7. evaluation(improved)

EVALUATION
S A M U E L S C H O E T T N E R

RESEARCH: TRAILER
• The strengths of my research would have to be the video related areas, such as
the trailer research as well as the mood boards, I spent a lot of time watching
lots and lots of trailers, watching tutorials etc. I watched trailers from many
different genres so that I could get an idea of conventions there are within
different trailer genres. This was very useful as it helped me find lots of
conventions that spanned (more or less) across most film trailers. For example
most film trailers start of quite slow, speed up halfway through and then slow
down again near the end. After looking through a ton of trailers I decided to
find 3 trailers that had a quality that I very much liked which I would then
use/attempt to ‘replicate’ within my own trailer.
• Researching these aspects of trailers and trailer editing allowed me to really
think about what I wanted the trailer to be, how I wanted it to be paced, what
types of shots and imagery I would need. It allowed me to think about the
soundtrack before hand so that I could shoot footage that would work within a
trailer setting. Though of course in a real world setting there would be
mountains of footage available as they would have shot and entire movie so a
whole movies worth of footage would be available. I simply had what I shot.
And I did not have a lot of time to film. Only just over a week and a half in fact.
So having a plan and a clear idea of what I needed to film in order to have
footage that would work well in a trailer setting.

In preparation for my trailer I did some practice/experiments that would help me
when it came to production. The most important experiment was using the
Flycam/Steadicam, using it was both easier and more difficult than I expected, and
getting to use it a couple of times to practice before shooting my FMP was extremely
useful.
Using the Steadicam: https://youtu.be/zrg6B44tNxY
I also did something that took me quite far outside of my comfort zone, this was 3D
tracking within Adobe After Effects.
As I wasn’t very comfortable with the program and I had never done any 3D tracking
it was completely new to me, I did some test and experiments and I think what I
finally managed to make looked quite good.
First 3D tracking attempt: https://youtu.be/lbW_BrX5CIc
Second 3D tracking attempt: https://youtu.be/ii6XnDakVWc
I definitely think I would have benefited from perhaps making a mockup
trailer/practicing trailer editing. As I would have already understood more of how to
edit a trailer effectively.
I did however watch lots and lots and lots of videos about sound design in trailers,
trailer construction, deconstruction of popular film trailers how to edit film trailers
etc. All of this research hugely impacted my product and I was extremely happy that
I took the time to look at it all as I learned a lot of new skills.

TRAILER MOOD BOARDS
I think another strong point within my research was the Mood boards I did
during the initial plans. They really helped me build an idea about what I
wanted the film to look and feel like, how I wanted my characters to be
portrayed and how I wanted to pace the film trailer itself.
Looking through images on the internet and picking those that peaked my
interest was very useful as I found dozens of images and then whittled
those images down until I had a few images that I really liked the look of. I
could then reflect and analyze those images which meant that I could figure
out what made them appealing and how I would be able to replicate to look
and feel of them within my own project. Throughout my project I used style
sheets and mood boards as much as I could as they are so powerful,
arranging dozens of images and placing them all over on page, allows you to
look at something and see a coherent theme that you can analyze and then
see why it is appealing or perhaps uncomfortable to look at, and then one
can use that information to their advantage.

RESEARCH: POSTERS
For my posters I did not do an awful lot of research. I looked at a lot of posters
and analyzed a few too. As the trailer and the posters would work closely
together I decided to just put a lot of research into my trailer (as it was my
main product) and then use the research I did to influence the posters. So
things like the mood boards worked for both the Trailer as well as the poster. I
watched some videos about Typography and some queries I had about
Photoshop, though as I personally feel quite comfortable and confident with
Photoshop I didn’t feel the need to do too much research as I felt it would
make more sense to research more for the film trailer.
I did however as a production experiment create a film poster for the 2017
release movie ‘IT’ I hugely enjoyed making this poster, I got to create
something creative and I learned a lot while making it, using different tools to
adjust colour balance and temperature, or using guides to compose everything
or simply to make mistakes that I then know how to avoid.
Overall as I have already said a few times I did not do too much research for my
poster which I think is not ideal however I equally think it didn’t end up
impacting my final product all that much as I personally would say my posters
turned out quite well, with a certain level of professionalism. However I
definitely know there is room for improvement.

Layer Break Down: https://youtu.be/skYn5SS2B0M

PLANNING
Overall the planning went very well, I did several different things to plan
my products.
Print Planning:
For the posters I made, I started of by making a style sheet, this
included a potential colour scheme some fonts and some imagery to
represent the type of images I would use on my posters. I then made 3
different poster layouts which I then used to help me make the real
posters, each layout had a small information segment next to it,
explaining what I was trying to achieve with the poster. I think I should
have definitely done more planning specifically for the poster however a
lot of the planning that I did worked for both the poster as well as the
film trailer. Further more since the focal point of my project was the film
trailer I wanted to shift as much attention as possible towards the
trailer.

Trailer Planning:
The first thing I did was complete a story development sheet for the the film my
trailer would be about, this is because once I had laid out the story of the film, I
could start thinking about how to represent it within a film trailer.
After I had done this I began making a style sheet, I made a different style sheet for
different acts within the project. This greatly helped me as I could start to plan for
my ideas, instead of making my ideas work around what I was given. So I figured out
and knew what type of lighting I wanted during what scenes, what whether I would
need for which days and scenes etc. I also made a style sheet for the costume of the
character which again helped tremendously as it meant I had lots of time to gather
all the costume parts and props that I would need.
I then made a few different potential colour schemes that I could use within my film.
I made quite a few so that I would have a little bit of choice within each ‘colour
theme’ so I had four dark options, four romantic/neutral options and four
comedic/warm options.
I did start making a mood board for my product however I had an extremely difficult
time making it, as sure, there is a basic story arch within a film trailer, however lots
of a trailer is just showcasing visually stimulating footage and therefore it would only
really come together while your making it. So instead I decided to use my story
development as a guide and just shoot as much relevant footage as I could that I
could then use to edit everything together, rather than spending hours drawing out
a story board that I would not end up using.
If it was a short film I would have most certainly made a mood board as there are
sequences and there is an order however in a film trailer there is much less of this.

(I ended up disregarding this poster as the style differed
dramatically from the other posters)

TIME MANAGEMENTI think I managed my time well right up until production.
I mostly had all my work in on time, and when it was handed in, it was full complete
etc. However when it came to production I ran into a few problems. These problems
were mostly to do with my actors and my own time management.
Since the production time of the project was exactly during the four week period of
the AS level exams a lot of my actors had to do lots of revision and sit their actual
exams. This lead to lots postponed shoots meaning I had to reschedule everything
and ended up beginning to shoot only 2 weeks before the end of the production
time.
Once all the dates and times had been sorted out it all ran very smoothly. After
everything had been rescheduled, it all ran almost exactly as I had written out in my
production schedule. There were was some mild changes because some tasks took
longer than others, for example the sound design ended up taking up the majority of
my time, while the video editing and colour grading didn’t take up as much time,
mostly because the sound design was a lot more complex.
Their enthusiasm spurred me on to edit lots and lots so that every time I saw them I
could show them the new and improved version, this excitement and energy helped
to spur each other on and both myself and cast really wanted to keep doing more
and more.

The days of actual shooting always went extremely well (except for the very first
day of shooting.)
My actors always showed up on time, ready and keen to film, they were willing to
spend a whole day shooting (in less than comfortable conditions) and were all
happy to go above and beyond for the success of the product. Their enthusiasm
spurred me on to edit lots and lots so that every time I saw them I could show
them the new and improved version, this excitement and energy helped to spur
each other on and both myself and cast really wanted to keep doing more and
more. The positive energy bounced of one another and again, really motivated
both myself and cast to work hard and at project.
This as one can imagine meant that shooting days were often just pure fun, where
suddenly nearly 10 hours had gone by and we were all still as motivated as when
we started.
Needless to say I managed to finish all the vital shooting within a comfortable time
frame.
I did get some more shots towards the end of production, however these were
mostly to add location variation and visual interest to the trailer and the story.
I definitely think I could have managed my time better and more effectively
however I don’t really think overall it would have made a huge difference to the
product.
I think to a degree I as a person need the pressure of an approaching deadline to
get my gears in order and get on with it.

When I am under pressure I tend to work the best and the most efficiently. Often I
think the quality of my work is also far better when there is not a lot of time to do it,
as it means there is no room for error leading to me being more focused and
concentrated on the task at hand.
The amount of time we had to conclude each section of the FMP was very
comfortable and there was hardly ever any point where I thought ‘Oh dear I am not
going to be able to finish on time’
Our tutor gave us deadlines for every segment of the FMP (Planning, research,
proposal etc.) this greatly helped as it meant we had to get it done and move on to
the next thing, instead of doing research for 6 weeks and then realising ‘I still have to
do all the rest of the project.’
As we had nearly twice as much time for this project as we did for the other
rotations we did earlier in the year I was very keen to work hard and put as much
work into each aspect of the project as I could. I think because of the huge amount
of time we had to conclude this project (in comparison to the other rotations) the
quality of the body of work I have produced has been far higher than anything I have
made previously.

IMPROVEMENTS
(IF I HAD MORE TIME)These are a few things I would change about my movie trailer if I had more time.
 I would shoot A LOT MORE. I would want to gather more footage of
different locations, different characters different scenes etc. This would
mean I could have introduced more conflict as well as establishing more
characters as well as simply making a more visually stimulating trailer, it
would feel more professional and it would be more resemblant of a real
film trailer trailer.
 I would also record more dialogue lines that I could add in at key points
to not only bring in relevance to certain scenes but advance the story
and plot. Dropping little clues here and there to entice the audience and
giving them more reason to come and watch the movie.
 After all a trailer is very subjective and they can be dramatically different
but the core theme is always the same, you want whoever sees it, to go
and watch your film. Now while I don’t think my trailer has failed at this I
personally feel like there are miles of room for improvement. Maybe
these criticisms are because I have watched it back hundreds of times
while editing or simply because they are true. I think with more time on
my hands I could have created something that would have been far
more similar to real movie trailer.

Technical Qualities (Poster):
All the images I used for my Poster were shot as .RAW files these are unprocessed
image files that store lots of image information this meant that when it came to editing
the pictures for the posters I had tons of options and ways to refine the image so that
it would look how I wanted them to look. This meant I could take a photo that was
good or close to what I wanted and then make it perfect in Photoshop. Of course, this
meant that the images ended up looking far better than any other image I would have
taken.
Once I had processed the images I began to really both physically and figuratively
colour them in. While doing my research, I discovered that almost every movie posters
is dramatized, which is what you would expect. Drama = Attention and after all the sole
purpose of a poster is to grab your attention. The technique I used to colour the
images in, is a technique that I have been using for quite a while and it worked
extremely well with the first poster, the axe in the sink.
With this technique, you simply choose a colour, for example red, and paint over parts
of the images you want to turn red, so in my case I wanted the axe blade to look
bloodier and more vibrant to really be attention grabbing. Once I had all the areas
painted in I would use blending modes and opacity to blend them into the image. This
is an extremely simple technique that if done correctly works tremendously well.
Another technique I used was to uses lots guides/rulers to divide my posters up in
order to position all the text on the screen in a fashion that would be visually pleasing.
This is again a very simply technique but very important as it ensures your poster will
look professional, as good work often goes unnoticed, but if a font is too big, or slightly
off centre, the audience will instantly notice that there is something off.

Technical Qualities (Trailer):
The first and one of the most useful technical aspects was changing the aspect ratio
from 16:9 to the more traditional locking 21:9 aspect ratio that made the whole thing
feel more cinematic. Furthermore, as the aspect ratio is wider the image was cut a
little at the top and the bottom, this allowed me to play more with the composition in
post as I could change the position of the characters onscreen, granted not by a huge
amount but enough to make a noticeable difference.
Another technicality was to ensure that I always filmed in a flat colour profile and that I
exposed my shots extremely well and often times I shot the scene a lot brighter than it
would be in the final cut. This is because it is easy to darken the image down, however
it is extremely difficult to brighten an image as it will result in soft edges and often lots
of noise.
The flat colour profile simply is a colour profile with low contrast and lots of dynamic
range so that you can adjust colour contrast and sharpness later in post rather than
trying to fix the colours your camera has imprinted on the video.
The combination of these two technicalities allows you to really change the mood and
tone of the scene quite a substantial amount.
In order to colour grade effectively I used 2 adjustment layers. One was used to adjust
contrast and brightness (luminosity) This layer I called Luminosity, and the second was
to adjust colour and colour contrast, this layer I called colour.
Doing this allowed me to very precisely colour grade, because I could start of by
tweaking the image to give it the contrast I wanted and darken it down soften the
highlights etc. And then begin colour grading the image, ‘painting’ the shot so that It
would look how I wanted it to look.

Trailer That is similar in terms of soundtrack: https://youtu.be/WVLvMg62RPA
My trailer’s sound track heavily influences the cuts within my Trailer. For a example the
sequence of shots between 1:15 and 1:22 ( https://youtu.be/c7TTsggM1_Y?t=1m15s )
This sequence is one of my favorite parts within the whole trailer and one I am most
proud of. The soundtrack perfectly paces the scene and when adding in the sound
effects to emphasize movement and impacts it really ties the whole package together.
The short sequence of the victim being placed in a room and tied up, is so short yet we
as the audience still fully understand what is happening. We see him being pushed onto
a chair, his blind fold taken off, and then a quick sequence of shots that is timed to the
music, where he is being strapped into the chair. The pacing of the zip-tie sound effects
works very effectively to help the audience understand what is happening, this is
necessary as the shots move so quickly it is difficult to understand what is happening
purely by the visuals on screen.
This short sequence took me over 4 hours to edit, because there is a lot of information
within this 7 second sequence. Not only is it where the protagonists plan becomes
reality. It is also where the audience subconsciously begins to understand how insane
the protagonist is, kidnapping someone in the middle of the day in broad daylight is
anything but sane. We are also introduced to the victim, who again will play an
important role, by being the literal punching bag for the protagonist so he can let out
his anger grief and sorrow.
It was vital that this sequence was edited well for these reasons. If it was badly edited
lots of that information would have gotten completely lost.
Once again, this is why the soundtrack worked so perfectly. It emphasized the
movement, it helped the shots flow into one another, the brass section helped to cut
the shots of him being strapped into a chair etc. The soundtrack really ‘saved’ this
sequence as this could have just as easily been a 20 second, slow moving, boring

Now while my trailer isn’t even comparable to the trailer for ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ I
feel there are some similarities, both trailers as mentioned heavily utilize the music to influence
editing, pacing and points of drama. In my opinion the trailer for ‘The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo’ is one of the greatest trailers ever made is it gives the audience nothing, no full idea
what the film could be about, it gives you rough clues as to what the genre is, you can tell that
someone is looking for someone or something.
Everything within this trailer is pieced together beautifully, I will try to break it down the best
that I can and draw comparisons between it, and my own work.
The first big similarity would be that both big trailers use Pre-existing famous songs as their
soundtrack, it allows the audience to audience to connect to the trailer on a personal level, it
makes the trailer relatable.
Secondly both trailers (as mentioned) are heavily influence by the soundtrack, The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo has a very fast pace every beat the shot changes, every bit of movement is
pronounced by the music. There are moments in each trailer that perfectly match the music
and makes the trailer feel more organic.
I think that this trailer is a perfect example of how music should be used within filmmaking, the
way the music matches the video makes it feel as though it is part of one another rather than a
separate entity.

Raw Image Processed Image Coloured
Image

Got rid of areas that are
distracting/take away from the poster.
Painted over it and darkened it.
Used white to brighten up
highlights makes the axe head
brighter and stand out more.
Painted over the axe head to give
it
a red glow, plus overlaid some
more blood textures to make it
bloodier.
Used blue around the edges of
the poster, adding a vignette to
the red core contrasting the rest.

AESTHETIC QUALITIES
(TRAILER)I personally do think my product looks good… for a piece of student work. By
no means does it look proffesional as ofcourse I did not have the budget for
expensive cameras with flat colour profiles such as raw, or to buy big lighting
setups and build sets that are painted and dressed so that specific colour
would stand out more than others.
I do think that with the tools and recourses available to me I managed quite
well, creating a product that looks visually appealing and where the images on
screen give of an emotion through the use of colour. For the most part I kept
to the colour schemes I was aiming to use and more importantly I
implemented them in the way that I wanted them to be utilized. I do wish I
had, had more control over lighting however some of the LED lights broke at
college so there were non for me to borrow and therefore I had to rely purely
on practical lights, and my light reflector.
This meant I ended up not having the ideal lighting that I wished for, though I
think I managed to mostly fix this problem in post production, there are a few
examples where the LED light would have been nice, for example when the
axe is being placed on the floor, I wanted the blade of the axe to shimmer/
reflect light but was unable to create this effect.

I actually ended up colour grading my footage twice. This was because the
first colour grade was awful. The mistake I made was to colour grade while
editing, this in of itself is fine, however I was constantly adding and removing
clips. Meaning that my work flow was substantially slowed down + all of the
colour grading I did was useless as often it would just get deleted right away.
Furthermore it meant that the grading process was rushed.
So the difference between the ungraded footage and the first colour grade
was visible but not necessarily very good. I began by fixing some colour
grades but quickly realized that it would be far easier to just delete every
single colour grade adjustment layer and start from scratch. This made the
process a lot easier as I could simply work my way from start to finish, and
once I got going it only took around 4 hours until I was ready to export the
trailer. Though the trailer was technically finished I definitely feel much
happier now that it has been re-graded, because I can now look at it and think
’that looks good’ rather than just seeing a poor quality colour grade.
I am also very pleased with the way the scenes themselves turned out. I payed
a lot attention to respect the rule of thirds and central framing. I wanted to
utilize these two methods as much as possible, this is because in a trailer it is
VERY important that the audience can follow the action. By this I mean you
don’t want their eyes to do overtime, jumping from side to side constantly
trying to find where they need to look. Rather you want each shot to flow into
the next. I think I respected this rule quite well in most of the shots the
subject of the shot is in a similar area to where the subject was before it.

Overall I would argue that my product looks good and is visually pleasing as
well as easy to follow. Though it is not of professional quality, again I think I
did quite well with what was available.
I definitely think I have learned a lot about cinematography and editing while
working on the project. Even simply the habit of checking the composition of
you shot every time or block out little bits of light to focus the viewers
attention. As well as understanding and having learnt how to layer sound to
engage the brain of the viewer so they can connect dots or ‘simply’ create a
more impactful emotion.
These are all thing I had never worried about or understood as much as
before this project.

Trailer for goodnight mommy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kXpUaQpXMA

These shots
move into each
other very nicely
and guide the
eye to the
important areas
like a flow chart,
it is easy for our
brain to process
and therefore
allows us to
enjoy watching
the trailer.

The subject stays on the right side of the frame
The subject is moved to a more central position of the frame within the
shot, so the next shot matches the positioning.

The attention of our
eyes stays in a
similar/the same
position throughout all
of these shots (plus
some more after I
simply didn’t have the
space on the slide) This
again makes the viewing
experience more
comfortable so that the
audience can take in
more information with
less work.

I think I did make a mistake with the colour grading as I believe I graded the images as
though they were a picture rather than a moving image.
This may seem like something that isn’t a huge problem and it probably wouldn’t have been
if my film was quite bright, however I wanted my film to look very dark and mysterious.
This lead to me adding lots of shadows and contrast into my film which in photograph
would go unnoticed but in a moving image is very apparent as it is very straining on the
eyes. Take for example these two shots side by side.
One again from the ‘Goodnight Mommy’ Trailer and the other is from my trailer.
(see next
slide for
comments)

I’m sure you could see the problem. The scene from Goodnight mommy was
during night time and had less contrast and softer blacks, and was still well
exposed.
Compare this to my shot which I had digitally darkened down so much that if
it was not for the light sky in the background you could almost mistake the
scene to be at night and the light reflection on the wet floor to be moonlight.
Not only this scene but lots of other scenes should have remained a fair
amount lighter however I think it is not the biggest problem in the world.
I will definitely know to spend more time colour grading with my next project
so that I don’t make this mistake again.
I do however think that aspects such as the colourisation of the image and
colour intensity/contrast looks quite good in a lot of the shots, this is however
subjecttive.

• Plain trailer Trailer: https://youtu.be/wLaGC3rzq_E
• First colour grade Trailer: https://youtu.be/_t6peLfe7uc
• Final colour Graded Trailer: https://youtu.be/c7TTsggM1_Y

Ungraded First grade Final grade

Ungraded First grade Final
grade

The dark areas of
the image are still
very soft. The
contrast is not
too harsh. Keeps
the scene from
looking cold and
hostile.
Pink highlights
showing love
and romance
the scenes
lighting is
again very low-
key suggesting
intimacy and
romance.

COLOUR GRADING BEFORE
AND AFTER IMAGES

AESTHETIC QUALITIES
(POSTERS)Overall I am very pleased with my Posters. I think they look very good and
professional, this could mostly be down to the images I used and the way I
processed them in Photoshop or because I used grids in order to align
everything and make sure everything is proportionate. I definitely felt a lot
more comfortable making these posters than with the video work as I
personally think my Photoshop/ Photo editing skills far succeed my Premier
Pro /Video editing skills.
The process of making the posters was generally not very difficult, just time
consuming. I spent a lot of time on the first poster, creating all the different
aspects of the poster and choosing the fonts I think would work best. Once I
had fonts and text made I could use it as a template, so that it would be fast
and more efficient and faster to edit/make the next poster(s).
The posters I made where of a much higher image standard than anything I
had made before. I spent a lot of time processing each image and editing
each image until it looked the way I wanted it to look.
All the posters have a strongly red colour scheme. This is to reflect the bloody
and gruesome nature the film would have. Two of the posters also have
pink/purple colour tones within them showing that there is a (perhaps
strange) romantic theme to the movie.

I think the posters work quite well and coherently, each poster reveals
something new about the movie. The First poster (the axe in the sink) depicts
a bloodied axe in a sink. This shows that there will be violence and blood as
well as showing there could/will be a comedic aspect as you wouldn’t really
find an axe in a sink full of bubbles. Bubbles are again associated with
innocents and childishness giving us further information that the plot may
be weird and possibly comedic. So the poster really gives us a lot of clues
about the film, while the poster itself stays clean and simple.
The second poster (Victims face in the axe) Depicts the horrified/scared face
of the victim in the axe, depicted in the first poster. This gives us a hint that
this character may very well be killed (maybe even by the axe) his bloodied
face, open eyes and mouth show that he is scared of something, but we
don’t know what. In the context of the poster we would assume it is
probably the axe. The blood that is ‘spilled’ all over the top of the poster
informs us (once again) that the film will be of a gruesome bloody nature
and again, suggesting that the character depicted within the image will die.
I think this poster works quite nicely as all the parts work nicely together. We
are told a small story but not a lot of information about the movie is given
away. We don’t know where the character is. We don’t know what he is
looking at or what he is scared of.
The poster gives us many questions but limited amounts of answers which
will propel the audience to go see the movie. To answer the questions
created by the poster.

The final poster is possibly my favourite,
this could be because I didn’t plan the
photo to work/be for the poster. My friend
simply wanted a picture of himself laying
in the blood as he thought it would look
good (which I’d argue it did!)
So I took the picture and later realised that
it had the potential to be a poster as the
3rd poster I originally made, didn’t really fit
in with the other posters I had made, it
looked very clean and sleek. There wasn’t a
lot going on at all, so I decided not to use
it as it wasn’t reflective of the products I
had already made.
I think the poster looks very nice, it is
mysterious and intruding. It shows the
audience that there will be dark themes
within the film.
The simplicity of the poster makes
everything else a lot more unique. The title
and release date stand out a lot more than
on the other posters. As there is not a lot
going on we are drawn to every aspect of
the poster and pay a lot of attention to
Discarded Teaser poster

I would probably take some
pinks out of the highlights as
they are oversaturated and look
a little unrealistic/comical.
We can see some
pliers at the
corner of the
screen, which the
will probably be
used in the film to
torture the victim.
Zip ties are often
associated with
kidnapping and
being tied up.
Blood on the
floor from what
we can only
assume is
victims, showing
he is twisted.
Showing the
mask of the
Protagonist
We can assume
that he is the
protagonist as he
is holding the
mask.
Big bold red title,
the red tone is
more vibrant
than the blood
covering the rest
of the image.
This makes the

Bubbles, these
remind of us of
innocence's and
cleanliness. Which
strongly contrasts
with the bloodied
axe that is leaking
into the
surrounding
bubbles.
The bloodied axe head
shows that there will be
violence and maybe
even death within the
film.
The red and blue
contrast nicely to
add some more
visual interest.
The contrast helps to
bring out important
aspects of the poster,
and dull down parts
that are not
important.

The axe suggests
that the character
depicted within the
poster will be killed,
as it reflects death
and pain.
Character is covered
in blood and clearly
looks scared.
This suggests he is
being hurt/tortured.
The horror on his
face suggests that
something is coming
for him.
The blood splashed
all over the poster
again suggests that
the character is going
to experience pain,
and that there will be
a strong theme of
violence within the
film.
The fact that the
blood spills over
the boarder of the
posters frame
works nicely as it
looks like the
blood has been
splashed over the
poster, rather than
it being part of the
design.

AUDIENCE APPEALWhen I was researching my product I knew it would aimed toward an older demographic
a more mature audience. An audience that would understand and appreciate violent
themes as well as string physical and graphic violence. So I began researching similar
products to what I wanted to create myself, and products that were dissimilar. (Research
may be a strong word, I looked through A LOT of movie trailers) this was so that I could
figure out what it was that split the different genres apart.
After I had built a fairly good idea of what it was that I wanted to make and I had done a
fair amount of research in order to understand some key features within trailers, that are
very important for the audience, so they can understand the contents of the trailer as well
as, setting tone and mood and making the trailer intriguing and memorable.
I made a survey and conducted some interviews to answer a few questions I had. This
would help me shape the trailer in a way where, it would not only work as a trailer, but it
would work to intrigue a specific audience.
There were lots of questions to aid me, however only a few I really want to focus on now.
The first is about the actual content of the trailer. I have seen many trailers that give away
huge amounts of the plot and many trailers that give away next to nothing of the plot,
the question I had was: What would my audience prefer? So of course I asked them
whether they preferred revealing trailers or trailers that left lots of mystery about the plot,
the answer I received was loud and clear. Everyone said they preferred trailers that left
mystery around the plot.
So I had my first objective, I needed to make a trailer that would be enticing and gave
you enough information so that you would want to go and see it, however not enough
information so that big plot points were ruined when you went to see the full movie.
I think I achieved this fairly well, of course there is no real film to compare it to or argue
that I did or did not reveal plot points. However I feel the audience is left with enough
questions, for example, how does he find the victims. How does he know who he is killing

I think my trailer reveals some information that is vital to understanding the
basic story but not enough to ruin the experience of going to see the film. I
think perhaps it could have been a little less revealing than it was, though I
don’t think it was too revealing.
As I knew there was going to be lots of torture and violence, I first researched a
few products similar to what I wanted to create, such as Django Unchained, the
Saw franchise and a few others. This helped me figure out the target
demographic for my product (predominantly young males of the age ranges
18-25), of course I also asked a question about this. When asking the audience
whether they liked blood and gore within a film, the overwhelming majority
answered that they would like blood and gore in a film (82% said they would
like blood and gore.)
As the vast majority answered yes I implemented more blood and gore than I
had originally planned. I personally think this made the product better, more
believable and overall added a few more moments to the film trailer that could
make the audience cringe and feel uncomfortable, something that the
demographic of my film would want and expect from a film like this.
Finally I researched what I would consider the most important aspects of a
trailer, they way it is constructed. From the get-go of this project I really
wanted to use a recognizable song within my trailer. This is because I personally
love film trailers that utilize a song which already exists and match the trailer to
the music. As not only do we get the part of the trailer we’d always get (the

Because music is so powerful, it can intrigue you, make you happy, sad, excited
etc. it is an important and essential tool within filmmaking and especially trailer
editing. So these are just two reasons why I wanted to use a pre-existing song
but there are many more (recognizable, memorabilia factor, it is more
relatable, the music is interpretative etc.)
When asking my interview participants whether they preferred generic trailer
music or music from a real world band, only one of them really gave a useful
answer stating that they preferred trailers with music from a real band, the
other two participants stated that one wasn’t bothered about the music choice
and the other stated that for a horror trailer it would be effective to use your
own music, however I was not asking specifically about the genre and since my
trailer was supposed to be a mix of genres this did not help me a whole lot.
In the end I did end up using a cover of the very recognizable song ‘Feeling
good –Nina Simone’ this song was perfect for what I had in mind for my trailer,
a slow calm start, that developed into a very powerful fast paced visually
interesting trailer and just before it finishes, it slows down again as the final
shots play out. I think the music choice for the trailer was perfect, I went
through several different song choices, from attempting to making it myself to
several songs by big and small real world bands. However as soon as I heard
this song I knew that I needed to use it. The music heavily influences the cuts,
it paces the trailer nicely as well as perfectly backing up the and almost
explaining not only the tone and mood of the trailer. But to a degree gives us
an insight into the mind of the protagonist.

Lots of blood,
character looks
exhausted and tired.
Dark ominous protagonist,
recognisable mask looks
overpowering in
comparison to the victim.
Victim looks scared, he
is naked and covered in
his own blood he is
flinching away from the
axe which is about to
hit his head.
An axe, a
weapon/tool that is
often associated
with violence and
death.
As I already mentioned to blood violence
and torture that is showcased within my
trailer. Is welcomed and expected by my
target demographic.

Target demographic for:
Django Unchained The Saw
franchise
Some survey monkey
questionnaire results about
gender and age:
Audience conclusion in
the proposal:

• These next two slides compare the posters and content of my
film to some pre existing professional work.
• As you will be able to see my film uses blood and gore to a
similar extent as some other movies.
• However I think with my posters there might be too much
blood. Perhaps they are too graphic for distribution as they
would be inappropriate in lots of public places, as even when
comparing my posters to the posters for movies such as Saw.

These movies are uncomfortable to look and clearly depict that this film will be gruesome and
there will be a very strong violent theme to the film however they are not particularly graphic
for example, we know the hand is chopped of as it is a pale white and there are traces of
blood near where it was cut off, however we don’t actually see the wound, our brain simply
fills in the rest of the information. The most graphic would be the center one as we can see
the wounds in his mouth where the teeth have been pulled out, however still there is no
blood or other injury within the poster. The last poster is relatively innocent, it is someone's
head entrapped in a ‘helmet’ made up of several objects that could inflict vast amount of pain,
again this is simple and to the point. The audience can look at these posters and fully
understand what the film could be about, whilst the poster doesn’t rely on lots of gore and
violence to showcase it is going to feature strong and graphic violence.

The first poster is probably the strongest, there isn't and unnecessary amount of blood and
the axe works quiet effectively to showcase that there will be violence and blood within the
film. Much like the first Saw poster we looked at, we don’t see the rest of the image (what
happened to make the axe bloodied) our mind fills in the rest. It leaves an heir of mystery and
intrigues the viewer.
The second poster is also relatively effective at communicating what the movie would be
about, however I think the poster would have still been effective enough without as much
blood, which would have made the poster more appropriate to place in public places. I think
the last poster was perhaps the weakest, it works well within the series of posters, however I
think within the series of the 3 posters it works effectively as it is adding pieces to the puzzles.
As a stand alone poster it doesn’t really give you enough information to build a picture what
the film would be about, however again, within the series of poster we can get an idea that
he may be the protagonist or a central character.

I think I used just about the correct amount of blood and gore within my
film trailer. There is enough to ensure the audience understands what type
of film this is and that there will be violence, blood and gore, within the film.
However the blood and gore is not excessive, the trailer depicts what the
film would be about but it wouldn’t be too much to discourage a wider
audience, while specific audiences would understand there would be more
graphic and gory detail in the final trailer. This means both of the audiences
would be intrigued by the trailer.

FEEDBACK 1
• What did you like about the product?
– The product is very good! All the shots are in focus and
everything is so detailed, The fake blood was a very good idea.
The soundtrack went with the trailer really well and the editing
was spot on! I didn’t even notice the dialogue lines that are
missing because it was so eye catching. The posters matched
the trailer and were very well thought of too! Really good work
no faults at all.
• What improvements could have been made to the product?
• No improvements need to be made.

FEEDBACK 2
I thought this was really good. The way everything worked
together made it look like a professional trailer – especially
aspects such as the font and car crash scene. The music was in
time with the shots and reflected his corrupted mind set by
having a happy song against torture scenes. There wasn’t any
point I found boring and it revealed just the right amount of
storyline. The posters are really detailed and eye catching.
Can’t think of any

FEEDBACK 3
– The posters that have been made look very professional and intrigued
me enough make me want to watch the movie.
– The trailer is very good, the editing is well done and the acting is also
very good. I like the variety of shots and how it doesn’t linger on each
one for too long. I also like how professional the production looks, It
actually looks like a real film trailer which is impressive.
• The only thing that I can think of is that in one of the shots you see
the victim wake up and break character but that was already
acknowledged.

PEER FEEDBACK SUMMARY
• What do you agree with from your peer feedback?
– The feedback overall is very positive which of course is nice however it unfortunately
leaves me with no room for improvement. I would agree that the poster and the
trailer work quite well as a coherent package due to stylistic choices and the font.
• What do you disagree with from your peer feedback?
– I would say that there is always room for improvement within any product, there is
nothing I can directly disagree with as there was no criticisms (except for one editing
error that has since been corrected) So I guess the thing I would disagree with is that
there are no improvements to be made as there are always little things that could be
better.
• Overall the feedback was nice as it was re-assuring and it makes me feel as though I
did a good job. Though I would have loved to hear ways to improve the product and
make it more professional, aesthetically pleasing, memorable etc. As unfortunately
there is not much you can do with positive reviews and no criticisms.

PEER FEEDBACK SUMMARY
As there was no criticisms to improve anything within the peer feedback
there really isn’t anything to put here, which is a little frustrating as other
than a small ego boost it is non-substantive. It doesn’t really offer any real
feedback.
Though this is mildly frustrating it is also reassuring as it means I that the
product I have made is of high enough quality so that there are no
improvements to be found by my peers.
Though I could point out manty faults within my work other people wont
necessarily see them. As most of the time these ‘faults’ are simply things
that you imagined would look better or in your mind you thought it would
come out differently. As the saying goes ‘’You are your worst critic.‘’

This Project absolutely allowed me to go about the creation of a
product (in my case a film trailer) in a far more professional way. During
the making of the products I really felt like I was working on something
that had a certain level of professionalism which was a great motivator
as it made me work harder and spurred me on to try and create
something that exceeded my ability at editing filming etc. Which again
caused me to learn new things.
Overall this lead to a product that was far better technically, visually and
auditory, than anything I had ever made before, or set out to make for
the FMP.
I am extremely pleased with what I have made, of course I still see lots
of mistakes but they are mistakes that probably only I see in my own
work.

7. evaluation(improved)

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7. evaluation(improved)

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