How can elements of
these trailers be used in creating your own? Look at themes, characters, shots,
sound, mise en scene.
There are 3 basic characters that appear in the film
trailer, 3 characters that are actually present in the film in person, there
are several that you are told about which eventually forms the plot of the
story. When in the introductory stage of the trailer the sound is very normal,
but when they get deeper and deeper into the hospital, uncovering what are
described as ‘secrets’ you hear a lot more in the way of screaming and creepy
noises. There are a lot of head and shoulder shots and mid shots used in the
trailer.
I think that most of the things I have mentioned above are
fairly standard things to have in a psychological horror film, the idea of the
film being that it is scary and it makes you use your brain to increase how
scary the film is. Using camera shots such as the ones above, head and shoulder
shots, mid shots etc. are all good ways of showing emotion on people’s faces,
which can just as easily give away fear as any other emotion. Sound plays a
crucial element, with music being a major factor, I mean everything is a lot
more scary and creepy when there’s music added to the clip. You could tell most
of these things by looking at any good horror trailer, but these are the
features I have picked from this one.
How is the narrative
portrayed in the trailers? Linear, flashbacks, cross cuts etc. How could you
use them in your trailer?
The narrative being the story itself is portrayed in a few
ways. The first example of this is the use of the asbestos cleaning crew that
are working on the closed down mental asylum and using fragments of their
speech in the film to give a brief version of the story across to the viewer of
the trailer. There is sort of one flashback in the trailer, and that is when
the asbestos crew are shown old tapes of treatment from a patient who had a
multiple personality disorder.
In our trailer it would be fairly easy to use these kind of
techniques to portray our narrative. Our storyline isn’t one that is based on
events on the past, so flashbacks wouldn’t necessarily be a useful tool, but
our film is scary because of the location, so using the camera shots to change
location and portray where the story is being told will be an important thing
to convey to the audience.
Who is the target
audience for the trailer and how does the trailer appeal to them? Give examples
and then look at how this will affect your trailer and its target audience.
The trailer is aimed at most ages over the age of around 16,
in the UK the film had a certificate of 15, and the trailer, while complex, had
the maturity about it to match. After watching the trailer it is quite clear if
you are part of a younger audience then it will be a lot harder to understand
the plot due to the mature content in the film and the complexity of the story.
Generally the film will be aimed at people who like horror films, the film has
typical horror movie things – an abandoned building and a former mental asylum,
both together are even more creepy. Usually horror films aren’t filmed
anywhere, they usually have an inherent reputation for being scary/creepy
places.
Horror films aren’t for younger audiences, so I think it
would be best to aim our trailer at audiences with a similar age or older. Hopefully
our storyline will be a lot easier to understand but as far as the maturity
side of the film is concerned it would certainly be more appropriate for the
older and more mature audiences. We are planning on filming in a hamlet near
the village of Hambledon and Denmead called ‘World’s End’. This location will
almost certainly have been used before but nevertheless it still has a creepy
name which is perfect for our horror film, so as far as location I feel we have
hit the nail on the head for a psychological horror.
Who does this trailer
represent? Social groups, age, gender, ethnicity? who will you represent in
yours? (consider stereotypes)
With most films they have a particular theme that they hold
onto, for example a lot of sport films make sure they capture a precise
audience, for example Green Street, although not a horror film you have to have
a slight knowledge of football to get what the film is about, you have to know
about British life to understand the film fully. Unlike Green Street, Session 9
is a film that although fairly complicated to understand through its complex
plot, is a film that you don’t have to have any previous knowledge to be able
to watch the film.
So as far as an audience is concerned, apart from age, and
maybe being slightly more aimed towards males there isn’t really any more to
it. Ethnicity isn’t something that really disqualifies you or qualifies you to
watch the film. A typical stereotype that I would consider this film
representing would be a 19/20 year old, white male, living at home with his
parents, maybe going to university. I can picture them doing well throughout
their education but weren’t always that popular.
What is the
difference between a teaser and a full trailer? What is the idea behind a
teaser, what should it do for the audience?
A teaser is generally a small advertising campaign for a
media text. A full trailer is something that is also an advertising campaign,
but it shows you in detail the content of the media text. A teasers main
objective is to tease the audience into wanting to know more about the media
text, whereas a trailer is meant to make people want to watch the text. A
teaser should give the audience a basic understanding of the media text in
question, and with this the audience can decide whether they want to know more
about the film or not. A teaser is a small way to get an audience to think
about a media text.
Analyse the posters for your three trailers, do they follow a consistent theme?
The first
thing you see when you look at the Session 9 film poster is that it is a creepy
film, for a start the colours suggest that it is dark, with the slight haze of
light from the moon, slightly lighting the setting for the film, but at the
same time not showing much detail. The font used on the poster would be
associated with something scary, and is a font that would definitely be used
for other things to show something that could be seen as scary. The chair on
its own with an opaque layering of a coffee stain over it would also suggest
odd things. Traditionally with horror films there is always a large building,
and the same goes for this film, in this case however it is an abandoned mental
asylum rather than someone’s house. It isn’t
immediately obvious what the film is about from the poster, which is something
that could be seen as a negative thing about the poster. On the other hand this
could be seen as a positive thing because the film poster isn’t giving much
away about the film but due to the dark nature of the poster it still draws you
in.
With taglines like 'Fear is a place' it will immediately make you think it is a scary film, the film knows its genre and it has stuck with this theme throughout. We could relate this fairly easily for our horror trailer and use many of the codes and conventions that are in this poster, for example we could use a similar font, and also use the sort of vague photography to get a scary, creepy feel to the poster/magazine content.
- Ben Macmillan
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