Research and Planning: Podcast 1

This is my September Podcast. I think that I missed out a few things such as:

•  The questionnaire I created
•  The the interviews I did to create a larger insight into what I should include in my teaser trailer
•  The Facebook research to help my trailer analysis

But instead I have put clips of them in my podcast to show you that I have done them.

Research and Planning: Teaser Trailer Conventions

 This year we have to create a teaser trailer, a film poster and a film magazine. After doing research and planning for the last month, I now have a good idea of what a teaser trailer is and what is included. A basic definition of a teaser trailer would be a 1 minute insight into a new film, including plenty of action and peaks that persuades people to go and watch the movie. In my teaser trailer I will need to definitely include:

• The name of my trailer
• The release date of my trailer
• The production company
• Plenty of peaks
• A small insight to the storyline
• A voiceover or subtitles. 
• Maybe the certificate.  

This teaser trailer of Paranormal Activity is a good example of a trailer that would be easier to recreate. This is because the special effects aren't very advanced and we don't have access to camera's that are perfect quality. In addition, the trailer is still effective even though it doesn't include many clips. This is good since it means that I don't need to make my trailer really detailed to make it have a good effect.





This is the teaser trailer for Saw 3. This trailer is an example of something that I won't be able to create. This is because of the location that this film trailer has used and in addition what they had access to. For example the cave and the smashed car; I don't have access to these nor the ability to create such huge effects.

Research and Planning: Meeting 1

In media this year, we have many tasks that we need to carry out and also we need to deal with the Mise-En-Scene, Editing, Cinematography and Sound aspects of making our teaser trailer. People in our class have paired up and with this being the case, they get to split the tasks between them. I've chosen to work on my own this year. I feel as though I'm motivated enough to cover all four areas but I understand that it will be a challenge.

Research and Planning: Research For Target Audience.

 This is a print screen showing what IMDB think the top 20 horror films are. I found this selection really strange since most of the top 20 are older films from the 1900's and not from 2000 upwards. Whether this is because they have been out for a lot longer and people have had longer to vote, or whether the storylines in the past were generally better. This is surprising since I feel as though it's the special effects and picture quality that increases the tension in film.

On the other hand, I went on the 2010-2019 and the top rated film is a HORROR film which tells me that a lot of people nowadays feel as though horror was most successful. 

This is a print screen showing female votes on what the top 20 votes were. If we take a film like Inception for example we can see that it has been voted more popular by females than males since its came 3rd here and 12th on the males listing.

Research and Planning: Audience Theories

The Hypodermic Model. This theory suggests that the message that is being shown from the media, is directly received and accepted by the audience. People say its as though its like a needle that's going straight into the brain.

The Cultivation Theory. This theory suggests that the more exposure we get, the more we start to believe it. For example if we watch the news and it tells us constantly that there is lots of increasing crime, we will start to believe it.

The Desensitization Theory. This theory suggests that people nowadays are becoming too exposed to violence in the media and that we are becoming desensitized. For example years ago we had horror films like Dracula and now there's films like Saw and the horror has increased a lot.

The Copycat Theory. This theory states that copycat crimes are acts that are modeled on previous crimes and it's something in the media that we copy. For example the case study of "Nuclear submarine rampage sailor shot dead officer to copy video game Graft Theft Auto."

The Uses And Gratifications Theory. This focuses more on the audience and more on how we use media and not how the media effects us.

Research and Planning: Target Audience.

Here I have researched into what my target audience would be for my teaser trailer.

Research and Planning: Questionnaire

Today I made a questionnaire in class with useful questions that will help me when coming to make my teaser trailer. I only did 6 questions but as I carry on throughout the year I think I will do a couple more like this to help me develop my knowledge even further. The answers I got did help quite a bit as it let me see an insight on other peoples opinions which made a change instead of me just thinking about my own.

The questions I asked were:

• What is your favourite horror film? Why does this one stand out over others?
• Whats the scariest horror film you've watched? What features did it include to make it scary? (eg. low key lighting, fast editing etc) 
• What age and gender would you expect the villain to be in a horror film? What do you think works best and is more effective?
• What would you expect to see in a 12-certificate horror film, and what would you expect to see in a 18-certificate horror film? 
• Do you think that voice over's are more effective in a trailer? Or subtitles? Which would make you go and see the film more?
• What location is most effective in your opinion for a horror film and trailer?

 The results I got from these questions were quite varied. Therefore I think I'm going to print off more of my questionnaire's and give them out to more people since I only asked 10 people. The only graphs that I could make were the ones of the number of male/female interviewee's I had and another one of the age of them also.
From doing this questionnaire I now know that I need, in my teaser trailer, to:

• Make sure that I make the voice over sound freaky if I decide to use one.
• I need to use fast editing.
• I need to use low key lighting. 
• Make sure that the plot comes across really well. 
• Make sure that my trailer would be suitable for DVD, TV, Cinemas etc.