Horror Mood-Board.

This is my mood-board I created, which contains images that all represent our group idea for our horror teaser trailer. I inserted many images that implied the sense of drowning and also a few images of a carousel music box, as i thought these were the two main focal points of our storyline.

Pitches For Film. "The Music Box.

The basic outline of the story for our teaser trailer is of a teenager being given a music box for her birthday, which has been within the family for several generations. The music box has the history of a past child relative, in posession of the music box, drowning whilst the music box was playing. The teenager becomes posessed by the spirit of the music box over the course of the film.

Teaser Trailers.

This is a teaser trailer I watched of Paranormal Activity 2. I found that teaser trailers are very different from the normal trailer. Normal trailers contain many clips from the film, revealing some idea of the plot and what is going to happen within the film. However, I found that teaser trailers literally do what they say, they tease you to want to know what is going to happen within the film. They do contain clips from the film, but nothing too much that gives away the storyline. I have seen Paranormal Activity 2, and I can say that from the trailer, I would have no idea what would happen within the film to what did. A teaser trailer it set to make you want to go and see the film. It gives away a vague idea of what the film, enough to persuade you to want to go and watch it. Most teaser trailers show the best parts of the film which also makes you want to watch the film.

Trailer and Horror conventions of 'The Grudge 2'

Me and my classmate Becci finally looked at the trailer for The Grudge 2.

Trailer Conventions. Within this trailer, the trailer sets out to captivate the audience with its long pauses and jumpy clips. The inter-titles of this trailer relate really well the idea of the film. Within the inter-titles, hair flicks across the screen before the words appear, and this could relate to the idea of the "grudge" as she is shown through small clips in the film with long hair.  The genre of this film is again implied very well as we can clearly understand that the trailer is horror themed. Sarah Michelle Gellar is also a main star of this trailer, which relates to the production values of the film as she was the lead actress in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.


Horror Conventions. The settings within this trailer contain abandoned houses, long white corridors and hospitals. These are all typical horror settings, which seem to be isolated from anything else, implying and creating a spooky effect. At the beginning of the trailer we just hear speech from the film which gives us an insight to the story plot. We also hear very high pitched scratching noises, and in opposition low sounds which create suspension and also are quite jumpy within the trailer. We also see many extreme close-ups within this trailer, in particular the eye is a main focal point.


We really liked this trailer in the way that it used light. We liked how it have very bright scenes, looking down corridors, and then how suddenly the "grudge" appeared alongside high pitched noises which seemed very jumpy! We also liked the cuts through the beginning of the trailer, how images of eyes appeared, whilst the camera was zooming in towards the female laying on the hospital bed.

Trailer and Horror conventions of "Creep."

Me and my classmate Becci secondly looked at the Creep trailer.


Trailer Conventions.The trailer for creep relates to its target audience, which is probably ranged to 18-30 years both male and female, by creating suspense throughout the trailer and by also having a female and male protagonist, both sides of the audience can relate to this. The majority of the sounds within this trailer are sound effects, such as breathing noises, sharp razor sounds, the flickering noise of broken lightbulbs and many more. These all contribute to the horror genre and relate to aspects of the film. In this trailer there are also inter-titles which are very clear in helping us to understand the basic outline of the film. There is also a lot of dialogue within this trailer by the characters within the film, also contributing to help us prepare for the 'jumpy' parts of the film. In terms of production values, the main female protagonist is well known for her role in The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy- Franka Potente. The inter-titles also ask the audience a question, which leads the audience to think about the question asked, and become more curious about the trailer.

Horror Conventions.
The film is set within an underground station, which is often known as a creepy place when quiet due to the long corridors, and plain surroundings. The train tracks and sounds of the train also give off a dingy effect. This trailer also relates to a typical horror setting as it is set at night. In terms of technical code, the trailer begins with a point of view shot, as it seems that we are in the character of the person walking towards the elevator, which helps us relate to the characters and how they are feeling as we see what they see. We also see a great deal of use of close ups, which help to relate with the characters as we see their emotions more clearly. The iconography within the film shows very high contrast lighting, which seems very unusual for a horror film, yet gives it an edgy feel, similar to perhaps a lab? The repitition of the use of hands is very important, as we repeatedly  see the use of hands before seeing the face within the trailer. For example, when the female protagonist is looking for help on the train, she stops at the open door and spots a pair of hands with blood splattered over them, the hands by a distressed man being pulled under the train by some unknown creature/object. Towards the end of the trailer we see a creepy doll, this can relate to childhood perhaps relating to the return of the repressed? This trailer gives us a sense of a classic hollywood structure, there is a "final girl" who appears to be quite "masculine" sure to the way she is dressed etc. In terms of character types the protagonists appear to be victims of some kind of attack relating to medical, as we see a person holding a pair of scissors in lab clothes. We think the theme for this film follows The Return of The Repressed theory, as we get an angry feel from the trailor, which signify the repressed feelings from young memories. At the end, with the doll, we get a sense of childhood which can also relate to the return of the repressed. Another possible option for themes could be science- out of control, as we see a person dressed in science/medical related clothes. 
We cold relate this trailer for our own work as we like the use of inter-titles, especially the questions leaving us questioning the film. The use of lighting,we think, is unique and this is something we would like to do in out trailer, also the setting is interesting and is not commonly used.

Trailer and Horror conventions of 'Sorority Row'.

Me and my classmate Becci firstly looked at the trailer for the horror film Sorority Row, and discovered the trailer conventions, and the horror conventions within it.

Trailer Conventions.
One element in which the trailer must contain, is that is must pick out aspects of the movie that can relate to the target audiences interests. Applying this to Sorority Row, the target audience would be mainly focused on teenagers, and in particular teeneage girls. The trailer begins with a typical American teenage party scene, which immediatly grabs the attention of the audience. The genre of the movie is then released as we gradually realise the plot of the film, which is horror. The film doesn't contain any voice overs, but the clips from the film help us to understand the basic plot. In terms of production values, there are a few high rated actresses such as Briana Evigan (Step Up 2) and Rumer Willis. (Hostage)

Horror Conventions.
The first horror convention is setting, and the main focal settings within Sorority Row are shown within the trailer. These include the house in which the party was held, the typical deserted, dark setting where the girl was killed. This deserted setting re-occours continuously throughout the trailer. We also see a great use of technical codes within the trailer, this includes close up shots, helping us to recognise the characters expressions and emotions, and also shots where we can see the body being dragged out of the camera shot. The sound within the film changes from average teenage music to quick, frantic music and sharp noises when the trouble occurs. In terms of iconography, we see the mist in the deserted setting, the car wrench in which is used to kill the female. The cross shape of the wrench almost represents religion. This is a classic American narative structure and follows the theme of the hidden evil inside. The character types of this film are that they are all stupid/immoral teenagers. However within this film, there is more than one final girl, who are the 'innocent' and 'manly' characters.
For our own trailer, we think it would be best for us to use inter-titles, as it clearly helps to reveal a taster of plot. Wheras in this trailer, they just use clips from the film, which wasn't as clear as inter-titles. We liked the combination of the typical teenage parties, and the opposing horror, and we feel we can relate to this more as its a typical teenage situation.

Applying Narrative Theory To The Shining.

In class we looked at four narative theories and applied them to the Horror film, The Shining.


PROPP.
Vladimir Propp constructed together 8 character roles and 31 narrative functions.
The 8 character functions he came up with were the villain, the hero, the doner, the helper, the princess, her father, the dispatcher and the false hero. We then went on to recognise what character played what role. Jack took on the function of the false hero and also the villian and in some way, so did the hotel. Danny and his mother Wendy took on the roles of the heroes, and Dick Hallorann was the doner.

PROBLEMS with this were things such as there was not one particular character for each function, and some functions, eg. the father of the princess did not exist.

Todorov.

Tzvetan Todorov developed the idea that stories begin with equilibrium where opposing forces are in balance. The story of The shining relates with this theory. The story begins in normality, then the enigma is raised when they begin to start discovering things about the hotel and when strange things begin to occour. A pathway to resolution then happens as everything begins to really kick in within the film and then it comes to a closure as Jack dies and Danny and Wendy escape.

PROBLEMS.

It all seems to work, but maybe there is no clear ending to this story? It also leaves us with answered questions as it doesn't tell us much.

Levi-Strauss

Claude Levi-Strauss focused on binary oppositions.For example, In the shining theres this whole idea of isolation (in the hotel) against the loss of connection with the community before enetering the hotel. We also understand the idea of innocence against evil, with Wendy and Jack. This is shown in the video below, which is a clip from the film.

PROBLEMS with this are that the film almost hints that something is going to go wrong from the start as they are moving away and danny already has no friends as it is.



Bordwell & Thompson.
Bordwell & Thomspon created the theory of a chain of events happening in a cause-effect relationship, occouring in space and time. The use of time is greatly used in the shining in that the films shows the black screen of each day passing by, and each day Jack is slowly becoming more mad. The days begin to have no meaning as we loose control with them. The film also shows the same shot of the hotel each day to show the days are all the same.

PROBLEMS with this were that it shows us the quickness of ths story and it makes us loose sense of time.

The Return Of The Repressed.

Sigmund Freud created the term of The Return Of The Repressed. The term explains the term of neurotic symptoms. He collected a theory that an unconscious feeling or thought would continuously approach the mind in order to be released. They seem to reappear in behaviour or conciousness. Freud explained how they seem to re-emerge in the form of what he calls derivatives of the unconscious. This idea is psychologically based.