Institution

The best institution I feel that my zombie film would go into would be film 4. The reason why I have decided to go with this institution is firstly because it's an English film institution and secondly is because they don't rely on huge amount of funding and I know I won't need much money to make my film trailer the way I want it.

Critical reflection

My film poster

I think that the finish version of my poster looks good and would attract people to it. The reason for this is because of the boldness of the title and it's right in the middle of the page whereas most posters usually have their titles either at the top of the poster or the bottom. I believe by me putting the title in the middle of the page that my target audience are more likely to see it because I feel comparing it to other film posters that it stands out a lot better.

Just like magazine front covers I decided to use three main colours white, red and brown. I believe by using these colours it's quite self explanatory about the genre of the film. I believe my picture the hand coming out of the ground also gives the genre of my film away. I decided to use the blood brush which I downloaded as a border and on the text of the poster as I feel it add more effect however I had to be careful and not overuse it.

Location's List

The photo's for my film poster was taking up woods browning industrial estate. The reason for this is because it was out of the way from the school and it was a lot easier to get all of the equipment to take the photo's because one of the buildings up woods browning had the camera which I needed in order to take my photo.

Equipment List

To make my film poster the way I wanted it I didn't really need that much equipment however I did need:

Camera

Shoe box

Earth

Photoshop (Mac programme)

The reason why I needed the shoe box and earth is because I thought it would be a good idea to take a photo of my hand coming up through the earth in the shoe box and then go back and edit it. The editing didn't take that long seeming as I only had to use photoshop to get rid of bits of the shoebox that we couldn't avoid when taking the photo's. However after I had done this it looked like the hand was actually coming out of the ground which was the effect I was trying to get and now I can use it as the main image of my film poster.

Crew list

I crew list will only consist of one person seeming as I will need someone to take a photo of my hand when it is coming up through the earth.

Cast List

The only thing that will be appearing on my film poster is my hand as I want to try and make it look like my hand is coming out of the ground as I think this would look good on a film poster because my target audience will not know what to expect so they will have to go and watch the film themselves when it is released in cinema.

3 flat plans

Below are my 3 flat plans one of these flat plans that I come up with I'm going to use as my final piece.

Poster

For this final section of my A2 blog it will be all to do about the planning and conducting of my poster. For this section of my work I will be showing you my ideas of how my poster will look and then I will upload my final product for you to see.

Screen grabs of editing process

This is when my film magazine was only have complete but basically what I have done so far is got a picture of who the male passenger on the train was and then by using special affects on photoshop I managed to change his eye colour. I also looked at contact lenses on google images and but them on but they didn't look as effective so i decided to leave it like it is.

I have already talked about how I come up about my title back along on my blog so I don't feel I have to explain much more like I said I think it looks really effective the way in which I have done it although I had to play around with it a lot to get it the way I wanted to get it.

I decided to call this issue of the magazine the horror preview the reason for this is because my film is going to be a horror film and thats when all of the horror films are usually known for coming out although sometimes there are some exceptions one example of this would be scream 4 which is coming out soon and not in October.

I think the font that I have used on the front cover of my film magazine looks good I think the black font stands out good on the page and the red around it connotes blood which you usually see in horror films and I hope by using this technique that it comes across to my target audience better.

Like I said my film magazine is almost complete however there is no background so I decided to come up with this:

With my film being called the railway children and zombies I decided the perfect thing to have in the background of my film magazine would be a train. Now I believe that my target audience will understand what my film trailer is about. It also meant that I didn't have to do a lot of changing to it either I just had to rearrange the font a bit to make it stand out better the reason for this is because the train was black so some of the font you couldn't really see.

However I did change the font to white to see what it looked like and see whether or not it stood out better this is what it looked like:

I only changed a couple of the texts and decided that I didn't really liked it, although the font stood out a bit better I didn't feel as if it was quite as effective so I decided to leave the font black with a red outline.

Equipment List

The equipment I will need for the front cover of my film magazine is:

Camera

Make-up

Photoshop (Mac programme)

In order to create my front cover of my magazine I will not need to much equipment. The reason for this is because I will only need one main image on the front cover of my magazine and I decided that my main image will be a zombie. This meant that I had firstly put make-up on someone and then after that I put the picture on photoshop and edited it to make him look even more like a zombie.

In order to complete my film magazine I will have to do a lot on photoshop such as creating a title for the front cover of my magazine and then putting relevant text on to the page to attract readers to come and pick it up.

3 flat plans

I have came up with three flat plans for my film magazine front cover. The reason for this is so I can put down some of my ideas and draw them out so it helps me when it comes to finally creating my film magazine front cover.

Genre/ institution research

After looking on the internet I've found out a lot about the way institutions create their film magazine front covers.

All film magazines seem to use the same layout as each other. This layout tends to be one main image on top of a background and then text all around the outside of the main image. By doing this it immediately brings the readers attention just to this main image and if this draws the readers in then they are likely to read the text around it.

I've decided I'm going to stick with these conventions as I believe this is a very good way in which I can attract readers to come and look at the front cover of my magazine. Also I know this way works because people buy other film magazines by doing it this way so I don't want to try something new just in case it doesn't work.

Masthead/title ideas

When trying to find titles idea on went on a website to try and get some ideas and played around with them until I finally found one that I thought is the most effective for my film magazine.

The font above was my original font I choose to be on the front cover on my film magazine however the more I looked at it the last effective I thought it was. The reason why I thought it was good was because of the way it stood out on my film magazine however I had a problem with trying to get a word on the F of film because it wasn't bold enough.

This meant that I had to look around on the website again and I went through more pages until I found the right kind of text that I wanted.

I then came across this one which I thought was so much better than the first one that I came across. Te reason for this is because it's a lot more bolder and I found out that it stands out much better than what the previous one did.

This font also meant that I could finally but a word on the f in film which I liked because it meant that my title did not take up the whole of the top of the film magazine which it might have if I had chosen to stick to my first title idea.

Above is the font that I put on the f in film however I changed this font colour to white because if I didn't then it wouldn't have shown up. The reason why I chosen the colour white is because I felt it was the best colour that will stand out on top of the black.

Magazine front cover

For this section of my blog it will be all to do with my magazine front cover.

Budget for Film Trailer

I was very fortunate when it came to the budget because I managed to get everything I needed from people. However I did have to ask in order to get everything I needed however I did look into how much it would have costed if I couldn't get what I needed.

A Camera for a day was £50.00,

A make-up kit was £5.00 from a Supermarket,

Cauliflower was £0.69,

Fake blood was £1.50,

Fake Brain was £1.00,

Toy swords was £2.00 (each)

However I did have t pay the people that starred in my film however it wasn't as much as I would have had to pay if I had to ring up some actors so I saved a lot of money.

Props list for Film Trailer

Props list:

Cauliflower

Red food coloring

Fake swords

Fake brain

Made zombie body

Victorian costumes (Borrowed from Drama studio)

Equipment List

I have only had to use three different types of equipment which is camera, recorder and a tri pod. This was all important pieces of equipment I needed in order to produce my film trailer, luckily I managed to borrow all of this equipment from the college for the day otherwise I would of had to pay someone to borrow the equipment for the day so I was very fortunate in that way.

Information on make up/special effects

Because I'm doing a horror film trailer it means that I require to use both make up and special effects.

The special effects I have used was on a computer programme where I have edited my film trailer called final cut. Bu using this programme it has allowed me to put different clips together so it runs in the way that I want it to. I have also been able to make the trailer run continually by putting in transitions. I have also made some of the clips go from being in colour to black and white the reason for this is because the original railway children was in black and white so I have made it both modern and old which I believe would encourage more people to watch my film trailer because it's different. By using the programme I have used it also means that I was able to put a song on over the film trailer like you see in loads of different film trailers I believe the song I have used fits with my film trailer that I have created.

I have also had to use a lot of make up by doing this it has made the zombie look a lot more realistic and I also used a lot of fake blood so the conventions of my film trailer is the same as all the previous horror film genre's that have been released.

Costume sketches and ideas

For this piece of my blog I will be uploading my costume designs and will be talking through what sort of clothing I will need in order to shoot for my film trailer.

Above is one of my first sketches this will be the boy out of the rail way children, in order to have the railway children look I will have to try and get hold of some smart victorian styled clothing because thats the type of clothing they wore in the original railway children so I think it's important to stick to the conventions that they have already started.

This is my second sketch this will be a passenger on the train so will be dressed in smart victorian clothing at the start when I start filming my trailer on the train. However because of the plague he will then be turned into a zombie so I will need to apply face paint.

Above is my third sketch and costume design this one will be the mother who will be in bed so you won't really see her clothing she also doesn't need no face paint because I will not be filming a part when she to turns into a zombie.

Above is my fourth sketch this is the first one of my female railway child. Again she will be dressed in victorian style clothing.

Above is my fifth sketch this is the last railway child as is the second female that will be in my film trailer just like the other two railway children she will also be dressed in smart Victorian style clothing.

Above is my sixth sketch as you can see this is what I would like the character playing the zombie to look like. I think this should be easy enough to do, all I will need to do is get some old shorts and get some holes in them to make them look worn out and get an old victorian styled shirt again I may have to put some holes in the shirt and rub mud into it so the character looks like a zombie. Another important thing I will have to get hold of would be some face paint so I can make the character look paler and more zombie like.

Cast List

Cast List

I will know be writing down my cast list some of the cast members have multiple roles because I only have a limited amount of staff:

Jake Thorne (Passenger on train and also zombie)

Josh Askew (Passenger on train)

Lisa Phillips (Mother of railway children)

Ellie Newman (1 of the railway children)

Lucy Fuller (1 of the railway children)

Callum Starr (1 of the railway children)

Dan Northcott (Zombie)

Location's List

Location List

Below are the places that I will be recording parts of my trailer at:

- School field

- Class room

- Train station

The reason why I have chosen to shoot my trailer at these certain points is because they are all in easy distances of the school so that the students that star in my film are a loud to go out during school time and the other two locations are in and around the school.

Another reason why I have chosen these locations is because its similar to what happened in the original film and book with the railway children living in the countryside and then visiting the train stations to watch the train’s drive past however in my film there is going to be a twist.

I’m going to use the classroom and transform it into a bedroom so that I can film the scene when the railway children are around their mother’s deathbed whilst she is suffering from the zombie plague. I’m going to use the school field as a filed were the zombies will be feeding on brains and the railway children will confront them, and the train station I’ll be using to show the transformation of the passengers on the train turning into zombies coming off the carriage to attack the railway children

Shot List

The list above is my camera shot list, these are all of the shot's I believe I will have to do in order for my film trailer to be successful. By conducting a shot list I also believe this will help me be more organised and prepared to when it comes to recording my film trailer.

Storyboard

I will now be showing you my storyboard so you can get an idea on how I want my film trailer to plan out like I will also be putting down the time so I know roughly how long my film trailer will be.

Lighting research

I will be not be using an lighting. The reasons for this is because I'm going to be filming all of my film trailer outside so all the lighting will be natural.

Research into film shots

To get the right effects on my film trailer I have looked at a number of different film shots which I believe will be relevant to use in my film trailer and also by creating different atmosphere's which I will want to happen seeming as it's a horror film so I want to make the audience be on the edge on their seats however it's also a comedy so I want to make the audience laugh at the same time.

I believe that using extreme close up's and close up's will be the two main ways for example I will be using the extreme close up's on the zombies face when I believe it is relevant the reason for this is because they always seem to do it in horror film genre's because it makes the audience jump especially if it happens at a random time.

The close up's I will be using again to create an atmosphere for example one of the key moments I will be using a close up is when the plague completely turns the mother of the railway children into a zombie this way the audience will be able to see the effects this plague is having on the children knowing their mother has been changed.

The third film shot I believe will make my film trailer look good would be by using long shots for example when I get to the railway I would like to take a long shot of the railway children running down towards the carriages as I feel this will be a good shot to include in my film trailer.

Treatment of film

The film I am creating a trailer for is called ‘The Railway Children and Zombies.’ It combines two genres; Period drama (a classically British film genre) and Zombie Horror (a genre British film makers occasionally dip into generally in a comedy way). The film was inspired by the literacy works of Seth Graham Smith who put a new slant on Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ through re-writing it as ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.’ The film’s combination of genres will obviously result in a product that at times will be humorous and at others horrific – the trailer will reflect this.

Films that have inspired this work include ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Shaun of the Dead.’ The films target audience will be cinema goers aged 15 – 24 who enjoy films such as ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘Vampires Suck’ because it will be similar to these films in terms of genre. Obviously others who are familiar with the original novel ‘The Railway Children’ by E Nesbit may also be drawn to seeing a new comical take on this classic novel – as Austen fans were drawn to Smith’s work.

The plot of the film is quite simple, it follows the original novel only with a strange twist – the country has been struck with a strange zombie plague and the railway children’s father, unknown to their mother, secretly trained them as ‘zombie slayers’ before he disappeared in the war again the zombies (no one knows whether he is alive, dead or stricken with the zombie plague). When their mother becomes ill the children refuse to believe she has the ‘plague’ but soon realise when the kindly gentleman sends her a basket of brains. The children then have to stop the train reaching the next town because it has become obvious many of the passengers are in fact the un-dead searching for fresh brains. In short, this version of the story breaths fresh life into a popular tale.

In terms of the ‘look’ of the trailer I want to show a number of shots that show off the exciting nature of the film and give the target audience a taste of what they can expect from the film. The setting for the trailer and the film will be Victorian England in a country village new a railway station. Therefore the mise en scene will reflect this. In the trailer the main settings from the classic novel will all be featured in order to ensure viewers who enjoyed the text will be drawn to the film. The main locations of the film that will feature in the trailer include; the hillside where the children watch the train from, the station, inside the railway carriage and the children’s home.

Like many British films, the budget for this film is next-to-nothing and it will rely on its strong script, unknown actors and humour for its success.

Research into genre

The film genre I am interested in doing is a film about zombies. However I want my zombie film to have a twist so I have decided to do some research and have decided that it would be good if I mixd it in with the railway children which has been both a book and later released as a film. Another reason that made me decide to do a zombie genre film is because it won't require as much budget as other genre's such as action.

In zombie films it always seems to start with a plague that starts to spread until it takes over the population of one place and then you have the hero's. The hero's always seem to do quite well at fighting back the zombies and then in most films one of the hero's will get bite and will also turn into a zombie.

Zombie films are usually filmed during the night to create a tension and so the film companies can make it more jumpy for the audience. However as the film goes on it normally gets lighter this connotes that the good is overcoming the bad and then its complete day light again and usually the zombies die.

Synopsis of my film trailer

In order to give you an idea on what my film is on and based about I have came up with a synopsis so this way you can get a basic overview of what my film is about and see what story inspired me to base my film on this however it has a twist.

Synopsis:

In this film there will be three young children trying to fight off a zombie plague that has traveled all the way down the country to Cornwall. Can these children stop this horrendous plague and bring civilization back to the world. This story is based on the earlier book and film the railway children, however this version of the film has a zombie twist.

As you can see the synopsis is not very long the reason for this is because I believe this is enough information on what you need to know about the film and hopefully will make you want to watch the film trailer.

Questionnaire for film

I have decided to conduct a questionnaire on a website called survey monkey the reason for this is so that then I can get an idea on what people would like to see and then I will base my film trailer on that however some genre's I will not be able to base my film trailer about such as an action film the reason for this is because I do not have a big enough budget to stick to the common conventions of an action film whereas genre's such as horror genre's will be in my budget the reason for this is because I will only need some face paint in order to achieve this and stick to the conventions.

Another good thing about conducting a questionnaire is so that I can get people's opinions and feedback on what they would like to see and then base my idea's around that by doing this when my three products are released my target audience should be satisfied with it because everything I include will be based on the information I get back from my questionnaire.

I decided to start with the gender question first. Although I asked this question it doesn't really give me any information on how I should do my film trailer. However it will be interesting to see how the different genders would like to see different things happening in my film trailer.

As you can see in the piechart I have created a small percentage more of females answered my questionnaire compared to males. This may mean that they don't want to see as much gore as maybe a male would or they may have completely different interests or similar ones.

The reason why I asked about age is to see what the different age generations would like to see because there may be comparisons between the different age ranges such as the difference between how often they go to the cinema or how often they actually purchase a film magazine.

Out of the 50 people that answered my questionnaire around 70% of the people that answered were between the ages of 10-19 years and 20-29 years however this may only be because the younger generation have more access to the internet and they are more familiar with the website I created my questionnaire on. However now it will be interesting to see how the rest of my questionnaire is answered.

It was important that I asked this question because this is the genre I would ideally want to do my project on however if my target audience didn't like the genre I was planning on doing then I would of have to come up with new ideas and a different genre so that I know I satisfy my target audiences needs.

With 80% of my target audience saying that they do like zombie films it means that I can continue planning for my film trailer. However the 20% of people that filled out with my target audience said that they didn't enjoy zombie films that much however I believe that my trailer will be good enough to persuade that small percentage to watch it.

The reason why I came up with this question and felt it was relevant to include in my questionnaire is because this is a zombie genre television show and I'm hoping if people like this show then maybe I could use some of the camera shots and make up effects that they do especially if it is popular with my target audience then I think its worth doing.

There was a split opinion on this question with 50% said they do like the programme and 25% saying that they don't like the programme. The feedback I get from here makes it hard to decide whether or not to make my trailer similar to the programme.

The feedback I get back form this question should give me an overall indication whether or not I do go with it. If my target audience don't think it will work together well then I don't think it will be a major problem, if they don't think it will work I will just have to try something else which they will hopefully like.

As you can see from the graph the higher percentage of the people that filled out my questionnaire said that they think it will work well although there is not a significant difference between the people that think it will work and those he think it will not.

I believe this question is relevant to my questionnaire because I wanted to know what would make the people that fill out my questionnaire to want to watch my film trailer. There are a number of different answers for this question and I will be only picking the two most popular answers as doing all of them would be costly.

The two most popular answers were lots of gore and lots of zombie slaying. In order to add lots of gore in my film trailer it means that I will need use and buy lots of fake blood which won't be to hard to do. Having zombies being defeated throughout my film trailer won't be to hard however I might have to cast more people in order to do this.

I asked this question to see how often people go to cinema just out of interest really because this could decide whether or not my film will be popular or not. If people already regularly go to the cinema then it means that there is a good chance that they will watch my film however some people wait until films come out on DVD's which may mean that when my film is released that it will not make much money from people watching it in cinema.

From the feedback that I got back it seems like that the people that have answered my questionnaire seem to go quite often which looks really positive for when my film is released I'm hoping that many people decide to go and watch my film other over films that are released around a similar time.

I decided to ask this question because I was interested in where people would want me to film my trailer whether they would like to see a zombie film shot in a different location. I believe my giving the people the choice of where I should film my trailer and by doing this it will hopefully make them feel like their thoughts have been listened to.

As you can see from the graph a high percentage of people want to see my film shot at a train station. I think the reason for this is being that this is yet to be done so I think it will be interesting to see how people react to the idea when people find out about it.

I think that overall all of this feedback that I have got will help me come up with and make a really good film trailer and I hope that my target audience is going to be happy because I want to base as many of their ideas possible on my film trailer.