2. What was the intended outcome of the
production?
The intended outcome of our production is to engage with our
target audience and make them want to come and view our film at
the cinema. The purpose of a trailer is to advertise the film and to
establish part of the narrative and genre. It is supposed to create
enigmas and by doing this makes the audience want to come watch
the film to answer their enigmas. We wanted our trailer to be
shocking and engage the audiences attention, by using numerous
action sequences of crime and showing disruptions to the
equilibrium by violence
3. How effectively were storyboards and
ancillary task plans followed?
• Our storyboard was a rough guideline to follow whilst filming our trailer, but
when it come to filming we decided to change shots and the order to we felt
was most effective. The story board was as good foundation to start with and
helped us order out shots.
• As a group we looked at previous posters for films of our genre and
took ideas from them. Rizwana then used this ideas in creating our
poster on the software Fireworks, she used stills from the trailer and
dark gothic colours to establish the thriller/horror genre of our
production. She stuck to key conventions of other posters as she put
production company logos at the bottom of the poster. Rizwana also
put all institutional information under the title which is also a common
feature of posters.
4. Firstly before attempting to make the website, as a group we looked at
websites for other thrillers and horrors, such as ‘Sinister’ and ‘Captivity’
we looked at conventions they had used on there websites and decided
to take key bits and adapt them to ours. They used colours, animations
and pictures all to establish the genre, for example Sinister used a
montage of quick flashing images from the film which showed scary and
graphic images. They had also used, sharp and blurry fonts which all
connote horror and fear.
While making the website we decided to use colours of black, white and
red. These colours are commonly used to connote thriller/horror and
suggests eeriness. The red connotes blood and danger where the black
and white connote binary oppositions the good and the bad in the film
and how they oppose.
5. How were these outcomes achieved in terms of matching
mise-en-scene, including page layout and camera shot choices?
What stylistic techniques were used to support your trailer?
• As our genre is thriller/horror mis-en-scene is important in
making it look effective and to be successful. The audience will
be expecting common conventions due to previous ones they
have seen before these things include weapons, violence, blood,
the ‘murderer’, frightened facial expressions, isolated locations,
dark costume for the ‘murderer’, tensions and suspense. We
tried to include all of the above in our trailer to establish the
horror/ thriller genre.
• For example in our production we have used typical
thriller/horror weapons such as a baseball bat and a knife.
• We used a variety of shots to create different tensions and
atmospheres. We used close ups of facial expressions to show
fear and worry of our faces which create tension with the
audience and is a common convention of previous of the same
genre.
6. • Creating suspense and tension is a key element in a successful thriller/horror,
we have done this in various ways. Near the beginning of our production we
see a baseball bat swinging towards the camera it is filmed as a point of view
shot, this immediately establishes the genre and that it will include violence.
There is also close ups of the killer cutting out pictures which establishes his
persona to audience as being psychotic and help the audience understand he
has specific victims in mind. Also in our trailer there is a close up of the
victims face being grabbed showing violence and creating fear with the
audience, which is common of the genre.
• For example In the film ‘Tamara’ it has a similar revenge story to ours, she
uses a knife to cut off one of her victims nose, ears and eyes. We incorporated
this into our trailer and used a knife as a weapon for revenge. On the other
hand in ‘Tamara’ there is the use of supernatural which is more common of
horror films, in our trailer we tried to make it look realistic so used real
weapons and made the killer completely human, which we also did for
practicality as a student making a trailer.
7. • To suit our genre of horror/thriller we used a typical stylistic technique
seen in many other films of this genre. We used fast paced music which
helps build tension and suspense and creates a tense of fear with the
audience. Music is key in establishing genre and creating the right
mood/atmosphere of the film. Our music helps establish what is
happening in the trailer, for example there is a chase scene which is
common in thrillers, music is needed to create tension and worry for the
character and immediately signifies to the audience what is happening.
• In our trailer we also used another common stylistic feature of
thriller/horrors is the use of chiaroscuro lighting, which is low key, high
contrast and creates dark shadows which produces an eerie mood The
lighting is therefore dark with dark shadows, creating a tense and
melancholic atmosphere, which is a common convention of the genre.
This is because the content is usually dark and ominous.
