1. There were many technologies that I used for different parts of
this whole project.
In the research stage, DVDs, and the internet were particularly
useful, as we could research existing trailers in a lot of depth.
Plus, using the blogs for planning was helpful so that I could lay
out all of my thoughts in chronological order, so I could refer back to them.
When actually constructing, the trailer, poster, and magazine front cover,
many other technologies were used, This included the camcorders, eMacs,
and therefore the editing program ‘iMovie’, as well as ‘Paint’, ‘Paint.NET’, and
‘Photoshop’ to help make our products look as professional as we could, for
example transitions between shots in the trailer, although some of these
technologies did have limitations.
Using websites such as traileraddict.com, I was able to do as much research
as possible into many different trailer genres and styles, so that as a team we
could get a wide range of ideas for our own trailer. It was also useful for
checking common conventions in trailers and horror trailers to make sure we
were heading in the right direction. Without the internet, individually we may
not have been able to do as much research and therefore we may not have
had as many good influences as it is hard to find trailers anywhere else.
When researching trailers online, I would choose a different genre each time,
to find out conventions that are included in all types of trailer. I found out that
these were things such as billing blocks, the date of release as well as having
main characters, setting and plot introduced. From doing this we were able to
check that we had done all of these things in our own trailer as we went along,
as missing something out would not make it as trailer-like.
Further on into research, I would then only focus on horror trailers
as this was our chosen style. These included films such as ‘Piranha
3D’ (2010) where we wrote down the order in which things
happened, to find out how much they revealed or not. This helped
us create a storyboard and suitable sequence of shots for our film.
We noticed common things when looking at horror trailers, such as
a slow beginning but then it gets faster paced as the tension
mounts, as well as plain black screens for titles to appear so that they stand
out.
We did look at a DVD of trailers in class as a group together on the big
screen, which was useful as we got to discuss ideas together rather than
individually. It was good for us to analyse each trailer as many times as we
wanted, focusing on a different thing each time for example, focusing on
voiceover one viewing, and then titles the next. This helped us construct our

2. own production, as we asked questions such as: “Why did they use this shot
in this place?” which we would then ask of our own production to try and see it
from the audience’s perspective.
Making the blogs were very good for planning and research as it helped us
put all our ideas together in order, so we could look back at initial thoughts. It
was also good for evaluating our work, as the drafts and final pieces were all
in the same place to compare and contrast.
I enjoyed doing the blogs as it was fun to present ideas in different ways, as
well as it being a part of self evaluation where I could go back and change
and improve parts. Improving the blogs helped improve practical work too, as
I had to think about what the audience would see, not just what the creator
sees.
For me, filming the trailer was the best part, as it was fun to
film and experiment with the shots we had planned on our
storyboard, even if some shots had to be done several times.
This included things like zooming and tilting the camera when
filming Amy witnessing the murder scene in our trailer. This
was hard to do, and took many takes to perfect as it was hard
to get the timing and flow right all in one take. But, in the end, once uploaded
onto iMovie, we noticed that this camera movement was not necessary
anyway, as it looked better as a still shot with no movement. So, for the final
product, it was cut up in between the words of the tag line, without any
transitions. The words in the tagline zoomed in quickly for impact, as if they
were jumping out of the screen at the audience.
We tried to use a variety of shots when filming, but our main focus was to
make sure that we got slow shots for the trailer opening, and faster shots as it
goes on, which is typical of most horror trailers which we found when doing
research, for example the trailer for the film ‘Devil’ (2010). I think we did this
well, as the point of view, low angle shots when Amy was being chased
helped to speed up the tempo, and it also expressed her emotions well. We
used a lot of transitions to create a sense of speed too, for example lots of
fades in and out at the beginning to keep a slow pace, whereas we included a
lot of straight jump cuts to add a quick pace to faster shots nearer the end.
When filming the beginning shots of the circus acts, we had to focus a lot on
lighting to create a circus and horror atmosphere at the same time, but it
came out well on the camera. You could say that lighting was a technology
that we used in our production also, as we had to hold it up above the circus
acts so the light would act as a spotlight. I also re-used this spotlight idea for
the new poster when it focuses on the props, to link the two products together.
To add to the horror genre, we wanted to add in a shot of the
clown with his knife in the trailer, to link it to the magazine and
poster more (as this is the key image), as well as the fact that
knives are generally associated with horror films too. As a part
of editing, we slowed down this shot by half, to add to the
tension when the clown creeps around the corner in a sinister

3. way. Doing this also matched with the words of the voiceover as the
ringmaster introduces him as “Confetti the clown”. However, when uploading
these shots onto iMovie, we noticed that the mise-en-scene was not suitable,
as the green background didn’t match with the rest of the trailer’s clips. This
was unfortunate, as we had also slowed down a shot of blood dripping down
the knife, which could have added extra suspense into the trailer as you
wonder who Confetti has just killed, but when it was placed into the timeline, it
looked very out of place.
Using the hand-held camera technique, similarly used in the film ‘The Blair
Witch Project’, we were able to add drama to the trailer when Amy was being
chased- another horror technique. Another lighting issue we had was when
Amy was hiding in the cupboard. We experimented with the night vision
setting on the digital camcorder, as the cupboard was dark, to see how
effective it was, but like the knife scenes, the mise-en-scene of this shot did
not match with the rest of the trailer’s shots so we had to film it again with the
normal setting.
To make the actual title of our trailer more interesting, we initially
filmed some confetti falling infront of a large black piece of paper. It
was difficult for us to focus the camera so that that the confetti was
clear, but we think the overall effect turned out well in the iMovie
program. We were pleased with the effects available overall. This
shot of the title may not look horror like but we do think the confetti
falling is effective as it links the two things together, and it is also on
a typical black horror background.
We used the hand-held effect once again; when we placed a quick shot of the
clown chasing Amy at the end, to add an element of surprise- it is a shot that
is meant to make people ‘jump out of their seats’. We were pleased that we
were able to do this effect with the camcorder and that it worked well because
we think the overall shot worked well with the plot and theme of the trailer.
Overall, as a group I think we used these camcorders to our advantage very
well, as we were able to create many different styles of shots that were
effective for us to make our almost-one-minute-long teaser trailer.
Using the iMovie program on the eMac computer was great for editing, as we
were able to add things like taglines, titles, effects and transitions that we
wouldn’t be able to do on other programs, such as the confetti falling through
the text, and creating clips in slow motion as well as many fades. We could
also add in our institutional logos to make our trailer look a bit more
professional. We could fade many shots in and out to reveal titles, which most
trailers do, as well as fading the circus acts in and out so that they flowed
better and moved the plot along a lot quicker too. This editing software
allowed us to cut out errors we had initially mad in filming which was useful,
such as the tilting and zooming attempts when Amy witnesses the murder, to
turn it into a one second still shot.
Without iMovie, we would not have been able to time all the shots together
along with other elements, for example timing the voiceover’s introduction of

4. ‘Confetti the clown’ to the precise moment when the clown peeks around the
corner of the wall.
iMovie also helped us add in helpful sound effects, such as the heartbeat
sound effect of Amy breathing in the cupboard to add suspense, along with
the child’s creepy nursery-rhyme-like singing and the sinister monotonous
background music. We could also balance out the levels of these sound
effects, so that they did not over-power the background music or dialogue.
You could say that other technologies we used with sound were a mobile
phone, where we recorded the child singing, and then used a USB wire to
upload it to iMovie. When recording the voiceover, it was simply spoken into
the built in microphone on the eMac.
Photoshop was the main program we used for creating the drafts
of the magazine and poster, however, individually; I had more
experience with the program Paint.NET, which is a similar
program. I think Paint.NET had a lot more useful tools which I
could use also, which Photoshop didn’t have, such as a straight-
line tool, useful for outlining the clown image, and then changing
the colour of the background for each magazine draft. We used a
digital camera for the still photos.
These programs were useful for changing the background colours of our
products, such as for my final magazine, removing the clown’s green
background, and adding in the purple one. In our poster draft, we were also
able to add the ‘note paper’ effect for our clown’s silhouette on Photoshop to
make it look like a ‘Wanted’ poster, giving the impression that the figure is a
criminal.
As we used these Photoshop and Paint.NET programs more, we
learnt more about what they could do.
The magazine took longer to actually make on the computer, but
the poster did take longer to come up with an idea for. The
magazine took longer as you had to change the background, add
the title, and each cover line in a separate layer, as well as making sure the
layout, font, and colour balance was all right. These two programs helped us
make our drafts and final pieces look a lot more professional, as other
programs may have had more limits such as the normal ‘Paint’ program,
where its main use was just for cutting and pasting images.
For the poster drafts on Photoshop, we could change certain elements very
freely. Audience feedback for our draft implied that the key image of the clown
holding his knife had to be a lot clearer, so we were able to fix this problem
with Photoshop. There was a limitation when doing this however, as we could
not make the clown’s actual face clearer. It was not possible to change this,
as the program would not allow us, so we had to leave the draft as it was.
Overall we used many technologies when doing this project, using them as
much as we possibly could to get the results that we wanted. There were
some things that we were unable to do, but the main thing they helped us do

5. was to change and improve the drafts we had already made, and get rid of big
mistakes, to get one step closer to finishing our products.
Technology Used Advantages Disadvantages
Photoshop Many different tools to Had limitations e.g.
use for creating making the clown’s
magazine and poster. silhouette clearer.
Paint.NET More tools than Once you have saved a
Photoshop, for example file you cannot change
straight line tool to it, you have to start
outline the clown. again.
DV Camcorder Clear, can zoom in and Hard to focus on certain
out, can upload to things e.g. confetti
iMovie. Can attach to a falling (which we placed
tripod. As it is light and through the text
portable, you can use ‘Confetti’ in the trailer).
many different
techniques such as
handheld.
iMovie Many different Can be slow when
transitions and effects uploading or
e.g. add titles and slow removing/updating clips.
motion. Can hold many
clips. Can add in many
different layers of sound
and can control their
volume.
Internet Great for research, Can be slow uploading.
many different websites
for looking at trailers.
Above our some print screens of the program Paint.NET to show
that it was useful for a variety of different tasks.

6. Re-rendering
Testing the clown’s
layering two glove to layer
photos in the on top of the
poster drafts silhouette
poster draft
Changing the
A draft of our clown’s
title for the backdrop
poster
Trying to make
my new
Testing the magazine draft
‘Clapperboard’ more male-
masthead orientated
These are some print screens of the Photoshop program which was useful
for when constructing the poster drafts and magazine drafts.