Conventions of a Horror Trailer

Post on 19-Nov-2014

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A2 Media Studies Research Max Gilbart

Transcript of Conventions of a Horror Trailer

Title and Release Date• This is the crucial information

that they want their audience to know. This is usually featured at the end of the trailer before the sting so that the audience is left with the name of the film and when it will be available to watch which usually includes a scary excerpt to remember it by.

Before the events occur includes a happy family...

• This convention has evolved in time but most horror trailers I have viewed include a happy family at the beginning of the trailer. The reason why I think this element occurs in horror trailers in my opinion is simply the increase of divorce and single parenting is now known as a much more common place.

Disruption• Disruptions in Horror Trailers

usually comes from a form of an object in paranormal films. This object could be small, or it could even be a house. But all of these objects are either usually cursed with an evil being.

Quick Cut Montage• This editing technique is used to

increase the fear, heart and tension of a trailer to attract the audiences attention even more. This is usually combined with emphasised diegetic and non-diegetic sound to increase the audiences heart rate.

Cut to Black• This is used generally when there

is a fearful situation arising and to increase the audiences fear/tension even more.

Sting• This is a small clip at the end of the

trailer which normally comes just after the title, tagline and institutional information with a stab of sound, this is intended to frighten the audience and leave them with a memorable image/video to get them to watch the full film.

Diegetic Sounds Emphasised

• This could include heavy breathing, heart beat or other quiet sounds to emphasise the silence of the scene.

Lighting• Normally, within a trailer, the theory

is usually as the trailer goes on the darker the lighting is. There are several ways of lighting on how it can intensify a scene. A good example of this could be back lighting to make the antagonist seem more menacing and increase the tension for the audience.

Dark washes over the film

• This also increases fear as no-one in the audience knows who’s in the darkness.

Screams• This is obviously to enhance the

horror in the scene which could be either showing pain or fear of a particular character.

Particular Camera Shots

• For example high angle shots of buildings give off an imposing feel and this could be the establishing shot of the scene. Or even an aerial shot to establish the scene to maybe show an entire town and make it seem small so it seems hard to escape from. Or even shots looking up to the antagonist to enhance fear to the audience. Or on the other hand the protagonist having a shot looking down on them showing how fearful they are.