Final draft - NAUGHTY LIST

FINAL DRAFT

Evaluation 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions from real media products?

Evaluation Task 1:

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

 

 Frame 1: Our Title

My first frame of choice is the title of our film, we chose naughty list because of its direct to the theme of Christmas that runs through our film and links to the plot. Also, the word "naughty" connotes the danger the guests are going to find themselves in. A generic convention of psychological thrillers is to have black/dark backgrounds as it is a mysterious colour associated with fear of the unknown, this will allow the audience to instantly recognise the thriller genre. Compared to stereotypical thriller titles from research into other thriller trailers such as 'The Gift' and 'Krampus'. By having our title short and with only two words we believed it made the title easy to remember, also the phrase "Naughty List" is frequently used in relation to adults telling off their children acting as a warning to the audience. Having the word 'Naughty' coloured red in "Naughty List", which is a stereotypical convention with thriller film titles, it emphasises the danger the guests are in for, and symbolises the anger Scarlett is feeling towards them.

Choosing the font for a title is an important decision as it can change the whole mood and message behind a film. I chose the serif font 'Times New Roman' this is because it is a stereotypical convention of thriller film posters, taking into account that the same font will be used for my film poster and magazine front poster, I preferred this font as it made my ancillary texts look professional.  by using this font, I was able to relate them to the stereotypical thriller genre, however, if the font was a graphic chiller font, it could make the film look like a comedic parody (spoof) because the title would take away from the sinfulness of the film. For example, the films "The Terrible Two", "The Mummy" and "No One Here But Us" look more serious and are recognisable as being from the thriller genre.

 

Whereas the film "Saturday the 14th" is clearly a spoof of the film "Friday the 13th"; a classical thriller/horror film. I can tell it's parody because the original has used the stereotypical thriller font, and the spoof has used the generic chiller font.






Frame 2: Storyline and Plot

Frame 2 is one of our intertitles. I think this frame is a perfect representation of our storyline as this is the whole basis of our film. the whole story is about how Scarlett's childhood friends were put on her "naughty list" as they didn't attend her Christmas party 6 years ago, therefore this sparked her inspiration for a holiday-themed revenge plot. The question asked throughout the film is "what happens if you're on the naughty list, therefore by including this intertitle, not only is the audience given a clue to the plot but it also creates a sense of fear in the audience. Yet, it many thriller films audiences see the antagonist directly tormenting the victims, therefore ours challenges this idea, as throughout the trailer audiences are unaware what happens to the guests, although you know that they were tied up and are also seen running freely, you know that whatever Scarlett is doing to the guests it isn't pleasant. However, I did not include any scenes of direct harm. as our trailer is left on a cliffhanger; what happens to the guest, do they die? It, therefore, conforms to the generic conventions of thriller trailers to leave the audience wondering as this entices audiences to see the film in cinemas to find out the outcome.

Frame 3: Setting

Our settings included, small dark rooms, a long corridor, and Scarlett Rosewood's house, all of which a middle-class viewer would recognise. As our film is set in a homely environment it portrays Scarlett as a normal citizen, which then makes the audience feel uncomfortable as your home is usually a secure and comfortable environment and will scare them into believing that anyone can be after you. Many other thriller films such as "The Purge" and "The Strangers" are set in household settings.

Throughout our whole trailer the only glimpse you get of the outside is when Scarlett is looking out her window, everything else if set inside Scarlett's house. This is to create the same feeling of claustrophobia as the characters, by not getting to see the outside, the audience will feel trapped and isolated. Other scenes also created a similar feeling, for example, the small rooms in which Scarlett trapped her guests and tortured them, these scenes create a lot of tension and confusion. Will the guest ever escape? Where in the house are they?

Frame 4: Prop and Costumes

The protagonist in our film kidnaps and tortures their dinner guests, whilst wearing a Santa costume. The costume is a important aspect as it the face shown in our film poster, magazine cover, DVD case cover, or any advertisements of ours. We wanted the costumes head to be the face of our production because it is easily recognisable. By seeing Santa's face people will automatically associate our film with Christmas, and happy memories. However we want our audience to not just think about Christmas but think of a more creepier version of Christmas, this is why we chose this exact costume.
The face of the costume is similar to the masks used in "The Purge" and "The Strangers", the masks have rosey checks, big eyes, and round faces. this creates the impression of an innocent child, however because these features have been exaggerated it makes the overall look of the mask, sinister.

Frame 5: Camera and Editing 

We planned almost all of our shots in our trailer, each shot composed in a certain way to produce different connotations. For example this shot in our trailer, like many others, was sped up. We chose to speed up certain shots to change the pace of the trailer so it was stereotypically fast paced like other thriller trailers. 
By having a close up of the kidnapper's hand creeping around the door, the audience will begin to feel scared ad creeped out because even thought you can imply that its Santa's hand because of the sleeve, it doesn't give away who it belongs to, therefore leaving the mystery of who is torturing the guests? This particular scene is also seen in other films such as "Door to the Other Side". 

Frame 6: Introducing Characters

Our trailer, consisted of 5 characters, which I feel is conventional of a thriller trailer, by having 1 villain and 4 innocent victims, scares the audience into thinking that this one person is powerful enough to control them all. To make sure our film wasn't too confusing we strayed away from having too many, by making 4 of the 5 characters, guests, therefor our audience isn't overloaded with story lines. 

Our guests were first introduced during the dinner scene where they were soon to be drugged. therefore creating a happy, calm atmosphere, which will soon turn manic and disorientated. This then creates the basis for our plot. Here we have challenged generic conventions of thriller films as aren't stereotypically introduced all at once, at the same time. We also challenged the generic convention of showing all the terrible things the villain is capable of and them revealing the villain. As we introduce our antagonist right at the beginning of the trailer, this goes against films like "the gift“ and "Krampus", who introduce there villains later on in their trailers. However because we introduced our villain so early this is where our enigma code comes in. By having our kidnapper where a mask when torturing and tying up their guests, no ones actually know who is behind the mask, leaving the audience to wonder and work it out themselves. 

Frame 7: Special Effects

We limited the amount of special effects in our trailer because we wanted to keep it realistic as it will then make our trailer more creepy, as we are distorting reality. One of my favourite special effects used in the film is when the guests all wake up after being drugged, as they are all trapped in small rooms and can't escape there must be a way for the kidnapper to check on them. So i thought of the idea to add the strobe effect in premiere pro, by changing the strobe colour to black, increasing the random strobe probability to 80%, add overlaying a glitching sound effect this gave us the final effect of a glitching security camera. I really like this idea as a special effect as it makes the audience feel uncomfortable as its like they are wacthing the guests wake up along with the villain. other films used the same security camera effect like, "The Purge". I believe its especially creepy as they can look like they're so close to you yet they could be far away. 

 

Frame 8: Film Poster

I believe my film poster followed numerous stereotypical conventions of thriller film posters. through my research in film posters I found that pulling in the audiences interest is down to a captivating main image, and having too many images can make the story and plot unclear. Therefore i chose to have the main image of the antagonist, which is stereotypical of film posters to either have the main antagonist or protagonist.

Just like our title I chose the serif font 'Times New Roman', stereotypical convention of thriller film posters, as I preferred this font as it made my ancillary texts look professional. By adding a cracked glass effect to the word 'NAUGHTY' as well as making it red, emphasised the danger in the film.

I included a review from a newspaper or film critic, just above my film title. By keeping the review short and too the point this way the audience instantly get a positive opinion of our film, as well as a five star rating instantly catching the audiences eye. After looking at film posters such as 'Black Swan' I could see that a black background was conventional of film posters, there for I used a Layer mask to fade my main image into black. As well as adding in a tag line, billing block, and main cast, all personalised to our film. As our film is an independent, low-budget film, our film poster needed all these conventions as we don't have a well known production company like 'Warner  Bros' or 'Sony', so we must rely on critics and our audiences opinions before distributing the film.

I tried to follow the convention of having the actors names just above the film title, just like they have in the 'Black Swan' film poster, however, again, because our film is an independent low-budget film all of our actors are other student and do not have any star power. Therefore we were unable to include the stereotypical convention of using a famous actor/ actress to entice audience into watching it.

From my research into  the film poster 'Mr Brooks' the tag line is placed at the top of the poster and gives a slight insight to the plot of the film. I wanted my film poster to directly address my audience so I chose the tag line 'Are you on the Naughty List?' and the word 'you' created that created a direct address with the audience. This is intend to grab our audiences attention by making them question not only the film but themselves as well. Also by having the word 'you' coloured red connotes danger and fits in with our thriller theme of black, white and red.

Frame 9: Magazine Cover

Just like my film poster I used an image of the main antagonist in our film, Santa.
This is what I found to a stereotypical convention of  a magazine front cover when looking at the film posters of  'Pirates of the Caribbean' and 'Sherlock' The main characters of those films are the main imagine.
Looking at many film magazine covers I can easily spot that masthead are stereotypically large and fill the width of the page, as well as being slightly covered by the main image. For example in the 'Sherlock Holmes' magazine front cover, Sherlock's head is overlapped on top of the masthead.



I liked using this layout for my magazine because by covering some of the masthead confirms the companies confidence in their magazine, by assuming that audiences will recognise their magazine without actually seeing the whole name. My masthead is bold, clear and white, keeping to the thriller colour scheme. I chose the word 'Cinema' for the masthead because magazines like 'Total Film' and 'Premiere' their names both relate to film, which instantly causes the audience to assume our magazine is about films. 

I used the stereotypical convention of  a puff like they did in the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' magazine front cover. I chose to make mine in a circle similar  and chose to make the word "WIN" in red bold font and in all capital letters, similar to like 'Empire' have done with 'Pirates 4' this therefore draw the audiences attention to buying my magazine as they will want to win cinema tickets.

Evaluation 2: How effective is the combination of my Main and Ancillary products?

I have produced a voiceover for this task, which will play over my trailer, featuring images of my final poster and magazine cover. I have explained the effectiveness of my overall campaign, and how I have used synergy to combine my three products.
Script:

Production Company Logo -
Overall I think our production company logo follows the generic conventions of production company logos in terms of the thriller genre, by following the generic colour scheme of black, white, and red. It also appeals to our target audience as they would be aware of the topics mentioned (e.g. psychopaths, death, murder and mystery) because their generation is interested in films about these topics, as society is becoming more violent, therefore they are able to notice and understand the connotations.

Household Setting -
As our film is set in a homely environment it portrays Scarlett as a normal citizen, which then makes the audience feel uncomfortable as your home is usually a secure and comfortable environment and will scare them into believing that anyone can be after you. Many other thriller films such as "The Purge" and "The Strangers" are set in household settings. I repeat showcasing this home environment in my film poster by using a main image of my front door slightly open, to connote a welcoming presence but at the same time uncomfortable because of the creepy Santa face.

Christmas Theme -
Our film is a twist on a normal family Christmas film, allowing older generations who no longer get excited about Christmas to have something to look forward to. The theme of Christmas is clearly shown in all of my texts, due to the props; presents, wrapping paper, Christmas tree, etc. Costumes; Santa Claus. All my products fit together well as a set, and through the consistent use of Times New Roman font and the Santa costume, it all works together as synergy.

1st Intertitle -
Our first intertitle is a perfect representation of our storyline as this is the whole basis of our film. The story is about how Scarlett Rosewood's childhood friends were put on her "naughty list" as they didn't attend her Christmas party 6 years ago, therefore this sparked her inspiration for a holiday-themed revenge plot.
The question asked throughout the film is "what happens if you're on the naughty list?", therefore by including this intertitle, not only is the audience given a clue to the plot but it also creates a sense of fear in the audience. Yet, it many thriller films audiences see the antagonist directly tormenting the victims, therefore ours challenges this idea, as throughout the trailer audiences are unaware what happens to the guests, although you know that they were tied up and are also seen running freely, you know that whatever Scarlett is doing to the guests it isn't pleasant. However, I did not include any scenes of direct harm as our trailer is left on a cliff-hanger; what happens to the guest, do they die? It, therefore, conforms to the generic conventions of thriller trailers to leave the audience wondering as this entices audiences to see the film in cinemas to find out the outcome. This same line is used in my film poster 'Are you on the Naughty List?' and the word 'you' created a direct address with the audience. This is intended to grab my audiences attention by making them question not only the film but themselves as well. Also by having the word 'you' coloured red connotes danger and fits in with our thriller theme of black, white and red.

4 Split-screen -
One of my favourite special effects used in the film is when the guests all wake up after being drugged, as they are all trapped in small rooms and can't escape there must be a way for the kidnapper to check on them. So I thought of the idea to add the strobe effect in premiere pro, by changing the strobe colour to black, increasing the random strobe probability to 80%, add overlaying a glitching sound effect this gave us the final effect of a glitching security camera. I really like this idea as a special effect as it makes the audience feel uncomfortable as its like they are watching the guests wake up along with the villain. The effect also connotes the theme of broken and the house is just as much as broken as Scarlett's mind. Another aspect of my 3 products which could imply breakage is my film poster, by adding a cracked glass effect to the word 'NAUGHTY' in my title, this then connotes danger and disorientation.

Torture -
Throughout our trailer we see many links towards torture without actually witnessing them, for example the guest scenes. We see multiple shots of different guests either screaming, running, or unconscious, this tells the audience that they are being tortured or tricked without the audience actually seeing these scenes in the trailer. This links to my magazine front cover because I've reference films of a similar nature. For example a film called 'Incurable' is centred around death and violence and links in great with my film which is why I think it was a good idea to refer to it.

Overall I think that my combination of my three products is successful, by using synergistic elements such as, the font style, colour scheme (black, white, and red), and the title. I have used stereotypical thriller conventions such as mise-en-scene of satanic symbols, drugs, and narrow corridors, and low key lighting thought all 3. By lowing the brightness of my main images in Photoshop, all 3 of my products share the theme of low key lighting.

Evaluation 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Trailer:

WWW:
Good editing
Cross cutting, at the beginning with the flashbacks to Rosewood's childhood
Split screen, guests waking up from being drugged

EBI:
Include more quick shots (1sec)
Add more dialogue
More sound effects
More camera movement
Add more emphasize to dinner scene
More intertitles
Alter the 'who are you?' moment
Film the drugging of the drink

We were very pleased with the feedback we got through social media (Twitter), the majority of the comments being positive, with certain words frequently being used such as 'spooky' and 'creepy'. However we also received some constructive criticism to make our trailer slightly faster, which we also receive from our teachers (as you can see above) and acted upon immediately. 

Change 1: Include more quick shots

In our second draft we added a close up of the kidnapper's hand creeping around the door, which will cause the audience to feel scared and creeped out because even thought you can infer that its Santa's hand because of the sleeve, it doesn't give away who it belongs to. This new shot in our trailer, like many others, was sped up. We chose to speed up certain shots to change the pace of the trailer so it was stereotypically fast paced like other thriller trailers. Now, along with a couple others, we have included more quick shots.

Change 2: Add more dialogue
The original trailer had no dialogue other that Phoebes call for help, distant screams, and heavy breathing, so we decide to add a voice over. The voice over was of Alice and I reciting a dark poem from Catherine Fisher's book, Songs of Sapphique. The tone of voice was slow and low pitched to create an eerie atmosphere.
“Walls have ears.
Doors have eyes.
Trees have voices.
Beasts tell lies.
Beware the rain.
Beware the snow.
Beware the man
You think you know.
-Songs of Sapphique”
I think this added a whole different mood to the product as it linked in with some shots, for example when we say the line "Beware the snow" at the same time, Scarlett pours the drugs into the guest's drink. The 'snow' could be a metaphor for the mysterious white powder Scarlett uses to drug her guests.

Change 3: More sound effects
Before we improved our product, the waking up scene in the trailer was played over the eerie background music with no visual effects. So I thought of the idea to add the strobe effect in premiere pro, by changing the strobe colour to black, increasing the random strobe probability to 80%, and overlaying a glitching sound effect this gave us the final effect of a glitching security camera.

Change 4: More intertitles
Our second draft included only one intertitle "Are you on the Naught List?" with no reviews or ratings from companies or critics, this therefore can effect the success of our trailer because by including a review or rating can increase the popularity of the film as more people will want to see a 5 star film rather than one with no rating. So we added an intertitle reading

Change 5: Alter the "Who are you?" moment
This was one of the biggest changes to our trailer. Originally, to introduce Santa, we did a simple vertical pan with a voice over saying "Who are you?" but we didn't like the effect it gave of so we decide to change it. Instead we placed in a few separate shots of different parts of Santa, first his feet, second his hand, then finally his face, where the new voice over will say "Beware the man, you think you know"

Evaluation 4: How Did You Use New Media Technologies in the Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages

How Did You Use New Media Technologies in the Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages

Digital camera:

One of the most crucial pieces of technology we used was a digital camera, this way we film scenes in very high quality as well as editing them straight from the camera. Settings on the camera allowed us to adjust the amount of light in shots and the focus points. for example in one of the first scenes with Scarlett Rosewood, she is seen looking out the window, so we wanted the focus to be on her, therefore we used a short depth of field. Also by adjusting the light in scenes like the running down the corridor, we were able to adjust the lighting to low key, changing the overall atmosphere. Another feature of the camera is that we had a really wide zoom range, which was helpful in scenes such as Santa's hand creeping around the door to emphasise the feeling of fear. The camera was also easy to transport around, it came with a case, a charger and an extra lens. this way we were able to take it with us around school, each others homes and out into the town. Because the school allowed to take the camera out of school for long periods of time, this reassured us that whenever we have any ideas to add or change about our trailer, we could because we would have the camera at hand. The school also allowed us to take a tripod which was helpful when filming stable steady shots, for example when we were filming the dinner scene the camera was able to stay steady so it was easy to add the zoom effect post-production. The tripod also had many adjustment levels so we could change the height and angle of the shot. This was helpful for shots such as all the guest's waking up scenes, which were filmed with a high angle to connote the guest's vulnerability against the kidnapper. Finally another useful tool that came with this camera was a neck strap, this allowed us to take a hand-held P.O.V shot of Alice's Character running away from the kidnapper down a long corridor. By having the neck strap it allowed us to perform this shot safely without dropping or damaging the camera.

Voice Recorder:

We used a voice recorder app on windows 10 to record the voice over for our trailer. The voice over was of Alice and I reciting a dark poem from Catherine Fisher's book, Songs of Sapphique. The tone of voice was slow and low pitched to create an eerie atmosphere. We preferred using a app instead of a hand held voice recorder because we got better quality audio as we were able to plug in a professional microphone.



Adobe Premiere Pro:

All of our editing was done using my own laptop (Lenovo Yoga Touch) and our school computers. I had a reasonable amount of experience with premiere pro, having used it for our AS production, however during post production I spent a little amount of time looking at tutorials for some special effects. An example of this would be out 4 split-screen security camera scene of the guests waking up, as I did not already know how to do this I watched a YouTube tutorial. Premiere Pro allowed us to import all of our footage into folders, re-watch them all and delete any unnecessary files. it was easy to delete and separate any audio files we were not happy with.

We could also include intertitles by adding a title into our sequence, for example we made an intertitle that said “Are you on the naughty list?” this allowed us to address our audience directly, and therefore grab their attention. After using just the schools computers in our AS production we realised it might be easier to use my own laptop. I already had the software from my other classes, and I could use it easily at home as well as bring it into school. This made our post-production so much more efficient this year, as we could not only edit our production in class and school hours but also at home in our free time. Although once I transferred the files over to my laptop we couldn't use it on the school computers no more as they used the 2010 version whereas I have the updated 2018 version, therefore the school computers couldn't render the new files.



Adobe Photoshop:
Photoshop became extremely useful when it came to creating my magazine front cover, film poster and our production company logo for our trailer. I have a lot of past experience with Photoshop as it is one of main pieces of software I use in my graphics design class. I have made magazine covers before in graphics so it was really helpful to have this experience.

For my magazine front cover I used tools such as the selection tool; to select the head of Santa, the layers panel; to create a copy of the head, and the mask tool; to layer the head over the masthead to get that conventional covered masthead layout. I also used the select tool on my film poster to select and mask certain parts of my main image, this is because I wanted to increase the brightness and saturation of the wrapping paper on the door but not anything else. by using the select tool I could apply this adjustment filter to specific areas of my choosing.
Photoshop also provided me with a variety of Serif, Sans Serif, Script, and Stylised fonts to choose from. However I decided to stick with my thriller stereotypical Times New Roman, because I've used it in all my other texts. I was also able to apply effects to my texts, for example, drop shadows which I applied to both my film poster and magazine cover to emphasise the titles.


Phone:
My mobile phone was very useful during production as I could do last minute research from wherever. I had my phone with me at all times so this meant I could search up trailers into order get inspiration for certain shots, for example when filming the guest wake up scenes I looked at the trailer for 'Split' for inspiration on how to frame the shot and how the actors should wake up.

As I have a Sony Xperia Z2 this meant that I could download up to date apps to help with communication, for example we used the Facebook Messenger app to contact our cast so we all knew where and when to meet. The calendar app was also useful for scheduling what day we were filming, setting reminders for handing back in equipment, and prioritising our time.


Blogger:
Blogger is a great website for presenting my progress and ideas, it was easy to use and practical in that I could use blogger at school, at home, and out and about on my phone due to the app. Blogger allowed me to upload my research and planning, my development, and our final productions. I could chose to save these as drafts and come back to them later on or I could publish them and get feedback from my teachers, this was helpful because that meant I could work on various pieces of unfinished work and publish them when they're ready.

Other Websites:
We used various other websites to look at tutorials on how to complete certain techniques for Photoshop, Premiere Pro, etc. that I hadn't yet learnt. We also found copyright free music to add ominous background music.

Naughty List ~ Magazine Cover

Naughty List ~ Film Poster