Film Poster

Film Magazine Cover

Finished Trailer

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

In class our trailer was shown in order to gain some audience feedback. This was quite useful as it helped me understand the trailer from a different perspective. There have been of postive and negative points which have helped me understand the effect our trailer has had on the target audience. There were many positive aspects, many of which succumb to the typical conventions of the horror genre. We found out that the use of ECU's contributed to the audience identifaction with the protagonist; which is used frequently in contempory horror movies. This includes the use of the slow motion blur at the beginning  of our trailer where we see the protagonist waking up and coming round after her operation. The audeience liked the lighting contrast we used, as the trailer progresses from high key lighting to low key lighting. This relates to the structure we've used as we based the trailer on Todrov's theory of the equilibrium leading to the disequilibrium, this applies to the standard convention of a horror teaser trailer. We learnt that this structure was effective, as the pace of shots builds up throughout the trailer. Also the use of gore (such as the hand shots) had a positive effect, due to it's immediate connotations with the horror genre. The soundtrack is one of the main aspects which helped our trailer to form the structure we wanted. We found that the audience thought it was effective how we built up the music throughout the trailer without reaching the cresendo. In particular the audience liked how the music completely cut off before the end shot, as it made the them jump; which was our aim. The favourite sequence in our trailer is the part when we see in the protagonists mind, as we dissolved the characters scared face with the horrible images she's seeing.

In relation to the negative aspects there are a few things which they advised we improved. On our first inter-title we had a "boom" sound effect which they felt contradicted the text. During the trailer their's a heart monitor sound as the proganonist is in a wheel chair which the audience felt ruined the effect of the same sound effect at the end. We also found out that at times the soundtrack didn't quite match the editing pace as it needed to be faster. Although we did establish the narrative our audience decided that we needed to tie the child into the narrative more; due to his character never quite being established. We also found that we had the same problem with the narrative and other shots in general; as sometimes the audience didn't understand the relation between the two.

After gaining audience feedback I feel that we could improve it in several ways. It would have been more effective to change to soundtrack to something which matched the pace of the trailer itself, this way we would have attracted the audience's attention more. The fact that the two don't match that much draws the audiences attention way from the action and makes the horror less effective than it could have been. Also we could have added a few more shots to illustrate the narrative. The plot isn't that obvious and although we done this to levae the audience with a sense of mystery some more dialogue might have contributed to the storyline. Some of the audience didn't really understand what our film was about, which in turn could make them less likely to view the film. We needed to establish the narrative more in order to give it a unique selling point.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Together I think that my film magazine cover and the poster work well together as part of a promotional packagae for the film. In both I used similar pictures, which both show different sides to the protagonosit. In the magazine cover I decided to use a shot of the protagonist looking directly at the camera. I done this to help the audience identify with the character and illustrate the "evil" side to the protagonist that appears later on in the narrative. I  centred the name of the film on the magazine cover to draw attention so the audience remember it and in turn may go to see it. Also I wrote "the scariest horror of 2010" as it's likely to catch the audiences attention and may spread by word of mouth. Since the poster is the main advertising source around the film I once again used a close up of the protagonist, but this time with her screaming. This creates a sense of mystery and may influence people to go and see it as they want to see what she's screaming at. I also used a tagline to help promote the film as it will stay in the audiences mind and once again influence them to see the film.

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

 

Here i have selected 9 key frames from our teaser trailer which relate to the horror genre. Shot one shows an establishing shot of a long corridor which has the effect of emptiness, as there are no characters within the shot. This is used in many horror movies as it creates a sense of fear and isolation. Shot 2 is a P.O.V shot of doctors which we used as it ties in with our narrative. This is often used in teaser trailers as it gives the audience an idea of what the film's about. Shot 3 is an extreme long shot which creates the idea of "the unknown", due to the audience not being able to see who the character is. This relates to the standard horror convention of mystery. Shot 4 was used due to the effect gore has on the audience. This relates to teaser trailers as they often show gore without establishing where the gore has come from. Shot 5 is the typical close up of the protagonists face (whilst screaming) which is often used in horror teaser trailers. This also creates a sense of mystery, as we want to find out what she's screaming at. It also helps the audience to identify with the main character. This was also our aim in Shot 6; as the extreme close up of the protagonists eye helps us to get into her mind and identify with her thoughts. Shot 7 shortly follows in our trailer. It's the typical "waking up" shot and we used a blur to make it more effective. Shot 8 shows more gore, as it's a typical convention of horror teaser trailers to use frequent amounts. This connotes fear, which in turn may make the audience want to see more. Shot 9 is our end shot of the "bad tv" final cut effect. As our trailer was filmed using the handheld effect we thought this would be effective, as it makes the audience wonder what's going to happen next.

Here are 9 shots i selected from exsisting horror movies which have infuenced our work. As we can see the shots are very similar to that if our work. This was deliberately done in order to create the same effect that contempory horror trailers have on their audience. We thought that since our trailer has a similar target audience to that of exsisting horror audience we would create a similar effect but change it to fit our narrative. The difference in these shots compared to ours is that ours were filmed using a handheld camera. We did this to create a sense of realism and create an ongoing sense of fear, due to the handheld effect being unstable.

Audience Research-Questionnaire Results

Target Audience Research-Questionnaire Results

We used open and closed questions within our questionnaire to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. Here are the results from to open questions:

Question 2 –What features in horror films are you interested in? Please explain.
Most popular requests

• Suspense
• Tension
• Psychological
• Gore
• Sex appeal
• Familiar surroundings
• Twists
• Jumpy bits
• Blood.

Through this question we found that these aspects were the most popular suggestions in which people would like to see in a horror movie. The features people were interested in the least were special effects and the gradual building of music. This has helped us gain knowledge into what our target audience wants to see so that they enjoy the movie which potentially will make our product a success.

3) What do you look for in a horror trailer? Please explain
Here is a summary of the response we received from this question:
• Damsel in distress
• Suspense, fast paced, clues to narrative
• Good plot
• Not so much revealed, hint at the plot
• Twisted ideas – issues that concern my demographic, things I can relate too e.g. Eden lake, working class ‘chavs’
• Mysterious killer
• Jumpy bits
• Makes me want to know more
• Building music- voice over


The results we received were largely what we expected. A few people said they were interested at issues/topics which related to their demographic. To us, this seems like good idea as the audience can then sympathise with the characters. As we plan to target a young audience, incorporating an issues witch relate young teenagers will be a good idea.

Question 5 – When on a date, do you look for anything particular in a horror? Please explain.
Most popular requests

• A scary moment
• Jumpy scenes
• Something that scares the girl


Through research we found that the most frequent audience that go to the cinema are teenage groups of girls, teenage group of boys between 16 and 25 and couples aged between 20 and 30. We took this into account and asked this question on how we can make our movie attract this audience. These were the most common answers in our results which show us that our movie has to be scary or ‘jumpy’ in order to appeal to a coupled audience.

Question 8 –Please note down any comments that you think might help us?
Most popular requests

• Should involve teenagers
• built tension
• handheld shots

This has influenced us to use teenagers in our teaser trailer. This is convenient for us and it will meet the needs of our target audience.

My Pitch For A New Horror Movie

It’s the last day of school and a group of five teenage girls (15-16 years old) decide they want to get revenge of their teacher for all the trouble she caused them in the past. So after school all the teachers start to go home, with the main teacher in her classroom packing his belongings getting ready to go home. They spy on him until he’s about to leave and wait for their moment to get revenge. They shove this teacher into a cupboard from behind and lock him in there, so he’s unaware who it was. The girls start to make their way to the exit when one of the girls (Taylor) feels a sense of regret and says she needs the toilet. She walks back to the cupboard whilst the others wait for her unknowing she’s going to let him out. Taylor goes to open the cupboard and it’s already unlocked; the cupboard’s empty. Suddenly there's a power failure, the lights turn off and the doors are locked. Taylor is alone and goes to find the other girls but they’re not where she expected. Meanwhile the other girls think that Taylor’s playing a prank and she was the one who caused the power cut. They ring Taylor but its going straight to voicemail, so they split up in groups of two in order to find her and go home. Two of the girls (Brooke and Ashley) start to argue as result of their fear. This leads to Brooke revealing she slept with Ashley’s boyfriend while they were together. This turns into a physical fight (of which Ashley is losing) so she grabs the nearest object and hits Brooke on the head. Brooke falls to the ground with blood gushing from her head and dies seconds later as a result of the hit. The other two girls (Casey and Sarah) find Brooke’s body, whilst Taylor and Ashley are alone wandering the school premises. From then on all of the girls are scared, upset and angry, with nobody knowing the identity of the killer. The girls start to die one by one and a moment of revenge turns into a fight for their lives.

Group Mood Board

Here is our group mood board. We included ideas from all of us to create a mood board which reflected all of our interests in the horror genre. This will help to illusrate the themes of the trailer we're going to create.

Horror Mood Board

Here is my mood board for our horror trailer. As you can see, I think we should use the idea of the "final girl" as it's a typical convention of a horror which i think works well. I also like the idea of using a lot of blood and gore because my favourite sub-genre is the slasher, which i hope to pursue in the creation of our horror trailer.

What are some of the key conventions of the horror genre essay

Horror has in itself established key conventions which can be recognised throughout a variety of horror movies. These have developed over time and in turn have been over exaggerated; with many horror directors using self-referential comedy aimed at their own work. An example of this would be Wes Craven’s Scream.



The majority of horror movies have classic Hollywood structure; which relate to the theories of Vladmir Propp and Tzvetan Todrov. Although in horror ‘false closures’ commonly feature to either leave the mythic quality of the killer or for institutional reasons; to enable a sequel. Horror has many underlying structures, usually shifting from a Linear to a non-linear plot; frequently depending on the sub-genre. Psychological horrors tend to be non-linear, whereas slashers tend to be linear.

The protagonist in many horrors is the ‘final girl’, particularly in the sub-genre of the ‘slasher’. The final girl has been observed in many films as a virginal, strong (both mentally and physically) and has aspects of masculinity. Examples of the ‘final girl’ would be Laurie in Halloween and Sidney in Scream (both of which have unisex names). The final girl is typically the character who survives whilst the other characters die (usually a group of immoral teenagers).

Typically the settings in horror movies are predictable. Often using remote ‘everyday’ places. This creates fear within the audience as they can relate to the scenarios the characters are in. Isolation is a key aspect here as it offers more opportunities for the audience to feel isolated and result in fear. Examples of this are settings such as woods, suburban communities, etc. Often the setting also has a past where previous killings have occurred, e.g. I Know What You Did Last Summer, Nightmare On Elm Street, etc.

Editing and cinematography are two of the main features that distinguish horror from other genres. The camerawork is more expressive rather than naturalistic; to help build suspense. There’s often frequent use of POV shots, switching from the protagonists and the killers perspective which raises issues about voyeurism and the ‘peeping tom’. This is often filmed using hand held or steadicam which builds suspense as it puts the audience in the victim’s position. ECU’s are used to enable audience identification with the horror/pain of the victim/s. Often this cuts to an ECU of the killer which connotes a feeling of invasion in our personal space. The editing is quickly paced often increasing when there’s tension to create unsettling nerves for the audience. The cinematography ranges from different camera angles, such as LS to a CU for no apparent reason, which creates an unknown threat to make the audience think action is about to take place.

There are many features of typical iconography in horror genre, which differ depending on the sub-genre. In many horrors the typical colour scheme consists of blacks and reds to connote blood, evil, danger etc. The lighting is almost always low key when killings take place, with high contrast to emphasise shadows. This originated from Film Noir; where the use of shadows built popularity in film making. The mise-en-scene also tends to be similar in each sub-genre. The weapons would commonly be knifes, or other objects with a blade (something that we use in everyday life). Binary oppositions are also a recurring feature in horror; as directors often use innocence/evil together; which relates to the audiences’ personal lives.

The conventions of horror movies are obvious and somewhat repeated in every horror released. In order to make the film a success horror directors tend to use the same conventions in each film, as it’s what we expect to see. This raises the issue of horror being repetitive and unoriginal, although we also have to raise the issue of what would happen if the conventions were tampered with. All the conventions are used in order to build suspense, as they all work well together to create the ‘classic horror movie’.

The Marketing Plan

The marketing plan is to create awareness and engage interest surrounding the film. The audience must be reached in various ways in order to persuade them it's a "must see" film.


The poster is the main image reflecting the appeal of the film. It will illustrate the stars, genre, and often a tag line to help the audience remember the advertisement. They're created by the production studio and are normally edited depending on where it's situated. A teaser poster will normally be created and displayed in cinema months before the films release, to announce that it's going to be released.

Other ways of marketing a film inclcude trailers, billboards, interviews with stars, reviews etc. Trailers are also one of the main ways to market a film as it includes extracts from the movie to appeal to their target audience. There are many examples of horror trailers which I've posted and analysed on my blog.

The Distribution Plan

Distributors are assigned to find the target audience for each film. They need a detailed understanding of the target audience which are usually seperated into demographics e.g. age, sex, lifestyle subset, occupation etc. The distributor constantly keeps the target audience in mind whilst also trying to establish a wide spread interest around the film. When thinking about the audience the distributor has to take into account the classification of the film as it could affect the ways in which it's advertised. The distributor has the responsibility of conducting market research in order to help predict audience reactions and financial prospects.

They have to take into account may different aspects which could contribute to the success or failure of the movie. Competition is the main risk, as they have to consider when to release the film depending on what else is being released around the same time. They have to look for gaps in the market so they when/where would be best to release the film. The more mainstream the film then the more likely it would be to release the film worldwide. Whereas if the film had a niche audience the locations in which it would be screened would be limited.

The distributor is given a budget, or in the case of UK film they would draw up their own distribution plan. The success/failure of the film are reassessed by commercial performance every week.

Role of the Distributor

The distributor signs a contract which gives them permission to to release the film in UK cinemas and promote the film before/during it's release date. They're given a date when they're contract expires and sometimes are also given permission to edit the film in order to reach a specific classification. The distributor is given a budget on which to advertise the film up until their contract ends. Sometimes the distributor contributes to the film development/production costs before they begin to market the film. They have to write all the finances into a report and give this to the producer to show how they've use the given budget.

The top five distributors are currently:
-Universal pictures
-Paramount
-Sony Pictures
-Warner Bros
-Walt Disney Studios

"Prom Night" Movie Trailer

This trailer relates to the theories of Todrov as it starts with an equilibrium. There's cheerful non-diegetic music as the characters prepare to celebrate the end of their school years. This could be seen as the trailer of a rom-com at first because it doesn't immediately establish the genre. Inter-tiles are once again used but they don't hint at the genre straightaway. As soon as the lights go out in the school gym the mood of the film changes as the disruption of the equilibrium has happened. There's then a montage of extracts to build up suspense for the audience. Dialogue is used as the voice over to establish the narrative. The music doesn't reach the crescendo which leaves the audience wanting to see more.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) Theatrical Trailer

Content of this trailer:

The pace and volume of the music builds up in the trailer as soon as the genre is established by the dialogue; "They're all dead" and the equilibrium is broken. The music at the start seems to be connoting the tragedy of the narrative already, given us an idea but not a certainty of the genre. The non-diegetic sound of a heart beat is used in time with the action, building suspense for the audience as it puts us in the position of the victims. At one point in the trailer when the action is building up there is a fade out to black for around 12 seconds while inter-titles replace the action. We can still here the dialogue which creates a sense of fear as we can only hear (not see) what's happening. When the action cuts in again the music builds up pace and volume, but never reaches the crescendo thus leaving the audience wanting to see more.

At the beginning of the trailer inter-titles state a date and a place which in turn leaves the audience wanting to know what happened then and there. Later on the inter-titles are used to state the director and to inform the audience that the film is based on a true story. There's no use of voice over which gets us more involved in the trailer and leaves the audience with a sense of isolation and fear.

Wrong Turn 3 Left For Dead-Official Teaser Trailer

In this trailer there a few production values shown. It doesn't state the director, production company, budget, or any stars, although the iconography does show it's genre. The aspects of the movie it shows are aimed at the target audience, as only horror fans would like the gore shown. It still has inter titles which are read by a voice over (typically a authoritive male voice). The voice over is saying one sentence which is broken up into clauses, with dialogue and action in between. The inter titles/voice over explain the complication but doesn't give the resolution. The music builds up throughout and like the conventions of a trailer it doesn't reach the crescendo. The name of the film is stated by the voice over at the end, which is used for emphasis and memory.

Official Scream 3 Teaser Trailer

This teaser trailer has few conventions of a regular trailer. There are no extracts from the film, just the movement of the Scream mask and inter-titles as visuals. The inter-titles are just one sentence broken up into clauses. When the end of the sentence states "forget the rules" this brings an element of fear, as the non-diegetic is replaced by the dialogue of the killer from the first two movies. This shows what film is being advertised if the audience don't already know, as the voice has an immediate connotation of the first two movies. The movement of the mask then speeds up along with the music to emphasise the fear. The music changes to reveal the name of the film, director and the release date.

Teaser trailer for Norwegian horror Fritt Vilt 2

The sound of a heartbeat is used in time with the fade out to black to create a montage of action which builds suspense. As soon as we see someone run past the protagonist (element of fear) loud music starts to accompany a montage of action. The name of the film is shown at the end, then there's one last extract from the film before the release date is shown. This is effective as the use of the last extract is quick and illustrates the characters fear, which makes the audience want to see what she's scared of.

Appyling Propp's theory to Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining'

Our teacher asked us to apply Propp's theories to the film 'The Shining'. Here are my findings:

I found that Propp's character types work well within the film, although the characters do switch roles throughout. Below is my opinion on which characters fit what roles:

The villain-Jack (Goes mental) & The Hotel (past memories)
The Donor-Hallorann (provides the snow mobile)
The Helper-Hallorann (travels to the hotel) & Tony (REDRUM)
The princess-Wendy/Danny
The Dispatcher-Hotel manager/Jack
The Hero or Victim-Wendy/Danny (both switch roles depending on the situation)
The False Hero-Hallorann (we think he's going to be the hero until he's killed)

I found that Propp's theories on narrative structure don't really apply in this particular film. Some of the functions he mentions do happen in the film, but at a different order than he predicts. Overall I don't think Propp's theories work well in the shining, as i think his theories apply more to classic fairy tales. Although i don't think the narrative structure works that well, the character types do apply and have us notice an underlying structure that wouldn't be noticed without his theories.

Return Of The Repressed

Our teacher asked us to research the phrase "return of the repressed" here are my findings:

"Return of the repressed" is the process where repressed elements tend to reappear. In context of a horror movie an example could be Halloween where Jason leaves home at a young age after murdering his sister as a child. He then returns years later (when everyone has forgotton about him; as his actions have been repressed)and begins a killing spree.

Scream Trailer 1996

Here is Wes Craven's Scream trailer. I have chosen this trailer as it has the typical iconography of a classic horror movie. In this trailer Wes Craven has used dialogue to make self-referential comedy, referring to the stereotypical conventions of a horror movie.




Content of the trailer:
States the name of the film Scream at the end.
Production values: Typical iconography illustrates that it's a horror e.g. the teenagers, alcohol, sex, mask, etc.
Distributor-Dimension films is shown near the start.
Director-"From the first name in suspense; director Wes Craven" is stated near the end.

Music: The music starts to build up near the end of the trailer to emphasis the action and completely cuts out before the end of the trailer rather than having the crescendo.

There's a mixture of dialogue and voice over. The voice over states the narrative (complication) but doesn't state the resolution. The voice over speaks one sentence, which is broken up with clauses with dialogue in between. The dialogue backs up what the voice over is saying. The voice over says the name of the movie at the end; for emphasis and memory.

These features apply to the key conventions of movie trailers, of which we've looked at in class.