Audience film title research

In this video we spoke to a small part of our target audience we had a lot of film titles to choose from so we wanted to speak to a small part of our target audience to see what they thought.

Film titles chosen by small target audience

At the end of the video it is clear there is no winner however the ones that were picked were surprising, as these were the titles we expected to have the least amount of likability. We came to this conclusion because 1a and 3c both are quite stereotypical of the horror genre, we thought it lacked originality that the others had. The other fonts 1i and 4l are more original due to the lettering being different, blinds in lettering are usually more common in thrillers like Psycho.

Psycho (1960)

Film Title change/re-evalution

In a previous post we decided to call our film October 31st, due to the survey we conducted with our audience. It was a clear winner but due to much discussion and research we have realised that the name 'October 31st' is probably already been used as it can easily be tied to horror and Halloween. Also the fact a quick Google search promoted this and this.

This is a common problem that most filmmakers face so we will have to start over with our title, but we have decided to find a creative way to still include the Halloween name in the title.

Here are some title ideas that we have come with:

Font 1 with different effects. Maximus BT

We experimented with several different fonts and effects.

Font 2 with different effects. Youngseek BTN

Red was the common theme that ran throughout as blood is a common colour used in horror.

Font 3 with different effects we used a mix of texts Casablanca SF and Dark Half BTN.

Towards the end of our experimenting with the title we decided to start to mix texts together as we found it highlighted the '3' and the '1' more.

We will be talking to a small sample of our target audience and peers before we had out the questionnaires to find out what text they like best. By talking to them we hope to narrow down at least one title in each category, for our questionnaire.

Actors/Actress Issues etc.

Fig. 1 An larger version of our written consent form that all actors have signed.

Evaluation of the logo

Fig 1 Logo

This is our final logo we chose to use very dark colours as it represented our genre of horror. With the black taking up the majority of the background it allows the audience to believe that our film is quite dark, the black has connotations of fear and the unknown which are all associated with horror. The writing being in white and a shadow effect applied to it makes the text appear almost ghost like, this creates eeriness. We used several different shapes to create a lowercase 'e' inside the other shape as we thought this would come across as looking like a maze. 

Fig. 2 Maze

Mazes are very symbolic in the horror genre because it could also be linked to the characters trying to find a way out or the protagonist trying to fight the antagonist. This could also represent the plot with the character trying to solve the dilemma they are faced with this is why we chose this particular shape. The TV static noise pattern that is often shown on old TV's are used on the shapes because this represent the past and history and with the shape the pattern is applied against looking very modern it shows that the past is converging with the present. This also represents that something from the past is colliding with the future, this is the plot our film is based around. 

To conclude, our logo looks old much like a 90's logo this is because our film is based on the past affecting the present. Our characters have to fight the antagonist to bring everything back to normal this very much supports Tzvetan Todorov simplified the idea of narrative theory: the theory of Equilibrium and Disequilibrium.

Company Logo: Making of & Final Clip

I chose to create a moving image so the logo physically shifts, the logo was generated in Microsoft PowerPoint. Each piece was make using the Microsoft shape tools, I added a textured background to each shape to create more of a 3 dimensional effect at first glance.

I made the text 'Elite Enterprise Films' using serif draw Plus. I added a gradient and a soft white blur to the edge of the text to make the text less flat.
This is what the original logo looks like once I applied the pieces together, the shape is supposed to create the effect of two E's in one shape:
I then added a black background to make the logo more bold and visually appealing. there was also a order of animations and transitions I had applied to the logo to make the pieces I had create separately move. the part I found challenging was timing each piece of the logo move simultaneously, I found it had to be adjusted to move on with the previous animation. I then saved and exported the clip as a MP4 video.
I once again imported it into Serif Movieplus. Then I added an old film effect on the whole clip along with the vault door shutting sound effect. I also added a fade onto the whole clip, all these features were done to link it back to the genre of horror. These small details are used to keep the audience on edge especially when they view the trailer and this logo animation appears, it keeps them intrigued.


Here is what the final clip looks like after the final export:

The programs I used to generate the whole clip included, Serif Drawplus, Serif Movieplus and Windows Powerpoint. all programs were generally straight forward to use, small settings were tricky to use such as the timing setting on the animations on PowerPoint or the syncing of sound along with movement on Serif Movieplus. Overall, I found it quite simple to edit using these programs and intend on using them for my final trailer. 

Credit: Del