WEBSITE: The Grudge

http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/thegrudge/

The moving DVD and title is slightly disorientating, which helps convey the horror genre of the film. The typography is in spaced red letters making it easily legible. The links are to the left of the picture and again easy to read, however they have used a different font which works well with the other forms of  typography.                         

The links are easy to follow and promote the film as it offers the audience the chance to order the film directly from the website.

The picture on the right is dimly lit with half of the actress' face in shadows. She is looking directly into the camera and her facial expression portrays her being scared. She has a white jumper which has connotations of innocence and purity suggesting she is the victim.

WEBSITE: Wallstreet: Money Never Sleeps

http://www.wallstreetmoneyneversleeps.com/

A great website in which the movie trailer itself is intergrated behind the features for the website, forcing the viewer to watch the trailer subconciously.

WEBSITE: Inception

POSTER DECONSTRUCTION: The Dark Knight

The poster uses the colours blue, red, white and black. The use of blue goes against the conventions of horror and adds a slight psychological twist to the poster. It makes the viewer aware that it is going to be a dark film and the implication people are going to be getting killed. These colours are also mirrored within the colouring of his face and the colour on the card. Blue has conotations of coldness, perhaps cold heartedness in the Joker's case, and mystery. Black has conotations of death, destruction, something being hidden and secrets. The colour red has connotations of war, danger, death, warning and anger. Together, the poster gives implications of what the film is to be about just through the colourings.  

DECONSTRUCTION: Empire, The Godfather cover.

This is EMPIRE magazines 'Godfather' cover. The cover is iconic as it needs no title to show what it is about. It is similar to 'The Number 23' poster posted on this blog as it is a black and white face coming out of the darkness. The eyes are hollowed to black pits and the faces' angry expression is clear.
EMPIRE's usual red title is instead gold symbolizing that this issue is special in some way as gold usually represents winning, royalty or greatness. The title at the bottom proves this with 'The Godfather' named 'The Greatest Movie Of All Time'. Although the title being gold is a great different feature of the magazine we will try to keep the formalities of our magazine cover the same to represent to our audience the clear conventions of the magazine. We like the ides of one item whether it be the title, a face or a symbol being the hook for the movie and we will look further into this using research into symbols.

DECONSTRUCTION: The Dark Knight Poster

DECONSTRUCTION: The Strangers poster.

This film poster is really clever as it puts the viewer in the position of one of the seated hostages. Its put the viewer in an awkward, uncomfortable position as you do not want to watch this.
The use of the power of three is very effective as it makes it appear a powerful force against the two seated. Their stance is also quite intimidating as they are facing inwards towards the viewer.
The use of the font colour white on the black, naturally draws the viewer down to the title after looking at the picture. It is the simplicity of it also that makes it so effective.

TRAILER: Saw III

WHY IT WORKS:

This trailer is literally a 'tease' - it gives away none of the narrative of the film, but like ours will hopefully, interacts with the audience on a personal level, creating a feeling of attachment to the film through the trailer and building hype. This trailer obviously relies on a loyal and vast fanbase and an inside knowledge of the first few films, therefore not needing to reveal masses of the narrative to hook in fresh, new viewers. I think that personability of the trailer is what makes it so scary, having Jigsaw talking directly to you and that line of 'you are being watched,' taps into the very current fears of the public of constantly being watched, CCTV, government, terrorism etc. Also having shots of the video being played on a TV and mentioning the words 'YouTube' makes it very real as they wouldn't be eluded to in the movie itself and again make it all the more personal.

Brainwashing.

This is a video created by Lost, shown by the 'Others' in the eerie Room 23 for the purpose of brainwashing.


After watching the 'brainwashing' video I really liked the way at the beginning the old camera effect was used. Like the picture start text, giving the illusion the film is eerie and almost not meant to be seen by the public. I also liked the idea of using texts along with lots of different pictures that on their own stand no relevance whereas when put together create a strange sensation to the viewer of a subliminal message being passed on. By using several images flickered in our film we can create the effect as if trying to 'brainwash' the viewer of the trailer while also giving the viewer an idea that the film itself is about brainwashing and cults.
While I do like the video I didn't like some parts of the sound as the laser sound. Although the building of tension sound can be a useful tool to create suspense while also giving a build up the to the end of the trailer with a release date and title.

On the Rebound.

New narrative idea: Cult Promo Video?
 Continuing with our ideas of obsession and being controlled, we've been toying with the idea of a new narrative surrounding cults and dangerous religious sects. Our current idea is something along the lines of a promotional video, almost advertising the cult - something like the Scientology video I've embedded below except with a more sinister and eerie edge. Half way the tape would cut to a girl being held captive in the exact same room the promo video is filmed in, bruised and smeared in blood, and the tape would then cut again to an image of the cult's symbol written in blood on the wall, assumedly hers. The promo video would then continue, hopefully more sinister and eerie than before knowing the true nature of the cult and a series of shots will follow - random, disorienting images sharply edited, almost like a brainwashing video.

Scientology Commercial:

The Psychology of the Poster.

The main features of psychological thrillers are: character fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot. Another aspect of psychological horror is its use of body horror. The purpose is to develop a feeling of unease by playing on human fears of the abnormal, human experimentation, disease and suffering.

These are a few posters of psychological thrillers:

Paranormal Activity has a black and white image of a couple in bed huddled together pointing towards a shadow on the open bedroom door. The image has a time on the bottom right which is portraying that the couple are being watched. It has a quote from the premiere of the film from a newspaper or critic saying its "one of the scariest films of all time." The title of the film is in red which stands out against the black on white writing surrounding it, it is a larger font and the letters are well spaced making it easy to read. The font of the white writing looks like a typewriter and at the bottom is in capitals portraying that it is an important statement for the film and is meant to make the audience think before and after the film.

The Ring poster has a white glowing ring of light surrounding the white child like handwriting title the lower case lettering with large spaces between the letters. The white on black is a well known convention of psychological thriller films. "BEFORE YOU DIE, YOU SEE" is in capitals to create suspense they have offset the writing to make it more scary and to look like a reflection. The shape of the ring is the shape of the moon and by having it still glowing looks like an offset ofan eclipse which would lead to complete darkness which plays on peoples fears of anything coming out of the darkness.

The Butterfly Effect poster has the protagonist male and his love interest taking up the alloted space. The lighting is blue tinted with more emphasis on the male as the female is facing sideways of the camera. There is a reflection in the males left eye making it stand out and it contrasts the light pale colours of the faces.  The names of the actors on the poster are written in white across the top in capital letters. The title is in red signifying blood, lust and romance. The letters vary in size which is effective because it is confusing hence following the ideas from the film.

TRAILER:The Killer Inside Me

TRAILER: The Strangers

Trailer Deconstruction

Within this trailer, I really liked the way they conveyed the idea of being watched through the use of the non diegetic camera clicks and the use of a projector show reel. It gave it an interesting old fashioned feel through the jitteriness of the picture. This intensified the tension within the trailer through the quick editing.

I feel it is a good trailer to take influence from as it shows that just through special effects and editing, we can easily make simple camera shots seem effective in creating a type of mood to scare the audience.

The use of whispering combined with an eerie airy sound within the trailer works extremely well at intensifying the mounting tension within the film. It makes it creepier than simple silence, as it is more foreboding and realistic to real life.

There is also an interesting shot that would be good to take influence from where the word 'killer' is written in blood on glass. I like the way the glass is made to look realistically scratched and the positioning of the word on screen means that through the quick editing, the audience is able to see a flash of it, just enough to leave them intrigued.

TRAILER: Number 23

TRAILER: Inception

WHY IT WORKS:

• Sound: starting with a deep and low, horn like alarm, very slow, and then building and building with higher pitched, faster notes almost unbearably to a point of tension and agitation, that enthrals you into seeing it - I feel like it’s the low horns at the beginning that really get you, they stir something Olde Worlde-y within you that something big and increasingly dangerous is near and in a way, it agitates you and shakes you up. The effortless editing of the sound gives the whole film an ‘epic’ quality – that this isn’t a cheap, low budget thriller, it’s an event – something the low horns almost announce, and it is not to be missed.
• Complete lack of narrative: I feel like from these clips it is impossible to attain a narrative – no clip is over five seconds and none include any speech or actions to give away the plot, the whole idea of the teaser and effortlessly done by the producers of this one. The most revealing is the text – ‘Your mind is the scene of the crime’ – something ominous and quite disturbing to the individual, having your mind specifically targeted. Combine this with the sinister soundtrack and at the end of the trailer, the CGI skyscrapers then zooming out to an aerial shot and seeing them all as mazes creating the word ‘Inception,’ this trailer is definitely a very psychological one and invades your own psychology, leaving you desperate to have these unexplained factors explained.
• Hollywood budget: The high budget and professionalism of the producers is evident throughout this trailer, again enticing the viewer with its sleekness and Hollywood finish, and of course having such a major, and incredibly gorgeous, Hollywood actor leading the cast is another obvious pull for the audience – of all the cast his is the only name shown, and the majority of shots he is dominant in, the other cast are shown relatively little. The high budget is again demonstrated through aerial shots of New York, impossible to attain without a helicopter – and the incorporation of a helicopter in certain shots as well as the use of CGI and special effects, for example the sky scrapers at the finish.
• Unexplained clues: Despite the high budget of this film and trailer, I find the most intriguing of all the shots the ones that are simple shots included of seemingly normal objects that are obviously key to the plot and the film, but are unexplained to the viewer, like clues as it were, for example, the spinning top, which is perhaps the longest of all shots incorporated in the trailer at about five seconds. The water in the glass bending is unnatural to the sight and humans and within the context of the trailer is completely unexplained, as well as being unexplainable by science, and is therefore left as an inexplicable clue for the viewer, as well as the brief shot of the watch ticking, as if time is running out, something very attainable to incorporate into our own trailer.