When creating promotional material for the final product such as the poster and magazine I used the software Premier Pro, having used it during my first year of media studies I learnt an understanding of how to edit and use it roughly. The software allows you to create products to a professional level with a lot of designers using Photoshop to a high up standard when production products. I also used this for things such as a mood board and any story board for things that needed merging and editing together, Photoshop is a good platform for this as it allows you to transform and put things together. For our trailer we used the software Premiere Pro also an Adobe product, with access to this on all of the macs at college and my own personal at home I had a keen knowledge of it from doing creative media production. Because of this I could do things such as color grading, tweaking the sound levels and using loads of transitions the software allows for you to manipulate footage intensively and up to professional level you can edit full length films on there without hassle.
When filming our trailer we stuck to a Canon 750D a standard DSLR, a lot of our shots were still so for that we used a standard tripod from the college AV room so we could get professional level still footage for the trailer. To increase the quality we also added on a 50mm canon lens so the footage would look crisper and of a better standard
When producing an ad campaign for a film audience feedback is very important for distributors and creators it allows them to meet the target audiences needs and enables creators to change or improve upon an issue. It also gives them an idea for an indication of how popular the film will be/ how well received. For my audience feedback we created a questionnaire to gather data and had it sent out over social media and people in the class contributed towards it also, that meaning it had a average range of 17-18 year olds completing it. We asked questions asking the audience what conventions they like in horror films, this was to ensure that we could complete a final product to the best of our ability and most suited for our target audience questions such as what there favorite element was and that being suspense and a plot twist.
Because of this we wanted to ensure suspense and a plot twist throughout, we done this by having the two main characters (we see working together) pointing the gun at each other on the balcony to shock and draw in the audience. Because of our massive idea change the synopsis we had for this questionnaire was our original idea, involving the church. Because we couldn't use this data we had to conduct in person research this meant asking classmates and peers about our idea of a school shooter film with two females but a big twist at the end. The verbal feedback that we received was all positive with a few legitimate questions involving the country it took place in, how would you make it look realistic and questions about the setting. After we had a rough cut put together after a week or so of filming our teacher shew it to the class and we received feedback in the form of paper notes with 3 positives and 3 negatives on them, positives included a good establishing of location, good titles, good idea, good music, good depth of field and good transitions. With bad feedback being more jump scares more pace, more sound effects, change music/tempo, lacking tense music with this feedback we went back and completely changed the ending by speeding it up with a tense dramatic music it changed the whole tempo and dynamic of it.
My magazine and poster had a few drafts, I started off with a plainer theme to it not including any background and little to no editing done on the main character having them bold and stand out. But after receiving feedback from my teacher and peers in class and looking at existing products I thought it would be good to incorporate some dark shades and possible blood to have typical horror conventions within. I then added blood splatters on both of the characters faces also adding a background into both of them to give it a more realistic feel also, using a locker school layout so the setting for the film is clearly established.
Our final idea is to create a trailer about a school shooting. We felt, as a group, that this idea is unique and we like the fact that it is based on something that happens in real life. School shootings are common in America which are extremely sad, life threatening and frightening. We were very much inspired by the film Elephant, which has pushed us to create a trailer on a school shooting. Our synopsis:- The day that changed America, two young, psychotic college girls form a close bond who perform a mass execution of their class mates and teachers, all in one day. Kylie and Jenna, seem like ordinary, innocent girls but have the brains of killers and are very different to all the other students. The uncivilised pair walk through the school, fully armed and loaded, killing their first sight of human. However, the girls feel the guilt, but who kills who?
