Voice Overs

In existing trailers that we have watched and analysed, there has always been a lot of narrative to help tell the story that is unravelling in front of the audience. However, we didn't want to include too much narrative in ours because we didn't want to break the naturalism of the trailer and didn't want to add in too much into a short trailer.

We wanted to include some dialogue in the form of a voice over on our trailer though because we wanted to explore different creative techniques and we wanted to make it clear to the audience what was going on in the trailer from the outset. From then on, we compiled different sound effects and soundtracks to fill in the rest of a trailer; adding to the dramatic effect and tension that we wanted to build up throughout the trailer.

The process of recording our voice overs was relatively straight forward. On IMovie we clicked on the clip that we wanted to do a voice over on and from there we clicked the little microphone icon. There was then a countdown, and after three seconds we would simply talk into the computer what we wanted to say in our trailer. We were then able to adjust this using clip trimmer to make it fit perfectly with the shot that was being shown at the time. Although at first the voice overs were very loud and drowned out the background music, by going onto the settings and adjusting the volume we were able to make the voice overs sound a lot more natural without having to add any other effects onto it.

Our voice overs included us saying:

'So how long has the house been empty?'

'I don't know, she moved out when my cousin died.'

Updated Task Completion Sheet

Name	Date	Task Completed
Katie Taylor	First week of July	Created the blog
Katie Taylor	First week of July	Introduction, brief and proposal posted on the blog
Rebecca Jackson and Katie Taylor	Second week of July	AS Coursework posted on the blog
Rebecca Jackson	Second week of September	The Conjuring trailer- textual analysis
Katie Taylor	Second week of September	Insidious trailer- textual analysis
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	Third week of September	The Damned trailer- textual analysis
Katie Taylor	Third week of September	Print based analysis on the film posters- The Conjuring, Insidious 2 and Sinister
Rebecca Jackson	Third week of September	Print based analysis on three magazine covers
Katie Taylor	Last week of September	Common features in film posters
Rebecca Jackson	Last week of September	Common features in film magazines
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	First week of October	Iconography- screenshots of ideas for our trailer
Katie Taylor		First impression of target audience
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	First week of October	Create questionnaires
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	First week of October	Carry out questionnaires
Katie Taylor	First week of October	Put questionnaire findings on the blog, evaluate them and create various pie/bar charts
Rebecca Jackson	Second week of October	Social media- audience research
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	Third week of October	Research into film institutions
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	Third week of October	Research into films e.g. marketing techniques, gross earnings etc
Rebecca Jackson	First week of November	Initial ideas before blocking and storyboarding
Katie Taylor	Second week of November	Blocking
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	Third week of November	Recce Shots
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	Third week of November	Storyboarding
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	Third week of November	Cast list and roles
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	Third week of November	Film name research
Rebecca Jackson	Third week of November	Print based research/planning- magazine cover
Katie Taylor	Fourth week of November	Print based research/planning- poster
Katie Taylor	Second week of December	Equipment list
Rebecca Jackson	Third week of December	Uploading storyboarding
Rebecca Jackson	Third week of December	Magazine cover planning/layout
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	Third week of December	Uses and Gratifications in relation to our products
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	Frist week of January	Production log
Katie Taylor	First week of January	Poster planning- questionnaires and results included
Rebecca Jackson	First week of January	Magazine questionnaire and results
Rebecca Jackson	Second week of March	Magazine choices
Rebecca Jackson	Second week of March	Editing Choices
Katie Taylor	Second week of March	Sound Choices
Rebecca Jackson	Second week of March	Magazine cover uploaded
Katie Taylor	Second week of March	Poster uploaded
Katie Taylor and Rebecca Jackson	Second week of March	Trailer uploaded

Trailer

Our finished trailer...

Poster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magazine Cover

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sound Choices

Through our extensive research into existing media products we discovered that the soundtracks and sound effects used in horror film trailers make the trailer a lot more effective and create a lot of tension. We knew that in order for our piece to have a real impact on our audience, we needed to be savvy in out use of music to heighten the element of horror.
Whilst watching our trailer without any sound effects running throughout, it made it seem very mundane and not as scary as what we set out to achieve. However, once we started adding in soundtracks and horror sound effects we found that our trailer connoted the horror genre more and it helped the trailer to build up tension and suspense.

Through our trailer we use a variety of sound effects to create tension in our horror trailer as well as connoting the horror genre. We found these sound effects from a variety of websites, including:

• www.youtube.co.uk
• http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html/index.html?genre=Horror

During our analysis of existing horror film trailers, we found that a common theme that ran through most of them in relation to sound was that, often a happy more joyous soundtrack would be played at the start of the trailer to show that the horror hadn't prevailed yet. We wanted to portray the same theme in our trailer, so our first enquiry when it came to finding music for our piece was to find a soundtrack that we could use for a short amount of time at the start of the clip. Research led us to 'Turn around look at me' by the Bee Gee's which we thought was very fitting and worked extremely well with our piece. The rhythm of the song is quite slow paced but has a happy beat to it, which is what we wanted to achieve when finding a song because the placement of this soundtrack is in conjunction with action that has not yet seen any horror prevail. This song also stood out to us because of the lyrics. Our trailer falls into the psychological horror sub-genre, so the lyrics in this song such as 'there is someone walking behind you', 'turn around, look at me' are very representative of the action that takes place in our trailer.
We only used 15 seconds of this song at the start of the trailer and we found it on YouTube. We then went through the process of downloading it through YouTube converter which then resulted in it being downloaded onto ITunes; enabling us to put it onto IMovie.

Using our creative skills on IMovie we were able to compile all the different sound effects together, as well as adding in a non copyright backing track through part of the trailer, to make our trailer as effective as possible. Our sound effects included heavy breathing, screaming, heartbeats and glass smashing to make our trailer extremely realistic.

We wanted to avoid using the natural sound that came with the clip when it was recorded because the use of artificial sound is more effective and doesn't carry with it any background noise which would break the tension of the clip. Despite this however, on a couple of occasions, using the natural sound that was recorded with the clip worked really well. This included:

• the natural sound of the front door handle being opened which also served the purpose of sharply cutting the Bee Gees soundtrack to show the progression of sound
• the natural sound of the living room door handle when the girl is struggling to open it
• when the girl is running down the stairs, her hand squeaked against the banister. We decided to keep this sound in also

The final way in which we added to our trailer through sound was through the use of voice overs. We wanted to include some dialogue at the start to fulfil the audiences need of gaining information (Uses and Gratifications theory.) We wanted to make it clear to the audience why the girls were going to this house so that the trailer made complete sense to them.

Editing Choices

Editing is often viewed as the most important aspect of trailers and moving image as without editing we would simply just have video footage that may not have made sense and have had no effect on the audience. We used iMovie to edit our filming, which allowed us to create sequences that would conform to our genre and make an impact on the audience. We edited our trailer using a range of techniques, which we found were prevalent in existing trailers. 

We used the iMovie program to edit our video footage, as it allowed us to make precise edits, whilst maintaining high quality moving image. We mostly used clip trimmer to edit the clips; we used it to achieve continuity, so that the cuts were effective to tell the narrative.

We added short, fast cuts to increase the pace towards the end of our trailer. Using clip trimmer, we could edit short clips and add them together to create continuous sequences that conform to the climax that we wanted to achieve. We identified from our research that most psychological horror trailers have a ‘chase’ scene at the end where the antagonist torments the protagonist. Our use of contrasting fast cuts emphasise this, as our use of editing increases the audiences heart rates towards a climax where the protagonist gets caught.

We added effects to our edited clips to escape the sense of realism and enhance the narrative. We only had limited resources to film the trailer, so by adding effects to our clips, we could create a more professional piece that would appeal to our audience more and conform to the spooky nature of the genre. Based on the uses and gratifications theory, a main reason for watching the trailer is for entertainment purposes, so by adding effects such as ‘vignette’ and ‘dream’, we could enhance our trailer through these editing techniques to reach a larger audience and have a greater impact on them, which is key for a trailer used for advertising a film.

Around half of our narrative is intended to take place in the late evening, however due to the bad lighting conditions at this time of the day during winter, we had to film the footage during good light conditions then edit it to look like it happened later than it actually did. We added a dark vignette effect from iMovie, which allowed us to retain the high quality footage from in light conditions, and then edit it to make it look like it happened in the late evening. 

We inserted frames of text to communicate with the audience and provide them with information such as release date and who produced it. To make these more appealing to the audience we edited them with a zoom effect so that the text would gradually zoom into the black frame. Although we needed to inform, we also wanted to retain the entertainment element to keep watchers interested, so we added this element as we’ve seen it during research into similar products. The fade in, fade out element also sustains the pace set by our cuts as the text blends in with other cuts.

Certain footage couldn’t be filmed at an appropriate time of day for perfect lighting, therefore we had to edit the footage to make the lighting fit in with our narrative. For example, half of our narrative happens at around 8 at night, however it wasn’t feasible to film the whole chase scene in the dark during the winter months, so we had to film it around 5 in the evening and add a vignette effect to make the footage look as if it happened later on at night. We edited the lighting by lowering the brightness and adding a vignette effect onto each clip in the chase scene. On the other hand, we had to use certain edits and lift the brightness in some of the house sequences, as the natural lighting was quite dark.

We edited short sequences to represent emotions, so that a variety of shots could show the audience their surroundings at the time, their close up facial expressions and their body language. For example this sequence of the protagonist represents her fear from a variety of perspectives, presented by shot types. When honing in on an individual’s emotions, we tried to use a variety of shot types so that the audience are involved in understanding their emotion, rather than just using one shot type where the audience wont interact with the emotion.

We used edits that would clearly represent the narrative. We had to use sequences that would tell the story enough, yet keep it short and brief enough for it to be a trailer. We attempted to introduce relationships between the characters through the use of fades, however for the majority of our chase sequence at the end we used straight cuts to highlight the increase in pace and emotion of the characters.