Final Ideas For Own Video

Camera Angles;

I want to use a wide range of shots in order to make the trailer look more dynamic, instead of a standard long shot throughout the whole sequence. This will be addressed by altering the height, tilt, pan and angle of the camera once on the tripod. The more interesting the trailer appears, the more likely your audience would want to see it in the cinema.

1. Long Shot - This will be used for pan and establishing shots, which set the scene and location of the film. It will also be used as for long distance running scenes where the camera needs to get the whole of the protagonist in the frame as well as the movement that person makes.
2. High Angled Shot - This shot would be used for making the protagonist appear small and helpless, this type of shot can be used in either a build up or action sequence.
3. Low Angled Shot - This should would be used for making the antagonist appear more powerful and dominant. This shot would be used towards the end of a trail or an action sequence.
4. Medium Close Up - This shot would be used for when we want to see a bit more emotion on the protagonist's face, as well as seeing their neck and shoulders, so the audience would be able to see the situation they were in.
5. Extreme Long Shot - This shot will be used for clips that will be shot a long distance away from the character involved. These shots show the character in a large area of space, often used for putting people into perspective.
6. Close Up - This shot would be used for showing detail in an object or location, as well as being used for showing emotion on a character's face, if needed.

Editing;

For the editing of the film trailer I want to use a selection of editing techniques that will fit the footage to the conventions of a horror movie trailer. This will include transitions, types of cuts and the layout of the footage.

1. Blunt Cut - This editing cut will be used for faster action clips in the trailer when the drama reaches it's highest point, due to cuts needing to be short and quick in order to fit in time with background music.
2. Jump Cut - This cut can be used to shorten long passages of footage by taking sections a few seconds long (anything between 1 - 3 seconds) out of it, whilst keeping it in chronological order. If you are able to fit it to beats in the music, the audience will see it was invisible editing and the music emphasizes the jump/change of position of the footage.
3. Fade to Black - This transition will be used at the start and ending of slower clips in the trailer, often placed on establishing shots and captions. It builds up the scene gradually instead of it just flashing it up from black, which gives the impression of slower movement and less suspense. Perfect for the beginning of the film trailer.
4. Flash to Black - This will be used in captions and in areas of greater suspense in the trailer. By flashing a to a black background for a fraction of a second gives the impression of a light going out, which in some cases people find very scary. This is why this is a convention that I will be utilizing within the film trailer project.

Mise-en-Scene;

The Mise-en-Scene of the ideal shots were based upon tried and tested methods that had been done before in horror movies, of which will be transformed and adapted to this film trailer project.

1. Composition - The composition of the shots used will be kept the best of our ability to stick to the rule of thirds, so that the most important parts are placed either on a line or where two lines cross over. This will be done so that the audience can concentrate on the parts of the trailer we want them to focus on, as your eyes don't focus directly at the middle of a page. Other fundamental techniques will be used in the composition such as where the horizon falls, how much sky there is in the shot, and whether or not actors and ideal natural surrounding fit in the frame correctly.
2. Props - There will be limited amount of props being used as they aren't that necessary for the parts of the trailer we intend to film. This is because we want to show body movement, body language and emotions which limits the amount of props we need. The props that we will be using in the trailer are a mobile phone that belongs to the protagonist, a knife as a potential murder weapon and two white theatre masks that will be the defining look for the antagonists in our trailer.
3. Actors - There will be three casted actors in the trailer - one male, two female - who will play a character each. We want a female protagonist and one male and one female antagonist as the characters in the trailer.
4. Costumes - For the costumes in the trailer we decided on straight away that all the actors were going to be dressed in casual clothes. This is because the protagonist will be taken by surprise therefore will still be dressed in her casual clothes. We want the antagonists to be dressed in casual clothes because it is unconventional and the audience wouldn't expect it, potentially making the film more shocking to them.
5. Lighting - The lighting for the outside shots will be completely natural, we wont be using any other lights to enhance features of the mise-en-scene, we will just be using the daylight available to us, so that we can get day, dusk and night shots. For the inside lights we will be using ceiling spotlights on dimmers so that we can get the best possible inside brightness level, as mounted wall lights for casting shadows and illuminating features of the house.

Sound Effects;

There wont be many sound effects being added too our trailer, as we are going to take advantage of pitch, tempo changes, beats and rumbles already present in the background music. However we plan to use a couple of sound effects at strategic points in the trailer when the audience will be least expecting it.

1. Door Bang - It will be a quick, loud knock on the door which will be used before a rise in action and a change of tempo in the background music. This will be seen as the turning point or trigger point in the trailer which starts to build up to the most dramatic period.
2. Scream - We want to use a scream towards the end of the trailer to catch the audience out and make them scream or jump as a response. This features in many trailers towards the end - and if not a scream - there will be a loud noise played to scare the unsuspecting viewer.
3. Heartbeat - Towards the end of the trailer we want to fade out the music and replace it with the sound of a repeating sound bite of a heart beating. The intention is to fit some footage over the top of it to give the trailer a slow but frightening ending, by the use of a scream afterwards.

Music;

The background music in the trailer will be borrowed from another horror movie called "Dead Silence". It is the theme tune to "Dead Silence" but does not play on it's trailer, therefore in using this music for our project we have mentioned the film name, composer's name and record studio in the credits of the film, as well as on the poster. This music was chosen because it starts of slowly and gradually increases in tempo and pitch, as well as having different beats and climaxes present. This was perfect for matching our footage to, as the climaxes are great points to cut scenes to and scare the audience.

Special Effects;

There will not be any special effects in the trailer project as they are not needed as we don't feel they would enhance the trailer in a way we would like. Special effects would be very useful in action genres, with explosions and gun shots, but they would not fit into our horror trailer correctly.

Setting;

We want to use already available buildings and backdrops as there isn't the budget or time limit for building sets from scratch. We want to use both outside and inside shots at different locations. For the outside scenes we will be using three locations; the first being a church, the second being a graveyard and the third and final one being my street. These will be used because they are easily accessible and safe to film in, as well as being perfectly suited for a horror movie. The inside scenes will be based inside my house, in five locations rooms within. These will be the kitchen, the dining room, the hallway, the living room and finally the porch.

Dialogue;

Again, like special effects, we feel that voice overs and dialogue wont fit in properly with the horror trailer we want to make, although it is used in horror genres, we want to break the convention and do something a little bit different to everything else, which is why we decided that there wont be any dialogue featuring in our movie trailer.