STALKER movie trailer

This is our final trailer, as seen from the trailer we have multiple production companies to show our company is well funded and well made. The reporter acts as a kind of narrator and sets the context for the trailer, despite being in the film, the low angle used by the camera gives the news reporter the power of the audience and it makes him appear as the most important character in the scene. The text on screen "Based on a true story" is powerful because it makes the audience believe what is about to happen. The two girls watching the news report adds context to the early footage while also setting the scene for some other clips later in the trailer, it also makes the scene seem very mundane very normal, most people would watch TV at night and this could relate to the audience. The scene with the antagonist in it is taken from two perspectives the first is a high angle shot as the 'victim' is seen walking past, the second is the low angle shot as the antagonist walks past, this gives the audience power over the victim, and we lose that power to the antagonist as he follows on behind, this can make the audience feel intimidated as we now feel small. The cut to black and white is supposed to show CCTV footage of the same incident, this is why we used the transition. The antagonist can be seen holding a knife in the next scene, this threatens the audience and it also indicates there is murder and probably gore along with it. We then cut to a different scene in a house. The antagonist is clearly seen from the birds eye view, this adds menace to the audience, as we can see him clearly but we can't do anything to stop him, the clear shot of the knife adds danger and the possibility of death,we would expect this from a thriller. As the lights go out and we hear the scream, the audience could become unsettled because we don't see what is going on and at this point we can only assume what happened. The film title then appears as thunder and lightning, this adds to the tension and also fits with the nighttime perspective of the final scene. The music in the background adds tension to the whole trailer and this eventually builds up to the final scene.

Evaluation: Our trailer is very conventional in terms of what an audience would expect from a trailer, our trailer shows the main characters and the main points of the film are well shown, we have also implemented several different camera angles throughout the trailer to show dramatic scenes between characters. Between clips we also found it useful to spread out the credits along with some background and dramatic text on screen, this is also helped by the creepy music in the background this helps to build up tension in the trailer and helps build up to the final showcase for the film where the lights cut out and the audience hears a scream. In our trailer we made the decision to leave our film titles till the end, this helps draw the audience in and makes them want to see what the film title is so they can go and see it. As pointed out earlier our trailer builds to a climax, and like with other trailers where they will show one of the most scariest or most exciting clips we decided to end our trailer with a cut to black, as the audience won't know whats going on and this could make them want to see the rest of the film. Overall our trailer does use a montage of clips to showcase the best most exciting parts of our film, this is intended to draw the audience in and make them excited or scared to see our film.

I believe that the trailer we have produced has been generic, however it has featured several experimental ideas, as well as challenging some of the conventions we would expect to see in a trailer. Firstly I trailer is generic to most trailers from this genre and it does adhere to several conventions of trailers, not all of them however, we did add a couple of things that we suspect might be experimental and that includes having a change in camera colour to signify a change of camera type to a CCTV camera of all the film trailer I have watched for this genre none of them included a change like that. As well as this bit of experimenting we also challenged some of the conventions of trailers by not including some things that are generally included such as specific speech like one liners from the characters, we use very little to dialogue in our trailer, this is because we want to use the sound and the images on screen to the maximum and we felt that dialogue would ruin the atmosphere being built up, this is also why we had the reporter at the start of the film to give some background but that is really it.

The trailer we have developed has changed over time, as we were at first not doing this kind of horror/thriller, we intended to make a trailer like paranormal activity, however due to restraints we were unable to pursue this idea. We have mostly been influenced by directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, who is probably the most famous thriller/horror director, he was important because he used music very well in his films especially the classic shower scene in his 1960 film Psycho, we wanted to use that kind of music to that effect, to dramatically build tension.

Film Poster

This is our movie poster we created to go with our trailer. The poster follows the dark, threatening theme from the trailer and magazine cover, the dark them also helps set the genre for the audience and this helps draw people to watch the film. The main images in the trailer are from the trailer or from other productions that we have produced and shows the main actors as well as the main antagonist in the main image, this suggests the film will mostly be set around him. The main title to the film is set in a large font at the top of the page this gives it prominence in the poster and because it is in a white font the word stands out far better than most of the imagery. The tagline "Wherever you go, He"ll be watching" is threatening and directed at the audience, this makes it more personal and draws the reader in. The poster also has the main credits for the film which can tell the audience who produced it and who is starring in the film, this information is vital as a reader might want to know who is in the film as some people only see films if they have a certain actor or actress. As well as this the poster contains the release month and year which gives an idea of when the film will be released. We have also positioned the 'company' logo in the bottom corner this is to tell the audience who the production company is and this can inform the reader what the film budget is.

How did your ideas develop over time?
Our film poster had initially been simply the image of the main antagonist on a black background with the film title 'stalker' at the bottom. however over time we added film credits to the bottom , this was brought in from our, trailer along with this we added several different images to the main image, this was to show the audience the various different characters in the film . The black background we added to give the idea of what the film was about, as from this the audience can probably infer the idea that the film is a horror and maybe even a thriller. The film title has remained in the same position throughout production, we felt that most posters we had seen they had their titles at the bottom, this helps draw the audience and with our title 'Stalker' it links to the main image and genre. The white font we used was most appropriate

Finished Titles

These are the titles we are planning to use in our film trailer, this title is very dramatic and fits in with the tone we want in our trailer, the audience watching the titles might become frightened by the effects, the lightning storm also really adds to the effect of the lights going out in the final scene in the trailer.

Poster Pictures

These are the two photos we used in our posters and magazine front cover, to make these photos we used the cupboards at our school, these were dark enough do that when we used the flash on the camera, and when we cut the image out using Photoshop the images were very effective to use.

Film Magazine Cover

This is the magazine cover, we designed it on paper, then using Photoshop we used several of the unique effects available to add a menacing effect to the front cover, the audience would feel threatened by a faceless antagonist, this doesn't allow the audience to feel for the antagonist they don't get to relate to him and in this way we feel frightened by his presence, the red colour in the title links to blood which in our trailer is threatened but not shown. The faceless antagonist anchors the text title stalker and is the main selling point of this issue of Empire. The bright colours used in the other articles helps show the audience what else is in the article as well as advertising other films. The text used is big and bold with certain words emboldened to make certain words standout. The barcode and price are both located in areas where they can be seen and are commonly found.

The skyline and main magazine title are both big and bold at the top of the page the 'exclusive preview' suggests to the audience the magazine will have articles and information that no other magazine will have and this would attract more readers, as the audience we are constantly looking for something that gives us more information especially if its about something we really enjoy like films. The main title 'Empire' is a major magazine company with a large readership of about 800000 people, this means films featured on the magazine are likely to be popular, the magazine is also well respected making film reviews important. The puffs shown on the front cover are shown big, they offer free things, this attracts a younger audience, and its bright colours draws the eye especially on a dark background. The smaller articles along the right-hand side of the cover are from recent films Nightcrawler and Gone Girl these films are both psychological thrillers which links to our film as we kind of wanted this feel to our trailer, there is a clear thriller film genre in this months issue of Empire. The 'exclusive interview' at the bottom of the magazine draws the audience to read further into the magazine as two of the movies stars are being asked questions, the audience would want to know more about these actors, so they can get to know them better and it humanizes the otherwise big actors.

Evaluation Activity 1: In What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our magazine cover is conventional when compared to other magazine covers that we have seen from our analysis earlier in the year. The font for example is largely big, bold and contrasts against the background, however the font used on the main article 'Stalker' could be considered unconventional as unlike other fonts from other magazines this one is not bold, it is written in the same font as it is on the trailer, linking the trailer to the magazine cover, it stands out because the letters are so spaced apart. Also the title itself 'Stalker' is an enigma, as the audience has no idea who the main image is of, were conventionally they would normally show the face of a character, mostly the protagonist, on our magazine cover we haven't gone with that and decided it adds mystery as well as menace to the character as the main title would suggest a threat exists and the curiosity of the audience would draw them in as they would want to learn more about the film and what it is about.

The Layout for the magazine is conventional, when compared with other magazine covers such as the Skyfall and Captain America's Empire Magazine covers. The layout consists of several pictures or articles surrounding a close up of a films main character, in the centre, there would also be bright colours as well as puffs and exciting language used such as 'exclusive', these puffs are conventional and would attract the reader to purchase the magazine, coverlines emphasise the theme of the magazine cover which in this case would be thrillers. The picture in the centre of the cover is unconventional compared to the other covers I have looked at as the background is dark and cloudy and there are several enigma's that could intrigue the audience. As a whole I believe that our magazine cover is conventional when compared to other covers, it generally doesn't change the main features you would expect to see and in a way it draws the audience further in as the unknown image and the effect of 'Stalker' adds fear to the cover but also intrigue.