Preliminary Task - Teaser Trailer: Therfield

Editing

Today we finished editing our teaser trailer (preliminary task). We ended up splitting the 'help page' scene into three pieces: H, E and LP. Between each piece is a different scene. After the scene where the cameras vision is obscured by the antagonists foot, the full help page is shown with ring a ring o' roses playing, and ending with a repeat of the close up of the antagonists face. We decided to copy and paste the heavy breathing throughout the teaser to make it last longer, and shortened ring a ring o' roses.

Recording Of Year 7 pupils Reciting A Nursery Rhyme

By a stroke of luck, the music department managed to help Rohan and I record four Year 7 music pupils singing 'Ring A Ring O' Roses' in the recording studio. We then recorded Rohan 'shouting' (I use the word lightly) the word 'down' from Ring A Ring O' Roses to add a scary edge to the already creepy sounding recording. We will use this audio at the end of our teaser trailer.

Recording Of Heavy Breathing

Today Rohan and I booked time in the school's recording studio to record me breathing heavily into a microphone. We will edit this audio file to play along with our teaser trailer.

Filming The 'Help' Page

Upon further analysis if The Ring, I noticed that the reoccurring footage of 'the video' plays a large role in the style of the teaser trailer. Therefore, Rohan and I have decided to film somebody writing the word 'HELP' onto a piece of lined paper. This footage will be used throughout our teaser to break up scenes. A final shot was taken of the paper, now covered in scruffy writing saying 'help' etc.

More Filming

Today we re-filmed the point of view scene of a person walking into a room and collapsing, using a darker, older looking room. We also added at the end of this scene our antagonist appearing out of nowhere, walking up to and kicking the person in the face. We also shot a scene in the main hall, using the stage. The camera focuses on an empty stage before the antagonist appears upon it, and we then captured a shot close up of the antagonists face.

First Bit Of Filming

Today we started filming the scenes for our preliminary task. We filmed a point of view shot of somebody walking into a room and then collapsing, although I think we will re-shoot this scene because the room was not dark enough. I think we will also use an older looking room to add the the fear factor of our trailer. We also decided that we will try to record some heavy breathing to accompany our trailer.

Preliminary Task (2)

Rohan and I have decided that in our teaser trailer, the only character that we will visually introduce will be the antagonist as to follow the horror teaser trailer conventions that we have analyzed. We will not feature music, but will feature ambient sound, we will use a scruffy font to write any text in, we will try to keep the scenes short and the editing fast and will not give away and story.

The Grudge Teaser Trailer Analysis

In many ways I do not believe that this teaser follows the normal conventions for a teaser trailer. I think that the constant mentioning of the previous two films takes away the element of fear from this trailer by making it non-immersive. The similarities are the fast paced editing, lack of music but abundance of ambient sounds and audio clips from the film, the featuring of a child as a lead role and the 'scratchy looking' on screen text.

The Ring Teaser Trailer Analysis

On analysis if the teaser for The Ring, I have found that many features from the teaser for Nightmare On Elm Street also appear here. Again, the editing is fast paced. There is no music, but there is an abundance of ambient sound clips and a little speech from the film. Unlike the teaser for Nightmare On Elm Street (2010), this teaser does not give away too much of the story, but it gives enough to get the audience interested (this small bit of information given seems to be the unique selling point of the film, but I haven't seen the film and don't know for sure). Interestingly, both horror trailers have scenes and sounds of young children - there was a nursery rhyme in Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) and a boy appears to be a main character in The Ring, and there is also some speech from a child during the teaser. This gives both teasers even more of a creepy edge. Both teasers seemed more psychologically frightening as opposed to showing excessive gore.

Analysis of Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) teaser trailer

My first thought regarding this teaser trailer is that it is quite long and possibly gives the audience too much information about the film's story, although this may have been a deliberate decision because it is a remake of an original film. Some main features of this teaser seem to be: fast paced editing; little or no music other that occasional percussion and intense string glissandos; revealing of the lead role; screams and other panic induced noises from the victims; little speech; backstory.

Preliminary Task

Today Rohan and I began thinking about our preliminary media task. It has been impressed upon me that I should think about basing the film in which I am to make a teaser trailer for within the school. Rohan and I have decided that since horrors seemed to be a popular choice of genre in our AS level class last year that we should try to use conventions of horror film teaser trailers in our task.