Pre-Production

Working Title: Isolated

Production Team Name: Eagle Eye

Format: Teaser Trailer

Genre: Horror

Sub genre: Psychological 

Length: 40 seconds

Audience: 18 Years of age

Character Profile

Name: Eizabeth

Age: 16

Characteristics: Antisocial , lonely and shy

Props: Candles, Paper, Pens Colouring Pencils

Costume: White blood stained nightdress
Description

The antagonist is a young black female with dark brown hair with back brushed hair she is an anti social person. She is seen on the floor drawing violent images and appears Crazy. The girl is meant to be a ghost that shows her innocence by singing nursery rhymes and talking like a little girl. She shows that she is crazy by drawing extremely fast and aggressively and the make up will symbolise her crazy personality. There is no dialog in the teaser trailer; therefore her NVC will be very important aspect in the teaser trailer. At the start of the trailer we see a young and innocent looking girl, however a dramatic transformation shows a scary looking girl. To create suspense we decided to reveal the true identity of the girl at the end.

Synopsis:

Mysterious killings in a house, several people go to the house but do not return. A rumor around the town has been spreading around town that the ghost of the little girl who died there is killing the people of the town. The house appears to be normal from the outside but is completely different once inside. Scenes in the house show some sort of ritual setting with candles around what seems to be a sweet and innocent young girl drawing. There are flashes the pictures and items in the room. The scene then goes to what the little girl is drawing which is shocking, then goes back to the girls face, which is not sweet and innocent anymore but is evil and demonic.

We really liked this idea because we felt that it was realistic and not too difficult to accomplish. We fee that the simplicity of the teaser trailer would make the trailer more effective than adding special effects. However, there are some things that need to be changed as we felt that it may be too long and therefore it needs to be edited.

Intended Audience:

Our film is targeted from people the age of 15 plus. As it is a psychological film there will not be a shocking level of blood and gore so it would not need to receive the age rating of 18. The film is to generally bring fear to the audience and people the age of 15 some be aware of the concept that it’s only a film. This film would not be suitable for people under the age of 15 because they may not be mature enough to realize that events in this film have been complete made up. There is the concern that young kids could have nightmares and might resort to more issues as their minds are still developing.

What do I intend to do:

We plan to produce a teaser trailer that is exciting and thrilling enough to please my target audience and leave them interested and wanting more after viewing the teaser trailer.

How will I do it?

We will do this by using my team and come up with achievable ideas that are thrilling and exciting.

Why is it worth doing?

Psychological horror movies have become very popular in today’s modern horror world. Many 

of them are very good in confusing the audience’s brain to create fear and from past films has

been very effective.

Three Ideas

Idea 1- Is about a girl that seeks revenge of her family for abandoning her. At the age of 10 she had been taken to a mental institution as her family felt that they couldn’t control her anymore. The family placed her in what they thought to be a safe catholic mental institution and believed that she would have a better life there, but they were wrong. Instead of the care that 

she needed she was physically abused and used a sacrifice in ritual that went wrong. In this ritual she received demonic powers in which she used to kill everybody in the Mental Institution. Once out, her main aim is to find and kill her parents who abandoned her.

Teaser Trailer – A scene when the girl is on the table, the girl is shaking over the table and reacting to the words (that the man who is saying the ritual) is saying to her, the face of the girl is not shown, then he stops speaking. The girl is breathing heavily on the table, she sits up with her hair covering her face. When she opens her eyes the man flies towards the door.

We did not pick this idea because we felt that it would be too hard to get the supernatural effect. This is important because the genre of this film is supernatural therefore in order for the teaser trailer to work, scenes such as the man flying across the room would need to be possible.

Idea 2 - About mystery killings in a flat, several people go to the flat but do not return. A rumor around the town has been spreading around town that the ghost of the little girl who died there is killing the people of the town.

Teaser trailer – the teaser trailer starts with a focus on a candle for 10 seconds, then there is a flash of photos of people on the wall that have been ripped and destroyed, there is a flash of dead bodies on the floor. The scene then moves to a hill where she is walking down with people walking past her with nobody noticing her.  When she reaches the camera she smiles and then laughs.

We really liked her idea because we felt that it was realistic and easy to film. We felt that the simplicity of the teaser trailer would make the trailer more effective than adding special effects. However, there are some things that need to be changed as we felt that it may be too long and therefore it needs to be edited.

Idea 3 - A girl had been bullied in school by a gang of girls, one night the girls tricked the girl to coming to their house to a party where she was drugged, after leaving the house drugged and drunk she got run over by a car, the girl left her for dead and the driver drove off. However, she was given a second chance when she was brought back to life from a bite from a vampire. From that day on her life had changes, she swore that she would seek revenge on those that tried to harm her.

A girl is sleeping, then she start twisting and turning as if she was having a nightmare, then the screen fades to a screen (her dream) when she is running in the forest, and somebody is watching her and following her all you can see is the persons blood shot eye, then the person appears in front of her and grabs hold of her. She wakes up immediately only to see those same eyes watching her. Then the fangs show and a quick shot of the vampire about to bite her.

We really liked the idea of the vampire because we felt that it would be original compared to what everybody else would be doing. However, we felt that we did not have the resources to do something as big as this and it would be very complicated to get it perfect. therefor a more simple idea would be better as we felt that this would be more suitable for a longer Trailer rather than a teaser trailer.

We Decide to chose idea 2 because we thought that it suited the resources that we had and we felt that a more simple idea will be better than one with a lot of special effect. We liked the concept behind the film and therefore believe we can improve the idea of the teaser to trailer to suit the concept.

Audience Research – 10 Questions to ask:

Audience Research

For our audience research we have decided to use a range of ways to ask our questions instead of the traditional way with paper and pen to reach out to our target audience. We have decided to Skype our friends, produce an online questionnaire for chosen people to access, video record peoples answers.

1. What time should a Horror Teaser Trailer be shown?

2. How long should a Horror Teaser Trailer be?

3. Should Horror Teaser Trailers have a lot of blood?

4. What gender should the main character be?

5. Should the sound be loud or subtle?

6. Should we include Dialogue or title screen?

7. Should it be based on Antique or Modern times?

8. What is your favorite Horror Teaser Trailer and Why?

9. What don't you like about Horror Teaser Trailers?

10.Are there any other suggestions that you like to mention?

Rosemary -MSN Messenger

Tomi -BBM -Black Berry Messenger


Daniel - Facebook


Natalie - Text Messages 

Tomi's Audience Research

Daniel Olugbade- Audience Research

RESULTS

1.       What time should a Horror Teaser Trailer be shown?

This tells me that the best time to show a horror teaser trailer would be any time during the evening into the night, as people seem to be half and half between the evening and the night. Most people feel that the afternoon is still too early for a teaser trailer to be shown.

2.        How long should a Horror Teaser Trailer be?

From the results collected from the audience feedback it has become obvious to us that many people wasn’t aware of what a teaser trailer actually was as 36% of the people asked said a teaser trailer should be over 2 minutes.  This could be because teaser trailers are normally over shadowed by there full trailers as the full trailer is normally more entertaining. Also people don’t like to be teased and also want to know as much as possible about something their interesting in which may be another reason why teaser trailers may be overshadowed by full trailers.  However you could argue that this is a reason why they feel teaser trailers should be longer. 

43% however was aware of what a teaser trailer was and answered the correct common length of a teaser trailer which is in-between 21-60seconds.

3.       Should Horror Teaser Trailers have a lot of blood?

The high percentage of people agreeing that teaser trailers should not have a lot of blood may because the audience realise what a teaser trailer is and doesn’t think most of the killing in the film should be revealed. Or it might be because most of the people asked to take part in our audience feedback were girls and they wasn’t fond of there being a lot of blood and killing. 

4.       What gender should the main character be?

In many horror films females are the main characters and become the “final girl” in the story so many this is a reason for 50% of the people asked saying that the main character in a horror teaser trailer should be a female. This is shown even more my 29% saying that if it is not a female then it should be both male and female characters that are the main characters in a horror teaser trailer.