The Kid Official Trailer

EVALUATION OF TRAILER: DIRECTORS COMMENTARY

Director’s commentary notes.

At the beginning of my trailer I have used a green screen rating card image as this is a convention that appears on almost every trailer that I have researched and I feel it gives it a professional look. Straight after this there is the establishing panning shot of the protagonist on holiday enjoying herself. You may notice that this footage appears to be blurry however I decided to add an effect overlay to make it appear like old footage due to the colour and blurriness. I feel this works well as a convention of thrillers is to start with a happy equilibrium, which I feel this shot achieves, especially with the summer music that I have added. This quickly changes with the voiceover of the protagonist speaking and the disruption of abrupt spooky music with the blurry fuzzy shot. I feel this instantly hooks in the audience as the enigma of what has happened to this girl. I then added my own production company shot to show that I had created this myself with the ‘black asylum productions’, which also follows with the lionsgate production company introduction, I decided to use both of these as lions gate is well known and it promotes both the film and my company with them being on the trailer.

Both of the soundtracks that I chose for the trailer are now put together to make the intensity of the trailer much higher. I have also used a range of quick cut editing and montage editing here to show a quick amount of shots from a number of locations. I start the trailer with a shot of rocking swings with low key lighting and then this goes to the shots in the house with natural lighting when the story starts to be explained. I feel these contrasts of locations really meet the conventions of the thriller genre and also show the break in the equilibrium. I used the voiceover of the protagonist as she is a child and this is also represented through the innocence of her voice, which makes the scenes more chilling as they do not expect a little girl of such innocent to become so sinister.

The sound tracks I used were the Dead silence theme tune along with 'scary' iMovie sound track, I originally liked the iMovie soundtrack but knew this was to generic. After researching different potential scary/chilling setting soundtracks on youtube and from a number of trailers I used a few sounds over the top of the trailer to find out what sounded the best and in after trying 3 tracks I decided the best to use would be the dead silence theme tune with the scary iMovie track. This helped with genre conventions as the dead silence theme tune was consistent throughout and the scary theme tune varies throughout causing enigma and suspense which meets the genre conventions.

The close up images on the photos I felt would help with the audiences understanding of what was going on and the voice over again guides this for the audiences to walk into the narrative themselves. The use of props I decided upon here are limited however effective. The over the shoulder shot of the victim shows a balance of good vs evil as the victim is lying down whereas the villain is above her looking down on her with a knife which signifies power. As the protagonist is much smaller than the victim I felt this shot needed emphasis as it is obvious from here on in that the kid is in control of the situation. This is one of my longer shots as I decided to use an effect on the shot after two seconds as it goes from low-key lighting to a dreamy effect overlay, which is ironic as the victim is asleep. I also feel this shot allows the audience to grow closer to the villain as they get to clearly see her face, size and body language which becomes threatening and very serious leaving the audience gripped to see what happens next.

The mise-en-scence then changes to the woods, which has connotations for being a place of danger anyway. I decided here to go against typical conventions of a thriller and use natural lighting as I feel that the narrative is chilling enough without the whole trailer being dark. I have timed the voice over so that when the protagonist says ‘its all because of her’ the victim turns around.’ I feel this is effective as it shows exactly who the protagonist is talking about and enables the audience to start making sense of who she is, I then kept the diegetic sound of her screaming as I felt this was hugely effective and causes the audience to become tense with fear as to what is going to happen as this is a real scream not a fake one.  Similarly in the next shot when the villain is sharpening her knife I have left the diegetic sound to this obvious to make it realistic to the audience that these events are happening, The idea of this birds eye view shot was to get strauss theory of binary opposite’s of the young girls innocence into the scene via the mise-en-scene of her room and also the psyche side of her with the sharpening of a deadly weapon. Innocence vs evil.

I decided to add in a title with a quote from a magazine. This was me going against genre conventions as these are not often found in thriller trailers, normally just title pages. However due to the voice over I felt that title pages would make the storyline to obvious and boring with no enigma to it. This quote however, helps with the added enigma, as the audience will want to know why SBS thriller has said this.

After this the mise-en-scene is back in the child room but from a different low angle and a medium shot. This is when the music starts to get more intense and there is no voiceover needed at this moment of the trailer as it becomes obvious to the audience how disturbed this child is and the Maslows Hierarchy of needs start to come in with the need for safety and physiological needs of the audience and the character as they start to not only fear the protagonist but emphasize with her situation.

I decided to use a child as my main character as this is untypical of thriller conventions, however is often typical in horror conventions. The Orphanage is an example of a child horror film and i feel the use of a child makes it more gripping and intense as it is not expected that children are in control or dominant. 

The low angle shot of the victim in the car appears that someone is watching her adding to the atmosphere.

Diegetic sound of scream running through woods adds to all the non-diegetic sounds.

I faded out one of the tracks so that there was not to much not diegetic sounds, I decided to use a real life news voice over about a missing girl as I felt this made the impact of the storyline more realistic.

Close up of the protagonist shows clearly the victims face and this is the first time she is properly revealed. Her clothing and age shows innocence but her actions and body language show evil, strauss theory good v evil.

Close up of props – allows the audience to identify the realism of it.

Long shot of protagonist in a church yard with the quick cut editing to the close up of victim crying shows contrast of good vs evil again.

Use a range of montage shots leading up to the end and then put on a dreamy effect,

Used low key lighting to show contrast throughout the trailer.

Mostly close ups to leave enigma for the audience, used slow motion effect on the protagonist walking away.

Followed conventions by adding in the film title and when it is being released

EVALUATION OF TRAILER

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EVALUATION: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Media technolgieas from GEeegi

Evaluation: What have you learnt from audience feedback?

LISTEN TO MY FEEDBACK HERE 

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Helped me create a professional realistic product, which would appeal to my target demographic. Needed to make sure of this so that it could fit into the uses and gratification theory.

And meet Maslow’s hierchy of needs in ensuring that the specific needs of my target audience were met. 

I am confident that my products, poster, website and trailer all meet the needs of my target demographic due to the amount of audience feedback I have received and the changes and add on I have made regarding my feedback making my final product the best it could be.

I have received feedback in a variety of manors, using multimedia platforms, such as online questionnaire sites such as survey monkey and messaging my friends with improvements they may be able to suggest, which I found the least helpful out of all my feedback as the closed questions made it hard to understand what was needed for my website, however the information I did get helped with aspects such as the colour scheme and layouts.

Focus groups were used for coming up with ideas for my trailer and then sitting down and getting constructive critic of what needed changing, improving or what was great and should definitely stay the same. This helped me focus on the trailer as a whole and that I needed to go an take more shots so that there was variety and that there was different mise-en-scene, and also allowed me to focus on what I had already filmed and suggestions of how I could edit it better. And look at it in more detail.

I used social networking sites for my feedback as well and I felt this was very successful as people could comment on what they liked and improvements that could be made. And a lot of people participated in this, which greatly helped with what I could add, take away and change.  Therefore this was very effective as it quickly reached a larger scale of people than the previous focus group and surveys.

I also gained a lot of verbal feedback from my fellow peers in class and free periods as well as my teachers, and I found that this was the most helpful as it was more hands on and they could point out exactly what they meant which changes and what to add on. This was the easiest and most effective method as it was very quick and allowed me to gain feedback from people who were doing similar things to me as well as others who did not have any media experience, so this was all very helpful.

An example of where audience feedback helped me massively was the decision of what music to use on my trailer as I had two potential tracks which I could use and the one that I was swaying more towards actually ended up being the less popular one, and I took this into consideration as the audiences opinion is crucial in making the trailer a success.

 As well as this, from my verbal feedback I was given the suggestion to add to the top of my poster a sell line from a similar thriller film that is popular, following this comment I decided to add “from the creators of gone girl”.

The feedback overall helped me learn a conclusive round up of what my audience did or did not like and this was essential as I now feel that my final product meets the needs of my target demographic and also includes Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which is more appealing to a wider range of audiences. Therefore this feedback is highly valued as it has helped me build on my trailer, website and poster to make sure that they are the best they can be and also ensuring that they look professional as possible.

EVALUATION: In what ways does your media ancillary products use, develop or challenge the conventions of real media products?

EVALUATION: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Trailer product

Ancillary Task: Website Draft

http://georgiaagibbs7.wix.com/thekid

This is the link to the official website of 'The Kid' film. I decided to produce this as in modern day society, multi media productions are very important for promotion and advertising. I decided this would be a good idea as people can have all the information about the film in one place, including cast/crew list and information, information on the film, background of the film, the narrative outline as well as other medias including the trailer, video evidence and the film poster.

I decided to keep the website simple and not to busy as I felt this would take away from the genre as well as distracting/putting people off viewing the website. I kept a simple colour scheme of black, grey and red this goes into the three colour rule. These colours also reflect the genre well as red connotes danger and gore, black and grey connote death and mystery which are perfect for 'The Kid'. 

I done some research into movie websites, these were 'gone girl,' 'se7en' and 'Krampus' all of which helped me in ideas and producing my own website. It showed me conventions which every website have as well as colour schemes and ideas for the information to include. This was to maximise the appeal to the target demographic. 

Above is evidence of the website I have created to show I have used original images and ideas. However, after feedback on this home page I have changed the image to the official trailer as shown below, this is so that as soon as the website is opened the trailer commences hooking in the audience straight away. This sells the product and film immediately to the audience. However, I have kept the colour scheme for the background and the same headings.

Below is part of the home page and shows the development of the production taking place via photos. This is something that after feedback I have edited and changed to make it look more professional. A common question was "what are the dates supposed mean?" and this is not something I am capable of answering to all audiences and therefore I have changed and taken out the dates so there is no confusion. Also, the left hand photo does not flow with the other two images as it has a second person present taking away the focus on the main character so I have chosen an image much more similar to these two to add in. Below the images I felt that 'In the news' and 'Development' were not really for the homepage so I have changed this to the social networking links to reflect intertextuality as well as including two interviews from the director and the main character.  Evidence of this is shown below, showing the changes to the dates, images and links/ interviews. 

 

I have added some information about the trailer here to outline the narrative, genre, cast and release dates. This allows the audience to understand the narrative in more detail as well as receiving some more information on the film, release date and extra information around the film.

I decided to add direct links to cinema pages where people can buy tickets from with a map to show where the nearest empire/cineworld cinema may be.
Below I have put an option for audiences to place their email in to get updates about the website and film. 

ANCILLARY TASK: The product

This is was my first draft as to which I created using ideas from similar products identified in my previous research. I used an obscure text for the main title "The Kid" and also used this at the top and bottom to show continuity of colour and to identify the film as a continuous storyline. I also decided to use a new tag line that has not been used in my trailer, as this is a different product I wanted to present the audience with some change rather than the same ideas in all areas of promotion and the trailer itself. This tagline 'Just when you thought you were safe" is in a font which is very broad connoting the depth of the saying as it leaves the audience with enigma as to why are they not safe. I used an image direct from filming, and this image is actually from shots I decided not to include in my trailer. I feel this is effective as it shows that there may be more to the film than what is shown in the trailer and poster and it also identifies the protagonist in the correct manor too, as eerie and obscure. 

After feedback about this draft of my film poster, I realised I left some key conventions of a film poster out. This is the tagline which often appears at the top of a poster stating 'from the creators of...' I also was made aware that the white typography of the actresses names were in white which did not fit the colour scheme or typography flow, and therefore needed to be changed to show continuity and professionalism through the poster.

Following the feedback for the draft of my poster I made some changes and this is the improved version. 

You can see that I have added "from the creators of GONE GIRL" at the top of the page and I have used this film as it is a top seller which will attract a similar audience. It is also a thriller film which is a direct link to the promotion of the film "The Kid" as this is also a thriller. The typography I decided to use for this was the same as "The Kid" and 'Coming soon', this was to reflect the significance of the fact that it is from the same creators and to also show continuity. The red resembles the thriller genre and stands out much more than the white and grey colours used. 

I also changed the typography and colour of the names of the two main characters. This now is the same as the tagline and weblink, I felt this was appropriate as these are all important features of a poster but do not over rule the title, they also look more in place than they did in the previous colour of white.

The colour scheme I decided to use was rule of three, grey, red and white. These colours worked well in representing the eerie thriller genre as well as looking professional and causing enigma. 

The intertextuality if the website link I have put on the poster is to show that there is many multimedias involved in the production and promotion of the film showing it is of high market value. It also gives the audience more levels of access to stay connected to the film and go on a journey with it to the lead up to the release date. 

The extra information at the bottom in small white print is a convention typical of a film poster and I therefore included this to comply with the typical conventions. It is an important factor to include the name of producers, actors, directors, music, screenplay and much more. I have used a very basic font and very small print in white so that it does not divert the attention away from the main image and title.

RESEARCH: Thriller poster mood boards

Here I have put together a mood board of a range of thriller film posters. As well as my previous in depth analysis on 3 posters these have helped me to develop my own product. They have shown me the typical colours to use within the thriller genre are darker colours based around black, grey, red and browns. I have taken this into consideration and will use three colours red, black and grey.  

ANCILLARY TASK: Promotional movie poster

Poster analysis from GEeegi

I have done some research into the key codes and conventions of film posters in order to help me identify what I need to use for my own work. I looked at two thriller posters, Gone Girl and Inception as well as a horror poster, Halloween. I looked into two different genres as they are similar and I wanted to identify what I should not include in my own to stop it looking like a horror poster when it is actually a thriller.

I had some understanding of what to include in a poster before I done this research, however this has helped me be more sure of what to include such as low-key lighting, a range of colours and image placement. Further, from my research I have identified that over complicating the poster makes it more comical rather than scary/tense, wit this in mind I am not going to use to much and keep it simple so that it has a bigger impact and follows the genre better. 

A main concept that I am going to follow is the use of one protagonist so that the target audience can feel personal with the character and may connect with them in the film. Further, low key lighting and use of dark colours is something I intend to emphasis to make the thriller genre evident and more eerie. In terms of typogrpahy I will use the same as I intend to use in the trailer to show some intertextuality, and this will be in the colour red to reflect the connotations of scariness in the trailer. I will make the background and protagonist obvious to the audience and clearly linked to the trailer so that the audience can feel some connection to the narrative. I will also include a powerful tagline as following my research I feel this will help grasp the attention of the audience and impact them using Roloand Barthes enigma code. Overall this research has helped me in deciding upon the main outlines for the thriller genre and what to include in the poster.

Social Media

After researching into methods of distribution I decided that social media is one of the most effective methods of promoting and distributing anything. Therefore I believe it will be an effective way to hook in the target audience of "The Kid", and keep the audience posted with updates and information about the film/trailer.

I have made both a twitter and Facebook page for "The Kid" thriller film and this is so that it is interactive with both types of media as these are two of the main used social media sites worldwide. It is also a platform which is extremely easy to use and does not cost anything to use. 

Twitter

This is evidence of the twitter page which is in progress, you can see some information about it in the bio and that there has been a post which is an image of one of the actresses. This is helpful as people can see the updates instantly.

This is the link to the twitter account of the film: https://twitter.com/TheKidFilm

Other media

I have used a website to create a 'breaking news' picture of the 'victim' actress Ella. This will be shown in the trailer and has been promoted on twitter and Facebook accounts as a preview for the audience, also getting the 'victim' label identified is meeting Propps theory.

Facebook

This is evidence of the Facebook page that has been created in order to promote the trailer, you can see that there has been updates of some posts so far these will continue to be updated so that the target audience can stay connected.

This is the link to the Facebook page which people can 'like' and join in order to see updates and stay connected with the film: https://www.facebook.com/thekidthriller/

Diary Update

I am behind schedule asI am now on week 14. However I have managed to write two letters to the shopping centre and church that I want to film at and am waiting on a reply to make sure that this is okay. I have also put together a risk assessment which was important as I am using a 10 year old as my protagonist. This means her safety is paramount so this was a task that was very important. Furthermore, I have put together a shooting schedule along with a storyboard. This is the main step towards actually filming my trailer as it will help me as a guide with the shots, and action that I want to include in the filming. I have also added more detail below the storyboard as I could not include the depth of detail I wanted to on the original storyboard. After I created my storyboard I saw some links to narrative theories and this is important to acknowledge, so I made a powerpoint with the narratives I have included to make the links more obvious.

I will aim to start filming and create social media sites within the next two weeks.

Narratives and my storyboard from GEeegi

PLANNING: Storyboard

This is my storyboard for my trailer, it seems very erratic because it is not a short story. This is because I will use a lot of quick cut editing and jumping around from scene to scene therefore the storyboard at this moment does not flow properly, this is on purpose. I have done this as hopefully it will build an overall picture of the actual film and show a lot of scenes involved within the film itself. The arrow seen in 10 to 11 and 21 to 22 are because they are in the wrong places and should be the other way around. I choose to draw my storyboard rather than storyboard that as I felt it was more appropriate as storyboard that did not have some of the mise-en-scene that i needed so the storyboard would have been very inaccurate.

Scene 1: This first clip is purely introducing the production company I am going to use, which is one I have created “Black Asylum Productions.” I have chosen to do this as after researching trailers this is what happens at the start of everyone, therefore, this will make it look professional and will follow the trend of all modern day trailers. This will only last 2 seconds so that it can be identified, but is not there long enough to bore the audience.

Scene 2: This is going to be a very short shot; I am going to use an establishing shot using my protagonist and the abandoned location I am using. This will hopefully set the suspense of the trailer straight away, this will immediately have an overlay of non-diegetic music so that it is creepy and links to the genre. The edit to the next slide will be a flash cutting; this is very quick into the next shot with the non-diegetic music continuing.

Scene 3: This will be a quick shot again, lasting 3 seconds long. The protagonist will be on a swing and the shot I am going to use is a long shot which then zooms into a medium shot so that the audience can see the expression of the charcteter. The non-diegetic music will continue and make suspense build up more and this will flash cut into scene 4.

Scene 4:  This will last 2 seconds and is a close up of a new character, which is the victim, crying. The non-diegetic music will change to a slower pace for these few seconds. I will use a fade edit into scene 5 to keep the slow music on.

Scene 5: this is a medium shot of the protagonist revealing a knife in her hand. I will take this shot with natural low-key lighting so around 4 o’clock.  This will have a change in the non-diegetic music from the previous scene and will become more tense and creepy music, possibly using the gravity soundtrack. This will last around 3 seconds and then have an abrupt jump cut to the next scene.

Scene 6: This will have diegetic noise of the protagonist sharpening a knife but will also continue to have a tense non-diegetic music overlay. This shot will be an over the shoulder mid shot to show at the same level as the protagonist what she is doing. After these 6 seconds, I will use a flash cut into scene 7 to then up the tempo of the trailer again.

Scene 7: This will be a flash into a close up of the protagonist who’s facial expression is very creepy and looks evil. At this point the non-diegetic music will be becoming very tense to make this shot creepier than it already is. This shot clip of 2 seconds will follow into a fade cut to the next scene.

Scene 8: This will make the trailer feel like it has come to a breather, as it has been so fast paced. This will last around 4 seconds and has flashing typography saying “so captivating”, however this may change to different typography. This will then cross cut into scene 9.

Scene 9: The non-diegetic music track may change here, to a tenser tempo. This shot is a medium shot of the protagonist following someone. This shot will last 3 seconds and the closer the protagonist gets to the victim you can hear the diegetic noise of the footsteps. This will then a jump cut to the next scene.

(The arrow between 10 and 11 is to show they should be the other way around) Scene 10: This scene links to 11 so I will use a match cut to edit these scenes together. This scene lasts around 6 seconds as it has the only diegetic speech in the trailer. It will be an argument between the protagonist and her mum and will be a long shot zooming into a mid shot and will also have a quiet overlay of non-diegetic suspense music. Here I will use match cut edit for the next scene.

Scene 11: This follows on from scene 10, and shows the mother chasing after the protagonist this will be 3 seconds and a mid shot of the mum and a long shot of the protagonist walking away. This will then jump cut to scene 12 to keep the fast pace going.

Scene 12: This is a long shot of the protagonist standing in the middle of a road in low-key lighting. This will be 5 seconds long as the protagonist will turn around and look at the camera showing her possessed facial features. I will use a fade out edit to the next scene.

Scene 13: this is a shot of typography with non-diegetic sound, I will use the ‘slipnot- psychosocial’ sound track here and the typography will say “psychologically stimulating”, however this may change. This will then fade in the next shot.

Scene 14: this will be a 4/5 second clip of the protagonist showing her ‘powers’ in the abandoned barn. She will throw something, and this will be a mid shot showing both the protagonist and the creepy setting. This will have diegetic noise of the wind and the sound of the object ebing thrown. As well as this, it will also have overlay of the non-diegetic music to show the continuity throughout the trailer, keeping the suspense high.

Scene 15: The jump cut into this scene will add to the creepiness of the close up of the protagonists face and red eyes. The non-diegetic music is still continuing in this, but you can also hear the diegetic noise of the protagonist breathing. This shot will last 4 seconds so that the facial expression can have a lasting effect and will use a subliminal cut to the next slide so that the cut cannot even be seen.

Scene 16: This will last 3 seconds and is a bird’s eye view mid shot of the protagonist practicing stabbing a toy. This will have the continued non-diegetic music which will be increasingly tense and have  a quick cut edit into the next scene.

Scene 17: This will be a fast paced scene as I intend to ‘fast forward’ the clip to make it look like the victim is running a lot faster than she is. It will last around 3 seconds, and use a panning, close up shot of the victim running through a field, this will be natural lighting but on a dull day so that the atmosphere is still creepy but the victim can be identified properly. This will have very quick intense non-diegetic music overlaying it. Followed by a fade cut to the next scene.

Scene 18: this will be around 3 seconds and will be showing a news article on the TV of a missing girl, who is also the one that the protagonist has been following. This leaves enigma with the audience and shows a disruption in the equilibrium and there will be a diegetic noise of a scream followed by non-diegetic intense music. This will fade into the next scene.

Scene 19: This will last 4 seconds and is a basic mid shot of the protagonist and her mum hugging panning into a close up of the protagonists evil face in the natural indoor lighting so will be very clear. This will fade out to the next scene.

Scene 20: this will be another quote to break up the trailer into segments. It will have a typography scene saying “little beast” with non-diegetic music overlaying.

(Scene 21 and 22 are in the wrong order hence the arrow) scene 21: This will last 3 seconds and will show the victim tied up with tape on her mouth, this leads to diegetic noise of the victim struggling. This will be in the barn with low-key lighting to keep the suspense running. This will jump cut to the next scene.

Scene 22: this will last 3 seconds and it will have low key lighting due to filming at 3 o’clock. This will add to the tense atmosphere the trailer already has and will also have non-diegetic music continuation through this scene. This will be a medium shot of the protagonist and her surrounds and she will have the knife and blood on her hands.

Scene 23: This will fade in and show two silhouettes that can not be made out properly, this is due to the dark lighting. This leaves enigma with the audience as to who is laying down and who is standing up over powering the other person and what has happened. Further, this will be a long shot with non- diegetic music reaching its peak with tension. This will then jump cut into the final scene.

Scene 24: This is the final scene that shows the title “The Kid” which will be flashing typography. This will last 3 seconds so that the trailer remains fresh in the audiences mind but also so they remember the name of the film. It will have slow music to end the trailer.

This is not the set in stone plan for my trailer, however it is a plan i intend to stick to but some changes may possibly be made when I finally put the product together.