Dual Trailer

Trailer Premier Invitations

There are two types of invitations created one with the face of Alex and The other with Lucas's mask, it makes them both individual and also people may want to collect both of them.

Poster Examples

Poster Conventions

Magazine Conventions

Doll

We used the doll in the trailer to show the passing of time. When Alex is young and playing in the woods she has the doll. The doll gets left in the woods and when Lucas return she is still there. The use of the doll is kind of scary as its innocent and a child's toy, however bad things happen whilst she is around. Also she is watching everything that is going on.

The doll inspiration we got from the film Chucky.

Rating for the film

From research on posters, I noticed that they all have the ratings on them however some do not and therefore will have a 'tbc' sign which means to be confirmed, however most of them will have a rating as the poster is usually pre-released about 2 weeks before the film will show in cinema's. So to get the right rating for our horror film, I researched MPAA the Motion Picture Association of America.

The ratings are as follows:

A G-rated: motion picture contains nothing in theme, language, nudity, sex, violence or other matters that, in the view of the Rating Board, would offend parents whose younger children view the motion picture. The G rating is not a “certificate of approval,” nor does it signify a “children’s” motion picture. Some snippets of language may go beyond polite conversation but they are common everyday expressions. No stronger words are present in G-rated motion pictures. Depictions of violence are minimal. No nudity, sex scenes or drug use are present in the motion picture.

A PG-rate: The PG rating indicates, in the view of the Rating Board, that parents may consider some material unsuitable for their children, and parents should make that decision.

The more mature themes in some PG-rated motion pictures may call for parental guidance. There may be some profanity and some depictions of violence or brief nudity. But these elements are not deemed so intense as to require that parents be strongly cautioned beyond the suggestion of parental guidance. There is no drug use content in a PG-rated motion picture.

A PG-13 rate: is a sterner warning by the Rating Board to parents to determine whether their children under age 13 should view the motion picture, as some material might not be suited for them. A PG-13 motion picture may go beyond the PG rating in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, adult activities or other elements, but does not reach the restricted R category.

An R-rate: motion picture, in the view of the Rating Board, contains some adult material. An R-rated motion picture may include adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually-oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements, so that parents are counselled to take this rating very seriously. Children under 17 are not allowed to attend R-rated motion pictures.

An NC-17 rate: motion picture is one that, in the view of the Rating Board, most parents would consider patently too adult for their children 17 and under. No children will be admitted. NC-17 does not mean “obscene” or “pornographic” in the common or legal meaning of those words, and should not be construed as a negative judgment in any sense. The rating simply signals that the content is appropriate only for an adult audience. An NC-17 rating can be based on violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other element that most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children.

The MPAA are an American association, so posters released in America will have a film classification rate from the MPAA, however for film rating in the UK a different board rates the films and they are the BBFC British Board of Film Classification.

The BBFC categories for films are as follows:

On film posters, the Consumer Advice should be found in a box near the film’s title, alongside the classification, for example:

From the screen shot shown above, we decided to rated our film as a 15. This is because it does not have very strong gory images, the images of the character in distress is not kept on the screen to long, there is no sexual content in the film however it is permitted but not in strong detail. Our trailer does portray slight violence and blood but does not emphasise it in strong detail, this is why we have chosen to rate the film as a 15.

Tagline

For horror film's they usually have a tagline. The tagline is usually used in the trailer, poster an other marketing parts, the tagline relates to the film which represents what it may be about. Here is a few tag lines from other films, this will help us create a suitable tagline for our trailer Dual.

From Dusk Till Dawn- Vampires. No Interviews

Army of Darkness- Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas

Teeth- Every rose has its thorn...

A tale of two sisters – Every family has its dark secrets

Orphan – There’s something wrong with Esther.

Unborn – It wants to be born. Now.

Carrie – If they only know she had the power.

The Ring – Before you die. You see… The Ring.

The Haunting in Connecticut – Something’s cannot be explained

Mirrors – There is evil on the other side.

Sorority Row – They share a killer secret.

Black Christmas – T’was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, a creature was stirring.

Saw – Every piece has a puzzle.

Saw 4 – It’s a Trap

The Hills Have Eyes – The lucky one’s die first.

Friday The 13th – Welcome to Crystal Lake.

The Nightmare On Elm Street – If you think you’ll get out alive, you must be dreaming.

Resident Evil – Survive the Horror.

Poltergeist – It knows what scares you.

Scream – Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far. Solving this mystery is going to be murder.

Halloween – The night he came home.

Black Friday – It’s not over.

Candyman – We dare you to say his name five times.

Boogey Man - You thought It was just a story.

Paranormal Activities – What happens when you sleep, don’t see it alone.

The Omen – You are one day closer to the end of the world.

The Grudge – It never forgives, it never forgets.

The Forth Kind – There are four kinds of alien encounters. The fourth kind is abduction.

The tagline for our film Dual is 'You can't escape your past'. The tagline relates with our film because Alex cannot escape her twin brother which is her past, and will be her present.

Theories

When learning about the theories used in horror films, we were inspired by Carol J Clovers theory, the final girl. This is because as a female it makes me feel proud that the girl was able to solve the mystery and out-smart the killer instead of a guy.

Another theory we had learned was about the cultivation theory, this is when it is believed that TV has a big influence on consumers which may make them think in a certain way. Some cases such as the Jamie Bulger case have lead some theories such as the hypodermic theory (this is when consumers are believed to take in everything they watch) true to a slight extent. It can be true to a slight extent as two kids were believed to have seen Chucky and re in-acted, the violence on a younger child Jamie Bulger, however if the hyperdormic theory was true then more brutal crimes would occur.

When learning about Propp and Todorov's theory we decided to use Todorov. This is because e were able to relate a horror film more to Todorov's theory rather than Propp. We decided to use Todorov's extended theory than his original as it was more structured along for a horror film, also the horror films we had seen such as Halloween they seemed to have followed the theory. This is how we used Todorov's theory in our film.

Exposition- this is the introduction of the film we are introduced to

the main characters, Alex and Lucas when they are younger.

Development- the story then develops when Lucas goes missing in the

woods, whilst playing hide and seek with Alex at the age of 5

Complication- Lucas returns back into Alex’s life significantly 13 years later

on their 18th birthday for revenge of him being abducted when he was

younger, however no one knows that Lucas is suffering from multiple

personality disorder

Climax- Lucas dies in the process of him attempting to murder his twin

sister Alex, good triumphs evil

Resolution- Alex kills her twin brother Lucas, and everything eventually

goes back to normal

Magazine Cover

Film Poster

On the poster there is an image of Alex on the right hand side and Lucas on the left. These positions were chosen for the characters to show the good and bad, Alex is the good character therefore is represented by being positioned on the right and Lucas is the bad twin so he is positioned on the left to show that he is bad.

The woods in the back are from the inspiration of the Blair Witch Project, the effect of them, they have been filtered and have had an added glow effect on them to give it a distorted type of look. The woods are also there to set the location of the film which is the woods. In the poster the doll is also present as she is represents pasting of time.

At the bottom of the poster the names of the actors, directors, producers, costume designers, film producers (haunstville productions) distributors (universal), the film rating 15, tagline, name of the film and the website(fans can go and watch the film trailer online, find out about the cast and film).

Music

The music for the trailer was not easy to find, after searching on the internet to composing our own bangs for some of the sounds the music finally pieced together. Whilst searching for some music for our trailer I came across a company that composes music for trailers. Two Steps From Hell have composed music for some very famous films such as New Moon: the Twilight saga, Star Trek and many more. However we had a problem as we could not purchase the music so therefore could not use any of it. After hitting this snag we were not put off finding the right music for our trailer, this only made us more determined to find the right music. Finally the right music was found on Youtube, it sounded a bit like a nursery rhyme going evil. This was perfect as we were trying to show the innocence of good disappearing over a period of time.

Editing

After filming over an hour worth of footage, it needed to be cut down to 60-70 seconds for our trailer. Before filming our footage we had made a storyboard and filming schedule, this made filming much easier as we had a storyboard to follow and filming schdule to go by, this way we did not waste time and were able to get onto editing quicker.


To edit our footage we used a program called Adobe Premier Pro CS3. In editing we all had our input into the trailer, through making decisions such as how the order of the trailer scene should go as we changed it slightly from the storyboard and having a go on editing parts of the trailer.

We had changed the trailer from the storyboard by having young Alex count along the events, from good to bad on her tenth count Lucas steps out behind Alex. Whilst editing we followed the storyboard as much as we could however the trailer needed some elements that the storyboard did not have, so as a group we thought of bits and pieces we could have in the trailer and what we shouldn't. Some scenes had to be darkened by reducing the intensity of the colour, as when they were filmed they were done in the daylight so that the camera picked up the light making the image clearer. In horror films some of the main icons are shadows and darkness; this is because it makes the scene tenser. In the Blair Witch Project the running scene with the girl is scary, this is because as the audience we can hear her high pitched breathing and running noise, but can't see a lot making audience members feel uneasy and scared to what is going to happen next. This inspired us to do a similar scene in our trailer.

Tthe running scene was chopped and darkened this emphasised Alex being chased and was dangerous, it also went along with the heavy breathing sounds which were later added on, using Premiers sound move tool. However darkening the shots and chopping them up still did not have a scary feel for the trailer. Sound really emphasised it, which was created through loud bangs, breathing noises, leaves crunching and the soundtrack.

The soundtrack went with the pace of the trailer and went perfectly however it then turned from it being scary to a music beat after the doll in the tree scene. Finding the music for the trailer was hard. However searching for quite a few days we found a piece that fit with the timing sequence of the trailer, the music had a horror element to it which fit perfectly with our trailer. Some of the ways the trailer conforms to the horror trailer genre is through the darkened isolated shots, of Alex in the woods.

Film Production Logo's

Film Name Ideas

To come up with a name for our film was not as easy as it sounds. The film name has to represent the film and what it's about. To come up with ideas we used the dictionary and thesaurus to get us started and give us a wider range of vocabulary. These where some of the ideas we had come up with for the film, the storyline of the film is about two twins named Lucas and Alex. Lucas is evil and seeks revenge on his twin Alex, as he was abducted when he was young and believes it was Alex's fault.

-Interruption:

-Disconnected
-Reconnected
-Remember Me
-Uncertain
-Disruption
-Target
-Fallacy
-Savage
-Depart
-Incoherent
-Disjointed
-Disordered
-Unstructured
-Unconnected
-Wander
-Hostility
-Hostile
-Cold Blooded
-Cold Blood
-Deficient
-Deficiency
-Defenceless
-Defective
-Outlier
-Anomaly

-Dual

We finally decided on the name for our film, we chose the name Dual. The meaning of dual is two of something in the films case the twins Lucas and Alex. It doesn’t give away too much but still signifies the characteristics of the twins.