‘’In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?’’ Emily Hemmigs

Promoting Our Film To promote our film ‘’Lights out’’ we have created a trailer that will be released to the public. The trailer gives a sneak preview into the characters and setting engaging the audience and encouraging them to eventually watch the whole film. Within our trailer we see the insights of three different sets of characters creating a wider audience. Before producing our trailer it was vital that we researched other trailers of a dystopia theme which are also set out to impress the same target audience of a 15. This way we could watch the trailers and note down what aspects appealed to us such as eerie music or abandoned settings. We took inspiration from the channel 4 drama of ‘Blackout.’ We liked the theme of the panicking realisation of no electricity which could link too many things such as heating, water or light. We will also create a film poster and magazine front cover attracting a wider audience and to give the up coming film a buzz. Our film has an aspect of social realism with a dystopia theme as it includes aspects of the world ending. The fact that we have different backgrounds and characters broaden our target audience making it suitable for all ages and genders.

Film Trailer Camera Work When it comes to filming out trailer we want to create three main groups of people to show how the event has affected different people and show their separate and collective journeys. To film the different groups we plan to each film our own section and then cut them together in post-production. The three different groups will be shown at the beginning of the trailer and then through the trailer we will show their journeys and eventually hint at them meeting together to find a solution/ resolution. In our film we have used a lot of handheld camera shots to emphasises the realistic feel to the audience as if they are involved. The handheld and amateur cinematography makes the film feel more personal as the action is following the characters and what they do, so the audience can be feed the information as the characters discovery it. Our main influences was the channel 4 documentary which had many shots with a shaky handheld which we thought as a group was very effective. Throughout the trailer we will use news archive footage to show how the power cut is affecting more than just the tree group and create a more realistic atmosphere. Also we plan to film in icon Brighton areas like Brighton pier and the lanes to show where the film is base and help relate it to the audience as there will know the areas.

Editing The editing we used was very simple with the characters but we used fast editing and effects to hint at action and possible reactions. We found a short Channel 4 film called ‘Blackout’ that used similar themes and found small clips of riot scenes and police fights the heighten the trailer to make the trailer seem more realistic as it was happening now. This gave us the idea to use archive footage in small parts to show how people were reacting and reveal fast it was escalating. We did this by using BBC News footage of the London riots and the Hastings Pier as it burnt down. As well as this we also used strong captions and a quote that all related to the film and asked the audience how they would react and was a way of engaging them from the start by asking them a rhetorical question. ‘’What would you do if the power never came back?’’ ‘’What if there was no more power?’’ Genre Our genre within our film and trailer is dystopia. We wanted to achieve this as the mystery in the dark is unknown to the audience and characters. We also have a threat of human civilisation being destroyed as the characters fight to find the solution. We have created this problem in a modern day society to achieve the unnerving feeling to the audience.

Mise-en-scene In our trailer ‘Lights Out’ we decided to film in our home town Brighton. As we wanted to show the realisation of the city becoming destructive with no electricity. We wanted to show the serious damage that could occur if the scenario came true. We went around the city at night time where there were no lights to achieve the blackout look. We waited until the late hours for the pier to turn down and shut. We used the pier as we think it is a landmark for Brighton and to see it turned off with no lights is a very realistic feature within our trailer. The characters clothes are very basic, wearing the clothes that are popular within this generation to show teenagers realistically in We have tried to make it as realistic as we can to cause the audience distress in such a real life situation. Sound & Titles In our trailer we choose to use bold fonts. One would be for the titles of the film and characters; whilst the other would be for the quote and captions. We decided on two fonts instead of one throughout as we felt it made the captions really stand out as part of the story. The characters and title are more of trailer ad on (information about the whole film that they would not be able to tell from just the visually, i.e. actors and director.) Choosing appropriate diegetic and non-diegetic sounds ensured that our trailer expressed the dystopia theme, creating a on edge mood by using a slow, almost eerie music track. Other sounds were overplayed, such as the buzz of the lighting which matched the footage on screen, making it dark and desolate. In scenes such as the riots, we kept in the wild track that had been recorded at the time as it cut through the rest of the sounds being heard over the other sounds.