Time - Evaluation

Time Evaluation.

During the making of Time, I took on the roles of Casting Director, Production manager, Location Manager and Director. Time was a horror trailer which was targeted at a 15+ audience. The main narrative of the story was based upon 5 university students who move in together. The enigma of the trailer was the question of who else was living in the house as well as them.  Grace as the main character was the targeted character to experience the horror and the scare of the spirit living in the house whilst the rest of her friends were out.

For my research I analysed a range of trailers to discover the conventions of horror trailers. I analysed Mama, The Conjuring, The Last Exorcism and The Others. Each of these trailers was targeted at a range of different audiences. The reason I done this was to see the difference in conventions over different age ratings to be able to apply them to Time. From this research I found that 15 rating trailers usually follow Tordorv’s narrative theory and have voice over’s within the fir 50 seconds, continuing over a range of shots. I took this research as inspiration for Time. However my first 50 seconds were not very effective and we couldn't get a voice over, so it resulted in a music overlay for around the first 30-50 seconds. This was disappointing because it is in this time slot where the audience start to understand the narrative, and for us this was difficult to achieve as the footage wasn’t as good a quality to be able to communicate the equilibrium. However we still continued to add the codes and  conventions of horror trailers, including the inter-titles, the flash editing, scary music, tension build ups, age rating, production and distributor companies at the beginning and then the name of the trailer at the end. This was hard to achieve at a high standard and took lots of time and perseverance but we finally got it right in the end.

I researched on the BBFC website about the age rating 15 so I knew the boundaries of what I could do in my trailer. From additional research, I was told that all trailers are around a PG rating, so the classification of the trailer wouldn't take much of an effect. Having said this I still engaged with the amount of horror we were allowed to use within the age rating and filmed accordingly. I chose an ideal audience member who is known to like watching horror films: Sam Alvey-Taylor. A 16 year old working boy, who is a high achiever, a gamer and somebody who likes to relax and watch TV series and films. The age of the trailer influenced me to cast a 16/17 aged cast to act as university, as being young they are most likely (stereotypical) to watch horror films for the thrill and adrenaline. Within the cast we had Grace to be the stereotyped spoilt, lazy brat. Her personality represented the group of students as you always expect to find a stereotype of a person within a friendship group. The mise en scene for many shots included many extreme and close, close ups of just Grace as she was considered to be the main character for the film. With flash shots between the group and her, it proved effective as her representation of the character she was able to bring tension and bring the trailer to a climax with screams and facial expressions. Alongside Rachael Wood who played our spirit. She was edited to be in a very dark setting, I inflicted lots of overlays such as cold and warm lighting, flashing within the shot and slowing her movements down. This was successful as it brought scare and tension to the trailer. Filming location was at my house throughout the trailer. On one hand this was good as we could experiment with different rooms and not be confused because of locations, but on the other hand this would be something I would change as the shots are always in the same place. It would have been better if we had a variety of locations to be shown in the trailer, rather than just the 4 walls in my house. We had clips of dialogue within the trailer, but this was the thing that let us down completely. Our planning wasn't very good as we didn't plan a script and therefore we had no decent dialogue to use, which left me in a position to only be able to use music over the shots for the first 50 seconds as the footage just wasn't good enough.

In conclusion I feel like my trailer hasn't turned out to be as good as I wanted it to be. Personally if I was to do it all over again, I would plan more specifically to get as much footage that could be used, to use in editing and to not be restricted. I’m not as proud of the trailer because of the footage. The reason being was the cast, there were numerous problems with arranging shooting times which sat with all members. This was difficult because my cast are doing their A levels, and they were loaded with coursework most of the time and their education is more important for them, however this took toll on the trailer. Having said this, I am proud of the ending of my trailer. The scare and panic increases towards the end, and there are tasks committed by the cast which fit as horror icons which created an eary effect. The design of the spirit I was also proud of because it was so simple to spray her with black hair spray and it to be shown really scary on screen. I feel that I have included most if not all of the conventions I found in research within my trailer, establishing genre and narrative. Overall I am pleased with my trailer, but many improvements can be done.