Delirium: Billing Block

This is the billing block that our group made to use in two of the three pieces in the course, which are the trailer and our own individual film posters. The billing block is used to credit those who contributed to the film in a simplistic and practical manner to present those involved and professional and portray the film as of high quality.

I attempted to mimic the structure of the layout and format of other film company billing blocks like Warner Bros. which I showed in an earlier blog post, portraying my work of creating an animatic billing block. However, I had to alter my original content as we decided to change the film production company to a more professional name that would be more realistic of a real production company.

Poster Drawn Draft: 2

(The drawn draft of my photo frame poster draft with analysis and reasoning) Include magazine images to back up.

This is my final attempt at a poster drawn draft for my group's trailer 'DELIRIUM'. I chose to navigate away from typical conventions of posters as I intended on using a character for the main image on my film magazine cover. By using an object, it differentiates my two pieces and helps me present how audiences can be attracted to a product in different ways, while also relating to what many film companies do.

The initial main image has been changed to the new image of a hand running across a picture frame on the wall of the house. This was done as I felt that the main image of the poster previously did not connect to the horror genre well enough, by which I mean it not portray the fear of the film, as there was no real sign of danger for any characters portrayed. Aswell as this it would of been extremely challenging and time consuming to create, which is something not desired when on a strict time frame for the course. It also is a shot from the actual trailer produced, linking the poster to the trailer more efficiently.

The image of the photo frame was selected to suggest the happy life the family presented had. The past tense is suggested through it being a photo and the suggestion that this happiness has ended is hinted through the blood smearing hand. The blood represents murder with the red symbolising the danger the family is in. The hand is purposely made to appear as disturbing as possible.

The dark bruises and cuts, with the jagged edges suggest the person is no stranger to pain. The nails in specific imply the origins of this character, as the sharp, black jagged nails are often associated with witch-like figures, portraying their cunning cruel nature. The hand shape itself is meant to resemble a female's hand, hinting more to the identity of the character.

When considering the position of the hand across the frame. The position of the fingers convey elements of the plot. The child is almost hidden between the index and middle figure, suggesting the figure's dominance over him, and how he is quite literally in her grasp. These fingers are the more used and so hint the figure's focus on the child. The other fingertips rest near the mother's face, implying how she is not as victim but involved. The idea behind this is that the nails are around her head, suggesting her link to the figure. Finally, the father figure is completely left. This is intentional as the character is left unaware and in the dark to the true nature and extent of the figure (the possessed mother) and even takes to videoing the disturbances to gain more knowledge. Him being left in the lighter side of the portrait against the darkness of the hand also portrays the battle between him as the saviour and the evil possessed mother over the safety of the child and themselves.

The tagline 'FEAR HER' suggests the danger the characters are in as well as connecting to the audience, almost warning them of the danger. This helps increase the fear as it associates the fictional villain as something that could hurt you in real life, and therefore is more likely to remain in the audience's memories. This is extremely valuable as a poster is a promotional device to attract the audience to watch the film in the cinemas, where the profit from ticket sales would be obtained.

The title 'DELIRIUM' suggests the insanity of the possessed mother and her ambiguous true nature and origin which the audience will be intrigued to find out during the film. The size and position of the title is purposely done to emphasize the importance of the name of the film as key information, as it is vital to the audience finding out more about the film, along with the release date of 'OCT 2015'.
Although, having said this, the poster include three set of online information,such as a web address and two social media links. This helps the modern audience stay up to date and interested in the film by using the technophilic society we live in now to access a wider audience.

There is also a billing block as this is a convention of film posters, crediting those who contributed. By making my own and adding it to the film poster, it helps to create the presentation of a professional and realistic film poster.

I was inspired by many other professional film posters, some of which were:

Animatic of Horror Trailer

This is the completed animatic of our group's horror trailer. We had initially aimed to include a soundtrack alongside, to see how it would relate to the trailer and practice how to combine the two. However, as there was little time to create the animatic, we decided that the camera shots were to be prioritised, as they would be the aspect of the animatic that would be most of use to improving our trailer in the real production.

We used the film title of delirium as it was chosen as the favourite by our audience research. As it is the audience that we are producing the trailer for, this is why we chose to go with the title that appeals to the target audience the most.

An animatic is the initial production of the trailer you desire to make, however, using pictures of your storyboards, not using film. This eliminated other aspects such as acting and allows the filmmaker to concentrate on the flow of the shots and if they work together. At this point one could introduce new, delete or modify the camera shots and their content, as well as the order. It provides the filmmaker with a rough understanding of the presentation of the the animatic, and avoids re-shooting the real trailer and avoid paying potential actors/actresses to film or re-film more shots etc. All in all, for filmmaker’s it cost and time efficient to use an animatic as an initial draft of their trailer, which is why our group has chosen to also.

Our trailer’s plot was selected through an exercise during a class. Each participant of our group created a script on our chosen genre (horror), from which we all collectively decided on the best. The criteria for the best did not just contain whether or not we thought the trailer would appeal to the audience as scary enough, but also if we could professionally create a trailer around it using the limited equipment and time period we have been given. We settled on one plot of a supernatural presence in a new and spooky house, causing possession of a loved one. From this, we could create suspense through suggestion and tension, rather than time and expense on gore, with equipment we did not have access to as media students. The location wouldn’t be too hard to obtain either, as we just needed the use of a house for a few hours. We then critiqued the plot to make it easier to film, modifying aspects such as the amount and gender of certain characters. 

We then spent a considerable amount of time creating the shots of our trailer. We considered this priority as we understood the flaw in creating an animatic at pace without proper planning of well thought out shots we were happy with as a group. We used class time and free time in school between lessons to all meet and discuss the shots of our storyboard. All having different ideas of the presentation of our trailer, we benefited greatly from suggesting aspects of shots and each other modifying their suggestion until we came across a selection of shots that we all felt would work. I offered my skill of representations to the shots also using my research of other horror trailers and picking up on techniques. An example of this is the shot of the chair’s shadow upon the door within the house as well as many high angles of the possessed, to demonstrate their power. This is also why I took the task of writing the shot descriptions for the story board, to specify what we had to take and why. As a result of this we all worked well together and ended finishing the story board quicker than expected.

In terms of the actual construction of our animatic. We first used our storyboard to create a new order of shots, basing on the time and location we would need to shoot them. For example, some shots needed to be darker than others, so we grouped those together as placed them at the end of the order. This order was placed against a time line, helping us ensure we take the lighter shots in the limited amount of bright daylight of the winter period, to symbolise the happiness and peace before the break of the equilibrium. Having all of our props, such as vases and a teddy bear, bought in preparation, we were able to take all shots during one filming day, leaving us time to have first access to the editing suite.

In total, we used around sixteen different props in the production of our animatic, which we gathered together ourselves in preparation of the shoot. We prepared this to aid us further when reflecting on our animatic, as using props would allow us to see a more realistic version of how our camera shots would look like in the real trailer production. We found that during the actual production of the camera shots, we did add in extra props, such as the wooden cross leant against the clock, which we felt enhance the darkness of the presence and how possession is sometimes associated with the devil, and the cross helped incorporate the theme of religion we felt subtly.

Our plot had the other advantage of using minimal characters, some of which were in our group. We then created a fixed date of shooting which we could all attend, and invited the additional actor along so that, with us all there, we could get shots done without losing track of which shots had been taken, continuity errors and actors/actresses being away, which is a possibility with multiple shoot dates. We chose the actors and actresses on their physical appearance and availability. We used a male to play the father, Alys to play the mother and myself to play the son, as I was the shortest and would be more effective for a realist portrayal of the shots. We had planned an actual child to play the boy, however, we decided that the originality of him doing the trailer would be key, and he may not be as willing to repeat the shots again in the final trailer, therefore we used myself.

During the shoot, we attempted to work as efficiently as possible. We also added to shots’ contents as we took them. For example, the aforementioned chair shadow on the door shot was improvised during the shoot. Some shots were extremely difficult to capture. In particular, the shot of the vase dropping to the ground was too quick to capture as a picture on the camera, so we filmed the smash as practice, to see how it would look on film and were happy with the results. Even though it didn’t feature in our animatic, we attempted it to ensure we were prepared with practice to capture it correctly for the real trailer.

During the editing process, our group first put the pictures back into the correct timeline of the trailer. We then edited their time length to allow use to gain an idea of whether the suspense is created in the correct places. A shot usually lasted around two seconds, varying on what we wanted the audience to feel. For example, as the climatic shots were shown, were made the shots quicker to create the suspense and hopefully imitating the audience’s heartbeat quickening with fear. In contrast, during the more horrific shots at the end of the trailer, we decided to slow the pace down, leaving the shot time length longer with longer fading transitions to create tension, ensuring the audience’s focus is solely on the shots as they possibly will be the most iconic and the last ones in the trailer that the audience will see. The software that we had access to also had colour adjustment and transitions available, which we took the opportunity to include once to priority of the shots had be successfully completed in the animatic. Amongst the camera shots, our inter titles were placed to help us gather an idea of the separation between the sections of shots, bring our storyboard more to life. 

The inter titles used were meant for suspense, for example ‘The past will haunt you’. We used key words such as the pronoun ‘you’ to suggest to the audience that they themselves are somehow directly involved in the events of the film, hopefully allowing the trailer to be remember, leading to possibly them viewing it, which will create profit. As the filmmaker, this is the desired effect of a the trailer, as it is free and meant to be a promotional device to entice the audience to watch the film. ‘haunt’ also implies the supernatural ghost-like nature of the antagonist. As well as this, we positioned this phrase as split into two separate inter titles. This create tension as the audience is left waiting for the end of the sentence. Also, it infers that the contents of the trailer between the inter titles somehow relate to this ‘haunt’ing it suggests. We kept the inter titles simple as possible using a black and white colour scheme with a traditional font, not to distract from the more influential content of the trailer. The font was traditional to portray the old fashioned time period that this presence originated. This is all true for the title, however, we made the text larger with a longer time length as the title is the key text on the film as it is what the audience will need to go and view the film. This is why in the real trailer we will ensure that the title is more complex in a design that differs from the other inter titles more. 

This was as the other aspects of the animatic such as shots and editing with transitions were considered more of a priority being a visual aid of the flow of our trailer. Having said this, our soundtrack was being created during the final stages of our editing, yet it’s time consuming nature made it impossible to achieve by the deadline, something we should have time to achieve completion in the final trailer. Our planning of the soundtrack is keeping it simple. We did not want lyrics or too many instruments, as it was unnecessary. the point of the soundtrack was to accompany and enhance the tension and suspense of the shots. However, we did consider the use of silence as a lesser known but equally as effective source of tension, which we could added the diegetic sound of the mother or the child’s voice rhyming a witch’s spell, hinting more information about the presence to the audience.

To aid the production of our trailer, we would use the animatic as a research tool, giving it to those of our already reached target audience, which are possibly parental females of the twenty to thirty age group, to see their opinions of the trailer and how to improve. At the moment, i would criticised our trailer as needing a more visually memorable title presentation and to ensure the soundtrack and dietetic sounds to be include in the final trailer

I would consider five iconic images from our animatic to be, the rocking chair shadow across the door, the possessed mother tied to the chair, the close up of the teddy bear’s face and the high angled shot of the boy’s face.

For our animatic we used:
Luke Williams - Father
Alys LeMoignan - Mother
Dora Jones - Son

Poster Drawn Draft: 1

These are my first two drawn drafts of my film poster.

With the second image, the title could suggest a key aspect of the film and it’s hard genre, as ‘Delirium’ is a noun that is defined as an acutely disturbed state of mind, characterised by restlessness and illusions. Synonyms of ‘Delirium’ express the nature of the villain, appearing almost ‘insane’. This all portrays  not only the conflict as a disturbance within someone, rather than a more physical one, further focusing the horror genre, but also the title’s monosyllabic structure allows the title to be more easily remembered by the audience, which is a vital role of a poster as a promotional device. The bold style of the font is also used to draw attention to the title, as it is the aspect of the poster that is most needed to be remembered as the audience will need the name to identify the film.

The main image previously conveyed a young boy stood in the foreground of an over bearing house. The house’s position over the boy represented it’s dominance, hinting how something connected to the house is the cause of the conflict and the break of the equilibrium, putting the child at risk as the victim, which is portrayed through his frightened facial expression. There is also the use of eye contact which helps connect the film to the audience, allowing them to feel more personally involved. The symbolism of the child’s pyjama colours was also significant as it combined the combination of white and blue stripes. The white symbolising the innocence of the child and his vulnerability. This then tarnished by the blue stripes which represent the paranormal disturbance and how the progression is splintering his innocent life. His age related to the parental target audience, playing on a parent’s fear for the danger of their child. The stereotype of a boy was wild and free, which is the opposite of what is portrayed on the boy’s facial expression, suggesting that the effect of the house or it’s contents is the cause.

I then decided that the child didn’t connect to the audience enough, and by conveying the main character, the poster is not only implying who the focus of the film would be but directly clarifying the target audience it aims to attract, and therefore have a higher likelihood of obtaining more popularity. Also, the character of the mother is portrayed as the villain in the trailer, and by presenting her in the poster, the negative and unnerving genre of horror is portrayed more efficiently. This is enhanced by the colour scheme of the character’s outfit. The clothing choice of a flowing top with trousers suggests her gender but also he age to strengthen the portrayal of her as a mother and infers the positive qualities that is assumed from the female stereotype, such as caring, nurturing, calm, sensible, etc. However, this is contrasted with the colour of red, which could symbolise blood, danger, evil and the devil, connecting to the genre of horror and creating an unsettling enigma for the audience of what the mother is capable of. Her position in front of the house, being in the foreground not only inferring the location of the film but the connection of whatever has caused this evil is rooted from the house. This also links to the presentation of the eyes. The dark red circling the eyes, along with the tag-line ‘The eyes are the window to the soul’  could imply the nature of the disturbance and that this horror film is specifically supernatural concerning the possession of a presence through the use of the corruption of a ‘soul’. The use of ‘eyes’ not only connects the tag-line back to the main image, but also implies with the unspecified ‘the’, and not a particular person, that this possession could happen to anyone, even the audience, leading to the audience feeling more personally involved with the events of the film and more likely to remember the film or even be encourage to go and watch the film, so as to see if there is a restoration of the equilibrium to console themselves of the fear that no one’s ’soul’, not even there’s, is safe. The use of ‘window’ could be fair to be noted as intentionally referring to the link between the antagonist and the family, as well as the windows shown on the house, also linking this connection back to the setting. This, like many other aspects of the poster, helps it all to link together, giving a well thought out impression and positive expectations of the film’s success. 

In the background of the image, the house is shown to be built with wooden-stripped windows which represent bars, such as those of a prison, suggesting that there is no escape for the characters, leading the audience to feel helpless. The emotion allow the audience to again feel personally involved, which creates a greater impact of their memory. The door of the house has an outer layer, which conveys the normality and the empty look of the house, as well as the character’s lives. This is then contrasted with the door shown within the outer layer, which represents the complexity of the plot within, after the break of the equilibrium, as a result of entering this house. The storm conveys the pathetic fallacy of the feel of the plot. How dark and mysterious, and it is this lack of clarity over the plot, and the storm over-bears that house and the mother, which creates tension and suspense for the audience.

The colour scheme of the poster includes the colours white, grey, black and red. White emphasising the title out of the black darkness of the storm, as well as representing how happiness and the innocence of this unsuspecting family is consumed by the darkness of evil presence. The grey is to merge these two colours together, it’s misty likeness presenting the enigma of the events of the house that are to follow in the plot due to the presence and what she is capable.

The format of the poster is one that is often used, shown through various posters I have researched and analysed, which are shown on previous blog posts. They all remain in the same structure, with only ever minor variations if any, such as the placement of a tag-line. This format is minimal and clear, which helps inform the audience of the key information, like the title efficiently. If crowded with content, the audience may be too overwhelmed, and a poster is supposed to be an enjoyment to quickly observe, picking up the key information about the release of a new film, and having to decipher it would not be effective in obtaining the audience’s interest.

Part of this format contains the billing block, to give credit to the film’s contributors, and the release date, to inform the audience of when to expect the film’s availability in cinemas. The release date our group chose for our film is ‘October 31’ as it is a date celebrated as halloween, which is known for focusing around the theme of horror. This is why the audience may feel more inclined to go and watch a horror movie at this time, as it is suspected horror films will be at it’s peak of interest for the year. These two aspects of the format, as well as the tag-line, allows the audience’s impression of the poster to be realistic and professional, helping with the trailer the promotion that this film is worth watching, which creates the sales from cinemas tickets, which leads to initial profit of them film is generated and this may lead to prospects of further sales later from DVDs and possible sequels.

The poster image I chose to style my poster on was Insidious: