By Sade and Ciara

Lightning Productions

For our project we chose to create a trailer because from the beginning, we knew that we wanted to tell a short story rather than making a music video or a documentary.We also chose to create a trailer because we all generally prefer watching films and spend a great deal of time keeping up to date with new film releases in the cinema.

Our Project

• Our genre for our trailer is horror.

• We chose horror for our genre because we believed that it would be very interesting to make and also because we all share a strong interest in horror films and have watched a significant amount of horror films in the past.

• We also chose the genre horror because we thought that it would be very challenging to make a believable and realistic horror film and knew that we were up for the task.

Genre

• From our research we have learnt that to produce a realistic and successful horror film trailer, the trailer must feature horror trailer conventions, themes and iconography. Every single horror trailer that we watched showed the best bits of the film in the trailer to attract the target viewers. The majority of horror trailers featured the idea of a battle between good (an innocent person) and evil (the devil).

• High pitch screaming and dialogue was also a common element, focusing on a distressed person shouting 'someone help me'.

• From our research we also learnt that it is good to use dramatic camera angles to show disruption of normality as well as using creepy music to indicate a frightful moment because the music sets the pace of the trailer.

• From looking at all of the trailers we researched, alarming font types in the colours red, black or white were often used to signify danger, death and isolation.

• An appearance of authority is also very popular in all horror trailer.

Research

• From our audience feedback we have learnt a lot about what our target think work best and what they enjoy most about horror film trailers. Some of the answers that we recieved were varied at times such as what is preferred (the music/sound effects or the camera shots) but we came to the conclusion that the majority of our target audience thought that both were important factors in a horror trailer for different reasons.

• The music/sound effects build the suspense and the camera shots are important for maintaining that suspense for the rest of the trailer. The majority of the people that we interviewed said that they like a horror trailer that does not give too much away about the plot but also gives you a explanation about the stories purpose. Also we found that people preferred the trailer to start off with a family orientated or a contented start because it makes the trailer more effective as it can sometimes hit home to the audience.

• We showed our audience two horror trailers, one supernatural (Sinister) and one gory ( Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and found that they preferred the supernatural trailer as they enjoy watching freaky films that make you question reality.

Audience Feedback

• Our first idea for our trailer was focused on a girl walking to the train station after a evening out at the cinema with her close friends, she gets on the train by herself and by the time that she gets off the train it is pitch black and there is no sign of life around in the station. The tension is building up at a fast pace as she walks down a long and empty road to walk across the little forest to get to her house quicker than walking the long route.

• However, she then sees someone in the fog across the forest. She shouts 'Hello? Who's there?'. Everything then abruptly stops in the trailer switching to a pitch black screen and then suddenly a burst of fast paced music and clips of someone chasing her comes into focus on the screen. (It’s like a never ending nightmare of someone chasing her).

• Eventually the girl gets caught and wakes up in a run down house and the trailer ends with the audience left wondering what happened to her and who as captured her.

Our Initial Story Ideas

• Our second idea for our trailer featured a group of 6 close friends going out to a party one Thursday night. Two friends get into an argument and one of the friends (a female) storms off into the night alone. The next day the group of friends realise that their friend in fact has gone missing and no one has seen her since the night at the party.

• Later that day another one of the other friends with the ability to see spirits of dead people sees their female friends soul lurking around in the college corridor as if nothing has happened. Her friend is extremely distressed and is asking why no one else can see her except for her. We then learn that this girl is dead, which is why her friend can see her. It takes a few scary and supernatural events for the group of friends to realise that their friend is in fact alive and that they need to find her body so that her soul can go back inside it before it is too late and her actual body dies.

• In order to find the body, the friends must face the devil and its dark spirits using religious elements to beat the evil thing that has taken their friend.

Idea 2

Our final idea for our story is a merge of all three of our ideas.• The story is about 5 close friends (Amy, Summer, Emily, Freddie and

James) going out to a party one Thursday night. The introduction is very light and cheerful. Emily and Summer get into an argument and Emily storms off into the night alone. The camera stays with Emily while she gets onto the train and makes her journey home. By the time that she gets off the train it is pitch black and there is no sign of life around in the station. The tension is building up at a fast pace as she walks down a long and empty road to walk across the little forest to get to her house quicker than walking the long route.

• However Emily then sees someone in the fog across the forest. She shouts 'Hello? Who's there?'. Everything then abruptly stops in the trailer switching to a pitch black screen and then suddenly a burst of fast paced music and clips of someone chasing her comes into focus on the screen. (It’s like a never ending nightmare of someone chasing her).

• In the early hours of the morning the next day, the friends realise that Emily has gone missing and no one has seen her since last night at the party.

Final Idea

Later that day in the afternoon, Amy who has the ability to see spirits of dead people, sees Emily’s soul lurking around in the college corridor as if nothing has happened. Emily is extremely distressed and is asking why no one else can see her except for her. We then learn that Emily is dead, which is why Amy can see her. As the story continues a few scary and supernatural events take place and after talking to a fortune teller the friends learn that their friend is actually still alive but her soul has detached itself from her body due to the traumatic thing that has happened to her. To make matters worse, Emily has complete memory loss and can’t help her friends figure out where her body is. The 5 friends need to find Emily’s body so that her soul can go back inside it before it is too late and her actual body dies taking her soul with it. However in the friends quest to find Emily’s body, strange things start happening to each friend.The friends must face the devil and its dark spirits using religious elements to beat the evil thing that has taken their friend.

Thank you for listening!