report

REPORT

My task was to create a script, DVD cover and film poster for a thriller aimed at teens. To be able to create these tasks I had to carry out research to successfully meet the requirements of a teen thriller. I looked at trailers, posters, and DVD covers to help me get a general idea of thrillers. I also looked at the difference between Horrors and Thrillers as they are quite similar and I feel as if it’s easy to turn the genre into a horror. Looking at the differences and similarities between the two genres helped me to think of ideas for what my poster and DVD cover could be based around.

From my research I was able to notice the main features of a thriller. For example most thrillers contain violence, are fast paced and contain a lot of suspense.

By looking at basic things that make a good thriller it helped me to gain a basic understanding of what should be a in a thriller.

Some of the DVD covers I looked at were House At The End Of The Street, Taken, and Shutter Island.

After looking at these two DVD covers (Shutter Island and House At The End Of The Street) I really liked the idea of a characters face up close with the main setting in the background. A common feature in thriller DVD covers is dark colours to possibly represent the mood and emotions throughout the movies.  Some of the basic features are to have action shots or scenes from the film on the back half of the cover and a summary explaining what the content is about. 

 
 I also looked at the 'Taken' cover which has two of the main characters at the front, the title thrown between the two of them could symbolise their seperation throught the movie. The images used are from quite iconic and memorable scenes. You can also straight away tell from the  pictures that it's going to be an Action, Thriller. The use of red text could connote danger, blood, fire and power. The white background of the text also helps to emphasise the red text more making it stand out.  

 






These are the posters that I analysed for 
 my research. The backgrounds are left black so the main focus is the expressions on the faces. By looking at the faces, we as the audience are able to tell which emotion we may be feeling throughout the movie. The 'Dont Breathe' poster shows a women looking up, away from the camera with a terrified look which could imply she's looking at something frightening or shocking. The effect of the women slightly blending into the black background could suggest little or no hope as there is no light. Perhaps she is slowly dissapearing into the unknown.

 

 

In order to think of a creative storyline for my script, I watched a number of trailers and films to see what the main conventions were.  An example of a thriller I watched was Head Hunters, which had quite a few, plot twists to entice and draw the audience in. The film had a lot of action and fast paced scenes, which usually is quite popular for teenagers. The film Taken is another example where there are a lot of fact-paced scenes. Taken also has a pair of rebellious teens that lie to their parents in order to have a girls holiday without any parents. By including this into the storyline, the writer has made it quite relatable to teens that may have experienced similar situations of rebellious actions.

The intended audience for my script are teenagers of both genders, I think I have successfully targeted my audience by creating characters that are of similar ages to help the audience sympathise more and feel the characters tragedies on a more personal level.  I also added a plot twist at the end, which personally are the kind of features that draws me into thriller movies and makes me watch again.

 This is the DVD cover that I first created but I felt it looked wrong and didn't fully match the conventions of a good DVD cover.  After making some changes I then ended up with this as the final design.  

For the main image I wanted to have the main characters face like the DVD covers I looked at but I decided it would be better to have her cover her face in order to create a sense of mystery. I also took the idea of having a setting included so I took this wideshot picture of a landscape when the sun was setting so the image was dark and the lights were bright and visible.  I then blended the two images together to make the face more faded out and so it was a smooth finish. I liked the look of this however I wanted the colour of the sky to have a more reddish tone to connote danger and negative emotion so I changed the contrast of the image to make the light orange in the sky become more powerful. I then added the title in red font to have similar implications as the colour of the sky.  I think my tagline for the movie ‘Not a happy ending’ draws in the attention of those who enjoy movies with an intense plot. By looking at a variety of DVD covers I was able to find out everything that would generally go on it for example, age rating, the length of the movie, and langauge. I moved the quotes from the front to the back so it can be one of the first things viewers see and can get a good impression of the movie straight away. I also decided to make one of the pictures on the back larger as the dvd covers i looked at had one main image. By doing this, I think it made the page look less plain and more proffesional.

 

For my poster I wanted it to be quite simple yet effective. I stuck to the theme of red and kept the same font as the DVD cover as that’s how the DVD covers and posters were for the ones that I looked at.  I didn’t want the poster to be too compacted so I didn’t add in quotes from newspapers.  The ‘Don’t Breathe’ poster is what I took most inspiration from, as I liked the simplicity.  
I took a close up shot to show detail of the face, for example the eye which i later edited to look quite distorted which is representative of the distortion in her life.  

I wanted the mouth covered up this time to imply the secretiveness of the unknown. The arm could either be someone elses (the abductor) or her own arm to possibly stop herself from outbursts, but I did not make this clear so there was a sense of mystery and secrecy. Compared to the 'Dont breathe' poster my one is quite lighter in colour. I could have also had a black background however I think there was enough darkness across the image e.g the sleeve of the arm, the hair and the eyes. One weakness of my poster is the names of the actresses at the top, one name blends into the background and it not as noticable so i think i should have made it red also. My font first started off as a deep red colour but then I changed the opacity of it as it looked too blocky.