Name and clothing mood-board analysis

Naming Our Film

For our trailer we came up with the name Purgatory. To show why we chose this name I decided to do a mood board of pictures and words that are associated with the word 'purgatory'. This style of research will  aid my development and refinement of initial ideas by clustering certain associations together. The words that I chose to put on the mood board were 'Supernatural' 'Heaven' 'Hell' 'Souls' 'Paranormal' 'Purification' 'Catholic' and 'Punishment'. These words all relate with the meaning behind the word purgatory is 'A place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven: the punishment of the souls in purgatory' so they were perfect to associate with our film name. We chose this name as we have chosen to do a psychological Horror, where the people suffer just before death, as if they were in purgatory before going into heaven having their souls cleansed. 
Although we thought Purgatory was a fitting name we still had to gain a general consensus as to whether the general public would agree. So, questionnaires and focus groups were set up and they too shared the same conclusion.
The focus group brought back some interesting points that we have taken away. They thought a lot of names like 'paranormal activity' are too generic and even "boring". However, the name 'Purgatory' sparked a lot of intrigue - they had a general idea as to what it meant, yet it was still a kind of ambiguous term. Although this could lead to potential confusion, we believe (as did our focus group) that the name perfectly compliments our style of filming. A psychological thriller is meant to have a sense of ambiguouty to develop the intensity, and if our name can cause the same curiosity then it will be very effective. 

Clothing in Our Film

The second mood board that I completed was on clothing. I split the page into four; each section is designed for each actor or actress. I found pictures on the internet of clothing that is very similar or the same as what the actors and actresses will be wearing in our trailer. Before doing this I looked at several trailers of the same genre to see what kind of clothing they wore so our trailer will fit in with the horror genre. While watching the trailers I noticed that the colours of the clothing tended to be blacks, blues, reds and whites with the odd different colours used. When I was choosing the clothing I tried my best to stick to these colours and make sure that the style of the clothing fits in well. Analysis of previously successful films such as, The Cabin in The Woods and The Devil Inside gave a nice balance and comparison as to the horror film conventions. So we shall try and follow suit.

However, we have tried to challenge the conventions of the horror genre - a lot of the time clothing looks forced simply to fit the scenery. Yet, we have tried to make our actors look as natural as possible by dressing them in clothes they're likely to wear. This is because we didn't feel the 'forced' look would work with our film - they're wearing suitable clothes for every day life, not a real-life horror scene. 

However, we have encountered some problems. Continuity is a big thing in filming and makes the trailer look very professional. In a lot of the trailers we have looked at, clothes become muddy or even ripped - something possible on a high budget. yet due to our budget and the actors wearing their own clothes, we found this nearly impossible - this is something we'd like to change. 

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