Special Effects Make Up

Special effects make up could be as simple as any one of the following a cut, scars and bruises. There are different types of special effects makeup such as Do-It-yourself makeup which is one of the easiest as it can be done using the things that can be located in your house. One of my task is to do a teaser trailer, so I went to research on special effects I am going to use YouTube to find a couple of videos which will help me because they show step by step on how to do the special effects.

How to fake a cut Video -  this video lasted 3 minutes and 8 seconds and was a very good tutorial on how to make a fake cut he told us the products used and the and exactly how it was done and the ways which to apply the products.

I then tried to look for videos to teach me how to create a fake bruise as this would be needed as the part of the special effects of our teaser trailer. I found a video I learnt that we should use a series of colours which blend into one another such as yellow green etc to create a good bruise effect. I learnt the skills needed and how to apply them from using youtube.

Health And Safety

When going to film our trailer, there are a series of things which we need to take into consideration. This is to ensure that nobody is hurt which they are filming, acting and moving equipment around the building or doing anything relating to the project.

Make up and equipment both fully need to be checked before moving to film our trailer. Health and safety is essential we need to be aware of it so there is a reduction in the amount of injuries.

The research into makeup and equipment has been done by other group members so they are all aware of what they should be doing while using the equipment.

Technolgogy We Will Be Using In Our Productions

Apple iMac – After shooting our teaser trailer we would need to edit the video we will be using the I Macs to do this. The iMac is a range of all-in-one Macintosh desktop computers built by Apple. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its introduction in 1998, and has evolved through five distinct forms
 

Final Cut Pro- In The iMac there is a program called Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Pro is a non-linear video editing software developed by Macromedia Inc. and then Apple Inc, we will be using this program to edit our teaser trailer, with the help of such tools as trimming which helps us to cut the video’s and other tools which will help us to have fades in the video which will enable it to run smoothly.

Blogger- Blogger is a blog publishing services that allows private and public users to post blogs with time stamped entries. Blogger is our way of displaying the information which we have collect it allows us to display the research which we have done such as our textual analysis, test shots, and video tutorials.

EOS Canon 550D- The EOS Canon plays one of the biggest parts in our teaser trailer production, this camera will be used to take pictures and film extra pieces of work of us showing our skills. The Quality of the camera is amazing. The 550D has 18.0 mega pixels.  Also Full HD 1080p video recording at 30/25(PAL)/24(NTSC) progressive fps.

Canon 7D – The Canon EOS 7D is an 18.0 effective megapixel APS-C crop CMOS digital single-lens reflex camera made by Canon. Its particularly notable features are its 8.0 frames per second continuous shooting

Diva Lite 400- The Diva-Lite 401 portable soft lights boast the company’s trademark modular fixture designs with full-range dimming, switching and remote control features. Diva-Lite 201 fixtures likewise are portable, versatile units designed for the rigors of run and gun lighting for news or commercial video production.

Vinten Pro 5 Tripod- Is a lightweight camera support system. This piece of hardware to help to balance the camera when filming also helps us to do a different shots such as tilting and panning shots

Audience Research by Blackberry Messenger

For my audience research I used an instant messenger application called ‘BlackBerry Messenger’ to ask people questions. I used ‘Blackberry Messenger’ as it was my job to cover this application as different members of my team cover other instant message applications and different social networking websites such as ‘MSN Messenger’ and ‘Facebook’. I asked one person a female mainly to get her views on horror films and trailers. After finishing my questionnaire I was able to come to the conclusion that this female in particular likes the genre horror, but the amount of times see watches a horror film is low it came to the figure of once a month, the female feared killings the most in the a horror film. The female also had a good insight into the film and the different aspects of a teaser trailer that attract the audience such as sound, how a scary atmosphere is created. From this research I found that this female likes horror, she may represent some of the females but not all as not a valid as all females are different, some females are terrified of horror and some females enjoy it

Textual Analysis of a Film Trailer

Saw 3D also known as Saw : The Final Chapter is a 2010 3D horror film directed by Kevin Greutert, written by Patrick Melton And Marcus Dunstan. It is the seventh and final instalment of the Saw Film Series. And The Only film to be released in 3D of the saw series.

My Textual analysis will be on the trailer of the last sequel of the saw saga. The film was released on the 29^th October 2010. The trailer is 1min and 25 seconds long. There are a series of scenes of torture throughout the trailer.  In relation to sound saw used there own theme song. The volume gradually increased as the trailer became more intense, there was also sound effects and screaming at tense points of the trailer. There were also a series of cuts that faded from the scenes into headings.

The trailer is begins with a quick establishing shot of buildings and sky. It then leads into shots of titles. The lighting in this short scene is high key lighting but also darks as the clouds are not clear they have a more grey shade.

There is also a use of non-digetic sound,  which is the continuous bell ringing which helps to create tension, which also connotes signs of death and judgement mainly because the bell ringing shows that the characters time is up.  There is also another use of non-diegectic sound. Which is repeated continuously on the scene which is as each scene shows the torture there is a flash sound which helps to build tension.

There is also a main focus on a particular prop which is the machine which is used to torture the victim. There are a series of camera angles which focus mainly on the prop and the torture as it begins to happen.

The next scene shows a mid shot of well known character of the saw series, the jigsaw. This shows us that this is a saw series as the jigsaw has featured in all the saw films. There is also a use of voice-over from the actor Tobin Bell, saying he’s famously known phrase ‘I want to play a game’

As the trailer progresses the cuts begin to get faster which connotes that were are getting closer to seeing the peak of the trailer. Also the screaming and sounds of the machine increases which means the fear from the audience is also going to increase.

In Conclusion, my analyses has allowed me to conclude many things such as a teaser trailer is much different from a actually trailer mainly because of the information each one gives as the are both limited the teaser is more limited that the actually trailer. Also the best way to get audience attracted to you film from your trailer is for there to be a lot of tension which could be achieved through fast cuts and non diegetic sound. Also not to give too much away.

Textual Analysis of a Film Magazine

Empire is a British Film magazine, which is published by a German publishing company, Bauer Consumer Media.  It is also one of the biggest selling film magazines in Britain. Empire is edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap.

In the magazine the main image is a medium close up of the model.  The model has a straight face which connotes a sense of seriousness; we can tell something serious has happen such as an incident due to the blood cuts on his face and also the right lense of his glasses is cracked.

Also the ‘blue’ eye colour of the model connotes that he is strong, important, peaceful, and intelligence.

The image is centered slightly to the left and the models body Is tilted the masthead is in sans serif font, which connotes the magazine keeping current to the present day. The magazine also include the website under the masthead, which is in small text which means they are trying to promote the website but it is not a main focus. The dateline is also included within the masthead. This particulary magazine was released august 2008

In terms of lighting the light shining from the left is strong than the right we can see this from the right side being darker than the left side of his face. The model is dressed casually  in a sweater and t shirt.   

Textual Analysis Of Horror Poster

The image above is a poster advertising the film ‘Scream 4’, an American slasher horror film which is the fourth instalment in the scream film series. This film was directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson and was distributed by Dimension Films.

The denotation of this poster is a picture of a mask if examined carefully the bottom the knife is shaped sharply into a knife. We are unable to tell the gender of the masked person as we can only see a mask.

The connotations linked with this picture run much deeper than the mentioned denotation. A huge amount of low key lighting is used in the poster which helps to cast the darkness in different aspects in the picture. The dark colour connote death which means that this film is not suitable families including children, the red which used which also connotes blood  also with the knife shaped masked which again enforces that this film is not for children.

The Scream Film series has been going on for 15 years + with the films scream series released in the year 1996. The scream 4 did ok with its critics as it scored a 6.4 rating according to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1262416/  it can easily be identified by the ghost face which is the fictional identity adopted by the main antagonists in the scream series.

The poster does not reveal too much in depth about the actual film this makes it very hard for people to know who the characters are and which is a technique to attract the audience.

The success of the four scream films is mainly due to the advertising and marketing as they have used clever images and the layout in getting the audience to think what the film is about therefore attracting them to want to watch the film. Am not particular sure what exactly they are doing but am sure it’s good as the film grossed $97,138,686 world wide

Summer Research

The Conventions Of Horror

In most horror films there is a death in the first five minutes of the film and horror films should be scary otherwise the audience would feel cheated in the industry these rules are known as conventions. There are a series of conventions in different horror films which I will now explain

Firstly i will talk about the camera angles and movement. There are a series of camera angles used in the films such as low angle shots, extreme closes up extreme long shots, point of view shot which is all used for different reasons some could be to show the bloody action that happens in a horror film from a close view or from a point of view.

Secondly I will talk about the lighting the lighting mostly used in horror films are low key lighting as most of the action happens in the dark.

Thirdly the sound which plays an important aspect to the horror film Eerie/Scary music, stabs, ambient, contrapuntal, demonic laughs, nursery rhymes, incidental music, sinister music these are all the types of sound that are used in a horror film to build up tension.

Fourthly editing, there is mostly long takes to build up fear and suspense, and sharp cuts are also used.

Examples of conventions in the film scream are

You may not survive the movie if you have sex
You may not survive the movie if you drink or do drugs
You may not survive the movie if you say “I’ll be right back”
You may not survive the movie if you go out to investigate a strange noise.

A Horror Film Director

James Wan born on the 27th of February 1997, he is Malaysian born Australian producer and also a screenwriter. Wan Is widely known from directing the horror film saw and he directed insidious.


Wan was born in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia of Chinese ethnicity. He was raised in Perth which is in Australia from a young age. He went on to study at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, completing his Bachelor of Arts degree

He met his future business partner Leigh Whannell while he was studying at RMIT University he then went on to co- create and direct the 2003 horror film and franchise Saw. With the help of Whannell, who wrote the script. Wan and Whannell made a short version of the film to showcase the script. Whannell played the role of David in the short film, and the leading role of Adam in the feature film.
The three producers who saw the short film and read Whannell's screenplay agreed to produce the film. Saw was to become a surprise record breaking theatrical horror franchise, earning Wan and Whannell much more than they had originally predicted


Three Different Horror Films

Halloween

Director- John Carpenter
Genre- Slasher

The year 1963 the night of Halloween the police are called to 43 limpkins ln. only to discover that a 17 year old Judith Myers has been stabbed to death by her 6 year old brother. After being institutionalized for 15years. Myers breaks out the day before Halloween. Myers physiatrist dr Loomis knows Michael is coming back to Haddonfield, but by the time the town realizes it will be too late.

Scream

Director – Wes Craven
Genre – slasher

On year after the death of Sidney Prescott’s mother, two students turn up gutted when a serial killer appears, Sidney begins to suspect whether her mother’s death and the two new deaths are related. No one is safe, as the killer begins to pick everyone off one bye one. Everyone is a suspect in this case

The Crazies

Director- Breck Eisner
Genre- Zombie

As a toxin turns the residents of Ogden marsh into violent psychopaths Sherriff David Dutton tries to make sense of the situation while he, his wife, and two other unaffected townspeople band together in a fight for survival.


Horror Film Teaser Trailer

Fast and quick imagery which are used to empathise tension and suspense of the teaser. I have noticed that with teaser trailers very little story line and plot is given away, to prevent too much of the main action being revealed. The teaser trailers aim to scare and entice the viewers. During a teaser trailer snippets of infliction or pain are introduced to attract and ensire that the horror representation is implied. Very short and quick glimpses of these elements are revealed so that it prevents too much of the action and shock to be shown