Enigma Trailer

Enigma Movie Poster

Enigma Magazine Cover

Evaluation Question 1

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

Our media product supports many of the conventions of professional media products. The reason for this is because while we where filming, we kept all the specific rules in mind and made sure we didn't break any rules.
For example the 180 degree rule when we are filming, we have many shots throughout our media piece where we panned the camera and when doing that it is very easy to break the 180 degree rule.
We found ourselves filming scenes many times over, this was not always because we messed up the filming, sometimes the characters minor facial expressions were not suited for the scene, the scene was instigating horror but their facial expressions suggested otherwise, to keep consistency and the horror theme going we had to re film and make sure everyone knew the how they had to act specifically.

One thing that we have done is kept our whole media production in black and white, from the people who have viewed it we have had the same feedback. we are fully aware how this may challenge the conventions of a real horror trailer. However there are two ways to look at this, you can look at it in the form of consistency, in that sense we've stuck to the book and ket the whole horror trailer in black and white. However when you look at other horror trailers they are never all in black and white, they may be mostly but there is always a scene that has colour and this adds effect. The one issue we had with filming was that the times we got together to film tended to be during the day, so the scenes we did film had to be darkened and when using the Mac computer and darkening the scenes, it did not always look to good when they where darkened so we had to play about with the balance of the colour, so by making them black and white and then messing around with the darkness of the scene we where able to come up with the darkness we needed, that is then when we applied it to everything because at the time it was consistency that we where looking to achieve.

Another way me have challenged the conventions of a real media products is the monologue, we don't have much throughout our piece. This was the case last year also, we personally feel that we are able to achieve quite a professional piece without having much monologue. When our media piece was viewed by our teacher this is one of the first thing they picked up on immediately which is possible a floor in the piece. So we have made plans to do some voice over however not fully decided as to whether we are going to or not. One thing which i personally noticed was how we act when we are in front of the camera, we pay generous amounts of attention to how we act to be able to give as much detail away as we can through our actions, this is a possibility as to why we don't intend to have much monologue in our finished media product.
For example one of things we included was a P.O.V shot, and when we filmed this and reviewed it on the Mac computers it was obvious due to the shadow on the floor that the camera was in hand however we re filmed the scene and although in the second take we filmed it exactly the same however you could not fully tell that it was a camera in hand it looked as if the character was having a drink, which then brings us onto the other idea behind the filming, the characters have been previously drinking, instead of having monologue to show this we show it through their actions. In the media piece it is shown through the silly mistakes and the dopiness that the characters portray, for example going to the wrong vehicle, walking in a strange slurry manner. Also the scene where the two main character enter the vehicle, one of them instantly shuts his eyes in the car before the shock of something in the back seat scares them back out.

Another way we may have challenged the conventions of a typical horror trailer is with some of the scenes mentioned int he previous paragraph, although it is a horror trailer and the intention is to scare yet interest an audience, however the part where the two main characters are portraying that they are under the influence brings an element of comedy, because they go to the wrong car and then have a tug for the car keys and this comes across as quite funny because they aren't sober and they are not aware. this may challenge the conventions of a professional media product however i personally think it may be a good thing because it shows something slightly different and bending the conventions is not seen as a bad thing by us a group.

What may be seen as a flaw in our product as previously mentioned is we do not have enough monologue however we do try and make up for that with the filming. i can only be accounted for so much however because the narrative and the story need to come together and as we have not paid full attention to monologue we may have to add parts to make up and explain in our piece more of the story line, in the first few draughts of our media piece it was pretty obvious to ourselves and the people who viewed it that the story was not fully clear, and we did more filming to help clarify what the story was about however as i said there is only so much filming you can do for a trailer that is going to last roughly 2 minutes.

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?

Every trailer is important to the promotion of a movie however this is not the most important factor of promoting a movie. The recognition of any movie trailer comes from three main products, which are:

Trailer – This is the first ad released when a movie has been made. There are many ways in which these trailers can be seen by the viewers. Depending on what the promoters would like to do they could show these trailers in between programmes which are the best way of bringing in the public to watch a movie. Other then this company places the trailer onto YouTube which is one of the biggest used online services. If the ad is good and attracts viewers they will possibly share the video around to other friends on social network sites like Facebook or Twitter.

Poster – the film poster is another important factor which needs to coincide with the trailer, for e.g. you cannot have a comedy trailer if the poster is a horror. This is misleading and the producers will most likely loose viewers. Posters are used all around different cities being part of billboards, bus stops, and on walls. This is also a great way to bring in the viewers and for that reason the poster will need to be of high quality.

Magazine – Many people read magazines, in these magazines there are many different advertisements which are about different purposes. To have a magazine front cover for a movie it will need to be the same quality as the poster is as it plays the same importance. This also attracts people to watch the movie.

All three products are required to be of the same quality and used for the same purpose in this case to advertise the release of a movie.

As we have decided to create a horror movie trailer we are also required to create a magazine front cover and also a poster. We have received feedback on our main product which is the trailer and the reactions we have got back is perfect as we did receive a few negative points however the trailer applies to the genre perfectly according to the audience the feedback also gave us an idea of the effectiveness of the trailer.

With the combination of the main product, poster and magazine it has made the chosen genre more applicable and effective. We were using Photoshop to create our final poster and magazine. The design of both products was due to the amount of research we had carried out, researching many horror posters and magazines. It is very important for any movie which contains all three products to keep the consistency of the colours used and the house style. We decided to use an image of the character for each of our products to keep consistent, linking to the actual trailer. On the poster we used a typical layout which every other professional poster has to keep ours professional. The layout contains the characters names at the top with the cast and crew at the bottom. When carrying out research we had found out the many people look towards the middle or slightly above which we experimented and worked. Due to the experiment we contained the item we wanted to be the most attracting in the middle and slightly above is an eye which contains a little message in it. When looking properly into the eye you will be able to see the little text saying no escape “NO ESCAPE” this text is very effective as it is placed in the eye. Looking into the eyes of people you can see what they are thinking or the mood that they could be in. In a horror movie when the eyes are looked into there is a clear sign of fear which is why we decided to have that message. Also being consistent we have not used many colours on the poster as the actual trailer is shown in black and white which creates a special kind of atmosphere. Also the text is in your face and slightly blended in to the background. The text is also right in your face as it creates it also places a big part in creating an effect. The most valuable text on the page is the quotations from magazines which create credibility; this also has a good effect on the viewer as the reviews for the movie has come back positive.

In my opinion I think there is a great combination between the main product, and the ancillary text (magazine cover, poster). We as a group have taken a key element from the trailer which we applied to the ancillary text so all products are consistent.

One of the main aspects of our film is the colour of the font matched with the colour of the trailer. The font is written in a black and white on the poster however the whole trailer is shown in black and white, whereas the magazine is mainly black with white lines.

As you can see on the magazine there are the white swirly lines over the black background. Our decision to use these lines was due to research taken out, keeping the magazine simple yet effective. Many other Empire horror magazines don’t really have anything behind the main character as there is no room but with ours we have also created a mysterious effect on our final poster the colour scheme is once again carried on and it is easy to see the contrast of the black and white areas. The eye is one of the characters from our trailer you see it nice a clearly as it is shown around a light backgrounds however at the bottom the is this mysterious figure hidden with a black background.

Another key element is the use of images on each ancillary product. We have once again kept consistence with the 3 products as from the trailer we have obtained images which are now used on both the poster and the magazine cover. In the trailer we do not get much close ups of the characters however now we get slightly more off the characters. I think this is a quite effective combination between the main product and the text. As in the trailer we get a slight turn in mood with one of the characters, which we can also tell by looking to the bottom of the poster.

The colour of all three products are dark and mysterious but all in different way. The poster is the most effective when it comes to the use of the darkened colours as the images help out. Out of all three products the magazine has is the one which lightens the mood as it is colourful compared to the poster and trailer.

The main thing that will get the movie a big reputation is the consistency we have used throughout each product. In my opinion all three products are as important as each other however the poster will be the main hit for our movie as it creates the most impact as a horror product.

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 4

http://www.scribd.com/doc/131839614/Evaluation-question-4

Magazine Cover

We changed our cover complete as i listed in a previous post, however even the second copy had some errors once we properly evaluated it, small touches which make all the difference.
So we have re-evaluated with our media teacher and noted down once again all the things that we feel need to be changed, Comparing it also to the professional edition of Empire.

This was the second edition of our poster, Compared to the last one we added all the necessary information such as the date etc. Then added the white strip as you can see towards the bottom of the image.
One way we looked to see if it was perfect was by looking at it from a distance, then we realised the writing in the circle on the right hand side was not easily read so we then got to work and changed things around, more so then planned.











           
This is the new improved version of our magazine cover. As you can see we changed the writing and removed the smaller image. And fully changed the main image. The reason is because simply this image looked better, we used a different effect and made the image lighter and it just seemed more outgoing.

This is the new improved poster,   There is a lot more text on it and also we needed a catch line which we have also come up with.
One thing we missed through evaluation to give the poster substance was reviews from different magazines eg. We added these few details and they made a big difference.

Filming To Be Done

Although we were very ahead of the game in the beginning with filming, every time we watch over the footage in the order we have put it, it gives us the impression that something is missing and there is something we can add. So now we have gone through what we have slowly and taken notes of what we feel we can add and move around.
We have created many transitions and effects from scratch which we are very proud off however to have them separated correctly and put in a proper place throughout the film we are going to have to film more footage.
Most of our footage was filmed in a house which was empty and so we managed to achieve an eery effect with it, then we moved into a woodland area which was meant to be the lead up. and although we are filming a trailer, we have no real concluding point towards the end which i personally feel is needed.
I also feel we need some more scenes in the middle of the footage, not only because we have more room for it, but because we as a group feel there needs to be more because when it comes to a trailer, although you don't want to give all of the story away, its important to give the viewer enough so they want to see more, this is one point i think we need to work on.

Magazine Cover

This is our magazine cover. We have just done an evaluation as we did on the poster and aligned it with a professional copy of Empire magazine and realised although we had come up with something which we thought was very good, we had missed a few details.

The first thing we forgot was the price, as previously mentioned these are just technicalities however they are what give the magazine that professional look.
Another small thing we forgot is the date. By putting the date on we can show we paid attention to detail. Also we have a bar code, a bar code is scanned to give the employee the price and so it looks better if there is a price on the cover.










We currently have 3 images on our magazine cover, however when comparing ours with a professional edition of Empire, we realised that they ten to have 2 slightly broader images and then more text. So we are currently working on removing one of the images.

Another problem we are having is with the text. The text that is currently on the page is proving to be confusing compared to a real edition of Empire. So as well as taking things off the page we are re-arranging the text in contrast to the image so its clear what each piece of text is for.
Also one one of the chosen images has been removed and the text  organised, we are going to have a lot of space on the cover. So while looking at Empire's layout we saw they had less images and more text, the text they had was all of different colours, sizes and fonts however still proved to catch the readers eye. This is what we intend to do get rid of things and make space for more text.
We have also decided to make the images we are keeping smaller, or have one of them large and one significantly smaller.

This is the edition of Empire we are comparing our cover with. 

Movie Poster

Here we have our final finished edition of our movie poster. One of the highlights of our coursework last year was our poster, so this year we had to see what we could do differently, to make sure the poster is as good but so it didn't look like we had taken to much from the last poster.

What you see on the left hand side is what we came up with. Compared to the poster which we had last year, this is very simple, the poster last year had much more going on with regards to detail and colours.

So we went for the total opposite for this year. This time the colour scheme = Black&White. Detail very limited and writing also limited. And as you can see we managed to create something as effective using much less activity.









Another thing is the text right at the bottom. Usually, we what we did last year was take it off another poster. However in this poster we edited out all the information and replaced it with our actual information, this shows professionalism and attention to detail.

After evaluating our finished piece, we realised that it was lacking text. On movie posters there tends to be text which gives part of the movie away or just a rating which shows what a certain magazine or newspaper thought of it. This is something we did not add and through evaluation and criticism we realised. We are now thinking of a strap-line, rating to add onto the poster to give some more information for example.
Strap-lines tend to be very short but just enough to want someone to look further and maybe watch the film. For this reason we are going to add one and upload it once it has been completed.

Rough Cut Analysis

This is some of the filming we have done so far, we have more filming done however when we sat down to piece it together, this is what we found went best together. 

Most of which so far is in black and white, we have scenes filmed in the house where the lighting is fully natural and there has been no editing done, we intend to keep them scenes that way, by doing this we hope it will give the black and white scenes more effect and significance. A sort of contrast to show the fully lit scenes where everything is good and well with the friends, and then the darkness to show the darkness the friends face.
The noises added in are temporary, as we film further we are going to hopefully look for ways to create other suspicious noises to add in, we want to create our own, to go along with the rest of the film so far and be unique. As you saw in this footage we still need to add tag-lines, we feel that tag-lines in most other films although provide a scare in themselves, they are very similar in may horror trailers, we are still thinking of what to write and add, along with the name.
For the name, we wanted a powerful name, however a name that portrays mystery at the same time, ambiguous, inexplicable, Enigma is the one we decided to stick with in the end, as these words mean the same thing. The idea of something being unexplainable is what scares an audience, they go to the cinema to see a horror, what they expect is to see things that they would not expect to happen in their lives or in their day to day life. Which is why when at the beginning of a film when it says it is based on a true story, it tends to have more effect on the audience.

Most things are made to seem mundane in black and white, the few things moving for instance me and Hassan will stick out even more, the colours are gone, makes most of the scene seem lifeless which also ads to the horror effect. 

Filming To Be Done

A lot of what we do when filming is very spontaneous, although we have in mind the ideas the plans which we have come up with during lesson time, when we are on set so many more ideas come to mind.

Other scenes such as scary moments throughout, what he have at the moment puts more of a story to the trailer however, scary moments which appear throughout the trailer for split seconds.

Today we have been told that we have just over three weeks before the hand in date of all of our practical work. Although we have been paying significantly more attention to the blog it is now time to go back to the practical work and give it some finishing touches and possible add to it to make it that bit better.

Quick cuts: with the filming we already have, there is too many shots which take too long to kick in. There is story before something happens and although this helps the viewer understand what the story is about, when there is too much of it its almost boring, its expected in the next scene and you lose the element of surprise. Therefore it is important to have a balance, so they understand what they're actually being scared of.

Establishing shots: These shots give the audience a feel of the location. Last year we couldn't really afford to do that too much due to the locations we had chose to film in, this year we have moved right out and filming in very different locations, dark wooded areas with rocky streams, so by having an establishing shot, we can add effect to the whole of the video. Most of the filming

After effects

Transitions

Another thing we noticed was part of filming did not quite add up which means we are going to go and re-film some of the scenes and then that will allow us to put our media piece together so it makes sense.

After Effects

While creating our after effects, we came across a new effect which appealed to us. It was of a face talking and an effect in front of the face so no features of the face where seen.
As our media practical piece is based on horror this effect really appealed to us and we thought it would go perfectly with what we have currently filmed.
It was not an effect we are largely familiar with and so it took lots of research and following videos which we found on the Internet, however we have now managed to create an effect which has been finished and polished to perfection. Now when we come to arranging our footage into a full film, we are then able to add this transition where we feel it is best.

This effect as we executed it, we saw how simple it really was. We went to a dark room and filmed myself, just talking to the camera, as funny as it sounds that was the base of this whole transition. Simply talking to the camera, and i had to keep my head perfectly straight and at a certain height for the camera and just spoke with a slight aggression to the camera.
Once it was filmed we then it was uploaded to the Mac and the first thing we did was mute the sound. then, the it became an aggressive conversation with the camera as seen in the video above.
After my face was cut out so it was the only thing in shot to edit and then the editing began.

Mock Ups

Textual Analysis of a Horror Poster

Film: Strangers
Release Date: May 30, 2008
Production Company: Rouge Pictures
Producers: Doug Davidson, Roy Lee, Nathan Kahane
Director: Bryan Bertino
Actors: Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman






























The primary purpose of a poster is to advertise they can be seen all around us in a wide range of places from public transport to magazines. A poster is one of the primary form of promotion for a movie, as well as other forms of media. Although there has been enormous leaps forward in technological development a poster has become a traditional way of promotion for a movie, as it has the power to portray the essence of an entire movie in a single snapshot, and work brilliantly in synergy when accompanied with other forms of promotion such as the use of a trailer.

Instantaneously this poster informs the audience that the movie it is advertising is a horror, this is achieved through many different media techniques and the use of specific images that fit with horror conventions.

Firstly the poster uses but also alters typical horror conventions of dark backgrounds and gory foreground text or images, it uses dark colours to surround the central image in the same way a vignette filter usually does in many horror films this further solidifies the audience belief that the poster is for a horror film and also focuses the viewers attention on the central image which shows two people confronted by three people wearing masks although we are not explicitly told who are the victims and the perpetrator because the audience are familiar with media conventions and are aware the perpetrator is often anonymous and victims are often shown as helpless, it allows them to differentiate between the two without explicitly stating so.

Secondly the font used in the poster is white which contrasts with the black extremely well, furthermore the font and colour could be considered a visual metaphor with the white representing light and the black representing darkness referring to a typical scene in most horror movies where the victim is show in darkness with usually a small light source such as a candle.

Equally the lack of text works just as well as the text that is present an example of this is the lack of
ratings and review quotes which are often present on promotional posters this poster has neither which i think adds to the mystery and horror as it suggests that the movie is too frightening to have ever been watched, this works very well as many people tend to watch movies to prove to friends that they are fearless this may cause people to watch this movie in particular as a measure of how brave they are. 

Furthermore the non verbal communication in the poster works extremely well. i think this is because the perpetrators are wearing masks with prevents any emotion being show and provides a sense of of being in the presence of the unknown which is something portrayed in many horror movies. The use of light once again works very well in synergy with this as it focuses the viewers attention on to the masks worn by the perpetrators.

At the same time there is also a sense of mental instability portrayed in the poster this is achieved through the way the perpetrators are shown stood with there arms by there side in a almost innocent way however are in a situation that we believe could result in the murder of someone. Due to death and innocence being contrasted insecurity and mental instability is portrayed as these are things we would never associate with each other   

In addition the costumes worn in the poster with the exception of the masks appear to seem very natural and normal this adds to the to the realism portrayed by the poster as it provokes the audience to think that what is happening in the poster could very easily happen to them and creates fear which is exactly what horrors are meant to achieve. 

Furthermore the poster provokes the audience to stop and think through the use of unique tag line 'Because You Were Home' the use of this tag line creates a sense of mystery as people think they are safest when at home however this suggests otherwise and creates a sense of insecurity which adds to the viewing pleasure associated with media of the horror genre.

Overall the poster teases the audience by touching on almost every element that makes up a good horror as well as adding new elements unique to this poster alone which when coupled together with each other and create a extremely enticing atmosphere, which when displayed on the poster makes an outstanding piece of promotional media which is more then capable of completing its task.

Textual Analysis of a Horror Poster

FILM TITLE: THE PACT
YEAR OF RELEASE: 2012
DIRECTOR: NICHOLAS McCarthy
PRODUCERS: Jaime Burke, Jamie Carmichael, Ross M. Dinerstein, Sam Zuckerman 

Distributed By: Entertainment One, IFC Midnight, content Film International

This Poster gives very little information about what to expect in the movie. It gives a very brief idea of what to expect to the audience.

Its gives away enough information to tell the poster is to-do with the genre horror. The poster goes all dark and mysterious at the bottom of the poster which is typical as most horror movies have the main image going into the unknown like how it is shown in this poster. As soon as it gets dark nothing else is exposed about the character. This is another way to tell what genre the poster is about; the antagonist is shown but not fully as the creators want to persuade possible viewers to watch the movie.

Also the poster has quotes from a magazine which says "Scream Out Loud Scary" now this gives more credibility to the movie as the media have actually seen the film and actually think the movie is scary and therefore worth watching. that’s the reason the creator of the poster has included the quote, it’s so it persuades the viewers to go out there go to the cinema and watch the movie because the media think it’s worth watching. The movie has also won an award for one of the scariest movies out. This adds more credibility to the movie and gives the possible viewers something to think about as the movie is winning awards for being a horror. This award will bring in more people as well as the quotes from the magazine both about how scary the poster the movie is. This is an excellent addition to the poster and makes it one not to miss.

The colours used for the title of the title of the poster is also a common use in movie posters as there is always something mysterious on the poster. The way the text is written on the poster and the font used also gives information that the movie the poster is a horror movie. I have personally seen the movie and the antagonist in the movie is also similar to the way its shown in the poster, the antagonist is hidden throughout most of the film and it will give away too much if the face was revealed in the poster because it will no longer be a mystery of how the character looks in the movie.  

This poster is one we may compare ours with not fully as this poster is more of a thriller whereas our trailer and poster will be more of a supernatural approach. We will make it more mysterious and add more in our poster. The Pact poster has got little on it and is hard analyse it as not much is given away.

Textual Analysis of a Horror Magazine

Magazine: Empire
Editor: Mark Dinning
Holding Company: Bauer Media
First Issue: July 1989

Empire magazine is a international film magazine. the magazine covers films of all range from comedy to romance.

A magazine cover has many tasks to carry out and does them so in many different ways.

Firstly the magazine cover can be seen as a promotional tool to promote a movie as it makes more people aware of the movie and this creates a demand for people to want to see it.






























Secondly the magazine cover is in place to entice people to buy the magazine as a stand alone product  and enjoy it for its content with to refer to when deciding on what movies to watch.

In this issue of empire the cover page is focused on the movie Hellboy 2 . The main image is of the central protagonist from the movie. Instantaneously the audience can verify that the cover is for a horror movie this is because of several things within the images used on the cover.

Most obviously the character on the cover who we can assume to be hellboy is shown to be a large character with horns and a red skin, because of this use of the colour red and the size of the character we start to associate him with things we would associate with a horror such as blood which is also red, and raging dangerous animals such as a bull. this use of images to help aid non verbal communication works very well as a stand alone product but as soon as we combine the title hellboy and the character we immediately think of the devil and of sin, which again are things we would associate with a horror movie

Furthermore the font used on the magazine name is altered to that of which it is normal it is covered in fire and is damaged which again ties in very well with what we would associate with horror movies as during the course of a horror the set tends to degrade more and become darker as the story progresses and more evil/gruesome occurrences happen by doing this the audience are provoked to think about how the chaos may have happened in the movie thus making them want to see it which means the magazine cover is successful in its primary role

Textual Analysis of a Magazine Cover

This magazine cover is from the movie "All About Evil" I found this cover when searching for horror magazine covers. This Magazine cover came out more as a horror cover then others as it contains typical horror representations on the cover.






























The character on the magazine stands out the most compared to the text. This gives the readers an image of what they would expect within in the movie itself. The background of the magazine is plain white.
the character is a typical representation of how the victims may look in the movie. In this magazine cover the lady is shown covered in blood from head down. This is a typical representation of a character involved with the use of blood. The top she is wearing looks old covered in a mixture of blood and mud. From whichever angle this magazine is looked at the character will always seem like she is starring at the reader. Also below her eyes is like eye bags but also mascara which is black and shows that the character may have been crying at some point. Other than that the rest of her face is really white but once her hair starts all the dark horrible colours begin.


The creator of this magazine cover uses a clever way of making people read the good stuff about the movie so after they can go and view the actual movie. The techniques that have been used are writing about the artists like "Hollywood’s most talented actress is back". This creates a good impact on the readers as they are quoted to be watching Hollywood’s best artist. The characters name is below the quote in the biggest font on the page of the magazine which they creator has purposely done to make the character seem like she’s the best actor and in some way special.

Nearly all the important information is written in smaller font and in the colour blue. Here the creator has used a clever technique, where once the big text has been read the readers are sort of forced to read the text below to see if they correspond in any way. Most the small writing is to-do with the genre horror, such as "Heroin, crack cocaine and a collapsed lung to a series of grisly shorts in all about evil". Compared to the poster we have actually received more information of what happens in the movie. This text tells us that this movie will contain the uses of all those drugs.

The whole magazine is about horror as everything other then the cast is related to horror. This is the reason why this movie is on this magazine. It brings back more of an audience as anyone that specifically looks for horror movies in magazines will see covers like this at the front. This is a good use of advertisement and will make people watch the movie. There are also strap lines and sub headings which are part of this magazine cover but doesn't have anything to-do with this movie.

The character in this magazine cover could have a representation of both an antagonist or a protagonist.
It is not easy to tell as the character is covered in blood wearing dirty or old clothing with her hair being all over the place.
She could be a antagonist as the way she is dressed and the blood all over her could show that she could have been possessed, or shes lost it and started attacking innocent people.
This character could also be a victim of a antagonist and she has ended up defeating the villain after shes been through some sort of pain.

Textual Analysis of a Horror Trailer

Movie: The Strangers

Year: 2008

Director: Bryan Bertino

Production Company: Rouge Pictures

The Trailer for The Strangers uses several techniques ranging from the use of sound to the way lighting is used to create a successful horror trailer it does this by using these techniques in the following ways.

Firstly the trailer makes brilliant use of running pace for example, the initial pace at the start is normal and sustained for the first several seconds of the trailer but then very slowly speeds up to a pace which is still normal but slightly faster than that which it followed this starts to create the idea of  something bad happening, as a general rule of horror is after the acceleration of pace there is always a following scary moment. However in this trailer the acceleration portion of this common chain of events is slightly altered and shortened due to this the moment of shock is slightly earlier than anticipated and therefore catches the audience off guard.

Secondly the trailer makes extremely good use of dark and light as the light is like a metaphor for a safe environment and just when the audience feel comfortable in that environment they are brought out of there comfort zone into the dark which is extremely effective in keeping the audience on the edge of there seat. As well as the use of light as a metaphor it is also used extremely well to focus the viewers attention on specific aspects of the shot being seen for example at the the 1:08 (1 minute 8 seconds) marks there is a close up shot of the female in which her facial expression is one of great fear to emphasise this and to get the audiences attention to focus onto this the surrounding area in shot is very dark and the little light in the shot is focused on the character to emphasise the fear she is feeling.

In addition another thing i believe this trailer does really well is the choice of shot used to create the perfect atmosphere, such as the use of a establishing shot at the start which shows the house to be alone it a area we would associate with a typical horror such as the Texas chainsaw massacre. Another aspect in which i think camera shots are used very well is during shock moments in the trailer where a long shot is used to show the people on there own followed by another close up shot to show facial expression and fear.

Furthermore the trailer utilises the use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound very well as it completely follows horror music convention for example the first sound we here is a very simple recurring melody which is often associated with the exorcist theme tune which made having a melody such as the one used in the exorcist (Mike Oldfield-Tubular Bells) a must for a horror film. As well as the use of  non-diegetic sound the trailer also make excellent use of diegetic sound an example of this is the sound of the swing moving, this sound is very good in creating tension as it is repetitive and the swing is associated with children which have built a reputation of being vulnerable or demon like in horrors. Another use of sound in the trailer which i think is really good is the vinyl record which jumps at the end of the trailer and speeds up in unison with the pace of the video i think this works really well because as it speeds up the audience feel they are coming closer and closer to a scary moment which cannot be escaped which adds to the atmosphere of the horror.  

In addition i believe the success of  the trailer for the strangers is due to editing aspects as without this the above techniques would not be able to intertwine and allow the trailer to shine as a media piece . Firstly the use of quick cuts throughout works really well with the fast pace of the trailer as they both increase in speed leading to a climax if this didn't happen the trailer would be no way near as effective because a fast pace alone would not have provided as much depth leading to a duller trailer.Furthermore the editing works really well with the sound an example of this is between the 00:30sec and 00:50sec mark were with each new cut the sound of the swing starts again this loop works really we'll together because when the only sound being heard with each new cut is the same sound of a swing rocking again and again the result of this is that it gets the audience on the edge of there seat as it is the last thing you would expect to see which adds to the idea of the ''unknown'' which is often associated with the horror genre. Finally editing is effective in convergence with the lighting used as it allows the sudden switch from a shot were there is lots of light which naturally makes the audience feel safe and then instantly contrasting it with one of darkness which can completely throw the audience.

Overall i believe the trailer for the strangers is a very good one for several reason such as the fact that it keeps with almost all horror conventions, also it uses all the techniques stated above but does in convergence as to create one smooth piece which reflects horror in a perfect light, furthermore the addition of mask gives a ''classic horror'' feel which i think many people from an older age would like and be familiar with and therefore would want to see the movie this makes the trailer very successful in my eyes as it goes away from the stereotype which states only teens watch horrors.