Storyboard

Monday 20 February 2012

"Hush Hush" Trailer: Final Product



A young woman moves to a small town university where she encounters a figure from a past she thought had been forgotten.  As she attempts to escape the killer, the masked figure reveals her deadliest secret.  Will she make it out alive?

The Final Girl Theory

The "Final Girl" theory is focussed on the belief that a woman that commits no sin will survive a horror movie and defeat the villain.

This is evident in classic Horrors such as:

Halloween
Friday the 13th
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Scream
Final Destination
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Hellraiser
Alien
The Strangers
The Ring
The Grudge

Carol Clover, author of "Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film" suggests that in these films, the viewer begins by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experiences a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film.

However, Buffy Summers, the protagonist of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series, is an example of a character deliberately designed by creator Joss Whedon as a more empowering alternative to the "final girl" cliché. Jason Middleton observes that although she fulfills the role of the final girl in killing monsters night after night, she is the antithesis of Clover's definition of final girls as boyish, not sexually attractive, favoring "practical" clothing, not sexually active, and often having a unisex name. Buffy is a cheerleader, a "beautiful blond" with a normal sex life, with a name that, Middleton observes, could not be more feminine. Buffy is, in the words of Jes Battis, "subverting" the final girl trope of B-grade horror films. In Middleton's words, she gets to have sex with boys and still kill the monster.

Film Marketing

Traditional Marketing:

Word of mouth is the least expensive form of promotion.  The audience will grow in numbers and greater variety of gender and age with the public promoting it, as the public are more likely to recognise similarities in taste between their friends, family and associates and will be more likely to assume they will like the product because others have had positive opinions on them.

Contemporary Marketing:

Web 2.0 and social networking sites are also valuble, as they are only moderately expensive and acessable to many.  They are also useful for targeting a specific audience, such as teenagers who use the internet as a social tool.  Youtube and film sites are also ideal things to advertise on, and as films such as "Paranormal Activity" have demonstrated, an entire marketing campaign can be created online and be sucessful worldwide.

Past Advertising:

Time Restrictions:
Hitchcock developed a ‘time restriction’ at theatres that stopped the box office from selling tickets for ‘Psycho’ after the film had started. People were turned away if they were late.

Friday 10 February 2012

Editing And Sound: "Hush Hush"

After discussing the angles and content of the shots taken for the trailer and the desired pace and atmosphere with the group, we took into account the previous A2 trailers we were analysing and came to the conclusion that all of them contained:
- a chase scene

- a dragging scene

- darkness

- almost no dialogue at all

- fast cuts

We used these scene ideas for our trailer inbetween shots from the storyboard to tie the shots and music together.  It was decided that distorted music that changed pace was needed, with various loud bangs.  We were inspired by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre opening and combined extracts of that with a piece we found on youtube when looking for "Royalty Free Music" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwHs07xUSNc
 
 
An A2 trailer called "I See You" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMWxhksKoxQ that we were heavily inspired by also used the Texas Chainsaw Massacre music.  it further stressed the importance of editing to your chosen music, and using the sound to emphasise your scenes in a way that will draw the desired reaction from the audience. The timing of the shots is crucial to the effect of the trailer. 
 
By Using this site: http://www.youtube-mp3.org/ we were able to convert our music to an MP3 file by using the URL for the youtube video and begin the editing process using Adobe Premiere.

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Lighting: "Hush Hush"

The only shots that included a lot of natural light were the establishing shots and the shot introducing the final girl. 

The others required either a dimly lit setting (blinds pulled down over windows) or the L.E.D light in the dark room during the scenes of the dead bodies.

Artificial lighting played a large part in our trailer as we followed the idea that "what is not seen is scarier than what is seen" and wanted to control what remained hidden and what was focussed on. 

The dim lighting also created an atmosphere that accompanied the narrative and pace of the trailer.

Tuesday 7 February 2012

Locations: "Hush Hush"

There are many different locations used in shooting the trailer, varying constantly according to when the area is free and the lighting available.  All shots were filmed within the college, due to the acessability and a variety of rooms within the college.  Also, it allows us to literally show a familial setting in a different light, to affect the audience.  Furthermore, the college allowed us to portray a similar university setup, with corridors and learning facilities.




List of locations in the college used for the trailer:



Establishing shot of the college gives the audience an idea of the location of where the film is set.



College halls - Some scenes within the college hallways, however we discarded the scenes due to them being too light.



College Kitchen - Took shots of the killer picking up the knife.



Classrooms - Shots were taken within class rooms with both killer and final girl.



Media Studio - The shots of the two girls dead were shot in this studio, and some shots of the killer were also shot here.

First Day Of Filming


Although the setting caused the shots taken on this day to be useless to our trailer as it was too confined and the daylight created the wrong atmosphere, it provided us with experience with the camera and prepared us for complications with actors, angles, setting, mis en scene and lighting.
It also forced us to plan our shots, timings and settings more carefully and reminded us to be consistant with these things also, as the light will change according to the time of day and the actor will not wear the same/similar clothing all the time, so we need to inform them of when we plan to shoot.
We also needed to work around other lessons and divide our spare time accordingly, therefore we devised a schedule.
By comapring lesson timetables we decided to film when we all had free lessons or when two of us had them at the same time, then we would share the footage with the 3rd group member and all contribute to the editing and sound.