paranormal activity 2 trailer deconstruction

blair witch poster

Women in black Trailer analysis

This Trailer has some of the key conventions such as highlighting moments in the film and making the audience fearful that is needed in a horror trailer. I talk about all the main conventions and analyse the trailer and i now think i know more about how to plan and create my own trailer for my film.  

Women in black magazine cover

Women in Black Posters

 I chose this poster because it appealed to me the most. The reason i liked it was because of the simplicity. It shows the name of the famous actor in the film, this is clearly to attract peoples attention. A famous actors name would indicate that it must be a good film especially if that actor is well known for being in good films. Looking down the poster it looks like a dark back ground like a leather brief case or wooden desk, indicating that some one of status is looking at the photo graph. Someone whos job it is to go through personal documents, like a lawyer, so already the audience is subtly being told parts of the story. The dark colours also project a creepy atmosphere and a sense of being trapped. The photo its self is simple. Children with their eyes scratched out suggest that their parents or they themselves saw something or where afraid of seeing something horrible.The age of the photo then gives the audience some idea of the time in which the film is set. As you look closer at the photo you begin to notice the face of a women screaming or even laughing. And the stain on the baby's shoulder looks like a hand reaching round the child. The words scratched into the photo, 'what did they see?' makes the audience curious as to what they did actually see. It makes the viewer worry for these children and what to know what happened to them . The women in black is then written at the bottom to say to the audience that an evil women is coming for your children! It then says at the bottom of the page when the film will be available in cinemas to find out what happened to these children.  This poster provokes feeling of real concern and dread and actually induces an obligation to go and see this film to find out what happened to these children. I can see how i could use some of these conventions in my poster, the simplicity is very effective and i think would get the person looking at the poster curious about what happens in the film. Then they might search for the film trailer  and that's when they need to be hooked.

I chose this poster for its simplicity as well. The recognisable face of Daniel Radcliffe draws people in and gets them to read the text beside it. His pained expression and tired look causes the viewer to feel empathetic towards him. Behind him is the ghostly shape of a woman's face in the mist is designed to creep the audience out and show that the women is everywhere, almost omnipotent, it shows that if you ever see her she will follow you forever, much like in the previous poster with the faded face of a screaming angry women, that shows that even if you scratch your eyes out she will not leave you alone. The bright white writing saying women in black is almost a warning to those who dare watch the film, a shining light in the fog. It juxtaposes the white light that indicates safety with a face of a women in the fog. This suggests that where ever you run she is always there. Next to the face of the women there is a question, 'do you believe in ghosts?' as in the film being a skeptic is very dangerous. This poster is simple but effective because it forces you to go and see the film by making you scared of the unknown. By not knowing anything about the women in black and the face in the mist this may cause a slight amount of fear. The poster leads the audience to believe that by seeing the film and learning more you'll be safer as the films name 'the women in black' is in white which suggests safety a lures the audience into the cinema.  

   This poster is an example of what i think is ineffective, this poster was used the least in the advertising of the women in black and its easy to spot why. It is dark and mysterious which suggests that it is a scary film but this poster assumes a lot of prior knowledge. Just the face of a man would immediately be recognised as Daniel Radcliffe or Mr kipps (the character  other than people who are fans of the play.  The name women in black means nothing to some one who doesn't know who that is. This poster may have been used in areas in London close to Where the play is performed, as fans of the play will see this poster and want to see the film because the play is so good. However people who have not seen the play or read the book will not know anything, they wont even know what kind of horror it is. i personally wouldn't use this kind of poster, if my film was based on a play or a book id probably make something like this and put it up near a book shop and the theater the plays performed in. 
At the bottom it just says in cinemas soon so this was clearly a very early poster. This poster was an early poster designed simply to let people know that a film called the women in black was being made, in the hope that they would pay more attention to later posters and adverts.                                                                                                                                                                    

Women in Black Websites

This is the website for the original stage version of the women in black. This website gives the visitor a taste of the atmosphere the play has. The dark colours and the shadowed face of the man exudes some of the suspense, fear and dread all experienced during the live performance. Having seen the play myself i know just how terrifying it is, i would even say its scarier than the film. This website
has clearly got a far lower budget than the films website which is understandable. However that dose not make it any less scary. As for its marketing potential and effectiveness it is obviously very good. The Women in Black has been in the west end for almost twenty years now and is one of the few plays that has been running this long in the west end. The play always gets packed theatres and often gets people coming back to watch again and again, as i have observed when i spoke to lost of people who have seen the show. When ever i ask some one have they seen the women in black on stage and they say yes, more often than not they will have seen it more than once. In a similar way to the play being an advert for the film, the book was an advert for the play. The website conveys what lots of people already know about the play; that its dark scary and has a very minimal set but can still scare people set. The minimal nature of the play is shown in the website as the website isn't very impressive. The website just has the bare essentials, it has information about the play a shop, an education link and of course a link to buy tickets. Which stands out the most at the top, it stands out to draw the attention of the viewer and to make sure they do buy the ticket. http://www.thewomaninblack.com/ Much of what i am talking about can be viewed here. The second thing that stands out the most is the mans face and the name of the play. The name of the play is simple but effective. The word women written in gold with the words 'in black' below it in white demonstrates the use of candles in the play as the words resemble a lit candle.  The Final and main point i will make is the trailer embedded into the website, the trailer for the play.

The short nature of the trailer leaves people wanting to see more and know more. It peaks curiosity and gives you goosebumps. The trailer for the play is vastly different to the film as its short snappy and scary. Just seeing the trailer makes me want to see the play again. The way the trailer boasts that its the scariest live performance ever must also be an exciting prospect for a person who has never seen it. Almost everyone has seen a horror film but very few people have actually had it happen live in front of their eyes. The fact that it is real and is actually happening in front of the audience makes it even more scary.


In comparison there is an obvious difference. Where the play is minimal the film wants to show that it is elaborate and just as scary as the live performance. But the play is a great advert for the film as when The women in black is searched into Google, the plays website comes up first. The Films website shows a large expanse of marsh land and then in the distance eel marsh island. Looking at the website is like stepping into a scene from the film, with the sign giving you options to visit different places. It shows a gallery of eel marsh house photos and helps get the viewer involved even more as it has a link to a page that asks people to write a scary story and send it in. This website is designed to make the viewer feel as though they are apart of the story and the landscape. Once the viewer is on the edge of their seat and scared, they watch the trailer. (The film trailer analysis can be viewed in a later post). The trailer link is designed to tip the viewer over the edge and scare them but at the same time peaking their curiosity. The light colours of the marsh and the dark colours of the land gives it a creepy atmosphere. The colour contrast makes it look like the island and especially the cross, has no earthly business being there. There is also the option to tweet, facebook and google + the web page to your friends, which creates a word of mouth and spreads the trailer and the website to even more people.

Although i do not plan on creating a web site for my film i can take some of the aspects of these websites and incorporate them into my poster, magazine cover and even my trailer. I can use the contrasting colours and the technique of making the audience feel apart of the landscape in my posters and most importantly i need to find ways of peaking peoples interest. I could put a dark picture of a face on the magazine cover to get people wondering what its about. The marketing techniques i have observed in the websites may come in handy when creating my own advertising campaign. http://thewomaninblack-movie.co.uk/ This is the website for the movie.

Ideas For My Research

The creation of this blog is devoted to the advertising campaign of the film that my group and i are preparing to film and advertise. To create an effective advertising campaign it is important to study other films and how they were advertised. By looking at the viewing figures and how many DVD's were sold compared with another film i would be able to see which advertising campaign was most effective. I have decided to analyse film trailers, posters and magazine covers that share the same genre as the film i am currently making. Three films that i want to look at and study are: The Women In Black, Paranormal Activity 3 and The Blair Witch Project.  I chose these three to get a wide variety of examples of good advertising and because some aspects of each of these films are similar to those in my film. The Women In Black is not just any old horror film, it was also a book and a very successful west end play, this may have played a huge part in its marketing. The main reason i chose women in black is because its so different from the two other films, the reason i chose this is due to the fact that its British and so might is styled differently to the american films. I chose paranormal activity 3 because its very well known and extremely successful, much like the women in black which was the highest grossing British horror film ever. Finally i chose the Blair witch project because it uses some of the same conventions that i will be using in my film, e.g. point of view shots and hand held cameras being used as a part of the making of a documentary. Using examples from these three very successful horror films i think that i could make a marketing campaign that is just as effective.

Film magazine / Poster

Using the photo booth on the iPad we were able to take photo graphs With special affects to Get some ideas of how our posters and magazine covers would look. The App we used is called photo booth, we mainly used the x-ray and thermal affect to create a creepy atmosphere.

Photo Booth

After deciding on horror as our film type we talked in length about what we could do for our advertising campagin plus the film its self. We had lots of ideas for the film this list briefly describes them:

• Four students in a school making a documentary about the ghost in the school
• Blair witch style
• Two of the charcters are siblings but the brother is actually the ghost but the audience dosent realise untill the end
• Order of deaths
• Ghost is a dead student
• The ghost is angry and kills those who see to much

Today we took some photos on an iPad using photo booth to create spooky photographs of hands and eyes for possible posters and magazine covers. The photos in question are not avalible at the moment but i will upload them when possible.

Film Project

This blog is dedicated to the creation and product documentation of the film trailer and advertising campaign that will be launched by myself, Fay Sawyn, Peter Mepham and Bret Newman. We all have disscused our film that we will create and advertise and the first step was to decide on the fine details. We all decided that our film would be any of these listed genres:

• Comedy
• Horror
• Thriller
• Drama
• Action

After much deliberation we decided that the best genre to do would be Horror. Our thought process was that Horror would be affective and cheap. Our skill sets suit horror as well. We find that writting horror films would be easier for us to do with our limited budget. It would also give us licence to use lots of imagenation in the creation of film.