Initial planning for film poster

Initial planning for film poster

As mentioned before, the title of the film was called Standing in which was used to signify the character is which reinforces the meaning of Standing in terms of the context of the film. (last man standing) the main character is in silhouette form due to the background which is of sunset (dusk) which symbolises that hope, innocence and life is fading and the main protagonist is preparing for the inclusion and consequences that lie ahead of the foreseeable problem in the short future. The background also includes the protagonist looking at the horizon of deserted building which appear to be part of a city which suggests conventions of apocalypse and isolation.  The colour of the title is grey with a red outline which connotes hope fading away and is enveloped by danger and evil. These colours also make the title look aesthetically pleasing within contrast of the background. We also chose the date to be the 11th of June as it is the time of year where our target audience has more free time and would like to relax and the reasoning behind the 11th is that can symbolise the title standing and isolation as the numbers are spaced out and are thin and tall which can suggest isolation which fits in well with the genre of apocalypse.

Here are some pictures of the design of the film poster.

Initial planning for film magazine front cover

Initial planning for magazine front cover

Me and my group designed the plan for the magazine front cover in terms of what should be the central image of the magazine cover, what the title of the magazine should be called, the three colours that are used within the three colour rule, the skyline and etc. At the beginning stage of designing the magazine cover, we decided to give the name of the film magazine Glacier as the production company we called for our trailer is Glacier studios but later decided to name our magazine Focus as it represents a magazine more so than the name Glacier. The title Focus is more appropriate than Glacier as it sounds more like a film magazine as it connotes that it is going to focus on specific films in each issue. We also changed the name of our film trailer from Standing to The Hunted as our questionnaire responses for our film trailer title was not recognisable to the genre of our film trailer and the title The Hunted has two meanings in which the survivor(s) within the synopsis of the film are hunted by 'The Infected' or the survivor(s) are hunting their goal of survival and 'The Infected' in some cases within the synopsis of the film. The word 'Hunted' suggests fight or flight between prey and predators in which the prey can be the survivor(s) or 'The Infected' depending on the scenario which this title outlines the narrative of the film. The central image is the main protagonist Dorian in which the protagonist is standing above the then title 'Standing' in which suggests that the character is more superior than the antagonists within the film as he is standing above the title 'Standing'. The colours used within the magazine cover are red, black and grey as these colour connote danger (red) , darkness (black) and hope fading (grey) due to the colour converging from white to black which creates the metaphor for hope fading into doom. The slogan for the magazine cover is "The best zombie film in years" which promotes the film even further as sustains in the reader's head in which may entice and excite them to want to watch the film when it is released or look out for further updates in association of the film i.e. announcements, posters, other trailers, reviews and film talk shows that speak about the upcoming film.

props and costumes

Props and costumes

Props  and clothing for our film trailer will consist of FX makeup, swords, mask and apocalyptic clothing.  Here are the images of the props and clothing. 

Here is the planning sheet of props and costumes that will be used in the film trailer.

Location research

Location research 

For my trailer, me and my group researched various locations in which include the woods, garages, ominous streets, alleys and parks. We felt as a group that the locations we selected will best suit are genre judging by our response to our preliminary video. we chose the woods as it represents isolation and injects fear and anticipation to the viewer as it creates and reinforces vulnerability to the protagonist(s). we also chose the woods as most of our target audience are rugged traditionalists in which they will connect to the trailer even more as they have a love of the outdoors and the audience profile Fun/atics will also connect to the trailer as they enjoy action and survival.

Preliminary video for my zombie horror trailer (teaser trailer)

Preliminary video for my zombie horror trailer (teaser trailer)

Me and my group decided to do a preliminary video based on our zombie horror trailer in which we done the preliminary video in the form of a teaser trailer as we want to learn as a group about trailers and this teaser trailer benefits us in terms of learning editing techniques ,what to include where and knowing how to use iMovie. The name of the trailer may be changed as we are still planning what to name our trailer for our film so it may not represent the full representation of our final trailer as we are still in the development stage. 

Questionnaire results for preliminary video

Questionnaire results for preliminary video

Me and my group designed a questionnaire that directly links with our preliminary video in which we asked our sample of ten people six questions based on or preliminary video. 

One of the questions that we asked was 'Do you like the title font?' in which all respondents said they do as the majority said the title stands out and links to the genre of horror. 

Another one of the questions that we asked was 'Does the character interest you as a viewer?' in which the respondents all answered yes in which they stated that the character looks mysterious and they want to find out more which acts as an intellectual puzzle (Altman) to the viewer, which we as a group wanted to achieve this effect on the audience to engage them into our product and create viral word of mouth as people who saw this trailer will be telling their friends, family and people who they know about the trailer (links with uses and gratifications theory by Katz and Blumler (1974)) which links to the gratifications of building relationships with social interaction enhanced. Viral word of mouth will create excitement and therefore wanting to see the finished product (film) in the future.

Another one of the questions that we asked was 'Does the setting work with the film genre?' which the majority of the respondents replied by saying it does work with the genre as they said it fits with the genre as it looks bleak and apocalyptic and create suspense of what my lurk beyond the woods. But some of the respondents said it does not work with the genre and could not recognise what genre the background/setting belongs to. this may be to do that they might not be rugged traditionalists as they may not like the outdoors and do not have as much as a connection with the film than the rest of the respondents as they may belong to another audience profile.


For the theatrical trailer, we are going to keep the theme and conventions for the title the same as the preliminary video as conforms to the conventions of the zombie apocalyptic horror genre and all the respondents said they liked the title font and fits well within the genre.

We are also going to keep the same conventions used for the character (main protagonist) as it creates more mystery and keeps the audience engaged within the text.

We are also going to keep some of the locations shown within the preliminary video as some of the audience responded to saying that the location used creates isolation and fits in well with the genre but at the same time, some of the audience said it does not, so we are going to implement more locations that has the conventional theme of isolation i.e. urban streets, abandoned buildings as this will interest all of the target audience and also creates more variation within the trailer, also it conforms to the convention of survival as the protagonist is moving to different locations (environments) in order to seek safety.

Synopsis

Synopsis for my zombie horror trailer

Me and my group's film trailer is for a zombie horror apocalyptic film called 'The Hunted'. The narrative is about Dorian (the main protagonist) who is aged 24 in which he finds himself as the last survivor of the apocalyspe (so he thinks he is) as civilisation of the world has depleted by the strange and mysterious plague that destroyed humanity and turn most of them as 'The Infected' as the deceased returned to life as horrifying undead who crave those of the living's blood. The main protagonist Dorian has survived these plague (which has been going on for over a year) as he used all the skills and experience he has obtained from being a soldier in which he is cold hearted, even before the collapse of humanity through the plague, due to the way he was trained as a soldier. Dorian is specially trained as a blade wielder in which he carries his signature martial arts blade and is skilfully trained in combat in which he uses these to his aid to survival. Later within the narrative, Dorian stumbles across a survivor called Che much to his surprise who has survived through scavenging and hiding. They are binary opposites in some way as Che has a lot of morals in which he fights for humanity but at the same time he doesn't kill 'The Infected' as he is a pacifist and in some moments lacks bravery and courage whereas Dorian has survived through being aggressive and violent and not caring about anyone but himself. Though, they work together in order to survive and try to escape the hoards of zombies, but on their adventure they start to bond and know more about each other and surprisingly Dorian starts to open up more and starting to trust more as his character does not trust anyone before. Dorian teaches Che to be more brave and courageous and know how to use a weapon and fight. Che teaches Dorian morals and convinces Dorian to fight for humanity. Towards the end of the film, they fight their way through hoards of zombies and escape and set out to a journey to find more survivors which will lead to an opening of the opportunity for a sequel. 

Script for my zombie horror trailer

Script

Here is the script for me and my group's zombie horror film trailer in which the script will mostly be the iconic moments of the film and will not contain as much dialogue within the trailer in which it may not go in chronological order. The script of dialogue will mostly consist of the main protagonist (Dorian) which is played by my group member Ben ,who also narrates various parts of the trailer to tell the narrative of the apocalypse of the trailer to the audience.

(Opening voice over) Ben: Humanity .... we always used to wonder how the world would end but nobody ever thought we asked the big question. What happens after the world has ended? 

(Brandon) Che: The difference between us is that I am still fighting for humanity! And I will not stop!

(Ben) Dorian:  We are humanity's silent echo ... not its saviours.

(Brandon) Che: Who are you?

Me and my group have created this script in (which I contributed to some of the lines of dialogue). me and my group are not one hundred percent certain that the script will be accurate to the dialogue said within the trailer as changes may be made.