which we had to take the pictures. Therefore in order to get the animatic done in one shoot we decided to make a list of all the shots that needed to be done in daylight and complete them first and then complete the night time shots.                                                                                                                                

There were shots that we were unable to do, for example there was a sequence of shots including a china pot that needed to be smashed. We tried to take pictures of the pot falling however this just created a blur on the camera. After this we tried filming the pot falling and smashing in order to screenshot them into pictures when editing. However when it came to the editing process we were unable to successfully get a shot of the pot falling, and couldn’t include it in our animatic. Another shot we were unable to do was an image of a logo for a company. We didn’t make the logo and therefore couldn’t take the picture.                                                                                    

One of the changes we made during the animatic was the angles of the shots in the barn. We decided to use a different corner of the barn so that the opening above the door couldn’t be seen. Another change we made was a shot of the child slamming the door behind him because it didn’t portray anything; we wanted to make it scarier. To make the shot more effective we decided to be more creative and put a shadow on the door. The shadow was of the teddy on the rocking chair, it represented that the teddy was being used to watch the child.                                                          

We all sat down in the editing suite to construct the animatic on the editing programme. Using this, we could put together the images we had taken and start to construct our initial ideas in the animatic including the titles, transitions and soundtrack. Before entering the suite, we had sat down and deleted the images that were blurry and unable to be used, this made it easier to put the images on the programme because we already knew which photo we were using.                                          

After putting the pictures in order we added the length of each shot that we had already prepared beforehand. Together we discussed each length of time and collectively the animatic would be one minute and fifty seven seconds. We wanted it to be around two minutes because that is a conventional time for a trailer. The length of each shot depended on what was happening in each scene and the pace of the trailer. The transitions we used were fade to/from black, fade to/from white and normal jump cuts. We used these transitions to break up different shots and to show different states of mind. For example when there are shots of the Mother in bed, there are transitions to and from black to show that she is in a dream state.                                                                         

We wanted our titles to produce a code of enigma. The first title is split up into two, it is “The past will haunt you”. This creates a lot of questions such as ‘Why will it haunt me?’ and ‘What from the past?’ We wanted to use the same font in the inter-titles as the title of the film to show continuity, although it was smaller because it wasn’t the most important piece of text for the audience to remember. The font is in capitals because it emphasises the words better and from research we had discovered that a lot of horror trailers do put their text in capitals. The second intertitle we used was “The eyes are the window to the soul”, because it was positioned before a shot where the mother’s eyes open. It also represents that this character is being possessed. The audience will fear for the Mother when they realise at this point she gets possessed. The title is positioned towards the end of the animatic and is in a bigger font to show it is the title of the film, it is called “Delirium”. We felt this title was appropriate for our film trailer as the narrative suggests that this woman is going insane with possession and it is a catchy title. Also, after doing a questionnaire it was the most popular name suggested so we know our audience like it. We end the animatic with the title “Fear her” to make the audience know the Mother is going to turn into a fearful character, it is also warning them personally which may make them feel connected to the film.                                                                                                                                                         

Although we had started to make the soundtrack for the animatic, we were unable to finish it in time to put it together. It has made us realise that making it ourselves will take a long time and therefore when we are creating the real trailer we may choose to find a non-copyrighted soundtrack online that would be appropriate to use in our trailer. There is still a pace to the animatic but it might not have such an impact on an audience member watching it because there isn’t any non-diegetic or diegetic sound to enhance it.                                                                                                                     

Our target audience are aged 20-30 and it is targeted prominently towards young mothers. After showing my group’s animatic to a group of 21-24 year olds and mothers, it has had positive feedback. I personally wanted feedback on the animatic so that I knew what it was my audience felt about it and what we could improve on.  One mother said “I can’t believe a mother is being twisted into what looks like hurting her child, it’s a horrible but very good storyline for a horror movie”. This comment shows that although it may be disturbing, our film plot will be gripping for people to watch and the trailer obviously portrays that. I feel that the characters in the trailer are what appeal to my target audience the most because of the narrative of the story: the family are moving into a new home, there is a young child and the mother and father are married. It shows the events that a lot of 20-30 year old people aspire to have.                                                                                                        

Personally I feel that we need to include more shots of the child to make him look more a part of the narrative.  At the moment there are only a few shots of him, there could be more of him and the mother to show the connection the two characters have. Also I feel that the shots need to be more recognisable as a horror genre, it could be mistaken for a thriller genre at the moment. I propose there could be more disturbing shots of the mother.  Also there needs to be more props in the barn to make it looks like it has been turned into a storage room, it will make the china pot on top of the box fit in rather than being by itself.  I would like to search for some soundtracks for the real trailer before going on to make it in case we may have to change the pace of the trailer that we have already made.                                                                                                                                      

During this process I have helped to contribute to nearly every aspect. My experience in acting made it easy to portray the character of the Mother but I also helped to direct the shots as I am used to doing this in A Level drama. I have given ideas throughout this process such as shots, locations, actors and editing techniques. As a group I feel we have worked really well together to this point and everyone has contributed equal amounts of work towards this. I would like to think that I can help with these elements again in the real trailer; however I would want to improve on helping with editing on the computer software as I feel I need to improve my skills in this area. 

The Animatic

Planning the Animatic

Information on Characters

Alys

• A Mother to Finlay and a wife to Luke
• 24 years old 
• Enjoys spending a lot of time with her son
• A strong marriage between Alys and Luke 
• Calm personality

Luke

• An easy going character
• 25 years old
• In love with his wife Alys and will do anything for her
• Spending time with family is what he enjoys 
• Very helpful

Finlay

• His favourite hobby is sport, in particular football
• 7 years old
• Full of energy
• Stereotypical seven year old boy
• Loves his Mum and Dad 

We wanted to base the Witch's character on a true story, so we researched some information on witches. This is what we concluded for this character:

Name: Anne Leech

Died: 1645 by hanging (Witch trials) 

Lived: In a village 

We want to incorporate this information in our trailer.