Evaluation Question 1

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

When we started our coursework our first step was to research the codes and conventions of a teaser trailer, using secondary research and existing media products. From this we were able to see the kind of structure we should could use, an example of this is fast/ slow pace cuts, something we used in different sections of the trailer, and transitions, where we mainly used fades and fades to black as seen in, 'The Women in Black'. 

From this inspiration we were also able to look at the content needed to make our trailer more realistic and professional, because features like 'coming soon', film titles and production titles were included in every trailer we looked at. Because of this we decided to use the production company 'twisted pictures', as this production company produces horror films and also fits with the horror genre because of the thorns and blade included in the animation. We also included a green screen at the beginning, then included our own customised, 'coming soon' at the end. Customised to correspond with the film title, poster and website, making the design recognisable.

Once we had decided on the genre of horror, we researched thoroughly into the codes and conventions of a horror film specifically.  

We found these codes and conventions being used in existing media products, an example of this is ‘The Woman in Black’, as one of the first pieces of research, we started to realise the effect of lighting. The incredibly low key lighting in this trailer gave us a very dark and creepy vibe, as they use the lighting contrasts to show the villain in this trailer. This was exactly the kind of reaction we wanted to trigger in our audience, and so taking this into account we decided to use low key lighting, especially seen in the outdoor shots. 

But we also give our footage a dull yellow tint. Due to it being associated with joy and happiness, feelings felt by the old man before his wife past, suggesting the house was once filled with joy. But on the other hand, represents caution, decay, sickness and jealousy. This in addition to the red walls seen repetitively, an example of this is 'the whore' screaming, as it shows danger and encourages the theme of violence, hoping to initiate these subconscious feelings in our audience.

‘The Women in Black’ also inspired our sound and due to how it’s created an eerie and paranormal effect on the audience, as in this teaser trailer there is simply a poem about the villian sung in a calm nursery rhythm style. We chose to use this method of creating fear to encourage our paranormal and horror genre by recording slow and eerie minor cords on the piano generating a calm, yet dramatic score in the background. We also decided to develop this idea by combining it with the sound factors in the trailer, ‘The Ward’, using the idea of building layers of sounds that get louder and louder as a build up to the end shots and titles.  From this, we have layered diagetic and non-diagetic sounds such as a clock ticking, sound of a scraping knife, a heartbeat and fast paced scores from ‘iMovie’, with our main piano score.

Through secondary research we also found that in horror, simple sounds seem to be exaggerated as in the 'The Woman in Black' and so to follow this, we included the sound effect of a wind soundtrack from, ‘iMovie’ to emphasis the isolation in the outdoors and also to increase the layers of sounds heard. We also exaggerated the noise made from opening the door and the gate, we believed that making these noises more distinct draws the audience attention to details and as a result making them more on edge and nervous.

From looking at ‘The House at the End of theStreet’, we found the use of fast pace shots and sharp editing that links to the beat of the score to be inspirational we wanted to follow this style of slower shots at the beginning to provide a basic version of the storyline and then included these faster shots towards the end in order to add to the build up of tension, fit with the sound, and, to fit this convention of a fast pace horror trailer.

In our trailer we also decided to include a loose love story between the two main characters An idea that had originated from this teaser trailer, as we found it very professional and effective how this trailer managed to mix violent/ scary shoots with love scenes, adding to the effect and suspense of the trailers. However after experimenting with filming this we realised that to realistically film this shot we needed professional actors, as shooting scenes like this made our actors uncomfortable and awkward and we didn’t want to jeopardise the serious and scary tone of our trailer by including shots with unrealistic acting.

In the trailer, ‘The Cabin in the Woods’, we concentrated on their cast, after further research we discovered that their cast fit specific characters stereotypes such as a ‘virgin’, an ‘Athlete’ etc. So we decided to follow this idea since the cabin in the woods had the same target audience as our own and was successful in appealing to them. As a result we created our characters, ‘The Jock’, 'The Whore’, ‘The Virgin’, ‘The Geek’ and, ‘The Fool’, as a group of teenage friends with their personalities shown through their costume, relationships and attitudes making them relatable. 


Additionally by including the character, the ‘virgin’ we were able to experiment with the Final Girl theory, a typical factor of a horror film seen in many horror films such as ‘Halloween’, and, ‘Friday the 13^th’. So we portrayed this character as sensible and innocent and therefore the character that would face the villain at the end and survive. 


Meanwhile we used Laura Mulvey’s idea of ‘The Male Gaze’ theory, as seen in films such as 'The Ward', through the character of the ‘Whore’. This character has been casted as a typical blonde wearing pinks and dating the ‘jock’. We encouraged this theory by including shots of this character screaming and another of her drowning herself in the bath.



Also, from looking at the real media product, 'The Human Centipede' we learnt just how effective a creepy old man can be in a horror film. So we dressed up a middle aged man in a traditional and out dated costume and explained his character needed to show features of being unusual and unnerving traits but we challenged this typical characteristic by including a backstory of the character shown through the old photo and voiceover to show loneliness and loss.

From all of the horror trailers we could see a pattern in the mise-en-scene of the shots, showing us typical props and scenes of a horror film, this included knifes, blood, moon/ night, shadows and woods. Then we found, ‘The House’ trailer that strongly influenced us as it is also set in the typical haunted house setting. However this is a convention we challenged as we included props like the photo frame of the married couple, although eerie and related to our narrative, it is not a typical convention seen in a horror film. 
This trailer also trigged the idea of a voice over, as it is used to explain the ‘rules’ set by the killer for survival. We developed this idea by including a voiceover of wedding vows, said both by the old man and his former wife in our trailer to give a taste of past events and strengthening the narrative.