Through exploring contemporary horror trailers i have noticed that many of them follow typical conventions of the horror genre. Each trailer uses the same editing techniques in terms of fast cuts, non-diegetic sounds, variety of camera shots and many of them follow contemporary stereotypes typically with social status, age and gender.
Here is just a short list of my findings:
- Horror trailers have a non diegetic backing track that add tension, pace and atmosphere the trailer. Non diegetic backing track is usually of an orchestral nature adding a sense of "creepiness" to the trailer. Diegetic is often a narration or some sort of screaming or whispering aiding an atmosphere.
- Each trailer starts off slow with a happy beginning then they get in to a predicament.
- Fast paced editing such as jump cutting, dissolves and fades are commonly used to merge scenes, add pace and atmosphere to the trailer.
- Females are commonly used as the vulnerable characters.
- Variety of representations of males, some are evil, some are good.
- Variety of camera shots used to get all perspectives in the predicament. Panning is a common camera angle used as well as camera shots of extreme close up, close ups and long shots.
- Gore and blood is a common theme.
- Horror films/trailer always follow media theories such as the Gratifications theory. For example offering entertainment and social interaction.
- Iconography is constantly used so that the audience know that they are watching the horror genre.
There are many more but these are the most obvious and most common features that are used in almost every horror trailer. I will be taking note of all of these aspects in order to help me create a successful horror trailer.
The human centipede is a story of a German doctor who kidnaps three tourists and joins them surgically, mouth to anus, forming a "human centipede". It stars Dieter Laser as the villain, Dr. Heiter, with Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie, and Akihiro Kitamura as his victims. Six also stated that inspiration for the film came from Nazi medical experiments carried out during World War II, such as the actions of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz concentration camp.
MISE EN SCENE The human centipede is very typical, not particulary in the storyline but in the props and location used to create the predicament that the three tourists get into. Firstly they use phones to firstly communicate to each other which represents contemporary society with the technological advancement of society. When they have met they travel by a car going through the woods, the car then recieves a punctured tyre and the girls are left stranded. The props used in the opening sequence are unlucky props of which is how the story begins and the girls fate is decided. By the terms "unlucky props" i mean the broken cars, broken telephones etc.
Due to being left stranded in the woods with no mobile phone or mode of transport they are unable to escape the predicament which by its self gives a sense of horror, everyone's worst nightmare is to be left stranded in the woods so the audience can relate to them. The woodland location that the girls are stranded in is very typical, the "woods" or "woodland" has connotations of darkness, evil, mysterious and unknown. The location that they end up is a dutch neighbourhood, this gives the sense that they are vulnerable as they are American tourists, do not know the area and can't even speak the language in order to seek assistance. In terms of costumes, everything is relatively stereotypical, the young American tourists are in dresses and heels ready to go out and the surgeon that they come across is wearing a shirt and trousers so everything is pretty regular.
Further on in the trailer, occupation costumes are also very stereotypical, as the man is a surgeon is dressed in a long white jacket that u would see many sergeons wear. The occupation of a "surgeon" is juxtaposed in this movie. Surgeons are commonly seen as heros and they perform operations that save peoples lives, but in this movie, he performs an operation that is more of a twisted experiment that puts each of their lives in jerperdy. In terms of the props used by the surgeon it is all very stereotypical to his professions, hospital and operative equipment such as knives, saws, saringes, hopsital beds etc.
There are iconic colours and props used throughout the trailer, when the girls first meet the surgeon, he is in a black shirt. The colour black has connotations of darkness and evil. One of the women is dressed in grey, this may appear to be slightly ambiguous. As white has connotations of heaven, purity and justice and on the other hand black has connotations of darkness and evil, grey may appear to represent something in between the both of those, almost an idea of pergatory and that her fate is undecided. There are also iconic props of horror movies such as knives that are present in this trailer.
CAMERA The trailer is fairly long with it being over 3 minutes. The beggining of the trailer starts off with limited cuts but the pace increases with rapid close up cuts. During a period of 20seconds there is 13 cuts which alternates from close up to medium shots of the characters and props used in the trailer. The fast cuts seem to give the viewer an idea of the climax of the film, also as the cuts are very fast it builds suspense and tension to what is happening. There is a mixture of title slides throughout that almost tell the storyline.
There is a closeup of a man with his mouth tied which then turns to an extreme close up of his eyes, this is to show his facial expressions as he is extremely distressed and terrified. Throughout the trailer it alternates from long shots to medium shots to close ups of which gives us a sense of the location and the facial expressions, this is used to build an atmosphere and imagery.
There is a long shot of the car driving through the woods and then a close up of the punctured tyre, this has been put there so we fully understand the situation and what has happened. When the surgeon opens the door to the 2 helpless American tourists, there is an over the shoulder shot, this is very affective in enforcing the storyline. This camera angle may represent that he is now in control of the situation. When the surgeon is walking down the stairs there is a high angled pan of which is also a tilt. This has many connotations. As he is walking down it may represent that he is evil and going beneath ground level of which promotes religious ideologies of hell. A low angel medium shot is also very affective where the dimented sergeon is in his sergical outfit holding a saringe, the low angle gives him the representation of being powerful and fully in control.
ENCODING/DECODING The preferred reading of the film will be influenced by the film creators to aid the emotions of shock and scariness. The shock element comes from the twisted story line on the other hand the scariness comes from the audience not knowing if the tourists will get out of the predicament that they are in. There is almost an element of reality too. As there were Nazi experiments during the war of which surgeons tried many delusional sickening things to jews using human bodies as test dummies.
There are many representations that we can elicit from the film. These predominately include gender, occupation and nationality. The representation of gender is through the stereotypes of male and female. The malevolent surgeon is the key male in the film and he has full control of the situation and all of the vulnerable peoples lives. On the other hand the female tourists are seen to be innocent, weak and vulnerable which may link to common contemporary stereotypes of the male figures being in control and strong and females being delicate and precious.
In terms of Nationality, this has many representations and may cause some ethical issues. The malevolent surgeon is German and the weak tourists are American. This may link to Nazi' ideologies influencing imagery that germans are bad. Nazi' ideologies of indoctrination are commonly linked, this may be shown in the film as he makes them think he is going to help them but then puts them in danger, very much sounds like Hitlerism.
Lastly, the representation of a surgeons occupation is played with as they are usually represented to be life savers and strong genuine people. But in this case the surgeon is demented and evil as he has a twisted experiment in mind.
The main gratifications offered are those of entertainment and social interaction. The entertainment is received by the target audience through the twisted, shocking storyline that they wouldn't usually receive in day-to-day life. It provides energy as it provokes the emotion of fear and shock. It also influences social interaction due to the ethical issues that the film may rise through representations and the storyline. People may talk about whether the film was good or not and whether somethings should have even been allowed to be filmed.
The main ideologies are shown mainly through gender but also nationality. It is shown through gender through the stereotypes of males and females but also it deals with the stereotypes of nationality influencing historic knowledge of countries.
Once again the film company that contributed in making the film is shown at the beginning of the trailer, this is used to promote the company but also so that the target audience will eventually recognise the brand and will watch other horror movies made by that brand.
EDITING
At the beginning of the trailer there aren't many cuts, this is to show the storyline aswell as it promoting ideas that everything is regular with a slow pace. This then dramatically increases to influence tension and atmosphere, the quick cuts create pace of which makes the audience feel on edge and its signifies the extent of where the climax happens.
There is no continuity as this will slow the trailer down, they want to create a fast pace with a scary atmosphere to draw the target audience in. The technique used in order to do this is called jump cutting. Cross dissolves are another technique that is used in the trailer to merge scenes together in order to create almost a short story to the trailer, although the events may not happen like that in the film, it is created in the trailer to add a more dramatic storyline.
Throughout the trailer it fades out from black. The colour black has many connotations in itself promoting ideologies of evil and darkness. The fade out from black shows how the story line is evolving. The fade out from black constantly goes to a screen of writing of which narrates the the storyline for example "the demented surgeon...to perform the unspeakable".
Throughout the trailer there is a mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The diegetic sound is offered through the voices of the characters which includes; conversations, screaming, whispering etc. The Non-diegetic sound is offered through the backing track, this also influences drama and tension as well as pace to the trailer.
All of this creates an atmosphere of fear.
GENRE
The genre is obviously horror as the film is all about provoking fear. It also fits into a slight sub-genre of sci-fi as it deals with subjects that have never been performed in today's society excluding the Nazi' era.
The last exorcism is a film told from the prospective of a delusional evangelical minister who after years of performing exorcisms decides to participate in a documentary chronicling his last exorcism while exposing the fraud of his ministry. After receiving a letter from a local farmer asking for help in driving out the devil, he meets the farmer afflicted daughter.
MISE EN SCENE
The mise en scene deals with many aspects of the trailer such as location, props, costumes, make-up etc. In terms of the location, it is a very rural remote place that looks slightly run down as represented by the derelict-looking house and the fields as well as the barn. The film is hosted in America in a lower/working class environment. In terms of costume and props, a lot of it represents religious ideologies such as the bible, priest outfitting, crucifix, holy water, the devil etc. Other props included are props such as guns, cars, farming equipment etc, of which all represent a stereotypical lifestyle of a working class farmer.
The verb exorcism means "the attempted expulsion of an evil spirit" which then links to the bible as being possessed by the devil. This film promotes the biblical ideologies of good and evil, God and the Devil. The farmers daughter that has been possessed by the evil spirit and is bed ridden and wears an evening gown which has a semantic field with hospitals and their gowns so this can represent illness and death. The costume is all very stereotypical for example the farmer wears an open, usually scruffy shirt with a pair of jeans and boots which represents lower working class. Make-up is used specifically for the girl to show when she is possessed as her pigment in her face turns to pale white and her eyes and mouth become very red, also blood is part of the make-up not only on the characters faces but on the girls blouse.
CAMERA
There are many medium, close up and long shots used in the trailer. For example there is a panning long shot when the priest drives past a derelict, haunted looking house. This sets the mood, scenery and location of which the priest is about to enter. At the beginning of the film there is a point-of-view shot of someone looking out the window at the priest praying. This is mysterious as we (the viewers) do not know who is gazing at the priest and it influences imagery, some may think its the possessed girl some may even think its a nosey neighbour. There is subjective filming (camera shot+angle) in the jeep that almost puts the viewer next to the character in the film. This is affective as it feels like you are in the jeep with the priest and experiencing first hand what he is going through. There is a high angle close up when the possessed girl is on the floor in the barn, it shows her terrified facial expressions and the high angle has an effect of showing that the girl is in a vulnerable state. Approaching the end of the trailer there is a montage of rapid close-ups of the farmers, priests and girls face to build suspense and tension of not knowing what is happening or going to happen.
ENCODING/DECODING
This film takes horror into a different perspective, as it deals with religious beliefs, "if you
believe in God, then you believe in the Devil". Religion applies to many people as many people have strong beliefs that there is a God so when a horror films promotes the ideas of the devil, it creates a slightly "possible" concept of the storyline, the thought that it could happen. Due to this it makes the film even more terrifying, this is a very intelligent technique created by the producers. The gratifications offered are entertainment as it gets them scared or provokes an emotion and social interaction as it can come up in a transactional social conversation between friends.
Dyers Utopian theory applies to this trailer as viewers would gain energy and solution from the trailer/film that they may not obtain from their usual day to day lifestyle. Horror appeals to people by provoking certain emotions through the use of macabre, jumpy scenes or gruesome content. Dyers theory offers usually a young audience "solutions" and "energy" that they may lack in their day-to-day lifestyle, a viewer suffering from exhaustion may be revitalised through the special affects, quick cuts, costume, graphics or "creepy" story line. The studio logos such as Studio Canal and Lionsgate are there not only to publicise the production but the target audience may also know of other films that this studio has made. Lionsgate have made many many contemporary horror films such as Saw and Hostel. There are many signifiers that are specifically put in the trailer to represent a certain thing. For example the big trucks, cars driving on the right side of the road, american accent and the recognised American house with porches are all in the opening scene of the trailer. This is so that the audience instantly know where they are. Other dominant ideologies and signifiers are those of Religious ideologies such as the devil, God, exorcism etc of which all have a strong semantic field with Religion.
In terms of representation of characters and audience all is not only created through age, gender and location but also religion. The film creates a stereotype of males being the stronger and dominant species as the girl is the one to be possessed and is vulnerable but also the girl is at young age which also has connotations of being vulnerable and naive.
EDITING
Throughout the movie trailer there are many rapid cuts from shot to shot. In the opening 16seconds of the trailer there are 10cuts of which creates pace, interest and suspense. The fast cuts alternate from location, characters and props such as the crucifix. There is also graphic editing towards the end of the trailer, there are shots of the possessed girl with colour distortion and camera distortion giving an effect of evil and supernatural "species". Editing can also include chiaroscuro lighting, this is used in a shot of the girl, she is brightly lit, but the back ground is dark. The bright light may have connotations that there is "light at the end of the tunnel" in other words there is some sort of Godly presence as represented by the white gown and lighting as well as being juxtaposed by the darkness of the room and location behind her. This shot is also copied when looking at the priest which may represent that he is the saviour. Non diegetic plays from the beginning of the trailer, orchestral music with high pitches and tones haunts the trailer as well as the non diegetic voice over the priest giving an effect of a documentary. In the voice over the person says "if you believe in God, you believe in the Devil" of which sums up the storyline in a sentence as is also an issue that arrises in the bible with the idea of good and evil, God and the Devil. There is also diegetic sounds that play throughout such as screaming, shouting, loud bangs, a gun being reloaded etc. By the use of keeping both non-diegetic sounds and diegetic sounds playing throughout the trailer, its causes a lot of noise therefore creates an uncomfortable atmosphere.
Genre
Undoubtably this is a Horror movie that provokes the emotion of fear through a malevolent presence possessing a girl. This films deals with biblical ideologies of good and evil, the devil possesses a girl and as there are many reported storys of exorcism it bring the horror film to reality and adds that extra dose of fear as it could actually happen in the minds of the viewers. In terms of sub genres this can be easily categorised into Religion as the devil is the key villain that is causing all the pain.
I am going to be analysing a horror-film trailer. I will be looking at many things such as the: Iconography Mise en scene Editing Camera Angle (and positioning) Lighting etc.
I will be looking at how all of these contribute to the typical conventions of a horror movie and what the audience expect to see.
The film i will be analysing is contemporary horror film produced in 2011 directed by James Wan called Insidious. The storyline deals with a child being haunted by a demon. The family believe it is the house but in actual fact it is the child. While the child is sleeping his soul is able to escape from his body into a different world or dimension in which demons and dead people stay. This gives demons the opportunity to posses the child's body and cause pandemonium on Earth killing people. The longer the child is asleep the easier it becomes for the demons to inhabit his body.
MISE EN SCENE In terms of the mise en scene, this covers many aspects that a conventional horror film will include such as the props, costume, location, people etc. The trailer consists of a typical location, a middle class house in a nice, respectable, quiet neighbourhood occupied by a regular loving family. This is juxtaposed by the house being inhabited by a demon. The use of beds, windows, chairs and hospital equipment are used throughout the trailer. The windows and beds are used to create fear for when the demons presence is about. The windows, beds and doors slam to provoke fear and a "jumpy" and "creepy" scene to the audience. The bed is a key prop as this aids the plot of the film, in order for the demon to get into the mortal realm, he must pass via the child's body when he is sleeping. This has many connotations as beds are recognised to be a place of rest, peace, safety and comfort but in this film it represents the bed as being the complete opposite. Hospital equipment is used to represent death and pain as the parents believed he was in a coma due to an unknown cause after being perfectly healthy the day before.
Other props that aid the representation of childhood are things such as toys, baby monitors and a rocking horse. These things can be modified to the advantage of a horror genre. Toys and baby monitors can show a ghostly/evil presence by getting them to move or be played with or a voice played through the baby monitor. This is very powerful in provoking the audiences emotions. To keep your children safe is a parental instinct, so to hear a supernatural voice coming through the speakers where the baby should be, can be terrifying. A rocking horse is used in many films as it is an object that many can relate to in their own childhood, this is commonly used to show a ghostly presence as it rocks back and forth.
CAMERA There is a vast variety of camera shots used in the trailer of Insidious. They all are used to build pace and tension as well as represent a certain thing such as a close up of the metronome of which is used in the film to hynotize the father. There is an eye-line medium closeup of the distressed father which is a very powerful shot as it shows the characters facial expressions and emotions aswell as giving the affect that he is looking straight at you. It is also very affective as it opposes stereotypes that stereotypically males are supposed to be stong and protective but here he is clearly vulnerable and distressed.
There is a montage of shots when the child is in hospital. It begins with a close up of the distressed couple and then changes to an over-the-shoulder long shot of the child in the hospital bed. A hospital has connotations of death, pain and illness so seeing the couples gaze at their injured child can actually cause other people to emphasise with them as a parental instinct. There is an eye-line pan when the mother is investigating the rooms as she senses a presence, the camera angle is from her perspective and the pan represents her head movement as she gazes at one room and then to another. This creates suspense as the audience can only see what the character is seeing so it puts you in her perspective that creates a creepy tension.
There are many fast shots of extreme close ups later on in the trailer to show the characters terrified facial expressions and also some of the costumes and make up of the demons but the extreme close up as a very fast cut only leaves the viewer with a mental image of the demon actually looks like and this can vary on each viewers perception which then influences social interaction.
Encoding/Decoding The studio logos publicise the companies that produce the film and in terms of the target audience they may recognise they studios from similar films they have seen in the past. For example the creators of Insidious also made contemporary popular horror films such as Saw and Paranormal Activity. The gratifications offered are entertainment as it gets them scared or provokes an emotion and social interaction as it can come up in a transactional social conversation between friends.
Dyers Utopian theory applies to this trailer as viewers would gain energy and solution from the trailer/film that they may not obtain from their usual day to day lifestyle. Horror appeals to people by provoking certain emotions through the use of macabre, jumpy scenes or gruesome content. Dyers theory offers usually a young audience "solutions" and "energy" that they may lack in their day-to-day lifestyle, a viewer suffering from exhaustion may be revitalised through the special affects, quick cuts, costume, graphics or "creepy" story line. It gives them a sense of escapism from reality.
In terms of Maslows Hierarchy Of Needs this film trailer offers 3 of the key themes promoted by the theory. The theme of "safety" isn't offered, but slightly juxtaposed, it may be taken away by the intelligent storyline of which provokes the emotion of fear and adrenaline with the twisted plot. The theme of affiliation is offered as the viewer feels like they aren't the only individual that is feeling this emotion, its reassuring to know that everyone is witnessing the same thing. Lastly the sense of esteem, this may just be from the feeling of knowing "its just a film" and that you can return to safety and reality after.
Representation of groups can be shown by the social grouping theory according to age, gender and location. In the trailer it deals with a very ordinary middle classed family. Age is represented by children's toys such as the rocking horse as well as baby monitors and cots (children's beds). Gender deals with contemporary stereotypes of males to be slightly more stronger and for females to be protective and nurturing.
Editing
In the opening scene the cuts start off slowly cutting from firstly the film studio (Film District) to the fathers distressed face and then to the metronome. From here the cuts then become rapid showing many things such as locations, costumes, character expressions, make-up of demons etc. In the first 31seconds of the trailer there is 18cuts showing many important scenes of the film. It introduces the location, the characters, the demons etc. Throughout the trailer is cuts from the film to the insidious logo that continuously flashes and cross dissolves. The words "Insidious is" cross fades and changes place for example, "Insidious is...Is Insidious". This is a powerful technique as not only is the film title ambiguous they have adapted the definition of Insidious to link to the definition of the film.
The definition of Insidious is: "proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, causing harmful affects". As the words cross dissolves into each other its says Insidious is Insidious representing the film to start in a subtle way but gradually will enhance the feeling of fear.
There is many diegetic sounds throughout the trailer such as loud collisions, screaming, slamming of doors etc, but there is a diegetic sound of which transitions into a non-diegetic sound and plays throughout the trailer. There is a medium shot of a metronome of which is used to hypnotise the father, the onomatopoeic sound of the "tick tock" then plays throughout the trailer, this creates an image that "time is limited" as sound mimics the sound a clock.
Film trailers consist of many, rapid cuts from scene to scene showing the mise-en-scene of this film.
Graphics of which is enhanced by costume and make-up is also a type of editing, to create a demons presence graphics, or CGI (computer generated images) are often used. In this trailer there is a quick shot of the demon floating.
Genre
This film trailer is certainly a horror film as it has all the typical conventions that the audience would expect. Horror films can then be categorised into sub-genres, this film deals with demons, spirits, and a sci-fi parallel universe so it has many sub genres such as religious due to the devil/demons but as it has a science fiction input it is very hard to categorise this film as it deals with many sub genres.
The horror genre failed to exist due to the large religious society, all ideas of "evil" were forbidden. The horror genre first arose in 1818 in a print format, a novel called Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley. This was when horror was first introduced in which a malevolent human creation related to a monster commits mass genocide. From this point onwards the horror genre became more and more popular as later on the introduction of Dracula and vampires occurred. Mary Shelley gave other authors the confidence to begin to write horror novels. People began to enjoy the genre as it gave them something they couldnt get from everyday life. From this, sub genres arose. For example it began with monsters and vampires, in the contemporary market there is anything from paranormal acitivity to zombies to out breaks of mutating viruses. Horror is often linked to Science Fiction and Thriller.
When chosing the horror film genre we had to take many aspects into consideration when identifying the target audience. These aspects included social status, age, gender and other media consumptions for example what they would read and watch. In terms of social grouping we have decided to target a young age group from ages 16-22 and both genders, we decided this as it reflects our age group and we have an idea of what interests teenagers and those of a younger age group. We will also be targetting the social status of these teenager from the C1 to E categories. We chose this as we took education into consideration, youths are likely to be still in some sort of education. This was also another aspect we took into consideration and schools, colleges and universities are such compact communities, it is more likely for our film trailer to become very popular in a short space of time.
I will be using Dyers Utopian Solutions Theory to motivate and engage our audience, offering the young target audience the "solutions" and "energy". This theory gives the audience a sense of escapism and could encourage audiences who are suffering from exhaustion from every day-to-day life to feel energised and exhillarated, giving them another reason to watch my film trailer. This theory relates to 10 key words; Inadequacy, Poverty, Confusion, Exhaustion, Isolation, Solution, Abundance, Clarity, Energy and Community.
A horror film may offer energy through content which may be something like a jumpy scene or a scene that builds up tension and an atmosphere, it may also be brought by special effects.
A horror film tampers with the audience emotions but with the reasurrance that "it is only a film". This enables us to create a "twisted" storyline which could oppose social norms.
I also looked at Maslow's Hierachy of Needs, in most cases this isn't relevant to the horror genre and more so to the action genre. This theory relates to these key themes; Safetey- offering assurance of safety, physically, emotionally and psychologically. Affiliation- the need to belong to a group. Esteem- the need to feel good about our selves.
Affiliation may be the theme we can use, when it comes to horror movies, there is a sense of "togetherness" as the movie gets more intense and scary, people like to think that they are all going through it together. When it comes to horror movies, the audience gets a different kind of thrill, it juxtaposes what they would usually enjoy, for example an action or comedy film. Horror films build tension and atmosphere tampering with the audiences emotions and mental state. The definition of horror is the key prospect of the film... Horror- an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. This opposes what people enjoy, something that inflicts fear is always seen as a negative thing as "fear" is a state of emotion in which you feel weak, scared and vulnerable. On the other hand this is juxtaposed as horror is one of the most popular genres of the contemporary film industry.
I will be using Graeme Burtons social grouping theory for target audience as he looks at; age, gender, social status, race, location etc. This is his first classification, his second classification consists of grouping media audiences via relationship with media, for example "film goers", game console players etc. I can then base my final identification socially or base it on my target audiences relationship with the media of which is two ideologies Burton promotes.
Lastly, Hartley continues to narrow down social grouping; Aspirations- ambitious people? offer a motive such as performance enhancement and many other things such as style, cultural imperialism and social norms.
Target Audience Age: 16-22 Social Status- C1-E Nationality- English (American+Britain) All ethnicities All Genders Income- 0-18k
During a discussion, our group decided to create a horror film trailer as this was a new interesting topic of which we could all use our idiosyncratic skills and attributes to the best of our ability. I am working with 2 other students, Eugene and Elise. Eugene undertook Graphics and Media at AS level so he can bring originality and creativity to the design of the trailer. On the other hand Elise brings key skills in the planning and preparation of the trailer as she is very organised, punctual and knowledgable and can bring key aspects of English Literature to the trailers advantage. Lastly i believe that i can bring original ideas and use my media knowledge to make the film as close to the genre as possible following the typical conventions. My key skill is the linguistics as i took English Language at AS Level, so i shall be helping with the script as well as the name of the film and the analytical side to creating the trailer. I also think i have a good knowledge of how to create an authentic and original print piece using my basic editing skills learnt from AS level. You can see this by going onto last years AS Level blog by clicking on this link...
We are very enthusiastic about making a trailer for such a recognised and popular genre. We will be adopting familiar conventions and following the ideologies of Neale who suggested that there is "a system of expectations between audiences and institutions." In terms of typical conventions and stereotypes we will be using mise en scene that can be easily recognised from other contemporary films aswell as using media techniques to emphasise these things, pathetic falacy is an example of this. We will be looking at scenaries such as old churches, abonded derelict houses and almost juxtaposing social norms, so using children as the main horror emphasis for example.
We will be looking at contemporary films and posters that have been recently successful and take note of what aspects they used and try to follow them. For example the film Paranormal Activity. This is a film that has been very successful for such a low budget film, it is the 3rd movie made and is yet to be realeased...
Insidious is also a very popular modern horror movie.
