Furthermore trailers have to use aspects of the film that the target audience will be interested in. We tried to film clips we thought would grab the attention of our teenage to early twenties audience, for example the opening shots are just of a group of teenagers hanging out, so this is something they could identify with. A trailer should also introduce central characters and their relationships, and also identify the main protagonist. All our characters are seen in the first shot so the audience knows who will be in the film. I think the shot of David opening his eyes portrays him as the monster and the one of Jake crying shows him as the main protagonist. Another thing trailers can do is indicate the central narrative enigma, without showing how it is resolved. I feel our trailer does this because after David opens his eyes there are shots of people running away, getting attacked etc so this emphasises that there is a central narrative enigma however nothing is revealed as to what is really happening or why.
Music is an important part of a trailer, it has to be emotive and in keeping with the genre. It also has to emphasise build-up rather than crescendo. We tried to find music for our trailer that would begin quite calmly whilst the equilibrium was still in balance and then have more of a build-up later on once it was disturbed. I feel we achieved this as the music we used builds up as the heartbeats start and only cuts out for the scene of Jake crying, without actually reaching the crescendo. Also trailers will use a mixture of dialogue, voice over and inter-titles to introduce the characters and what is happening. We decided that a voice over wasn't right for our trailer but we did use inter-titles to reveal the premise and give some information like who the film was made by. We also used a small amount of dialogue to make our characters seem natural and to build a relationship between the main protagonist and the audience.
Horror films also have their own set of conventions. For example there are certain settings which are often used. These include locations such as small communities or isolated places, places with a 'past', woods, homes and places at night. We upheld this convention in our trailer as we not only set our 'film' in some woods, but it was also at night time. Furthermore the police tape hints that it is a place with a 'past'.
Horror also uses a specific technical code. It uses conventions like 'weird' high and low angles, for example in my trailer the first shot is a high angle of Jake's feet followed immediately by a low angle of his face. This creates disorientation as the shots change quickly and are at angles that people don't usually see. Another technical code convention is close ups. We used this towards the end of our trailer when Jake is talking to the camera, which creates a point of identification with him. We also used a close up of the 'monster' during the fast shots as this creates an invasion of personal space and keeps the audience on edge. Another convention is a fast editing pace to create suspense. We used this is our trailer towards the end as it didn't allow the audience to settle on any one image, so they only got an impression of what was happening and it therefore brought the tension to a peak. Furthermore ambient sound is very important in horror. We used ambient sound in our trailer in the form of a heart beat when a character was running, as this helped the audience to identify with the victims.
Horror also has a specific iconography. For example red and black are visual signifies and we used a lot of black in our trailer such as for the background of the inter-titles. Also we used common mise-en-scene elements like blood. Furthermore horror has character type conventions. For example some of them have monsters with a 'hidden secret', which our trailer had as nobody knew what was wrong with David. Our trailer also used teenagers as victims like many horror films do.
The slideshow below has more detailed examples of the uses of horror and trailer conventions within real trailers in comparison to our own.
Horror also has a specific iconography. For example red and black are visual signifies and we used a lot of black in our trailer such as for the background of the inter-titles. Also we used common mise-en-scene elements like blood. Furthermore horror has character type conventions. For example some of them have monsters with a 'hidden secret', which our trailer had as nobody knew what was wrong with David. Our trailer also used teenagers as victims like many horror films do.
The slideshow below has more detailed examples of the uses of horror and trailer conventions within real trailers in comparison to our own.
This is well presented and interesting but I think that you need to explain more about both the conventions of horror as a genre and the conventions of trailers in general, and how you used both of these sets of conventions. You could do this by adding some writing to the blog post above your slideshow and finish the writing by explaining that slideshow will look at some specific shots more detail. What you have written is very good but it doesn't really give enough of an explanation about the conventions of the genres. You need to say things like "camera angles in horror are often expressionistic rather than naturalistic, for example in my trailer..."
ReplyDeletePlease label all your posts as soon as possible.
ReplyDelete