Welcome

Welcome to the online blog for the new slasher horror film, GAME OVER. This blog consists of my movie teaser trailer, my poster and magazine front cover promoting the teaser and all of the research and planning surrounding it. ENJOY!

Game Over Trailer - Final Edit

Evaluation (4)

How Did You Use New Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

Throughout the whole project many media technologies and applications were used. A High Definition digital camera was both used for still images and the filming of the trailer. In the initial stages of planning the camera was used to plan the storyboard by locating scenes and shots and gathering the right lighting and angles for the final filming. To create a different grittier mood some of the video was played through a TV and filmed, this created a complex voyeuristic view through the eyes of the killer gamer. The footage was later uploaded onto the computer using a Firewire. I intended to use imovie to edit the trailer but I found there were limitations of what I could do, so I downloaded a free trial of Adobe Premier Pro. The film footage was then easier to work with, although it is a more complex system it gave me the chance to work with several different layers of video and sound. I was able to delete unwanted scenes, cut clips, add narrative and sound effects. I downloaded sound effects from Audio iStock, The simplicity of the whirring tone and base heart beat was repeated and precisely placed along side the footage for maximum impact, this was challenging with the quick cutting from one scene to another.

The production titles, magazine front cover and poster were created using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. The Computer font was from dafont.com PixelSplitter but then it was manipulated to fit in with the gaming theme. The final “blood” title scene was created using a photoshop colour and blur on two separate texts then merging them together in the footage in Adobe Premier Pro. Once I had finished the editing process, the teaser trailer was then converted into a Quicktime file allowing it to be uploaded onto my online blog as well as my viral campaigns: Facebook and Youtube.

The still images which were taken whilst filming the footage, were also edited in Photoshop. They were resized and stylized in order for them to correspond with the teaser. I tinted some of the shots red to add a more slasher effect. The images were then used to create the film poster, film magazine. The teaser trailer along with the poster and magazine cover were then uploaded onto our blog where external links and video footage were also used. I also decided to use www.facebook.com and www.youtube.com to create an established audience and also to gain important feedback to improve our products.

Evaluation (3)

What have you learned from your audience feedback? 



After having created our first draft to our trailer, I considered that feedback would be vital and could influence any changes to the trailer. Several different ideas were gained from discussing the draft with students and family members. From this, I aimed to get different opinions and see what negative feedback would lead me to consider any changes and what was currently working. The consensus was the lack of a voice over was successful and the simplicity of the plot was mysterious and engaging, it needed to be tied together with some sort of flag posts through out the trailer so the computer graphics where introduced to carry the viewer through.

Those who watched our finished trailer did give us good feedback and liked the use of the quick edited shots, atmospheric sound effects and use of light and imagery, as well as the theme of the Killer being a disturbed computer gamer. Those who said they would not watch the film were not horror fans however had positive feedback on the overall effect of the teaser trailer.

Evaluation (2)

How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Ancillary Texts?

My Teaser trailer is targeted for a Teenage audience and has a Rating of 15. I visited websites such as www.watch-movies.net, where I analysed slasher horrors. I found that audience aged 15-24 rated some of the films more than 7 stars out of 10. As those who rated fell under our target audience category I related this to our film. This made us more aware of the amount of people that watch and enjoy slasher horrors. I did not think that our film had a secondary audience such as an older audience; this is not conclusive due to our feedback films, which featured two older men, one who would enjoy the film and one who wouldn’t!

The marketing campaign that I created was successful as I used a number of promotional tools that can easily be accessed nationally and globally by my specific teen target audience. The teaser trailer was posted on Youtube and in a Facebook group allowing audiences were allowed to join; become members of the fan group and view the trailer. Additionally it allows fans to see pictures of the poster and shots taken whilst filming of the setting and killer and view the actual trailer whilst at the same time invite other friends to do the same. The two social networking sites I used are both easily accessible and used by millions of teens across the globe. My objective for the teaser trailer was to create word of mouth via these social networking sites as this phenomenon of word-of-mouth has created much success for many films because social networking sites have never been more popular and people can talk about what they love freely and together can create a global campaign for something like a film.

The limited footage allows audiences to recognise the slasher horror genre without giving too much of the story away. I purposely didn't want to include the past story to why the killer became this way as it will encourage people to want to watch the film. This created hype around the teaser, causing audiences to discuss its content and encouraging them to find out more information online, using the public Facebook group and Youtube. This made it easier for me to gain an established audience so that when the poster and magazine was published, they were more confident to give both positive and negative feedback. Films such as ‘The Dark Night’ have successfully portrayed stunts of viral marketing as the slogan ‘Why so serious?’ became one of the best known slogan of all time and resulted in the film earning the most in box office revenues in 2008.

Posters in any film campaign are of great importance because they have to try and capture in a still image the promise of the moving images that you will see at the cinema. The poster for a film has to tell you as much information about a film as it can with one look at it, but because the poster that I created was a teaser poster, I wanted it to portray something sinister and different to what you normally encounter in everyday society whilst at the same time not revealing too much and leaving you to want to know more about what you have just seen.

Our film magazine and poster appeals to the right genre as it offers conventions the audience is expecting to be seen. The poster will appeal to the horror movie fans including our target audience as the mis-en-scene is shown through and is easily identifiable. Our target audience may also want to see the film as it relates to them due to the age of the boy killer and the virtual reality world he is emerged in. The Gaming world and paraphernalia is so easily recognized and familiar to the younger generation, the computer font instantly allows the audience to relate to the film.

The magazine as an ancillary product concentrates a lot on the killer and his personality. I took a picture of a long shot of 'Dylan' (the antagonist) in a dark and scary lift with a gate door which he closely stood by; this links back to the film as it looks like a possible prime location of where he could have committed one of his murders. The genre (slasher horror) is shown through our media products, as the images used are dark, as well as the title of the film in red signifying blood.

In terms of the title of the film, Many conventional slasher horror titles relate back to the past story of the killer and are most commonly named after an occasion. Examples of this include 'Friday the 13th', 'Halloween' and 'My Bloody Valentine'. However, “Game Over” was directly related to the nature of the virtual world the killer was obsessed with, it is a familiar tag line for most computer games when you have died or failed in a task, It also is a descriptive term for death. Although I wanted to make the genre of the film clear, I felt like I didn't have to follow conventional slasher horror titles and have anything too descriptive in the title, as in the trailer. It was important to maintain a more abstract approach to the creation of the teaser trailer keeping the nature of the film ambiguous. I made the genre of the film clear in our viral campaign and through synergy, but although the images used are suggestive of a slasher , they are also very dark and anonymous, you never see the killers face or details of the plot.

There was limited narrative and use of footage in the trailer. This was not necessarily what I initially wanted to do but it worked as when I looked into our research, I found that trailers such as Toy Story and Star Trek that thought less about providing a story, concentrated on introducing the characters and setting the mood of the feature film. I wanted to follow the way they have done this in just giving the audience an insight into the personality of the boy who becomes a disturbed killer obsessed with computer games...

Evaluation (1)

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?



Our trailer maintained most conventions found in slasher horrors. However our trailer does not feature a voice over as in many Horror films, when I looked into existing horror trailers like Paranoid

(http://youtubevideos.me/index.php/1010110A/e69f547213b6454890c0444595aaa0bb038fa0db1023c963371bfb08097dfb86a290c0ec8c3c5aab17408)

where there is a voice over, I found that the use of the voice takes away the verisimilitude and detracts from the stark imagery. I did however put in computer graphic style text through out the trailer to keep the viewer engaged and tie in with the theme of the slasher Horror. The use of text was useful in setting the tone and indicating where the disturbed virtual reality meets reality, specifically towards the end the words “Error Connection Lost” reflects the slashers loss of connection to the real world.

I decided to keep the moment of attack or any gory details, as well as narrative out of the trailer to keep an element of mystery and to “tease the viewer. This is a conventional method of horror trailers so it gets the title out and gets people interested in the forthcoming film with out giving anything away. “Less is more” is often true, the scare factor is heightened when the threat is ambiguous. It is an effective technique for a teaser trailer like this one.

The Poster accompanying this film follows along the conventional lines of most slasher promotional material, a strong use of dark imergary along with a red filter and menacing text. This has a strong impact and is recognized as a horror film instantly.

The Magazine cover had much of the same conventions as the Poster, stark image and bold text. The Magazine title and font itself was based on other film magazines out at the moment, from Fangoria to Empire. The playful title Spooktacular is approachable but obviously relating to the horror genre. The Bold use of text and layout were arranged to fit well with the main picture.

Audience Feedback

After having created and edited the trailer, we wanted to see what our target audience actually thought of it. We randomly selected people within the local area and played them the Teaser. I came up with a series of straightforward and direct questions to gauge an immediate response to the trailer while it was fresh in their minds.

From analysing all the feedback videos, we found that 4 out of the 5 people we asked would go and watch our film... proving the trailer worked as well as we'd wanted.

Some of the main comments were:

* Professional Trailer

* Dark / Moody Atmosphere

* Gripping Theme (Disturbed Gamer)

* Kept users interested and wanting to see more

Every person was able to identify the genre of the film and its theme so a successful trailer overall and clearly hitting the right audience. The feedback regarding the style was very positive as people described the tralier as portraying conventional slasher horror to good effect. The professional edited look of the trailer was down to a well planned storyboard, shot list, sound effects and adobe premier cutting/editing software. The main selling point of the Trailer was to give off the feel of a 'disturbed gamer' who is simply taking things to the next level and judging by the feedback it seems most people understood this theme mainly due to the intro and overlay text style.

We received quite positive feedback and any negative feedback we received, we took into account and would certainly consider some suggestions and options if developing this again.

I think to improve the trailer further, that perhaps we needed a greater number of feedbacks so we could get a broader reaction and truly assess how effective the trailer really is, as so many were very positive.

-> Facebook Group <-

-> YouTube Feedback Post <-