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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. • 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.
