Developed Trailer Idea's Brainstorm:

Since coming up with our idea of a murderous clown, we have developed our ideas further and changed things accordingly to events occurring in reality. 

Firstly, the clown. Worldwide being explained on the news, 'Killer Clowns' have been frightening people at night and in random places. Police have said that if they catch anyone dressed as a clown there will be consequences...

This leaves myself and the rest of my group stuck, we have spent so much time researching clowns and how we can present it in our horror trailer. We have decided to use just a clown mask instead of the whole outfit. This will make it easier to take off and look normal when walking around villages and towns. We will also only show the clown in quite areas where there are no people about, this will make it easier to take off when necessary and not scare any members of the public.

We have decided to use a mask like this, it still appears alarming due to the sharp teeth, long jaw, colours and eyebrow raise. We just feel that using a mask will be more appropriate due to whats been occurring recently worldwide. Katy will be able to remove the mask when needed and put in a bag when walking to and from different locations. We are still going to use the balloon as a prop as it conforms to the idea of the clown and we still want it to look like its luring in children to its evil presence. A lot of filming with the clown will be done on private land, including our gardens as we don't want to scare the public. However, we still want to use parks as they connote to the genre. This is why we are only using a mask as it will be much easier to change Katy's appearance quickly. 

CHANGING CHARACTERS????

Originally, we had three antagonists (Katy the clown and Mae and Chloe the bullies) and one protagonist/vulnerable character (Nadiye the victim). However, we have changed our idea to having one protagonist and all three victims. It will look much more real and interesting not appearing to cliche to the horror genre. We want all three characters to look innocent/vulnerable with one aggressive violent antagonist. 

LOCATIONS???

We are still going to use parks, train tracks and houses for the locations however, we are going to try and use some private land to so we don't have to worry about using the mask and scaring members of the public.

Trailer Titles Analysed-

The title for the film 'IT' is displayed in block capitals with the colour red. The colour red connotes blood, murder, danger and fire. This if effective when demonstrating a murderous clown film as it explains to the audience the type of themes presented and storyline thoughts. The title is 'IT', the short and catchy title is successful when drawing in the audience as it immediately refers to something. The use of 'IT' also describes something unusual and not human as it would be considered rude to address a person as 'IT'. I feel it makes me think of a creature and something not normal. The title refers to the clown which is why it's called 'IT'. I feel its appropriate as it makes the audience wonder what it is and why it works effectively. The title also isn't cliché, it doesn't immediately scream a clown film as it doesn't use the noun 'Clown'. If viewers hadn't heard of the film they wouldn't know it's about a clown or conforming to the horror genre. I like the title 'IT' as it's engaging and catchy, it isn't really long and forgettable. Many trailers you watch you think, "What was it called again?", however, having such a short and meaningful title it will be recognised far more than anything else. 

Another film based around the idea of a murderous clown is 'Amusement'. I feel the name of the film is successful as normal clowns are usually made for entertainment in circuses. However, in horror films clowns are presented as murderous and extremely frightening. The font for the title 'Amusement' looks as if it has been scratched into something, the sharp lines and crosses in the letters imply something sharp and dangerous(Knife/slasher). The black background and black font connotes death, murder, violence and aggression. This is effective when portraying the horror genre as they are all connotations included in a horror film. The title looks like it may have been a board at a circus, luring in people and children to visit the clown, in reality it would be something funny and entertaining, although, in a horror film it would be eerie and frightening. I feel the title is successful as it's short and catchy, it also implies something positive, however, the colours, style and connotations suggest something negative and alarming. 

Another film portraying a clown is 'Poltergeist'. A poltergeist is a ghost or supernatural being responsible for physical disturbances including loud noises and moving objects. The tile is shown in block capitals so it looks engaging and eye catching. The colour white which the shine on the letters also looks appropriate and successful when luring in audiences. The title 'Poltergeist', I feel it is appropriate for this type of film as the noun automatically describes supernatural ideas and mysterious scenes. There are many films and series programmes with similar titles which makes it less original and unique. It also doesn't make you think particularly of a clown as you think more about ghosts and spirits. I also like the title 'Poltergeist' as it explains the type of things included in the film, however, it doesn't immediately make you think of clowns which is why I prefer the other titles. 

Institution Research-

There are many different institutions such as Paramount, Colombian, Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, Lions Gate and 20th Century Fox.

1) Paramount:

Films created by Paramount pictures include Lara Croft, Rugrats Go Wild, School Of Rock, Mean Girls, Titanic, Transformers, Shrek, Indiana Jones, Mission: Impossible, Forest Gump, Iron Man, War of worlds, World War Z, Star Trek, Psycho and many many more.

Paramount is a film studio, television company and motion picture distributer. Ranked as the "Big Six" studio in Hollywood. 2012 was its 100th year in show business. Founded in 1912, it is the fifth oldest surviving film company. One of the most successful film production companies in the world!

The Paramount logo is a Long shot of a mountain with a ring of stars around it. Paramount is presented on top of the mountain in fancy writing. The are nice pinky purple colours which help the institution stand out more. The mountain connotes adventure and explore as they are a cliche for action and thriller film. The twenty-four stars represent the twenty-four contracted movie stars that paramount had at the time.

2)Colombian:

Columbia film productions is an American film production and a studio of 'Sony pictures motion picture group'. One of the largest film productions in the world. Also a member of the "Big Six". Originally founded in 1918 but released its first film in August 1922. At first it was a small production in Hollywood but became much more well known in the late 1920's. 5th largest film production.

Films including The Smurfs, Stuart Little, Spider Man, Ghostbusters, 21 Jump Street, 2012, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Anatomy, Fright Night, Revenge and Murder By Death. The title presents a women holding a flag and torch which signifies The Statue of Liberty. This could be to show power and peace.

3)Walt Disney:

Walt Disney is an American film production company and is owned by The Walt Disney Company.  Also classifies as one of Hollywoods "Big Six" film studios. Founded in 1923, by the man himself Walt Disney. Disney produces a series of short animatic stories which then became huge sensations all over the world.

Disney films are usually made for young children and families, however if you start of watching them as a young child you will always watch the new popular Disney movie.

The Disney movies created include The Little Mermaid, Aladdin,  Finding Nemo, Cars, Maleficent, Mulan, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Monsters Inc, Up, Lilo & Stitch, Alice In Wonderland and the most recent, and hugely popular Frozen.

4)Warner Brothers:

Warner Brothers is an American entertainment company that produces film, television and music. One of the many major film studios whose headquarters is in Burbank, California. Founders= Albert, Harry, Sam and Jack Warner 1903.  First creation in 1927.
Creating super successful films such as the Harry Potter series, Inception, Dark Night, The Hangover and Superman. These films are popular all around the world and are made with a huge budget.
Warner Brothers is the biggest film industry making them the most successful in film business.

5)Lions Gate:

Lions Gate is a Canadian-American entertainment company. Formed on July 3rd 1997 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.
From November 2013 it's the most commercially  successful mini major film and television company in North America and seventh most profitable company.
Films including the hugely successful Hunger Games, Saw, Abduction, Kick-Ass, American Psycho and Charlie St. Cloud.


6)20th Century Fox:

20th Century Fox is an American film studio and is one of the six major American film studios, located in Los Angeles west of Beverly Hills.
Founded May 31st 1935 by Joseph M. Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck.
Distributed some famous films such as first two Star Wars, Ice Age, Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, Maze Runner, Home Alone, Planet Of The Apes, Night At The Museum, Taken, Power Rangers, Die Hard and Avatar.
Member of the Motion Picture Association Of America and celebrated its 80th anniversary as a studio in 2015.

Character Interviews:

 

Before starting filming, we decided to have some pre recordings of our idea's and interests towards our trailer. By doing this we are able to cooperate with each other and listen to everyone's different concepts.

The first video is of our antagonist Katy, she explains who her character is and what its purposes are. She states "With the intention to hurt them" which demonstrates the horror genre and how the character uses violence and aggression. Her costume will be dark and eerie colours which helps with the mysterious effect. Lastly, she explains that the target audience is appropriate, around our age group as it attracts our types of personalities and interests.  

Myself, the second video also answers the same type of questions. She explains how her character is about to get her "comeuppance" which suggests the antagonist is out to get her and that she becomes the vulnerable frightened character. I tell the audience that I am going to wear "simplistic clothing" to help me look like a normal stereotypical teenager. I state that I like our film genre as horror's are one of my favourite films and i'm looking forward to re creating something with a tense and suspicious atmosphere. 

Nadiye, a protagonist like myself describes herself as a "quiet and shy"character who appears vulnerable and a perfect attraction to a killer clown. She also demonstrates what she will be wearing including "Jeans and a top" as she wants to appear normal and not a threat. Lastly Nadiye tells the audience that she likes how the film relates to our age group and we are able to connect with the ideas thoroughly. 

Planning Targets

For you to achieve your target grade or higher for your research and planning you need to evidence much more in detail planning. You are showcasing your journey towards production and every stage of the journey should be documented.

Trailers which inspired us-

Here are some of the trailers in which inspired us to create a trailer using a clown like figure. The main film which related to our idea is 'IT', we feel it has the most effective scenes and use of MES appropriately.
However, we decided to change many ideas as we didn't want to look as if we were copying Tommy Wallace's film completely. This includes a different use of colour in the outfit, different colour wig and more realistic locations. We got a lot of inspiration from IT requiring the different scenes and story lines. We feel a horror film would work best using a clown when luring in children and demonstrating gore and fright. We really like the idea of using a balloon as the only prop to help show the characteristics but also look appealing to children. Young children would be attracted to the ballon and lean towards it, however, they would be in for a shock when seeing what was holding it. As 'IT' is so popular and well known we thought it would have many different ideas for inspiration enabling us to create a successful product.

The film 'Hello Bingo' was found online. They also use a clown to create the horror film. We got inspiration from the film by using original colours and props. In the film he uses a baseball bat to attack people, however, we would rather use props to lure in characters not scare them immediately. 'Hello Bingo' shows aggressive and violent scenes of attack, however in our trailer we want to make our clown look suspicious, eerie and extremely frightening due to the mise en scene, camera shots, sounds and editing. We feel our product will be most successful by doing this.

The trailer for stitches came across as too amateur and comedic for our ideas and what we want to achieve. However we got different ideas of how we can target children as they are the vulnerable and innocent age group in which we want to portray in our trailer. They also film a lot in at night which helps create a tense atmosphere. We will try and film at night as it conform to the horror genre and will look very appropriate when introducing the clowns presence.

We got a variety of different ideas and inspiration from these trailers as they all have a similar connection to what our trailer intends to be. The use of a clown can appear extremely frightening and mysterious which is why we feel it would be successful for our horror trailer. After researching these trailers our costume, sound, location, lighting etc ideas have become much stronger developed.

Green Screen...Yes? Or No?

For our trailer, we had the idea of creating a news report scene whereby,  one of our actors would inform the audience of the storyline (Clown). Since Last year we have become much more comfortable when using Adobe Premiere which entitles us to edit our trailer successfully and hopefully produce the best outcome. The green screen would be useful when creating the news report as it would allow us to place different imagery in the background and storylines running along the bottom of the screen. This would make our trailer come across as much more reliable, interesting and tense. 

If we use the green screen, we want to make it look like a news room studio. This will make the audience feel much more on edge as well as looking real and engaging. We will use Adobe Premiere elements as it allows us to play around with different types of backgrounds and get the perfect result. Myself, and others have already had a trial at this editing technique requiring us to use the crop tool, rotate tool, decrease and enlarger tool to get the ideal fit. 

For Mise en scene, the location for a news report is in a studio which is why we edit the background. The dress code is particularly formal which includes suits, ties, dresses and blazers. We thought using our teacher would be effective as he is older, more serious and dressed appropriately. The news is very important as it informs viewers of the events occurring all around the world, this implies it's a very serious subject whereby the presenter must appear authoritative and formal.The correct lighting is also inevitable when editing the background and making the report look real and significant. 

We used a fairly close up shot as we want the actor to stand out among the edited background we place over the green screen. It also appears more serious when its close up as audiences connect with the character more than if he was far away (long shot). 

We planned a script for our actor as we wanted it to be quite 'short and snappy' to emphasise the storyline as well as grab the audience attention.  We wanted to include where the source was from (MET Police), location and the main character in which our trailer is based upon. When recording our actor changed the lines slightly to make it shorter and more sufficient. However, I feel it is successful when drawing in the viewers and explaining the events which occur in our trailer. 

Costume Research-

For costumes, we have mildly decided what we will all wear to make the trailer appear as realistic and representative of the horror genre as possible.

For our clown costume, we have decided to edge away from the stereotypical outfit including the orange, yellow and red tones as we feel it would look too cliche and we don't want to copy our inspirational trailers. We thought the black and white diamond shape costume would work best as the black connotes death, sinister and scare. The red buttons and wig will work well when helping the red balloon stand out. It will also emphasis on the red balloon which we have decided to use in our title. We also want to get a mask, as we feel it will make the appearance look even more scary and hide the identity of our antagonist. I like the black and white costume as it's original and different to the type's of clown films which have come out recently and in the past. For example in 'IT' the clown is wearing a yellow jumpsuit with orange and red frills/buttons. This is too normal and we feel the clown wont appear scary enough in these bright colours. The only prop the clown will have is a balloon to lure in children, we feel a knife or gun would be to cliche and immediately show he wants to kill the victims.

For our protagonist we want her to be dressed in brighter colours ephasising on her innocence and vulnerability. We feel something like the image I have placed on the left would be suitable for her outfit as the lightly coloured jeans and top help subvert from the horror genre and make it overall more exciting. Nadiye is our protagonist, we want her to look unsafe and unprotected enabling the audience to sympathies with her. This will also help as she will be given prevalence, making the audience relate and connect with her the most. Warm bright colours suggest a positive mood and meaning which is effective in a horror film as it questions audiences about the storyline and makes them feel slightly confused. If we were to use cool dull colours the protagonist would look far more negative and scary which is what we want to avoid. Her outfit will immediatly reference her as innocent and the main subject as the other characters are either wearing costumes or dark black colours.

For our two bully characters, we feel a whole black outfit will be the most effective when conforming to the horror genre. The dark colours connote death, murder and misery which is what we want to convey in our trailer. We want the viewers and audience to understand who the bullies are and we feel by using dark colours they will immediately understand. The outfit choice will also look as if they are teaming up with the clown, however, due to the name of the trailer it's not quite what it seems.

Audience And Certificate Research-

Every film, whether it's a child's fairy film or a gory horror has a labelled certificate. These certificates include U, PG, 12, 15 and 18. The certificate is there as some scenes aren't suitable for the younger ages as well as having a target audience.

The target audience for our film is a 15, this is due to the story line, plot and characters. We also feel our film will attract this age group as it's not massively scary, violent and aggressive. 

A 15 certificate is aimed at ages 15+, this is due to the types of conventions, story lines and characters which are presented in the film. We believe a clown film would be rated a 15 as we don't intend to use massive amounts of blood and gore. A 15 must not display discriminatory language, however, there may be racist and homophobic themes used throughout the films. There may be drug use, however the film would not promote drugs or show scenes of highly dangerous drug misuse. Scenes including suicide, self-harming and hanging would not be shown in too much detail or effect the viewers. Strong language is permitted, however, depending on the context and person using it. Nudity, and sexual activity will be shown however in little detail. Strong threat and horror will be demonstrated throughout, although, sadistic and sexual threat will not be displayed. Violence may be strong but should not exaggerate on the pain or injury, the strongest gory images are unacceptable and sadistic violence wont be shown. 

Orphan, The Grudge 2 and Scream 4 are all examples of films certificated 15. All the films include fair amounts of gore as well as unnatural possessions. 

Actors And Props-

For our trailer, we all have an acting role whether it's a main character or someone in the background of scenes.

ACTORS:
Katy- The Clown. We decided that Katy should play The Clown as she was the only one who  volunteered to do so as well as being tall. We want the clown to wear a black and white jumpsuit subverting to the ordinary costume of a clown which includes red, orange and yellow tones. We will also be purchasing a mask to cover Katy's face so it appears far more scary. We chose The Clown idea as we have had many inspirations including the 1990 film 'IT'. We want to put a bit of a spin on it though, this is why we are using different colours for the costume including a mask.
Nadiye- The endangered victim who gets bullied by the two other characters. We chose Nadiye as she is the smallest and most vulnerable. The Clown becomes her friend whereby it gets revenge on the two bullies. We will begin to see Nadiye acting fairly weird and suspicious due to interacting with a 'Psycho' and 'Possessed' character.
Mae(Me)- One of the bullies who targets Nadiye and gets her comeuppance when she comes in contact with The Clown. We chose Mae for the bully as the two main leads had been taken and we needed two characters to portray the bullies. I will be dressed in dark colours to conform to the horror genre.
Chloe- The other bully who targets Nadiye, also getting her comeuppance. We chose Chloe as the two main leads had been taken and we needed two characters to portray the bullies. Chloe will be dressed in dark colours to conform to the horror genre.

PROPS:

The main prop we have for our trailer is the red balloon which is found in the title of our trailer as well as in the clowns hands at all time. We feel this balloon will be successful in positioning the audience to understand the clown is luring in children. It's also something which you see many clowns have and helps make the trailer appear more real. Balloons usually have happy and joyful meanings, however, as its used in our horror trailer it gives a spooky and mysterious effect. I will it will look really successful with the clown as when we are panning the camera and suddenly the clown is there, the balloon will give a much freakier effect.


We may also include a doorbell shot, this will be effective when showing the bullies are home alone and they get a mysterious nock at the door. It will create a tense atmosphere and position the audience to feel slightly uneasy. This isn't completely agreed on yet, although I believe it would be quite successful when portraying the bullies as frightened and overall making the film appear scarier. Many horror films include the unexplainable nock at the door whereby none knows who it is, I feel we could recreate this at our advantage.