Basic Storyline

I have looked at Todorov's theory and began working out a plot around this. This has helped me come up with a whole storyline which will improve the quality of my trailer, rather than simply planning a trailer. It will mean there will be a stronger sense of story in my trailer and also that I can plan more thoroughly.

Stage One - Equilibrium 

The main five girls are seen in school going about their ordinary lives, and then meet up after at one of their houses one the one year anniversary of their friend death

Stage Two - Disruption

The apparent antagonist comes into their home and takes the girls hostage

Stage Three - Problem Acknowledged

The girls vow to not hurt each other and to escape at the first opportunity

Stage Four - Obstacles

It becomes clear the girls all lied to each other about the night their friend died and they become desperate to know the truth    

Stage Five - Conclusion

Murderer is revealed and killed, and the man who took the girls hostage kills himself

My Product - First Thoughts

After looking at existing trailers and films from a variety of genres, I have began thinking about what genre I would like my trailer to belong to, and which would be realistically possible. I still believe a horror film would be the most effective type of film when created on a budget of zero as a lot of the scary things can be edited on the computer, such as the dark colouring to the footage and the eery music, and this therefore doesn't require a high budget. There are also a lot of conventional horror film shots and iconography that will not require a hollywood style budget, such as the frequent use of 'creepy' children, loud noises that come from no where and gory shots. This genre is also going to be the best when overcoming another issue - not having access to professional actors. This therefore makes a lot of dialogue inconvenient and likely to lower the quality of the overall trailer. Horror film trailers do not focus heavily on text and instead use writing to create a vague sense of story, and this would be ideal for amateur film making.

I have considered my ideas from my brainstorming and decided a ghost story would be too difficult with no budget as a lot of the things expected from a film in this style require stunts or advanced equipment which can hide elements on the screen. An example would be the iconic moment in Paranormal Activity where the lead female is dragged out of bed by nothing. I have also ruled out a possession style film as again this requires advanced skills and equipment I do not have access too. It is also likely to require a lot of speech and I want to avoid this in my trailer as it will look amateur as I do not have access to professional actors. 

This leaves me with the stalker idea or a teen horror. I can easily combine these two, however I want to focus less on the stalker element as this is not a very realistic film idea. There are very few films which feature a storyline only about someone being stalked and this is due to the lack of interest from the audience.

Brainstorming

We have began brainstorming our ideas and combining different ideas in order to decide which route we would like to go down for our trailer. We definitely want to do horror as it will be the easiest to produce with a low budget but within the horror genre we are not sure yet.

The Dark Knight Trailer Recut Evaluation

I chose to recut The Dark Knight trailer as it is a very popular film and one I am already familiar with. I believed I could change the genre from a superhero/action film to almost a horror film with it focusing on the Jokers character instead, as the trailer contains a lot of footage of him. This meant that when it came to editing, I began by cutting out all footage where Batman is visible which then eliminated the superhero aspect of the genre. I then put it in a different order and focused it on the Joker, which meant I had to remove most of the sound as it would not make sense in the order the clip was now in, so I found some scary music so there was sound and the mood and genre was set. I decided to keep some of the sound from the Joker speaking however as this made him appear creepy and someone to be feared, which is what I was aiming for. I struggled with time management during this task as I was unfamiliar with the software and it took me a lot of time to gain confidence with this and to use it effectively. This was a problem as it was time consuming and it also meant I was limited when editing it, as I didn't figure out how to change the colour or the actual image until after the project. This is something that improved naturally over time with experience, and next time I will know what I am doing straight away. Next time I will make use of features I have since least how to use, such as how to edit the actual picture (adding/taking away arts of the image) and changing the tone and saturation of the footage.
My media product generally sticks to the conventions of the genre in the fact that it contains quick paced clips of footage and tense music, which are features often found in horror films. However, there is a lack of storyline in the trailer, which could be fixed had I gathered more footage to choose from and used voice, or by adding headings throughout to explain the general idea of the film. Words are often used in horror film trailers to build tension also, so this would have been a useful convention to include. My trailer could be vastly improved however the task itself was successful as I can now use the software that will be necessary to complete my final product and it has given me ideas of how to create a plot and a strong sense of what genre the film belongs to, as this is not too clear in the trailer I created.

The Dark Knight - Trailer Storyboard Recut

The Dark Knight Recut

I have recut The Dark Knight trailer and it has allowed me to build my skills on Final Cut Pro. I can now use all the basic features. In doing this activity I realised how strong the sense of genre is in a trailer, as it is very difficult to change the genre and mine isn't too different. It is however easier to change the general storyline, or the focus of the film. I removed Batman from the trailer, which stopped the action/comic book genre being applicable to this trailer. 

The Dark Knight - Trailer Storyboard

For further inspiration on which genre to make my own trailer, I have created a storyboard for The Dark Knight, which is an action film. I am then putting this trailer into Final Cut Pro and learning how to use this software by trying to cut this trailer and change the genre and storyline. This is a good way to learn how to use this software which I am unfamiliar with, and also to get an idea of how genre is created in trailers, and how although the action is not chronological, the storyline is established.