In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real life media products?

Section A:How did your horror trailer fit the horror genre?Our horror trailer contained many horror conventions that are needed in order to fit into the horror genre. Thomas Schatz, the critic behind the “Genre Theory” (in his book Hollywood Genres), said that generic conventions helped to sell movies to an audience of fans as it gave them clear expectations of what was going to be in the film allowing for them to understand it. When making our trailer we very much took this into consideration, ensuring that our trailer was filled with generic conventions, allowing for us to appeal to our target audience as effectively as possible. For instance, a large part of camera time in our trailer is the blonde ‘final girl’ archetype, that has become very common with contemporary horror films, shown by the final girl archetype in Halloween (1978) illustrated by the trailer https://youtu.be/T5ke9IPTIJQ . This is effective because as Schatz said films within the same genre should contain similar conventions to meet the generic expectations of its target audience. However, we did intentionally reverse the conventions of the ‘male gaze theory’, making the blonde character the protagonist who drives the story forward, rather than the ‘female victim’ who is sexually slaughtered like Marion Crane in Psycho.

Section A:How did your horror trailer fit the horror genre?In our trailer, Maria makes a discovery, solving the uncertainty around her husband just after kicking him out of the house, she makes all of the decisions in the trailer, driving it aggressively forward; an example of this is where she shouts “Screw you then!”, just as he slams the front door. This is further backed up by the fact that she has the most camera time and is very regularly in the centre of the shot, connoting her importance. We chose this more feminist characterisation because horror is growing industry that has a great feel for the always-shifting Cultural Dominant Ideology, and with equality and diversity being so vital in recent years it was vital to reflect this in our trailer. Another example of a strong blonde female archetypes is The Amityville Horror (2005) trailer with the mother beholding these characteristics https://youtu.be/c5Maq9H1lZ8 .

 

Section A:How did your horror trailer fit the horror genre?In terms of cinematography, we were also aware of generic conventions. Another regular occurrence in horror films is close-up angles because they make the audience feel uncomfortable. This technique is used very heavily throughout the film Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) which is shown in the trailer https://youtu.be/Vs3981DoINw .It makes them feel as if their personal space is being invaded, just as if they were behind the camera. We used many throughout our trailer the two with the most impact probably were the one where the knife is running down the final girls face as blood is trickling down her face and the body horror of the butchered neck of the psycho killer’s victims. They are both used to make amplify the body horror, making the audience feel their pain in more explicit detail.

 

Section A:How did your horror trailer fit the horror genre?Throughout the trailer there is also a very strong theme of being loneliness and being isolated, best shown by the scene where the final girl is being teased with the knife as the psycho killer runs it along her neck and face. We used these themes because this is a fear that is present in the CDI; people are so informed about killers and how they hunt their victims down tactically and carefully in order for the perfectly satisfying kill. Here we were inspired by Scream 4 (2011) which beholds the same themes shown in the film’s official trailer https://youtu.be/Vs3981DoINw .

Section B:How does your trailer fit the conventions of horror trailers?I think that when making a horror trailer it is important that have many conventions working together to produce a successful trailer, one of the most important being pacing. It is a balancing act between slow editing (which creates all the suspense) and quick editing (which is what creates panic and jump scares). In our trailer we tried to make the most of both slow and quick editing with collision cutting, this combines the two create the best possible montage. The initial slow shots of the plaiting of hair at the start of the trailer contrast heavily with the car scene located in the middle. We did find it difficult to get the right balance between the two different pacing due to the number of shots we tries to incorporate in to the trailer. To solve this, we added music and took away unnecessary shots, reducing the time on the inter-titles to maximise the impact of our shots and narrative.

 

Section C:What auteur influence did you bring to your trailer? What makes it distinctive?Despite our use of minor body horror, our film is primarily psychological and explores the mind of a murderer. This aspect of horror films I find very interesting and something that I very much tried instil into our trailer. This is why I think I have taken most influence from auteur Alfred Hitchcock; he had a very good eye with building suspense and shocking his audiences with the use of collision cutting. A scene where Hitchcock does this very effectively is in the final attack scene in The Birds (1963) https://youtu.be/Lw0FP9putKM . He also had a very weird way of showing his attractions by making actresses’ uncomfortable and only having blonde actresses’, which was what stemmed the original idea for the storyline of the trailer.  

Section C:What auteur influence did you bring to your trailer? What makes it distinctive?Andrew Sarris’ “Auteur Theory” is something that I very much stick by as he said that what made the best directors was their auteur influence, he said that the majority of a film was made up with technique then the style and then the internal meaning; the part where directors would get across their beliefs and feelings. I think that this is especially important because anyone can make a film but getting across your feelings with effect is an art, and that is why I wanted to make sure the pacing on this trailer is as effective as possible. A trailer that uses pacing especially well is Shutter Island (2009), the use of collision cutting gives the trailer a great flow allowing for the montage to become a lot more effective. Pacing is the crucial part of a horror trailer and I think without it the trailer becomes ineffective. I also think this applies to the body horror, because poor effects indicate the film has been made on an overly low budget. These are the two factors that are most important to me and the ones that I wanted to make sure were effective to represent my attention to detail and realism.