Website Comparisons

Alongside our trailer, we need to create a website that needs to be user friendly and attractive towards the audience so they may buy the film on DVD/watch it in the cinema. So here I have researched a few films that are similar to ours and compared the websites to each other to create an ideal website for our trailer.

Chernobyl Diaries

 In chernobyl diaries we see the image of the poster as the background. We see the nuclear symbol which was the symbol of the film and the trailer is placed next to this symbol. This is not the main website but the trailer plays automatically which means the audience does not need to find the trailer. Also the links to buy the DVD is right below the trailer which means that the audience can buy the DVD straight after watching the trailer if they're interested.

Here is the main website to the film where it has more images from the film with the menu of the links within the corner again linking to the nuclear scenario.

The Hills Have Eyes

Here we see the "Hills have eyes" website which first shows the trailer before going straight to the website. Again this is effective as it means the audience would automatically see the trailer without having to find it and is very user friendly. We go onto the main website which shows a different photo to the poster but still a significant picture from the film. Yet this website does not have social networking links as when the film was released (2006), social networks were not as popular as they are now.

Grave Encounters

This is the homepage to Grave Encounters. Unlike the other two websites, the trailer does not start automatically on either a start page or on the home page. Yet the link towards the trailer is found easily within the top right-hand side. The picture background used in the website is also used in the poster and so the film is more recognisable because the same image is used for both the website and the poster. The social networking links are at the top which makes it really easy to share the film within a click of a button. Also, if you click on "Available on VOD nationwide", you get a link to buy the film on DVD which again is easy for the audience as they can buy the DVD straight away. Yet this is not as user friendly as at first glance, the link does not look like a link.

Typeface Ideas 2

We chose 'Seedy Motel' as the font to use on our trailer, website and poster. It was an eroded looking font which is a convention of horror fonts and the stripes that run across it reminded me of the blinds found inside the Factory or bars which could signify being 'trapped'. 


After deciding on using the font 'Seedy Motel', I designed different ways in which the text would sit on the screen.

These 'Text Screens' will be shown inbetween certain clips. Shots like this can be seen in many films such as in 'Chernobyl Dairies for example:

I added blood splats to the title screen to add a more 'gore' to the appearance. This style is meant to appear as if the writing has been printed on one of the 'scratched' and 'damaged' walls inside the factory. The blood therefore shows that 'danger' is inside.

Shots like this will be shown in a montage in-between the clips to briefly divert the audience's attention otherwise too longer edit of clips may become repetitive. It also gives extra info on the film.

All of these images were edited in the same way before using photo software to create the 'old' and 'scratched' effect on the wall:

                                   

I also tried experimenting with different textures. Instead of having the font appearing as if its on a wall, I used an image of chequered steel plating to make it appear as if its on 'cold', 'sharp' metal. The 'sharp' and 'harsh' look of the metal conveys 'pain' and 'discomfort' to the audience:

These were also editied using the same software but instead of using plain colours for the background, an image of steel plating was used in its place:

Typeface Ideas 1

I created a basic image of the possible typefaces that we could use in our trailer, poster etc. I applied different effects and used conventions from other films (eroded colours and lettering) and applied them to the fonts.

'Plane Crash'

'MasterPlan'

'Old Press'

'Skyfall'

'Scorched Earth'

'Seedy Motel'

The Typeoface will appear on the Website, poster and trailer and therefore needs to relate to the conventions of a horror film and/or any conventions that are specific to our film.

To gain a perspective on how the typography will sit on the poster or in the trailer, I created a basic image of the word 'Klinger' in a variety of different fonts:

e.g:

I then inserted each of the images into a photo editor (Great PhotoPro; Everimaging Ltd.) and applied a number of different effects to create an 'eroded' and 'weathered' texture to make it appear it was printed on the side of one of the walls inside the factory:

By gradually applying the effects, I am rendering the image and adding tone to it. 

I can change the order of the effects or the effects themselves to create different colour variations and different depths of weathering and erosion.

Tag Lines Research

Tag Lines

Most movie posters have a tag line which is used to create a memorable phrase which people can relate to the film. A really good tagline will be become embedded in modern popular culture like "Be afraid. Be very afraid" from The Fly and also "A long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away..." from Star Wars.
We are researching horror movie tag lines to see what the most effective one are and also what makes them effective.

"Heads will roll..." Sleepy Hollow. This is a good tag line as it is simple and direct. It sums up the type of the movie it is, and give some definitive detail in what to expect from Sleepy Hollow e.g decapitation.

"Who will survive and what will be left of them?" Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This is an effective tagline as it uses a rhetorical question, which poses a question the viewer has to answer...by watching the film.

“On March 11, 2008 the government sealed off an apartment complex in Los Angeles. The residents were never seen again. No details. No witnesses. No evidence. Until now.” Quarantine. Quarantine is a similar film to ours with victims recording their story. Therefore looking at their poster and tagline will enable us to look at conventions of these types of films. This tagline is unusaly long and very detailed but this is to go with the theme it is a real life story. The short snappy sentences add tension to the tag line also adding drama.

"The rules are simple you break them, you die..." Carriers. This film tag line is simple and effective with a good use of ellipsis to let the viewers mind wander and ponder the film. Although it doesn't give an idea of the film plot so could belong to another film.

"Ten years again, the Ukrainian government let tourists visit the area surrounding Chernobyl. They said it was safe... it wasn't." Chernobyl Diaries. Like Quarantine this tagline plays on the idea the film is based in true events. It's very long so doesn't capture the audiences imagination although it does reinforce the "true story" idea. Again this film is similar to the genre of which we are filming and is a great tag line to take inspiration from.

"Fear is just a word. Reality is much worse." Grave Encounters 2. This tag line is effective due to the short snappy sentences which people can quote. The film is similar to ours in the way that it's based on a group of people filming themselves. However the tagline doesnt give much of the plot away and is quite vague.

In summary, we will have to create a short, snappy tagline which is relatable to our plot and genre of film.

Poster Ideas

 

After looking through various posters, we have concluded that the majority of the posters share certain features. One being that they show where the film is set or a setting from within the film, but they all focus on the victim and/or the villain.



The Grave Encounters posters shows one of the victims sitting in a corridor of the psychiatric hospital. The camera next to him shows that he is part of a film crew, therefore showing the audience why they have gone inside the hospital.
An outline of the villain can be seen in the background and the victim is looking away from it. The audience can see the villain but the victim cannot.












In the Paranormal Activity poster, it shows one of the bedrooms, where the majority of the film is set.
The Paranormal Activity 3 poster uses the same principal as Grave Encounters. It shows 2 of the victims and a faint shadow/outline of the villain. 
Again, the victim cannot see the villain but the audience can.












Our Poster will include a shot from either inside or outside the factory with the main focus being on one of the explorers/victims. They will be holding a camera to represent the cameraman to show why they have gone inside. 
A shot of a villain, either a shadow or a hand etc. will also be in the shot but the main aspect will be that the victim cannot see the villain.

Teaser Trailer Name

Trailer Name

 

• Our teaser trailer is of the horror/thriller genre and usually these have descriptive names that tend to reinforce the genre such as "Sinister", "The Exorcist", "Evil Dead", "The Possession" and "Physco". All of these films have relatively unambiguous names that suggest the genre and allow the audience to gauge whether they want to see the film.
• However some other films of the same genre have gone with the more ambiguous names to create enigma and to not conform to that obvious stereotype such as "Jack and Diane", "Carrie", "1408" and "Lovely Molly". These films link more directly to the film, not necessarily a description of what it includes.
• Inspired by films names such as "1408" we have tried to link our name to something directly in our film.
• Ideas we came up with were -Viral (suggesting the disease or chemicals that went viral), Warehouse (linking to where the trailer is being filmed) this is similar to The Factory. Another idea was to base it on the name of the actual factory where we would be filming this was Klinger. We liked this name the most as it was basic, ambiguous and linked majorly to the narrative and theme of our teaser trailer.
• We created a question on our survey to gauge public opinion of the four possible names and will post the results when the survey is completed. We want to see the public reaction to the names as ultimately they will be the ones seeing the film. 

The results are listed above to our poll we placed on the blog. The majority of those who answered the question preferred the name Klinger to any of those listed. Therefore after conferring as a group and taking into consideration the poll results we decided to name our trailer "Klinger". It's unique and creates different imagery for different people.

The Basics of Typography making

Here, I look at the basics of how to use typography effectively and what type of fonts would be best for our poster/website.

Serif

This font is mostly used for body copy in print documents as well as for body text and headlines online in news articles. There are a number of sub type fonts including Times New Roman. This is the most traditional type of font and wouldn't really link well with the message/theme of our trailer.

Sans-Serif

This font is a more modern version of serif created in the 18th century and tend to appear more in magazines and in some posters. They have a much plainer appearance compared to serif. This font was used in "The Pact" in bold and spaced apart and shows that you can use a very simple font like this and still make it look effective. You also see humanist fonts within this section and are the most popular when it comes to the body of a text paragraph in websites - this is because they're more calligraphic compared to other fonts and hence look more legible to read.

Script

Scripts are based upon handwriting and are common for very elegant and elevated designs. They are unsuitable for a bulk of text and don't tend to be used in titles for posters as they are not the most legible font.

Display

Display fonts tend to have the biggest amount of fonts available and also include the most variation. The main characteristic is that they're unsuitable for a bulk of text and are best used for headlines or other short pieces of text that needs attention drawn to it. They can show any type of mood which would be great for our film. This is the type of font we will use for our poster/website as the title & font would be one of the first points that the audience would look at and hence is really important to quickly show the mood of the film within a second.

Mood
The mood of a font is an important part of how it should be used. Commonly used moods include formal vs informal, modern vs classic/traditional and light vs dramatic. Some fonts have very distinct moods e.g. Times New Roman is always going to be a traditional font; hence why it's so commonly used for business. This is compared to other fonts which can convey almost any mood based on the content & other fonts they may be combined with.

BBC news reports through the years

For our news reports, I wanted to see the different graphics that were used throughout the years. Yet once I started researching all these different backgrounds, I realised that using graphics is a relatively new concept used in newsrooms today. BBC news on the television did not start until 1954 and from here we look at the different backgrounds used and how it has evolved from a plain background to a big bold and informative graphic.

BBC news started in 1954, before it used to just be a newsreel and a continuity speaker. Then, many of the news stories were for "entertainment purposes" and not for serious information. Here on the left we can see one of the first live news reports where the background was of the world and with a microphone in the corner of the picture. This shows shows how plain and original news reports were when they first began. On the right we see another news report shown in the 1960s, it may of not evolved much from the 1950s but the background of this news report is of the other workers within the department and we still see this today in some BBC news reports.

In the early seventies, news reports changed to where more pictures were shown while all the news reports were described by the newsreader. We can see the background of the news report would just be of a plain colour with the logo of "BBC news" showing within the background, this was one of the first graphics used during a news report. As we plan to say the Klinger factory closed within the late 70s to early 80s, this would be the best type of news background to do for our trailer. This is quite easy as it is just one colour and then a graphic of BBC news.

In the 80s, we begin to see more graphics shown within the news report with the logo of "BBC news" embedded into the studio instead of a graphic. The studio was made up of horizontal lines which co-ordinated with the logo of BBC news then in the 80s (shown above). This also paved way for pictures shown alongside the news reporter while he was reporting his story. Before, montages of pictures were shown while the news reporter was speaking about the story. If pictures were not superimposed within the report, it would either zoom into the reporter or show the logo. This is useful if we did not want to show an image along the reporter and instead show a montage of pictures. Throughout the 80s, we see the backgrounds of news reports change in terms of colour (to see what was visually attractive) and other backgrounds (i.e. background of the newsroom) but not much change when it came to graphics used during the news report.

It wasn't until the 90s where we started to see full graphic news reports. In April 1993, we saw the start of the BBC's virtual news studio which meant the majority of the visual aspects in the news report was computer generated. Even the filming of the news report was done by a remote control from a gallery within the newsroom and this meant there was a lot of flexibility when it came to the backdrop and layout of the news report.

Today we see more of a studio compared to a fully computer generated studio. This means it has the flexibility in showing big stories on a giant graphic screen but also being able to demonstrate on this platform as well. There was also the removal of the graphic beside the newsreader to make way instead for edited news footages after the report has been said. Graphics shown within 24 hour news channels (shown in a post before) are different to these daily news bulletins as they are only giving out a summary of the days' news compared to 24 hours, 7 days a week constantly of news.