I decided to look at the serif fonts on 'Dafont.com' after research into movie posters and narrowed it down to the three that I felt fit well with the title of our trailer, 'Lullaby', and also what would have a little bit more movement than a standard san serif font would;
The fonts above are my narrowed down options and although they do look similar overall, I thought that the middle one stood out most to me as it is bold and as I wanted to do some form of manipulation or distressing to the title, this font will work best to still stand out through editing.
One if not the most important component of a film poster is the title. This is because first, obviously without one, you wouldn't know by glance what the film was, but also because the font of a title creates the brand of the film as a whole, and by creating a poster in some cases just with words on in a certain font, can make it instantly recognisable to the audience. For my own title I didn't want to use a generic font such as comic sans for example as this is not commonly used in professional circumstances and so to try and make mine as professional as possible, I went on "Dafont.com" to see if I could find one that would fit effectively. I have used Dafont.com previously for the making of my magazine cover etc during my AS level, however I was overwhelmed with the number of fonts that were possible for the horror genre (either serif or sans serif). To get more of an idea on what professional movie posters used I did a little bit of research and below are some that I came across;
From looking at the images above of the posters, the first thing I noticed was the the majority of the titles where in red and a couple in white. This is probably due to the denotations and connotations that are drawn from the colour such as blood and danger etc. Also I seen that quite a few of them had some form of distressing or manipulation done to them to deviate away from just a plain font. The most popular font for horror film posters seems to be serif fonts and so that is what I will research for while considering all of the above points mentioned to create my own title and it be as professional looking as possible.
Whilst researching, I remembered watching 'Omen' a while back and was curious to see what the poster was like and how it was created, as the film was released in 1976, and compare it with recent movie posters such as 'Sinister' (above). It was interesting to see that not much at all has changed in the form of the title conventions as, following on from my point above, the title still is coloured red (the typical colour branded with the horror genre) and the title is slightly manipulated and almost looks worn. Considering everything that I have found while researching I have decided to pick a serif font and distress in in some way to make it look individual and my own font however still pulling inspiration from real movie posters to allow my own to look as professional as possible.
After my photo shoot for images for my film poster, I decided on the final image that I wanted to use. There was quite a bit of editing that I wanted to do on it to make it look more professional and so I began to do this in photoshop. Firstly, I removed any blemishes on Ellie's skin using the spot healing tool. This took most, if not all of the imperfections on her skin away. After this, I also edited the exposure (image>adjustments>exposure...), the curves of the image (image>adjustments> curves...) and brightness and contrast (image>adjustments>brightness/contrast). this made the overall image a lot darker and more shaded. I did this as it created more of a mysterious feel and capture the unknown horror of this genre.
Original ImageWith BlemishesAfter Editing
Also I wanted the focus in the image to be on Ellie's eye as for my next stage I added an important component of the trailer as a reflection in her eye.
Also I wanted the focus in the image to be on Ellie's eye as for my next stage I added an important component of the trailer as a reflection in her eye.
One scene of our trailer that keeps the audience in the dark and makes them question what has happened is a series of frames of a lifeless looking hand dripping with blood. As this is an important scene for our trailer I wanted to include it some way and so added this into Ellie's eye in the image. To this I placed the bloody hand image from my photo shoot over the image of Ellie. I then sized the image by dragging in the corners, so that it fit over her pupil and iris.
Obviously, as you can see from the image above, this does not look realistic and is still a squared image over the eye. The next step was to shape the image to the shape of the eye and so I took the eraser tool and began t shape the edges into and almond shape to fit the eye. Then, to make it look more like an authentic reflection, I adjusted the blending options of the photograph to 'Screen' which gave a slight transparency so that you could still see the iris through the image. This was the result;
Overall I am really pleased with how this worked out as when it was originally just a thought, I wasn't sure wether I would be able to make it look authentic enough but I really like the overall effect that it gave. It keeps the audience guessing what has happened with the hand dripping in blood, and might entice them to go and see the film, if it was actually to be made, to find the answers. To the left is the original image and to the right is the final image for the base of my film poster before the next stages of putting it together.
When it came to deciding what I wanted the 'Lullaby' film poster to look like (ancillary product), I started to do some initial research into what common codes and conventions you see on horror film posters to get some ideas on what would tie in to the thrilling feel I hope to capture.
The link above is a website, that cleverly collages the most commonly used movie posters for a varied range of genres and as this was my original idea, I was really pleased when I stumbled upon this site. Although this layout and composition has been used a lot, I will add my own flare that coincides well with our trailer and gain inspiration from the marketing of one particular film which originally gave me the idea for having a close up eye frame for my poster. I found it really interesting to see that even though all of the images above are from the same genre, just how different each one can be, by the use of lighting, composition, colour saturation/use of colour and theme. This really made me think about the feel of my trailer and has given me some factors to think about that will make my poster impactful and as effective as it can be to capture the horror/mysterious feel that I want my audience to see instantly when they first look at the poster.
Due to the fact that our trailer is a horror trailer, we would have to make our ident quite dark and relative to this, however we recently watched the film 'Napoleon Dynamite' (2004), and were really drawn to the quirky title sequence that opens the film. After some research, I found that the sequence was filmed in a basement with an incredibly low budget, which proved to me that even on the lowest budget, like what we have, a creative way of promoting something is achievable. Although this film is an 'indie' comedy (screened at the Sundance Film Festival), I really liked the differential quality it has to others. We may use this as inspiration to show our ident company name 'Spectre House Productions', with a darker feel to suit our genre and add an independent feel. Our initial idea/thought was to use a flip pad drawing techniques for a short sequence, where when flipped through fast the pages would display the ident name and a few other components to promote the film. Below is a link to a website explaining the title sequence, why and how it was filmed with a video and podcast snippet.
This is a draft of our trailer 'Lullaby'. The trailer as a whole is almost finished such as the visual frames and title screens etc, however the sound after 1:10 into the trailer is still unfinished. We thought that the track at the start of the trailer, running throughout, would fit well but when we applied it to the whole length, it just didn't fit effectively to the feel and mood we want the audience to experience and so this will need to be fixed. We are unsure of how to edit the sound from this point, and so we will ask our peers and teachers for their opinion and adjust it accordingly.
After analysing the film trailer for the 2008 film 'Let the Right One In', and finding it really inspirational for our trailer, I decided to analyse the illustrative poster that was promoted alongside the trailer. I analysed the poster using Flikr and the link is down below. I really liked the sole composition of the poster and hope to use the idea of the blood dripping hand as an indication of death, rather that showing a physical murder, as a component on my own movie poster.
As our film would most probably be an independent film, we wanted our ident to reflect this nature and to draw inspiration from the 'Napoleon Dynamite' introduction scene. We were quite lucky in the fact that we are both really into stop motion animation and so we wanted our ident to have this kind of feel of film, where our production company name 'Spectre House Productions' would appear but also something, given our time constraint, would not take a relatively long time, as stop motion animation can take hours to film. Our final idea after talking was to create a flip book that in intervals spelt out our ident name. To be able to do this, we bought a book that had a flexible cover, to bend backward and look effective, and squared paper to allow us to get the font as close to identical on each page as possible. To cater to our horror themed trailer, we didn't want our font to be as curly and fancy writing as that seen in the Napoleon Dynamite example and so we tried to make the font look just handwritten which added a raw element to the scene. In addition to this we wanted to write the font in black biro, as the front of the flip book was orange, we didn't want the colours to be really bright primary or pastel colours as this would not correlate with our horror genre and give more of the feel of a teen movie. to also over come this look and so the focus was on the writing itself, we placed the flip book on a black background to denote more mystery for the horror genre.
The video below is our original take of filming;
This out take is obviously very slow and we intended it to be fast but still resemble a stop motion film and so we uploaded it in to iMovie and right clicked and selected 'show speed editor' ro quicken up the pace of the flipping of the pages to make it more fluid.
Above is the first sped up version that we created, however we felt that it was still too long and disjointed to watch and so we then sped it up even more to our desired effect. We also noticed that the ambient sound in the background of the clip (which was the television) that we were going to cut out became this scratchy almost creepy squeaky sound that we ended up really liking as it fit with the horror genre well and so we kept this in the final version of our clip.
Today went a lot more smoothly in terms of getting the indoor shots that we re-filmed from yesterday's shoot and the shots that we were unable to get. We made it down to Speke Hall and managed to get some clear shots of the planes taking off from John Lennon Airport. However, the only problem was that, after taking off, the planes would either bank around to the right or left which made it so that we were unable to get a shot of a plane flying directly overhead, (which is what we
initially intended). We are really happy with the shots that we filmed considering these circumstances and they should fit into the film really well once the colouring etc is edited. Below is the a couple of shots that we got today including the top one which we will most likely use in our trailer;
As you can see we cannot use the second clip for a altitude of reasons, such as: it is a private plane and our character is a 19/20 year old girl who probably wouldn't have this luxury and also it is way too fast to use in our trailer. The first clip however is much more suited and we will use this to show the transition of our character from Britain to Paris.
The first location that we wanted to do filming at was Crosby, and as this is our first day of filming we set out to do quite a lot and ended up shooting everything that we wanted to get done. Although we wanted some of the shots to be dark and mysterious, the lighting was a slight set back as we had to experiment with torches and lamps etc. This is due to the fact that we filmed in a loft area after school when the lighting wasn't all that great to begin with. Due to these restrictions we have already planned another day to re shoot some more of these shots even though overall we are quite happy with what we shot today. The day planned is tomorrow (on a saturday), this is so that the light will hopefully not be an issue and will be much brighter as we plan to get down to crosby quite early and make a day out of filming. We also hope to travel to Speke Hall as one of our shots we want to get is of an airplane flying overhead. This is the perfect location as it is situated right next to John Lennon Airport and has a path that runs around the end of the runway, so hopefully we will be able to get the shot we need.
As we thought that our trailer would be an independent film, Zoe and I both are attracted to these films for their unique style and we are drawn to the fact that they all have an odd abstractness to them which is appealing. We decided to look at some unusual film trailers, after researching several others, to find inspiration for our own.
The first trailer that we looked at was for the Swedish film 'Let the Right One In'. The movie was filmed in the Swedish Winter months which instantly influenced the lighting and filters to blue and cooler tones to correlate with this. These tones are also linked with the horror genre, mostly to depict either clinical horror or unease. Our trailer contains one main character which certainly challenges the typical conventions of a film trailer as she will have no one to interact with, and in turn, this means that our trailer will have no dialogue to carry it to the end. Due to this, we will have to use sound to drive our trailer and build tension through the use of effects and an appropriate soundtrack. However, this is the case in the trailer for 'Let the Right One In', where it is heavily reliant on the use of sound to accompany the two child main characters, which is also a convention of this trailer that allowed us to gain inspiration from on how we should portray our child ghost throughout our own. The main section of frames that we really enjoyed from this trailer below, was the last scene of snow falling, without a soundtrack for the last 20 seconds and the only sound that can be heard is that of a shrill echo. The combination of the crescendo of the music previously and the text over the lasting seconds of the trailer is a very effective ending that grips the audience and a creative way to mystify the feel of the trailer, and keep the audience guessing. The final feature that stood out was the contrast of the deep, blood red title against the pale snow failing in a dark sky, which caught my eye and was the last thing to see before the trailer ended. The overall editing and flow of this trailer as well as these stand out conventions have given and influenced many ideas for our own trailer 'Lullaby'.
We then went on to look at the trailer for the renowned horror film 'The shining', directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1980. The trailer was just so strange and shocking that it was very rememberable which made this trailer very effective in catching our attention. The combination of the loud strange music, still frame of the elevator and the rising credits, builds a lot of tension and keeps the audience engaged and wondering what might happen. The unexpected entrance of the huge flow of red 'blood' at 0.55 is shocking and grips you to keep watching. It is also a very effective way of insinuating death, without actually physically showing a dead body or gore that is not suitable for younger viewing or giving too much away. We thought that this was clever, and we both wanted something shocking to have the same impact on the audience in our own trailer and so we may include a scene like this and use this as inspiration for a part of our trailer.
After looking at several different horror film trailers, we got inspired and decided to use certain components from the Swedish film 'Let The Right One In'. Below is the trailer for you to view and my analysis of each stage of Mise-en-scene, editing, sound and cinematography.
The main features that really caught our attention was the use of fast jump cuts to build tension, the elongated ending of some form to close the trailer and the use of certain cool toned filters that we will add in during the editing process that we will interpret in our own way into our trailer for 'Lullaby'.
I decided to some research in to film distribution as I wanted to get a background insight in to one of the important roles of post production of a film. I did some reading on how films are distributed and who certain films are typically distributed by, to gain some background knowledge and to get me to think about who would distribute our film, as from our initial research I think that our film would be an independent film release and not a major motion, blockbuster film.
The process of distribution involves the releasing and sustaining of films in the market of media releases and is arguably one of the most important parts of the film industry as this is what captures the audience and essentially makes or breaks the films' success. Throughout Blockbuster (Hollywood) films, it is typical and nomad to see vertical integration taking place to advertise the films as this is the most effective way doing so. However, in the UK, distribution takes a different stance in trying to appeal to a more local market and marketing globally.
Knowing this I looked at the independent sector that is more suited to our film. In the independent sector vertical integration is more or less un heard of and occurs less often as they typically do not have the links with distributors long term, that blockbuster films have. Distribution in this area is mostly split into 3 stages;- licensing, marketing and logistics.
After finding this out I have came to the conclusion that the ideal situation is to sign a distribution deal with a reputable film distributor who will then take care of all the possible distribution channels: theatrical distribution, television, DVD's, video on demand etc. In the ideal situation, the distributor pays the filmmaker a decent advance and they then split the revenues after the distributor has recouped costs. This is known as Gross Adjusted Deal.
After analysing all of our possible film title options, we finalised with the title: 'Lullaby'. We felt like this name related perfectly to our plot and created the atmosphere that we are trying to create with the child ghost. Also we felt that with the title and actual whistle in the trailer in conjunction with each other, will create a memorable and dark link to the film for the audience which will catch their attention and allow them to make a link to film, which is an effective way of attracting people to watch the film, alongside synergy with other media platforms such as a poster and magazine covers etc. Below is the video for the song by 'The Cure' named Lullaby that could fit in the horror genre with it's strange and mysterious theme.
Below is a mind map of our initial film title ideas, we will pick a final 3 that best suit the atmosphere that we are trying to create for our horror trailer and analyse them and out of these 3, pick a final title for our film.
These are the three title that we chose to analyse for our final choice:
1) La File Fantome
We considered using a French title for our film as our trailer is set in paris and so thought that this would capture the overall miss en scene and theme of our trailer. 'La File Fantome' translates in to english as 'The ghost girl' which fits perfectly with our storyline and plot.
2) Lullaby
The title lullaby derived from the song title of a famous alternative rock/gothic band known as 'The Cure'. In our trailer, as it is a horror trailer, we want to create a dark, mysterious atmosphere and the gothic connotations that link to the group, will translate well with this feel. Also a major part of our plot is an echoed whistle that can be heard that signifies the presence of the ghost that haunts our protagonist and so this title is an obvious reflection of this component.
3) Apartment 12
We thought that this title got straight to the point without giving too much away apart from where the whole plot takes place. Also it is simple and applies directly to our trailer as the room umber of the apartment in Paris is number 12.
Before we begin shooting, we have decided to look at possible locations for filming our trailer. Due to the synopsis of our film, there needs to be shots of Paris. In the summer, Zoe visited the city and got several establishing shots.
As well as this, we also need to get shots of Ellie in the airport, on methods of transport and even a shot of a plane in flight to show the transition of her journey from England to Paris in a few seconds. We think that either Liverpool John Lennon airport or Manchester airport will allow us to get the shots that we need - both airports have areas where you can view planes taking off, and large lobbies where filming could take place. To enable us to do this and for safety reasons, we may have to ring up the airports to ask for filming permission. Although Liverpool may be closer, Manchester is bigger, and there are several areas of the airport that have interesting lighting that could create a slightly unusual mise-en-scene, such as the neon walkway (shown in the image below). We may not be allowed to film this area though, so, as I have mentioned, we may need to contact the airport to ask their permission.
Also, filming in the Parisian apartment for all of the trailer footage was not possible and accessible for us and so we had to try to scout a location to use that would still be suitable and have aesthetics similar to that of a Parisian apartment. We have looked at several houses that we could use, however, Ellie lives in a large Victorian house in Crosby, complete with wooden floors, high ceilings and a very large attic. We decided that this would be the perfect location to film the rest of our shots and still keep the authenticity of the trailer.
After quite a lot of production planning and overall plot for our trailer we have managed to narrow down our characters in the trailer to just 2 people.
The first cast member, who will play the role of the main protagonist of a young girl who moves to a new apartment, in Paris, to become more independent, will be played by;
Ellie Bray:
Ellie and I have been friends since we were very young and so she feels confident in portraying a character for the film. Although she has never seriously took part in acting roles before, she is a very confident person, and her interest in fashion (she studies a fashion course at college) means that she has participated in several runway shows. I trust her as I know that she will take the role seriously. Although she is only 17, she looks old enough to play a character who is a couple of years older than herself, and I think she will fit the role accordingly.
For the role of the ghost girl, we have asked Zoe's younger sister, Holly aged 14, to take on the part. Again, she is a very confident person, and I know that she will take it seriously. I think that Holly will represent the character well, as when dressed in the right clothing, she will look convincing as the character. We considered a few young people to play this role, however after considering all aspects of the girl character we wanted to portray, Holly had the best all round fit for this character.
Within our film trailer, we will need to use several props in order to make it interesting and life like. One of the props that we would like to use is Zoe's Crosley portable record player (which you can see in the photograph below). This will provide sound effects and will also play a role in the story of the trailer.
Obviously, to accompany the record player, we will use a vinyl record from Zoe's collection. We are still unsure of whether the actual audio from the record will be used, or whether we will edit over the sound with a tune or song of our own choice. We will try both of these possible outcomes and see which is most effective for our trailer.
Another prop that we may need is a clock. Similar to the phone, I'm not sure what type of clock will look best - a vintage clock? A modern clock? I know that I would like it to be an analogue clock with a second hand, as it will be used to show the passing of time and to build up tension within the trailer. It may also be used for sound effects. A passport will also be a necessary prop which will add to the narrative of the story.
A third prop that will be used in the trailer is a mobile phone. Again, this will play a role in the narrative of the trailer. I'm unsure whether to use one of the phones that me or Zoe own, or source another phone which would look more effective for the aesthetics of the trailer, but we will consider all of our options and decide from there.
Even the mise en scene and set dressing will need to be considered. Things such as certain make up an clothing the character will wear and also features of the actual set will be considered. These will be used in-conjunction with one another to create the atmosphere we want to portray in our horror trailer.
When a young 21 year old girl wants to become more independent and decides to move to her dream destination in an old apartment in Paris, she is haunted by the previous house owners daughter who died at a young age through reasons that she will need to figure out if she is to stop hearing the 'whistle', followed by sightings/paranormal experiences of this young girl.
After closely analysing all of our possible names, Zoe, my production partner, and I decided on the name 'Spectre House Productions'. We believed that this was the most fitting with our film trailer as 'Spectre' is the French spelling of the word 'Spector', which is another word for ghost. As our trailer is based around the story of the ghost of a young girl, it links well with the connotations we want to portray. Also we plan to use Paris as a shooting location for some of our shots and so the French spelling of our ident will feed our audience this feel in a subtle way. The next step is for us to start planning how we want our ident to look by drawing up and developing some ideas and eventually finalise one that we will use in our trailer.
After discussing possible plot ideas for our film trailer and before we begin to storyboard, we came up with a simple log line to sum up the story line of our film in the horror genre.
A girl moves to Paris, however the apartment she moves into is haunted by the previous owners young daughter who was killed - the girl has to figure out why she is haunting her and overcome it .
As this is just the log line, we will later develop idea and conjure up ways of portraying the main features of the film effectively to the audience, for it to completely make sense using just a sort time length a typical trailer is.
After creating a mind map of initial ideas, I have managed to narrow it down to a few names that most stood out to me. The following names where strung from the mind map to create a more detailed analysis of connotations of the final possible names;
Spectre House Productions/ Studios
The connotations of the word 'Specter' produce an image of a ghost like figure, ghosts being common features of horror films and especially our trailer as it also has a plot of a haunting of a ghost girl in a Parisian apartment. I think that this would coincide well as we also used the spelling 'Spectre', as this is the French spelling, which makes the whole feel of the trailer more authentic and realistic - we have had several ideas of shots in Paris, and so this could fit in very well here.
Locked Door Productions/ Studios
We liked this name, as it produces connotations of mystery, as well as horror. The title could provoke the audience to question themselves on what it is that could be lurking behind the door. This in turn would create an almost eerie feel to the name, as the result may be terrifying (this would be appropriate, due to the fact that our trailer would be in the horror genre).
Heartbeat Productions
We both quite liked this name, as it is a bit more suggestive than just simply linking straight with the feel of the horror genre. It has many meanings. The word 'heartbeat' may have connotations of love when you first think about the word, however, in more depth, it could link to the thought of a physical heart, further linking to the idea of blood (which is obviously linked to the horror genre). Another word for heartbeat is also pulse, and when frightened or unsure of certain situate that could be potentially dangerous, the pulse (or heartbeat) rises and quickens in the moment. When analysed, the meaning behind this name is subtle, yet suggestive of the horror genre.
Black Raven Productions
Again this name could have several different meanings behind it. The name 'Raven' is associated with the well known named bird of death, which has an ominous black body. When in flight it casts a dark silhouette in the sky. This connotation of darkness can be linked to the horror genre. The history link with the raven's may also spark some darkness in the audience as raven's are known to have continuous references with mythology throughout the world, across many different cultures. It is most famously known in Edgar Allen Poe's poem, 'The Raven'. Although it is not strongly thought of as horror, within the poem, the raven (who is a key figure throughout) is referred to as a 'thing of evil', and so because of these past literature links and myths, ravens have become a key figure in quite a lot of newly released horror films, including "The Raven' (released in 2012), which is also a movie heavily based on Edgar Allen Poe himself and his poem. They are most commonly used as symbols of evil and death.
Fatal Fear Productions/ Studios
This name was created as analysed out mind map previously and linked the two words together through alliteration, which is common feature of many production company names to provide emphasis, and aid with memory (a key element in marketing a product). The connotations of the words both fit well with the horror genre. 'Fatal Fear' suggests that something is so frightening to the point that it is deadly, which definitely links to horror.
To begin planning ideas for a production company name for our own film, I produced a mind map of words that are associated the horror film genre. The production company name needs to have some relativeness to the horror genre to have the most realistic outcome at the end of production that are seen to specialise in films only of this genre.
These are pictures of storyboards of initial ideas that we drew for frames for our trailer. Doing these will help us with ideas of what to shoot and how to bring the clips together at the end during the editing process. This will also help our time management as instead of going straight into filming blind, it gives us a frame to plan around and organise days and locations etc. These storyboards and ideas however are not definite and during the process of production along the way these scenes will most likely change.
I decided that to give me inspiration through imagery, the use of colour and lighting, I would create a mood board that typically represented the horror genre. I gathered images off the internet and arranged them to show what I typically think of when I think of horror films. Some of the films included The Omen, The Shining, Psycho and It.
It is so fascinating to see amazing technological advances used to their full as part of a marketing campaign for a film. This disturbing stunt pulled off in New York went viral online and accumulated more than 4.8 million views on YouTube in one day. A creepy animatronic infant - known as the "devil baby" - terrorised unsuspecting New Yorkers, by cruising around in a remote controlled stroller, crying to catch attention. When a bystander comes near to aid help to the crying "baby" it pops up un-expectedly screaming, vomiting, growling and in some cases swearing.
This viral marketing stunt was set up to promote the January 17th 2014 release of the upcoming horror film, 'Devil's Due'. This kind of viral marketing is not only very smart in terms of promoting the film but also reaches out to a much wider audience, as with the video on YouTube gaining such a huge response, this then easily attracts the varied generations of YouTube itself but also this would then lead to people talking about the viral video on social networking sites such as Twitter. This instantly gets people talking about the film before even a trailer is released and would hopefully gear up a following before much is even seen of the film, bringing it more popularity and in turn, when the film is released, a lot more money.
Below I have included the video of the viral marketing stunt;
While researching marketing campaigns across all media platform, I stumbled across this really interesting, clever and captivating marketing technique to promote the upcoming remake of the film "Carrie" (originally produced in 1976). An elaborate prank was set up in a coffee shop in America that displayed characteristics and features of Carrie (the main protagonist in the film) to try and encourage the audience to go and see the film, set to be released in November of this year.
As I had previously analysed the poster and trailer released to promote the film 'The Woman In Black', I thought I would research the marketing campaign as a whole, as Daniel Radcliffe did a lot of promotion alone. Focusing on the horror genre of film, I have decided to look further into its marketing campaign to help me when creating components of my own campaign. The first case of marketing for this film began with the showing of the first trailer, on the 10th of April 2011 at 'Kapow!' Comic Con in London. Due to the fact that many people who go to Comic Con are interested in films, and possibly even franchises like Harry Potter (which Daniel Radcliffe starred in), this may intrigue them. Later that year, in July 2011, another trailer was advertised before showings of the final film in the Harry Potter series, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2'. Again, with the finale of the series, 'The Woman in Black' may provide fans of Daniel Radcliffe to see him in a new film. This choice of advertisement means that a specific part of the target audience is addressed (which may result in more viewings when the film is released). One month later, on the 24th of August 2011, posters within the UK were released, and by the 14th of October the official UK trailer was released. Posters were displayed around the country from billboards to the sides of buses. The posters, with the blues and black colouring linked together with the trailers.
On the 14th of October 2012, Momentum pictures released an official International trailer, and even a new version of the already established book (which was written in 1983 by Susan Hill) was released with a brand new cover, featuring Daniel Radcliffe. Again, this attracts fans of Daniel Radcliffe and even Harry Potter fans.
Daniel Radcliffe also appeared on a lot of magazine covers during the campaign and was even invited to be on both The Jonathan Ross Show and The Graham Norton Show.
Furthermore, a national competition was held for people to submit their own original ghost stories, from the 31st of October (around halloween would further set the tone and hype around the film at this time). A video was filmed, featuring Daniel Radcliffe again requesting the entries. This competition promoted the film virally, and the competition was unique to this films advertising campaign, setting it apart from other films of its genre.
The synergy throughout the campaign allows the advertisements to be viewed by many different types of people, right across the country and internationally on many different platforms that may be interested in different media such as, magazines for example. The website and Facebook pages also added to the advertisements across the internet, and overall, the campaign reached a lot of different demographics. By analysing the trailer, poster and researching the while marketing campaign for the film, I have gained a real insight into every step of the process to create and promote this film. I have gained a lot of knowledge from conventions of the trailer alone and the components of the poster, to what different ways are used nowadays for contemporary media/films. This has provided me with a lot of inspiration as we are creating a trailer of a similar storyline and so I can take what I have learnt, and translate stand out conventions in to my own.
I have learnt a lot about the key role synergy plays in all aspects of advertisement through analysing previously the posters, trailers and magazine covers for 'The Wolverine' and 'The conjuring'. It is clear to see that a certain image is created from various components and features that allow the audience to piece together key aspects and their own interpretation of what the film is all about through the links that the synergy between platforms has created.
After analysing a few media platforms in which the marketing campaign for 'The Wolverine' has taken to, to advertise the film, the synergy between them became apparent to me. Alongside traditional advertising such as film trailers, magazine covers and posters etc, the marketing campaign for 'The Wolverine' reached out to new social media platforms that are forming the basis and driving the hype around films such as Vine (social media site where people of all ages can create short 6 second clips or movies). This means that it would massively increase the films' publicity and the viewing figures that the film received. Today, technology plays a huge, crucial role in the marketing of films, allowing trailers to be promoted to cross cultural audiences through the internet, not only using film websites such as IMDB or Youtube. To kick off the marketing, teaser trailers and the International trailer were released alongside a 'Tweaser'. These are all used in-conjunction with one another to collectively advertise the film and entice audiences of all age groups to go and watch the film.
Also, as well as reaching out to a media driven audience, many posters to promote the film were created for those of an audience that may not use the internet as much, allowing them to still gain access to marketing of the film and be exposed to advertisements of some form. From this it is clear that the energy between media platforms to advertise a film is extremely crucial to reaching the widest possible audience and make the film a success. It will be interesting to see the success of the film due to this introduction of this new marketing technique.
After discovering Little White Lies magazine, I decided to analyse one of their covers as it really grabbed my attention from it's interesting production process and artistic style. As I have already analysed the trailer for 'Let the Right One In', I thought it would be interesting to see how Little White Lies magazine interpreted the feel of the film and portrayed this on their cover, and so I decided to analyse this issue of the magazine below.
I really loved the simplistic and clean aesthetic to the Little White Lies magazine covers and style after research into their company and analysing a relevant theme that will aid me in my own creation. When producing my own magazine cover related to the horror genre, I will keep it simplistic and although I cannot produce an art based creative magazine due to the lack of resources, I will try and make it carry over all the codes and convention that portray the horror genre theme and make it intriguing through only one or two cover lines to make the audience want to read what it hold inside.
Little White Lies is a bi-monthly, British independent moviemagazine that features writing, illustration and photography related to cinema. It is published by London-based creative agency 'The Church of London'. The first issue was released in February 2005 and according to a report in The Guardian:
"Danny Miller conceived Little White Lies with his schoolfriend Matthew Bochenski aged 17, and they carried the dream with them through university and into their first jobs at skate and snowboard magazine Adrenalin. When the independent publishers behind Adrenalin collapsed last November, he put together the first issue of Little White Lies with Bochenski"
The design of each issue of 'Little White Lies' is inspired by its feature film, represented on the cover by an illustration of its lead actor. The cover film also influences interior aspects, such as editorial icons, chapter headings and custom typefaces. However, the overall template of the magazine remains the same. Little White Lies' content is split into six chapters: the lead review, an editorial introduction, a series of articles inspired by the feature film, theatrical reviews, the Back Section, and future releases. Also, Little White Lies is distributed throughout the UK and is stocked in shops including WHSmith, HMV, Urban Outfitters and Fopp. The magazine is also stocked in many of the UK's leading independent cinemas including all Curzon Cinemas, Picturehouse Cinemas and Everyman Cinemas. Finally, In 2008, 'Little White Lies' won Best Designed Consumer Magazine of the Year at the Magazine Design and Journalism Awards. I love this magazine in particular from the whole old-school way of producing everything that makes it's way into the final cut before distribution. It is a lot different to any other magazine I have seen before and that's what intrigues me the most to want to analyse of it's simplistic covers. Below are a selection of many of the Little White Lies issues.
I came across this video on YouTube while researching new marketing techniques, of a magazine company titled 'Little White Lies'. The 1:55 minute video covers the whole process of creating an Independent magazine solely focused on film. I found this really interesting and an amazing behind the scenes to how much work goes into every component of this arty magazine, from the illustrations and photography, down to the tinkering with each letter of handwritten articles within the contents of it's pages. I have decided to do some research into this Independent company and analyse one of it's magazine covers as inspiration for my own. I love the style and artistic take on each aspect of the magazine and so will do more research into the company itself.
I find this poster very effective and this is actually the poster that encouraged me to go and see this film myself as a viewer compared with the previous trailer that I analysed. The main component that I like on this poster is the simplicity of it. There is not a lot going on but every small detail portrays mystery and the fear of the unknown, which draws you in to want to find out what it is thats making her so afraid, made effective by the low key lighting. As my budget is only small this poster brought it home to me that it is possible to make a poster that is simple yet really effective in drawing in an audience and so when creating my own film poster, I want to create this simplicity for the same use.
