Horror Fonts!

In this post I will be looking at different fonts that would be suitable to use in the horror genre. I found all my fonts on a website called Dafont.com where I can also download them onto my PC.

1)

In the font october crow, the letters appear as though someone has scratched them in using their nails. I think that this text would mostly suit a supernatural type horror, however it would also be effective when partnered with a slasha type horror as the lettering could represent panic and desperation.

2)

Nightmare is a very common font used within the horror genre, its slightly comical and so would suit horror comedys such as scarey movie. The letters of this font appear to be rough and slightly disfigured, this may suggest that the villain of the film is not human. I think that this font would mostly be effective in the colour red agains a dark background.

3)

Typewriter is a very mysterious font, its very plain and simple. The letters appear to be slightly faded, or as though they have been scratched out, this raises suspence and connects with the horror genre. This font is commonly used in realistic documentry slytle horrors such as paranormal activity.

Editing Eye Colours To Add Effect

In the horror genre most images are distorted or edited to add effect and appear 'scarey'. In this post you can see 2 photographs (before and after), the 2nd photo is a edited version of the 1st. I edited the image using effects found in photoshop.

BloodShed High Pitch

In order to understand and successfully apply recognizable conventions of a horror trailer, me and my partner Phoebe came up with ideas about how to market/ promote a new horror film called bloodShed High.
Overall I think the task was very successfulas I now have a clear understanding of how important it is to plan and explain when pitching an idea.
Throughout the task we made several decisions that positively effected the way our film would be marketed. We decided that the USP of our film would be that it realistically generates fear and asperations in order to reflect the hopes and fears of the people living in contempary London. We decided to go with a supernatural themed plot where the ghost of the girl comes back for revenge as it clearly represents the horror genre.
In our horror film we only have one known actress which is Shona McGarty, famous for her role of Whitney in Eastenders. We decided to introduce a group of new actresses to play the roles of all the other characters as we feel this would make it seem more realistic as we want our audience to truely believe that our character are normal school students living in London.

Appling The Conventions Of A Trailer To Bloodshed High!

After coming up with are final synopsis for 'Bloodshed High'we decided to begin planning the trailer by breaking down each scene in a story board, this can be seen below:

To make sure our 'Bloodshed High' trailer is good me and Phoebe added lots of recognisable conventions to help the audience understand what our film is about. Below I have listed some of these conventions:

• The trailer previews the best parts of the film - the initial murder, the revenge killings.
• The audience is introduced to the main characters, and the background of the protagonist
• The soundtrack is urban and helps the audience establish the fact that the films set in London
• The narrative of the film is not in chronological order, we picked out the scenes which have the most impact to generate excitment from the audience.
• The pace at the beginning of the trailer is slow as we wanted to make sure the audience understands the background of the film, however after Shauna is killed the mood changes and the pace increases dramatically
• The trailer ends at a climax and doesnt show the resolution, this grabs the audiences attention and generates mystery.
• The name of our film 'Bloodshed High' will be shown at the end of the trailer, this is because its the last thing the audience will see, and so the name will stick in their head

'Bloodshed High' Planning

Today in media me and my partner Phoebe were given a task to help us apply the conventions of a trailer, to do this we had to come up with a setting, synopsis, USP & character list for a horror film with the name 'Bloodshed High'.
Below is an image of are initial plans:

Below you can see are final decisions!

Synopsis:

Setting & USP:

Characters:

Analysing Horror Film Posters!

To gain more of an understanding into the features and conventions of a horror film poster I created a presentation and analysed 5 posters from well known horror films. Below you can view the presentation:

I found my analysis of the horror film posters very valuable, I was able to gain an understanding of what makes a good horror movie poster. Below I have listed some of my findings:

• The colour schemes of all the posters are black, white and red. These colours are very dark, and this corresponds with most story lines within the horror genre. The colour red was used to emphasize key pieces of information, e.g. the name or release date of the film. Red text is famously used within the horror genre and is a negative connotation of blood/death.
• Most of the images on the poster are black and white, this makes them very dark and mysterious. The black and white images are one of the main conventions of horror film poster and therefore the viewer is easily able to identify the genre of the film.
• In almost all of the posters the image was a picture of the villain, this is another convention of horror posters. Showing the audience an image of the villain generates lots of mystery and interest towards the film, which encourages them to find out more and pay to see the film.

Conventions Of A Trailer!

Below I have listed some recognisable coventions of a trailer:

• They highlight the 'best bits' & most important parts of the film, these parts are normally very funny, very sad, action packed or mysterious.
• The narrative story is not shown in chronological order
• The stars of the films are showcased
• Visual images flash on the screen just long enough for our minds to process what they are
• Conversations between characters are short, usually just one line each
• The action in interspersed with credits on the screen
• Voice overs tell the story of the film and give credit information
• Voices and lines from characters in the film are sometimes used in the place of a voiceover
• Music and sound effects play an important role, they create atmosphere and emphasize the mood
• The trailers build up to a climax, where they then end
• The resolution of the film is never shown, this leaves the audience wanting to know more

Film trailer analysis

This post shows my analysis of a film trailer!
The film trailer I decided to analyse was the 'Orphan'. The Orphan is one of my favorite films and is also within the horror genre, this is why I picked it.
Below you can watch the full trailer!



One of the first things I looked at after watching the trailer was its pace and tempo, I noticed the following pattern - at the begining the pace was slow and calm, however a discovery is made by one of the characters and from that point onwards the pace increases dramaticly! The pace of the trailer then continues to increase until the end,when it suddenly slows down again on the last 2 shots. The effects of this on the audience are incredible, by the end of the trailer we are left sitting on the end of our seets wanting to know more about what happens.  

I decided that the best way to analyse my trailer further in a detailed way was by making a presentation, which can be seen below:

Sound

I will now look at the sound of the trailer. Using a website called soundcloud I extracted the sound from the trailer so you can listen below:



Listening to the trailer without watching it was very interesting. Even though I was not seeing anything I still reacted to what I was hearing and found it interesting. This made me realise how important sound was in a trailer.
Unlike most trailers 'Orphan' does not have a voiceover - instead it uses dialog from characters in different shots to help explain the story. This is very effective in this trailer, and it helps the audience develop an emotional conection with the characters which will encourage them to go and watch the film.

Text

The text used in the trailer is also very effective in regards to explaining the story, in the slideshow below you can see that the 4 text shots alone give us information about the story line and generate a lot of mystery.

Orphan Trailer Text

Below I have looked at how the 'Orphan' trailer expresses its genre - horror!

Analysis Of A Film Poster

This post shows my initial analysis of a film poster! I chose to look at the Transformers 3 poster as its recent, unique and one of my favorite films. Transformer 3 is part of a trilogy, & 'Transformers' has now become a massive franchise. The image below shows how I have broken down all the features of the film poster & looked at their purposes.

Unique Selling Points Of Films.

Below is a presentation I made using the programme Prezi. In the presentation I have looked at the unique selling points (USP's) of 3 films from different genres.

USP - Unique Selling Points Of Movies on Prezi

Sub Genres

Most horror films are seen as part of one genre even though most can aslo be placed under another genre - we call these sub-genres.
Below I have created a presentation showing examples of horror films and their sub-gebres:

Initial Trailer Discussion

To begin our investigation into film trailers we looked at the purposes & intentions of them, also we looked into what effect a good film trailer should have on its viewer. Below is a presentation I made using prezi, it summerises my initial thoughts on these subject.

What It Distribution

In the slideshow below I have looked at distribution withing the film business:

Ditrabution

View more presentations from kaliopinicole.

Marketing Films

I made a spider diagram listing the different ways films are marketed, this can be seen below:

Blog Analysis!

The photograph below is of a chart we did in class, it shows an analysis of 5 blogs, I looked at their individual features and decided how effective they are.

• The first blog I looked at was The film geek,
• The second blog I looked at was Nessasary horror blog
• I also looked at Im1music 
• Then I looked at concrete loop 
• Finally I looked at Horror movie

Video Analysis

In class, we'v just finished making are meeting videos. I enjoyed making the video as it gave me a chance to experiment with shot types and also understand how to use the technology involved.
Underneath I have listed some positive things about my video;

Now I will list some improvements that could be made to the video: