Titles:
- Feedback for our teaser trailer had a reoccurring theme of people misunderstanding our trailer, therefore we knew we needed to lengthen our title slides that explained the basic outline of our movie. I then dragged those slides so they were all 2 seconds long, although this added to the overall time, ensuring that people understood our trailer was more important.
Ordering of scenes:
- We also decided to reshuffle the ordering of the scenes to make people understand the trailer a bit more. As the facebook part was the 'trigger' for our protagonist we therefore decided to switch the stalking scene so that it was after the facebook scene. This made more sense in the trailer.
Removing footage:
- We also decided to remove footage where the antagonist goes towards the camera in the stalking scene as many people felt that this showed the characters were making contact and this was not what we wanted to portray.
1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.
Conventions of a trailer
Restricted Narration
Research As the main aim of a teaser trailer is to promote a film and entice an audience into watching it, a main convention of a trailer is a restricted narrative structure, in order to leave a sense of mystery. We deconstructed a range of film trailers from our genre and figured out that mystery was an important element of the trailers, many of them posing a question as to whether the characters come out alive. For example, in 'Number 23', which I deconstructed, where the audience witness dramatic scenes of the protagonist holding a knife to his wife's neck, however we do not find out whether or not the wife is safe or not by the end of the trailer, creating tension. Through this deconstruction, we also found it was effective to use a female character as the victim.
Planning
We decided to conform to the conventions of a trailer in our storyboarding process by using a restricted narration and a limited time frame of 60 seconds. This element teases the audience, as they are left with a taster of the main themes and characters but we do not give away any of the crucial plot details. This means that we leave parts of the narrative unknown in order to achieve the audience’s interest quickly through the use of enigma. Development
After researching into this idea, we incorporated it into the production process of our trailer. For example, at the climax of our montage we use an extreme close up of the victim’s face whilst a bag is violently thrust over her head. This means that the audience are not aware who committed the action, creating a mystery, which is a convention of a thriller trailer. We also conventionally use a vulnerable female character as our victim, which heightens the tension by raising the stakes.
Titles
Research Another convention of a trailer, is the use of titles to put across important aspects of the narrative of the film. We looked into the titles of many different psychological films, to get an idea of the wording of the titles.
When looking at films, such as 'The Butterfly Effect,' we noticed that the wording of the titles included an element of ambiguity, which put across a general theme rather than definite insight into narrative.They also commonly included repetition across the titles. In 'The Butterfly Effect,' for example, all of the titles began with the phrase, 'Some people...' which gave the trailer a reflective tone, suiting the genre.
Planning
Therefore, when we started thinking about the wording of our own titles, we decided to incorporate these important elements. We initially came up with four different variations, all using different effects. For example, one variation described literally the different turns in the narrative structure and one variation was more metaphorical and descriptive. We eventually decided on one variation, which included repetition of the word, "haunted," to conform to the conventions we explored in real media products.
Research
However, once we had decided on the wording of the titles, we had to decide on the aesthetics. Again, we researched into the conventions of titles in psychological thrillers. I deconstructed the titles in 'Number 23,' for example, and found that the titles near the beginning of the trailer were written in a basic clear font, with a red and black colour scheme. However, as the trailer progressed, the producers increasingly used visual effects on the titles, making the words flick erratically around the screen and distort. This put across a sense of deterioration, which we found effective and thus decided to include in our own titles.
Creation
When originally designing our titles, we included this idea of deterioration by initially putting the typography on a white background for the first titles and as the trailer progresses, making the white discolour to a faded brown colour. We also decided to have a smudged handprint appear on the titles later on in the trailer, to add a scary twist.
Development
However, when evaluating this, we decided that the typography and colour scheme did not suit our trailer, and so we recreated them, utilising a black and white, more clinical colour scheme all the way through. However, we did use the idea of deterioration, making the words more distorted as the trailer progresses. The overall product suited the trailer and the psychological genre well.
Sound
Non-diegetic
Research
When looking into the non-diegetic soundtrack of our trailer, we researched into many different psychological trailers before eventually deciding on what sound we wanted to put across. The use of sound is important as it sets the pace of the whole trailer. For example, in, 'A Beautiful Mind,' the soundtrack begins with a very quiet, thin texture of sound which eventually builds up into a full orchestra. This shows how the stakes rise throughout the film, beginning with a sense of equilibrium and ending with a sense of dramatic triumph.
Planning
We decided to use this idea of development in our trailer, and I created a timeline of the non-diegetic sound so that we could track the changes in tone throughout the piece. We decided to conform to Todorov’s narrative theory. We start the trailer with in an explicit state of equilibrium, and use a quiet piano track which could evoke empathy for the protagonist. However, we wanted a point during the trailer where the mood changes to disequilibrium, and thought this could work by incorporating an abrupt change in tone of soundtrack, altering suddenly feature fast paced dramatic bass tones.
Diegetic
Research
In terms of diegetic sound effects, we were inspired by, 'Clean, Shaven,' which detailed the effects of schizophrenia on a young man, so it was similar to our own narrative. In the trailer, the producer included many effects which replicated what the character himself could hear, using a high-pitched, discordant tone as well as layered sound clips of people talking, which eventually builds up and becomes overwhelming for the protagonist.
Development
We decided this idea was extremely effective for our genre, as we wanted to put across an idea of perception from the protagonist's point of view. Therefore, we downloaded and layered together clips of a high-pitched tone and a static TV, which mimics the hazy, distorted state of the protagonist's mind. As well as this, we recorded ourselves saying the word, 'Freak,' which we layered together and used to put across the character's extreme paranoia about being seen subnormal due to her illness.
Conventions of a poster
Title
Research We looked into many different film posters to figure out what typography to use for our own film poster. We initially looked at posters such as 'The Ring' poster, which used a childlike handwritten, shaky font all in lower case, which reinforced the narrative as the antagonist in the film is a child. We thought this idea was especially effective for the genre, as we thought we could make it seem as though the protagonist has written it herself, as this would suit the theme of psychology.
First attempt
When we decided to implement this idea, we came across one font in particular that we liked, called 'Midnight', as it came across as handwritten, and was quite bold, which would be eye catching on our poster. Then, we manipulated the font by using the smudge tool on photoshop, to put across the impression that the writing was being smudged down the page, which would reinforce the meaning of the title, 'Unhinged.' However, when evaluating this idea we did not think it suited the conventions of a poster very well, as it the smudge effect made the typography unclear- which would not make the poster effective.
Research
Therefore, we decided to look elsewhere for inspiration and found the poster for 'A beautiful Mind' especially effective. The font was large, all in upper case and looked formally typed, rather than handwritten. This meant that it drew attention from the audience straight away, which suited the genre and the conventions of a poster much better.
Development
We started again in designing our typography, downloading the font, 'Old Style', which a much clearer font. It had a sophisticated style, which we thought we could juxtapose against the image of the poster. We manipulated the typography in photoshop by turning the 'N' and 'E' backwards and put a 'wind' effect on it, which matched up with the conventions of a psychological genre, by exploring the warped mind of the protagonist. We originally made the title of the film go over one line, however this was not big enough and did not use up the available space on the poster very well, which did not conform to the rules of a film poster. Therefore, in the final tweaks stage, I edited the title so that it went over three lines, and was more crooked than originally, which filled out the image and came across as more noticeable. It is important that the title of a film stands out on the film poster, so that it is memorable.
Image
Research
We researched into many posters before designing our own poster image. We found that in most film posters, such as in the poster for 'Harry Potter', the key characters of the film are shown, and their relationship is made explicit. This poster gave insight into the protagonist and antagonist of the narrative, which showed the audience that there was conflict within the film. It also showed the relationship between the two characters as by having them head on, the audience could see there was a feud between them, yet by placing them at an intimate distance, it was easy to tell that they have had a long history together.
Development
We took this in mind when designing and taking the photograph for the image our own poster. We designed the poster so that both the protagonist and her imaginary friend - the antagonist- would be in the poster. We also decided that we would place the antagonist above the protagonist, standing up to portray that she has the power in the relationship. Finally, we chose mise en scene to portray a kidnap scene, including gaffer tape and rope, to show how the protagonist is trapped. This also gives insight into the narrative, which is another convention of a film poster.
Golden Rule- Layout
Research
When deciding on the layout of our poster, we took inspiration from many posters, such as, 'Mama'. From this, we learnt the importance of the golden rule, as by having the main elements of the poster off centre, such as the title, the tagline and the and the image of the protagonist, the eye is forced to move around the poster and absorb every element. We found this idea especially intriguing and so decided it was crucial to incorporate it in our own poster.
Planning
Therefore, we decided to crop our landscape image of the antagonist and protagonist so that it was portrait. This meant that the two characters were not in the middle of the poster, but on the left which meant the eye travelled around the poster to see them. Again, when I explored the different potential layouts of the poster, I took this into consideration. I designed many rough layouts for the title and typography, before eventually deciding that the idea of the title being slightly to the right and the tagline being at the top would be best, as it utilises the golden rule to its maximum.
Tagline
Research
We took inspiration from many different psychological film posters for our tagline, notably this one from Jacob's ladder. We liked the wording of this tagline as it made reference to a 'nightmare', which reinforced the theme of reality, a convention of the genre. It is important to reinforce the genre in a poster. As well as this, the tagline uses a similar font to the title, which makes the poster look professional and well put together.
Development
We decided to incorporate this idea when deciding on the wording for our own tagline, by reinforcing the genre, making reference to her, "mind," which ties in with the theme of psychology. As well as this, we decided to use a similar typography for our tagline as our title as it creates a cohesive theme throughout. We also took inspiration from the poster by having the tagline on three lines, which is conventional of a poster.
Conventions of a website
User friendly
Research
We took inspiration from film websites such as, 'The Hangover', in terms of website layout, as we felt the website was user-friendly, which is an important convention of a website. The website was laid out on one page, with the trailer in the centre and the background featuring an image of the key cast. This meant that it was not complicated for a user to navigate as everything was cohesively on one page.
Planning and development
When designing our website, we ensured that everything was on one page, as this would make it extremely user-friendly. We also made sure that a user would not have to scroll down or across as this could cause confusion. We made sure that the trailer played automatically as soon as the website was opened as this made it especially easy to use. On top of this, we focused on having the website user-friendly in every format- including both Windows and Mac computers. This initially proved a problem, however we overcame this quickly by learning how to fix all the features together on the screen so that did not change when we changed view.
Image
Research
When thinking of the image for our website, we wanted to make sure that the image gave insight into the plot and genre and was also instantly engaging for a user. We found the, 'Final Destination' website a prime example as the image moved as the user moved the mouse about the screen, which gave a surreal effect and also showed that the narrative would be about death by including an image of a skull.
Development
For our website, we chose an image which we thought represented the narrative and genre well, including both the protagonist and her imaginary friend. Then, we edited the picture so that the colouring and framing of the image matched a website format. We made sure that the website was engaging to the audience by giving it a creative edge. We did this by turning the website image into a GIF image so that it would occasionally flicker, which suited the psychological genre well. This was one of the last stages of our website process and made the website more effective
Social links
Research
We also took inspiration from the 'Internship' website in relation to links to social media. It is conventional for modern films to have a website, which also links to social media. This means that an audience has the option to engage with the film as much as possible, which gives the film a lot of promotion. We liked the way that the social media links were laid out on the page on this website, as they were noticeable but did not take up too much space through the use of the button. As well as this, we took inspiration from the 'Sinister' website, when deconstructing it as we noticed that there were a series of critics comments with ratings in a font which matched the genre.
Development
We conformed to the conventions that we discovered on both these websites by making use of social media buttons, which did not take up too much space on the page but were noticeable. Like the example from the 'Internship,' website, we made the social media links fit in with our colour scheme of the rest of the website by making them dark grey. We also made sure that each link was working and would redirect as user to a different page. On top of this, we created relevant critics comments which we laid out on the website in an appropriate manner.
Conventions of the psychological thriller genre
Psychology
Research and planning
Our media product also develops the conventions of the psychological genre, by focusing on the psychology and emotional instability of the protagonist. We took a lot of inspiration from , 'A beautiful mind' in our research and planning process for our psychological thriller as it gave us the idea of using an imaginary character in our narrative. The use of the imaginary friend was effective in the film as it was a way of exploring the mind of the protagonist without having to make use of monologues. In many films, such as 'Fight Club,' the producers make use of narrative voiceovers as well as annotations on the screen to explore the state of the protagonists mind, however we were interested in exploring the idea of the imaginary friend.
Creation
We incorporated the use of the imaginary friend through the usage of chroma keying. This allows us to not only make use of the same actor twice, but would allow us to change the background of various shots. This could portray what the protagonist is actually thinking, taking the convention one step further than in the real media products we have come across. In one close-up of the protagonist screaming directly to the camera, we used an image of multicoloured pills as the background. We originally wanted to use an image of a prison cell as the background (see video) of the shot, to show how she is metaphorically trapped in her own mind. Development
However, this did not prove effective as the audience could not make out whether it was supposed to be a literal prison cell. This complicated the narrative and came across as unprofessional. Therefore, we decided to change the background to a more surreal image, which emphasises that the scenes are replicating her state of mind, rather than where she literally is. The image of the pills gives the impression that the protagonist is overwhelmed by her illness.
Perception
Research and planning
Another key convention of the psychological thriller genre is the idea of perception. We also took inspiration from 'Clean, Shaven,' which we, when we deconstructed, we found effective as it made explicitly clear to the audience how we were seeing the world through the protagonists eyes. It did this through the use of POV shots, distorted sound, jump cuts and flashbacks. We found one scene especially effective. The scene shows the contrast between the protagonist's view of the world and the other's view of the world, by showing the protagonist have a breakdown in the library. The distorted POV shots are contrasted against the static full shots from the perspective of passers by. We decided to replicate this scene in our own trailer, however with our own edge.
Our Product
In our trailer, we make it clear to the audience that they are seeing the world through the protagonist’s eyes rather than the situation at an objective level, in order to evoke sympathy for her situation. We primarily achieve this through the multitude of POV shots that are featured. For instance, in the storyboarding stage we planned to incorporate POV shots of what the protagonist is seeing, to put the audience in her mind. During the filming stage of the scene where the protagonist is being discriminated in the library, we unfocused the camera and used wide panning shots around the room so that we could show her disorientated state of mind. In the post-production stage we reinforced this idea even further by putting in a blinking effect which created an effective overall scene.
Tension
Research and planning
When storyboarding our trailer, we looked at many other trailers to inspire us and help us create tension in our piece, a major convention of the thriller genre in particular. 'Sinister' proved to be a great help in this, and we found this useful when we planned the editing of our montage scene. We were impressed by the montage scene in 'Sinister' as it made great use of sound by using a repetitive sound effect which increased in pace. Alongside this, dramatic scenes of the film were cross cut with black slides also interwoven to add to the suspense. Another convention of the thriller genre is to end the trailer on a climax which entices the audience to watch the film.
Development
We also conform to the conventions of a thriller by making use of a montage sequence. The montage sequence allows us to show jump cuts from varying parts of the narrative, increasing in pace. When first editing the montage scene, the task seemed overwhelming as after downloading various clips to interweave amongst our own footage, there was a large amount of footage to include. However, I overcame this by cutting up small clips that we wanted to include in a random order, so that any footage that wasn't effective could be deleted. After this, I began to order the footage in an effective way, using a pattern of: our own recorded footage followed by youtube clips and repeat. I cross-cut black slides with the footage to add to the building suspense. Alongside this, we use a soundtrack which includes a drone increasing in pitch and a series of ‘booms’ increasing in pace. Together, this builds a sense of tension and anticipation, which is a significant convention of the thriller genre. We also feature a moment of climax, by ending the montage on a shot which is designed to shock the audience through the loud diegetic, high-pitched scream.
1.) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Conventions of Psychological Thriller
Perception
One convention of psychological thrillers we conform to is perception. We do this by displaying the protagonist’s interpretation of the world.
The main film that inspired us for this was 'Clean, Shaven' from which we lifted a scene in the library. This had tightly framed shots of the protagonist as he experienced mental trauma, and then was cross cut with long shots of a silent library in which he was banging his head against the books. We felt this was very effective as it put the audience in the shoes of our protagonist before revealing that its all in their head.
In our library scene we have similar POV shots of our protagonist having a breakdown and hitting her head against the shelves. This encourages the audience to empathise with our protagonist so they don't take the side of the people in the library judging her. Our blurred shots were inspired by ‘Broadchurch’, a TV series, which has blurred close ups as the protagonist is experiencing a spell of dizziness. We achieved this effect by subtly changing the saturation levels and by making the camera focus, defocus and move towards a set of shelves. The image on the right is taken from our own footage, this blurred shot of our protagonist's hands hitting the shelf is cross cut with close ups of her eyes squinting, this is paired with non diegetic sound of white noise and a high pitched sound that further involves the audience.
We also show a close up on our protagonist’s face as our antagonist scornfully walks away from her. Using this we managed to display that our protagonist is hurt by our antagonist’s actions and so the audience is getting our protagonist’s interpretation.
Making changes
After completing this scene we re-watched it and decided to remove a few things. Firstly the long shot of our protagonist hitting her heads against the shelves seemed more comical than awkward and didn't really fit in with the scene. We therefore moved various shots around so the scene was simply the protagonist having a breakdown and the antagonist judging her.
Use of mind as location
Initial Ideas
We also utilise the mind as a location for internal conflict,
which is an additional convention.
When beginning our journey of making the teaser trailer we were set on one thing which was the use of green scene. This therefore meant we adapted various sections of our trailer to suit this one aspect that we wished to involve in order to give an edge to our trailer.
One way we wished to experiment with green screen was by changing the background to more surreal, imaginary locations. When we started off we wished to create her bedroom and then by using chroma keying we wished to set it alight and change the colouring. However this proved to be rather difficult as we needed to bring in various props such as a bed into school.
Development
We quickly abandoned the idea of including her bedroom and thought it would be better to create a 'mind palace' for our protagonist that was clearly inside her head. One way we did this was in a medium shot of our protagonist on her laptop. Here we used the green screen to change the background to the antagonist's facebook so the audience could witness what our protagonist was seeing. This encouraged the audience to empathise with our character and encouraged them to realise the trigger of her actions and her worsening condition. After our protagonist has seen a hurtful comment on the
antagonist’s Facebook page, she then see her imaginary friend who encourages
her to seek revenge and takes on this advice.
We also used chroma keying to demonstrate her
instability, (e.g protagonist screaming behind a distorted background full of
colourful pills.) By doing this we attempt to make our audience understand that
our protagonist is haunted by a mental illness and many of the decisions she
makes is after talking to her imaginary friend.The image above is taken from our trailer, this is clearly set in her mind as it is surreal. The medium shot of the protagonist in front of a video which has been repeated using the 'titling' effect on Final Cut Pro demonstrates to the audience what is haunting her. However this obsession is explained by the presence of her imaginary friend in the background telling the audience that she is being influenced by her mind and she is no longer stable.
Conventions of a Teaser Trailer
Equilibrium
Our media product also mostly conforms to the conventions of a trailer as
we demonstrate a sense of equilibrium (shown through a scene where our protagonist visits a library) before the disequilibrium later on in the trailer (the obvious one being the ending with the antagonist tied up in the attic).
Our titles also portray this sense of equilibrium to disequilibrium as the first one says‘the medication worked’suggesting things were going smoothly for our protagonist. However by the end the titles become more suspenseful with one being‘now she haunts the one that hurt her.’This shows a clear movement from equilibrium to disequilibrium.
Restricted Narrative
Secondly we conform to the restricted narratives of trailers. Throughout the trailer we maintain an enigma which is intensified at the end as it could be argued that the audience is never sure what the protagonist is capable of. We ensured that the protagonist wasn’t present in the attic scenewhere our antagonist was tied up so that the audience wouldn’t be entirely sure the protagonist kidnapped the antagonist. We also wished to leave the audience wondering if the antagonist was going to be murdered in the end so the audience would wish to view the film at the cinema.
Limited amount of time
Our limited time frame also demonstrates that we are conforming to the conventions of a teaser trailer as we couldn’t go much over 60 seconds. This meant that we had to select the best, most dramatic parts of the footage so it would be of the best quality.
When storyboarding our ideas we decided that including schizophrenic related news clips and sound would largely help in crystallising the plot. Therefore we did this by using a YouTube downloader to obtain the videos and used the splitting tool to get the most relevant parts of the video.
Memorable ending
We also conformed to the conventions of trailers as we end powerfully on our
title‘Unhinged’ensuring that it will be memorable for the audience. Ensuring the audience remember the title is a main aim as it means that the trailer had a lasting impact and they are more likely to go see the film in the cinema.We do this by flicking it back and forth with a more distorted white on black version as opposed to a black on white version, we then have‘coming soon’flash on before leaving an imprint on the screen. So it had a lasting impact we inserted a final cinematic bass sound as our title came up.
Titles
We conformed to the convention of having titles throughout our trailer as when studying different teaser trailers we noticed the importance of them in understanding the plot.
For our rather complicated plot line we felt it was necessary to involve clear concise titles which explained the situation and matched what was going on in the trailer.
Our development process for this was therefore very important as we had to ensure the audience understood the main story. We found this part difficult as we have to come up with 4 very clear sentences that explained our teaser trailer and cleared up confusion.
Deconstructions
Shutter Island
As part of the research into how we wanted our trailer to look we had to deconstruct various films and trailers. One deconstruction I did was on Shutter Island's trailer. In this trailer almost every shot is followed by a black transition which speed up by the end. I found this extremely effective as it increased the tension and kept the audience on edge. The presence of the black transitions also gave the trailer a structure that we wanted and felt would help in the build up to our climax at the end.
We conform to conventions by having a moment of silence before the final jump (being the scream) which we found on other trailers like Shutter Island and Sinister. Both these trailers have a high pitched 'whoosh' sound before silence and then the climax, which we decided to use as it is extremely effective when trying to get the audience to anticipate the final jump.
Sinister
"Sinister's" teaser trailer had a similar effect, however the black transitions here weren't introduced until the end. This was seen as more attractive to us as we wished to start on an equilibrium and then end on a climax. Our montage scene near the end helped us in doing this as we cross cut black slides when editing in-between the two second shots. This meant we could go from a rather calm shot of our protagonist in her bedroom to her being tied up in the loft. The black slides meant the audience wouldn’t be expecting the proceeding shots and so we were able to raise the tension this way.
When deconstructing Sinister one thing that stood out in the scenes before the final jump was the non diegetic clicking sound that got faster and faster. This was also paired with a shot of a film reel going round and round. We felt this was very effective and so did our adaptation of this however instead of 'clicks' we had cinematic booms and these were paired with black transitions. We then had this sound get faster and faster so the audience was able to anticipate the final jump.
Conventions of a Poster
When we first started thinking about the layout and content of our poster we found it useful to deconstruct various other film posters in order to have a grasp on where to begin. Examples of film posters that we deconstructed are 'The Woman in Black' and 'Mama'. These were the most relevant for our genre as the others were more in the fantasy genre.
The Golden Rule
We learnt from these posters when creating our own that the main focus of the poster is not meant to be in the centre (e.g. the protagonist's blue eye is slightly off centre). When we first took our image the protagonist and her imaginary friend were in the centre of a landscape image, however we quickly saw the problem with that and by turning it into a portrait image was able to make the characters and title off centre.
Size and positioning of typography
When deciding on the layout of our poster we used these examples to give us an idea of how it was meant to look.
Firstly both the tagline of both these posters are rather small and unnoticeable, however thanks to the golden rule the poster encourages the audience to look around the poster and spend more time studying it. We therefore decided to have a small tagline. We quite liked the layout of the tagline of the 'Woman in Black' as it is rather abstract and surreal which matched our genre. After studying other posters and experimenting with different layouts we decided on one that was similar to this poster.
Large Title
Both of these film posters have a bold title which stand out to the audience. We felt that this was definitely necessary for us in order to convey parts of the narrative and to hint at the genre. However when we first came to editing the poster we felt it was difficult to make the title big without making it seem stretched as we had limited space. We kept the poster like the image below and after studying it we experimented with the layout and separated the letters so they were on different lines. This gave the poster a much more surreal edge and made it totally conform to our genre. Additionally now the title was clear and stood out to the audience so we were pleased with the final product.
Inclusion of Protagonist
We conformed to the convention of having the protagonist in the poster, similar to the example posters shown above. We then took pictures all of the locations we shot at with our protagonist as the main focus. When creating the poster we had two separate images which we merged together so the protagonist and her imaginary friend were both present in the image. We felt instantly attracted to this image in the loft because we felt the sharp lighting that left areas of the poster in darkness really conformed with the psychological genre. The image on the left is an example of one of our initial ideas for our poster, which we later decided wasn't appropriate as the title was too small.
Defining the genre
The genre of both these example film posters are very clear as soon as you see them, our aim was to create the same effect which we felt we conformed to by using a psychological effect within the poster. We did this by including our protagonist's imaginary friend behind her. By having our character's mouth sealed with gaffer tape we were able to immediately portray her schizophrenia and how she is incapable of controlling her actions. We decided this as we wished our audience would sympathise with her rather than see her as the villain in the story. We created the image by using the 'lasso' tool to cut out our protagonist tied to the chair and drag it over to the second image. After removing individual pixels and adding a few shadows the image seemed professional.
Conventions of a Website
When first coming up with ideas for our website we studied the previous year's websites and real promotional websites. Looking at these examples helped us understand the conventions of a website and the guidelines we could follow.
User friendly
Firstly both these websites were user friendly, this included not having to scroll down, having the trailer play as soon as the user goes onto the website, having all of the necessary information that the user may need and having all the links functioning which both Sinister and The Purge have. We took all of this on board when making our website. However we had difficulty when making our website as the trailer wasn't fitting in-between the two characters on the image. We therefore had to make it much smaller so that it would work on both the macs and the pcs. However it is easy to make the video full screen and it does start as soon as the user goes onto the website therefore we did ensure that our website was user friendly. We also included social networking links and critics comments which made the website user friendly.
Image
When looking at other websites we noticed that the image often gave hints about the genre and included the protagonist, similar to the poster. For example Sinister is rather low key and has the protagonist in the shot, his expression is quite scared and therefore the genre is clearly conveyed. We chose an image that we felt correctly portrayed our film. For example we chose an image, which included our protagonist and her imaginary friend which reinforced the narrative as the audience gain an insight into the key themes. We altered the lighting and colouring of the image so that it suited the genre as originally the image was too high key as we took the photo in daylight. Once we were happy with our completed image we uploaded it onto the website and added in the additional features of the website.
We also added in the psychological effect that helped with getting our genre across as we included a gif which blacked out the face of the imaginary friend in the background. This made the image more surreal and the paranoid expression of the protagonist clearly demonstrated that the character is haunted by their imagination and schizophrenia. This gif also helps to blur the lines between reality and imagination in the trailer and allows the audience to understand that the trailer is rather surreal.
