To get more knowledge about horror trailers, I looked at the one for Paranormal
Activity 2 and analysed the content. As I will be doing a similar trailer
hopefully. Whilst following the codes and conventions.
For the first 14 seconds of the Teaser Trailer all we see is a black screen with
occasional grey distortion ( presumably edited in) added to it. This is to
create the realism of the hand held camera effect. The black screen connotates
the darkness and fear and is a conventional colour used in horror.
Next, unlike most teaser trailers we see a clip from the first Paranormal
Activity film. Also, it unconventionally starts with the disequliberium. I think
this was done to create a impact from the start, to give more of a scare factor.
A hand held camera is held still by tripod. Suddenly the body of a dead man is
thrown at the camera. The camera is filming in Black and White (night vision so
it seems). I believe Strauss Levi’s theory of binary oppositions has been
applied here. (good vs evil, black vs white.) As we see the man with a white
shirt being thrown back by possessed woman who is shown in black a few seconds
later. In addition, this adds to the effect of the filming being done with a
hand held camera and also gives the trailer a spooky feel. The location is quite
typical, as stated in my research, it is conventional to film in homes. Also,
the low diegetic sound (which sounds to me like the wind blowing in the
background) creates a spooky and lonely atmosphere which makes the viewer feel
tense about what is going to happen.
The camera
cuts to a mid-shot of the audience watching Paranormal Activity One, it then
cuts back to the shot of the bedroom and the camera zooms in on the door. It
seems as though the camera is on a canted angle because of it being knocked by
the man. This is to add more of a disorientation to the situation The door being
open seems to be icongraphy to me. As in the bedroom door is like a portal and
this evil entity has made it's way in and causing havoc. The shakyness of the
camera and the static which appears on the screen as the camera is cutting from
one scene to another re-inforces the idea that this is being filmed on a hand
held camera. So it gives it more realism.
The screen then goes black and then cut's to a shot of the audience. Waiting to
see what will happen. The silence of this shot builds up tension and creates
enigmas to the audience, such as, “What will happen next?” Suddenly the camera
cuts and we see a woman leaping at the camera, this is conventionally found in
trailers. The evil entity or possessed subject appears only for a split second
(been edited in) as this creates more of a effect and to not spoil the film too
much. The woman appears to be not in focus as well. You can't really see much of
her due to the poor lighting on her face. I believe this is done to freak the
audience out further, it makes us question "What was that just then?" This
frightens us and creates further enigmas such as, “Why is this woman jumping at
the screen?” Although people who have seen the first paranormal activity film
will probably know the answers to these enigmas already. The camera cuts again
and we see the audience viewing the film gasp and scream. The camera then goes
static. By showing clips of the audience viewing the first paranormal activity
film the creators of this trailer have emphasised that it was a popular film in
2009. The silence, both during and after this clip, make the viewer feel tense,
wondering what will happen next
After that, we see a clip from the new Paranormal Activity film. We get the
impression that the image is coming from a surveillance camera as a high angle
shot allows us to look down on the room. The room is a bedroom with a baby
sleeping in a cot and a dog sleeping on the floor. The high angle shot is used
to make the dog and baby look weak. Connotating that they may be next. The
mise-en-scene of the room adds to the creepy atmosphere. The baby toy probs used
and the crib denote innocence. The whole baby's room is juxtaposed with the
current situation at hand. That the possessed woman is walkin about somewhere.
Also, it is to be noted that the lighting is more predominant in this scene. For
the reason that babies are innocent, have no clue of the world just yet. The
camera isn’t shaky, which means that it must be stationary. The surviellence
camera effect makes us want to pay attention to what is going on, as we would
pay attention if we were watching a CCTV camera.
It then cuts to black, the words, “For What’s Next,” appear on the screen, this
adds more suspense.
The camera
cuts to a shot of the living room which seems normal and then cuts again to the
bedroom where we see the baby and the dog have dissapeared, and now a woman is
standing in the doorway to the bathroom. The woman is dressed in black which
carries negative connotations of evil, danger and fear. As an the target
audience we fear this woman. We are also left with several more enigmas, “Who is
this woman?” “What happened to the baby and the dog?”
The screen
goes black. The number 2 flashes on the screen 3 times before the title of the
film, “Paranormal activity 2,” appears onto the screen. This is followed by the
address of the films website The name of the movie flashes up again followed by
the camera going static. Briefly, a shot of the bedroom flashes up again. Then
the camera cuts out. The teaser trailer is over. This abrupt ending to the
trailer is supposed to hook the reader and make them want to watch the film. It
is a unconventional ending, however. As usually, there's one last scare from the
demon or possessed being.
The Roof of wyke college was chosen because of the slight wind there was moving the trees, keeping in with the theme of it been scary.
We had to choose this corridor carefully because we couldn't have any photographs in the corner, and also nobody walking past, the aim of this image was to show how quiet the building is.
Shooting this scene, Dan Troupe was on the elft hand side shaking the silver chain, making it appear like it was moving, the problem we had with this shot is that the yellow wet floor sign looked out of place so we had to reshoot.
In this shot, we used a rolling chair and got Dan Troupe to lay on the floor and push the chair, we then used video effects to make it appear to be going slower than it was.
Group Names: Dan Troupe - Director (www.dantroupea2courseworkportfolio.blogspot.co.uk) Andy Goodhand - Editor (www.andygoodhanda2mediablog.blogspot.co.uk) Matthew Nolan - Camera (www.mattnolanadvancedportfolio.blogspot.co.uk) Bethany Hirons - Producer (www.bethanyhironsmediaa2.blogspot.co.uk) Andy and Beth will be playing the cast members.
The media text we have chosen to deconstruct and reconstruct is the film trailer for Paranormal Activity 2, directed by Tod Williams, 2010. The aim of our work is to make sure that everything looks like it is shot from a surveillance camera.
Research into making the media text: Finding ideal sounds.
This sound is identical to that in the paranormal activity trailer. The sound at 0.14 is the same as this boom sound that we found using www.freesound.org
Shooting Schedule: Tuesday 2nd October: Filming in Oak, near the vending machines. Props needed: Comb, back combed hair to shoot the close up of the girl also black t shirt.
Wednesday 3rd October: Filming the scenes in the classroom, shooting a sequence in the canteen, on top of the Oak building. No props needed. All group members needed.
Thursday 4th October Begin filming, all cast needed.
Friday 5th October Go onto the roof, reshoot the scene of the man running into the camera. All cast needed on the roof.
Tuesday 9th October Begin editing and putting all of the clips into order.
Wednesday 10th October Add the static effect and also the sounds.
Matthew Nolan, another media student been asked what he thniks of my influential media texts. Within his psychographic interview he stated, that he felt all of the performers were neccassary when making the music videos, this is good research for myself as I am going to be using a performer in my video. He also felt that the stylistics were very well used, which helps me because these will influence my work.
Qualitative Data: Qualitative data is extremely varied in nature. It includes virtually any information that can be captured that is not numerical in nature. For example in terms of my blog, If i asked someones opinion why they liked a certain type of genre, it would become qualitative data.
Quantitative Data: Numerical form data that can easily be turned into statistical data such as percentages and ratios. This information is usually found on questionnaires which in terms of my blog is the poll on the right hand side. Demographic Data: The age, gender, post code: any information that lacks emotional response. Psycho-graphic Data: This type of data looks at the persons like and dislikes, it looks at the person much closer usually asking for opinions and reasoning for their answers.
For
my Foundation Portfolio I created a front cover, contents page, and double page
spread of a music magazine of my choice, I had to choose the genre and also the
individual who would be used on my magazine. All of the images and text used
had to be original, produced by myself, which included a minimum of four
images. I chose to create my music magazine within the genre of pop. Also for
my preliminary exercise I needed to produce, using desktop publishing and an
image manipulation program, the front page of a new school/college magazine,
featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately
laid-out text and a masthead, this preliminary exercise was to help us develop
skills in Adobe Photoshop CS5.
Research
& Planning, Genre Conventions I
researched the elements needed for my brief by analysing existing (e.g. NME,
Kerrang and Q) music magazines and the conventions they have used and to what
effect. I later analysed the genre of Pop by looking at their more successful
artists and an already existing magazine. I looked specifically at NME
magazine, although it did not have the same target audience I was looking for,
it is a hugely popular magazine with the look of what I wanted. For example,
when creating my contents page I used the same layout as NME, however, for the front
cover I chose to use the style of Q, using a lot of emphasis on the artist.
Some of the genre conventions for a pop magazine are that the artist used on
the front cover must be the person most involved in this issue. On their
picture it must state in bold writing who they are and a quote from the article
to bring their audience in. The quote would be to do with their own personal
life; something that the audience could relate to in order for them to want to
read on. Another genre convention I found was on the contents page, this
convention was not just specific to pop but to all music magazines; in that the
numbers on the contents page did not have to be in order, they could just focus
on the key pages that the reader may be interested in, rather than listing
1-100 chronologically. The source of this research was mainly the internet, but
also some magazine hard copies. I used the internet to find magazine front
covers from a magazine, genre and year of my choice. The LIIAR acronym
(language, institution, ideology, audience and representation) helped to shape
my analysis.
Creative Work As
part of the creative process I identified the typical conventions of a music
magazine. I explored different ways of setting out the conventions across a
layout and also considered the conventions of pop, my chosen music genre. The
practice that I'd had whilst making my college magazine helped me to know what
conventions to use and also to know what looked good on a front cover. I used
an off white background on Photoshop and toyed different fonts, pictures and shape
to see what fit well on the screen. I took a series of photos when planning my
final piece using both different poses and different models seeing which would
best fit the genre of my magazine. Once I was in the final stages of production
I gave my audience my front cover, contents page and double page spread along
with some questions about my project and what sort of audience they think it is
aimed at. My results assured me that I had made the right decisions when taking
my target audience into account as all those asked knew it was a pop music
magazine.
Digital Technology/Post-Production In my foundation portfolio I used Adobe Photoshop
CS5 in order to manipulate my photos to have the desired effect and make the
publication look more professional. I had never used Adobe Photoshop before so
I had to do many drafts in order to get it right. Adobe Photoshop CS5 allowed
to edit my digital photos to a degree which I was happy with, but my main
technical challenge was learning which tools to use to create which effect
whilst also creating a photo which would allow for the typical conventions of a
music magazine such as a masthead, main feature headline, dateline, barcode,
issue no, skyline and subtitle. In order to achieve a professional looking
magazine along with all the typical conventions I took photos and then tested
them out on Photoshop by adding all the elements and seeing if it worked. Following
this I would take some more photos with the layout of a typical magazine in
mind in order to achieve the desired result. By creating a magazine front cover
with all the typical conventions I was able to communicate to the audience that
publication was a professional one, i.e. something worth buying. As for the
creation of the double page spread, I used Microsoft Publisher 2010 in order to
create the effect of a typical publication. When working on Microsoft Publisher
you can add effects to key quotes that you cannot do using Photoshop CS5, I
tried out many different fonts and also styles of writing a double page spread
as prior to this I had no experience of writing an article which led me to
using an interview style article.
