Teaser Trailers vs. Full Trailers

A teaser trailer is always shorter in length than the full trailer and they normally do not give such big plot indications as the full trailers.  This is to build audience interest and to keep them in suspense so they are more likely to want to go and see the movie when it is released in cinemas or on DVD or Blu-Ray.  Teaser trailers are usually released some time before the full trailer to generate audience hype and publicity and often teaser trailers can be a lot more 'action packed', featuring much faster paced action to keep the audience involved and the trailer down to a shorter length.  This also helps to build suspense.

Here is an example of a teaser trailer for 'Saw 3D':


And here is the full trailer for 'Saw 3D':

Team Initial Idea

When we were put into groups, we decided to talk each other through our own initial ideas and then come up with a group idea based on a combination of our individual ideas.  In our group, myself, Peter Hurst and Sabrina Brothers came up with a film called 'Deranged'.  The film starts at a teenagers house party where everybody is having a good time until there is a sudden power surge and somebody goes missing.  They start searching around the house until they hear a scream from the woods.  They run into the woods to find that he has become deranged and is out to kill each of his friends one by one.  We are aiming to create a psychological slasher horror movie.

My initial idea for a horror trailer

This is my initial trailer idea before we came up with our finial ideas in our groups:

"A teenager from a small town in Norfolk becomes one of the world’s most sophisticated killers.  Techno genius Matthew Rushmore, a 19 year old outcast, attending sixth form college tries to reap revenge for his life of bullying and torture by setting up an online video phenomenon.  Whilst watching the video you become brainwashed and before you know it you’re out to murder your friends and family. Everywhere you go you can hear Matthews’ voice instructing you on what to do.  But what happens when the video becomes viral and is set to 500 or 600 of your classmates via facebook? College will never be the same again. It becomes a race to kill your closest friend before they kill you.  The video will change your life, literally. But can anybody stop Matthew?..."

How Horror Represents Gender - Essay

This is an essay that we wrote as a class homework about how horror movies represent gender in the three movies that we watched in class:

How Horror Represents Gender

I am going to compare how horror represents gender in three different films; ‘Halloween’ (1978),  ‘The Shining’ (1982) and ‘Eden Lake’ (2008).

Laurie Strode - Played by Jamie Lee Curtis

‘Halloween’ represents women both positively and negatively.  One way it represents women positively is with an equal 50:50 split of male to female characters.  This is good because it shows that the film is not making one gender dominant and more visible than the other gender, unlike most media.  However, females in the film have taken very gender stereotypical roles, falling under three categories; domestic roles, sexual roles and familial roles. Domestic roles in ‘Halloween’ involve the group of girls babysitting, cleaning and cooking. Sexual roles are portrayed mostly by Annie and Lynda but also by Judith’s sexualised death.  The familial stereotypical role does not play such a big part in ‘Halloween’, but it is introduced by showing the bond with Annie and her Dad, the sheriff.  The ‘male gaze’ is used at the start the start of the film to make members of the audience see Judith as a sex object regardless of their own gender or sexuality.    Lynda and Annie are both sexually objectified in the film. Lynda is objectified in in her bed scene, as being a sex object whilst mistaking the murderer under the bed sheet to be her boyfriend. However, Laurie is not objectified in the film and is portrayed as being the ‘final girl’.  Laurie is represented as being the final girl by having a  gender neutral name and wearing gender neutral clothing.  This shows her in a completely different light to the other female characters in the film to the audience. She is also less sexualised by wearing no make up and by having short hair.  This is typical of the horror genre with ‘final girls’ typically shown as being virginal and becoming strong and able to defeat the evil in the film. 

Wendy - Played by Shelley Duvall

‘The Shining’ does not have such a positive representation on women as ‘Halloween’ does.  For a start, there is roughly a 60:40 male to female split, showing the dominant roles in the film are played by male characters.  ‘The Shining’ uses very stereotypical roles for women. It makes use of domestic, familial and sexual roles of women.   Wendy, Jacks’ wife, is shown to be very domesticated, looking after Danny and her husband. She also does some hotel maintenance. Another domestic role is the secretary’s, who is only shown bringing coffee in the film.  Family roles play a big part in ‘The Shining’, with Wendy being defined as being a housewife who only looks after her family.  Three other family roles are those of Grady and his two daughters.  There is a sexualised role for the dead woman in the bath scene in room 237.  The ‘male gaze’ is used in the bath scene, putting the audience in Jack’s eyes and seeing the woman in the bath to be a sex object.  However, when we see her as a corpse this leaves us as an audience ashamed of how we originally saw her.  The film is also very conservative, with there being a higher death toll of women than men; three female deaths versus two male deaths.

Jenny - Played by Kelly Reilly

‘Eden Lake’ has an even worse representation of women with a 3:8 ratio of women to men.  ‘Eden Lake’ also undertakes very gender stereotypical roles.  Domestic work is carried out by two of the three female characters; Jenny and the woman in the café, with Jenny working as a primary school teacher and the woman in the café serving food.  Jenny is shown in a familial role, as she becomes fiancé to her boyfriend Steve.  The woman in the café could also be seen as playing a familial role because she refers to the gang as being “her boys”.  Paige is not given a stereotypical role and acts in two different ways throughout the film.  At the start she is aggressive and shown to be sexual, however as the film progresses she is very passive, doing as she is told and only filming the violence as opposed to taking an active part in it.  Use of the ‘male gaze’ is evident in the film, with the gang members looking at Jenny in  a sexual way, however we know Jenny is uncomfortable with this and covers up.  We identify with Jenny for most of the film.  Two out of three girls die in the film and four out of eight males die in the film. The final girl however does not survive unlike the two other films and she does become monstrous herself, showing a link between herself and Brett.

In conclusion, all three films do show women in different ways with some having more important roles than others.  All horror films portray women in different ways and these three films are no exception. 

These are the comments I got from my teacher:

"B-  Good writing but I think the most interesting aspects of horror representation - the way is asks male audience members to identify with a female victim/hero rather than just objectify women, it not really discussed explicitly enough"

Audience Research

I carried out our audience research with my two other team members by handing out a printed questionnaire to other students in the college.  This is a copy of questionnaire that I handed out to other students:

We used Microsoft Excel to collate our results and create graphs of the quantitative data and to created lists of data that is qualitative. These are the results that we recieved:

1) What gender are you?

These results show that we had roughly a 45/55 split, with a higher percentage of females that have filled out the questionnaire.  

2) What age are you?

We received results from people aged 16 - 19, but primarily individuals ages 16 - 17.  Although most horror movies are designed to attract 15 - 25 year olds, I think our audience is still perfectly valid because we have still analyzed a wide age range of the target market.  

3) Do you prefer to watch horror movies indvidually, with one other person or in a group?

This results of this research could possibly indicate that people don't like to be alone whilst they are watching horror movies, but could also back up some other audience feelings such as "its more of a thrill to watch it with somebody else to see when they are scared or to scare them back".

4) Do you like horror movies?

These results clearly show that the majority of 16 - 19 year olds do enjoy watching horror movies, as the typical horror movie target audience suggests. 

5) If 'yes', why do you like horror movies?

"Because they are funny"

"I like being scared"

"Generally gorey and horrific, quite exciting really"

"The feeling you get when watching it"

"The thrill"

"Because I do"

"The element of suprise and the unknown twists"

"The thrill and stupidity"

"I like being scared but they are often too predictable"

"They are exciting"

"The suspense"

These answers have given us ideas of which elements of the horror genre we should implement into our trailer to make it more successful with our target audience.

6) What is your favourite type of horror movie?

We had already semi-decided within our group that we wanted to do a psychological horror movie for many reasons, such as we all agreed that they are more interesting and scary but also because we thought that production may be slightly easier than something like a gore or slasher film.

7) How often do you watch horror movies?

These results have told us that horror movies are typically watched atleast every few months with our target audience.

8) Do you like horror movies to have a 'final girl'?

As most of the students we asked do not study media studies, this question may not have been something they had ever thought about whilst watching a horror movie and some may have never even heard of or noticed the final girl trend in horror movies.

9) What locations do you like horror movies to be shot in?

"Space"

"Abandoned places" (4 people said this)

"In a mental institution"

"In the woods"

"In small places"

"Somewhere normal"

"Houses" (3 people said this)

"Old, gothic locations"

"Unknown locations"

"Somewhere rural"

"Abandoned cities"

The majority of answers here suggests that abandoned, rural locations are the scariest of places for horror movies to be set, especially because the audience in horror movies are typically supposed to empathize with the onscreen characters so they themselves may feel more scared knowing they are somewhere isolated and 'cut off'. 

10) What weapons do you like to be used in horror movies?

"Guns" (2 people said this)

"Chainsaws" (2 people said this)

"Knifes" (4 people said this)

"Sharp objects"

"The very most brutally destructive weapons"

"I prefer no weapons"

"Rusty saws or mechanisms"

"Swords"

Knives have proved to be the weapon of choice in horror movies with our target audience.

11) Do trailers entice you to watch horror films?

These results show that the majority of our audience will be hard to persuade to watch a horror movie through the use of our trailer, possibly due to stiff competition and the advancements in technology that large movies have.  To combat this issue, we need to ensure we use all of our results as well as possible to ensure that our trailer appeals to the target audience.

12) What elements of a trailer influence you the most to watch the movie?

These results have told us that we need to come up with a good plot which takes most of the time in the trailer and concentrate less on selling factors, such as named actors and production companies.

13) What scares you in a horror movie?

"Ghosts" (6 people said this)

"The unknown" (3 people said this)

"Gore"

"Blood"

"Backgroud noises" (3 people said this)

"Weapons"

"Anything that jumps" (3 people said this)

"Psychological stuff"

"Music" (2 people said this)

"Eerie atmosphere"

"Paranormal stuff"

"Monsters"

"Children"

Ghosts, the unknown and paranormal activities are the most effective ways of keeping our target audience watching a horror movie

My Mood Board

This is the mood board I created for our group idea.  I wanted to get a before and after effect so I put on the left hand side what was happening before the horror event and on the right the aftermath of the horror.  I used an image of police tape to seperate the two. In the foreground of both I have used an image of a group of teenagers, but on the right hand side image I have shown that a final girl will survive and the crosses representing that the others in the group will die.

Orphan Trailer

Trailer Conventions:
One convention used in this trailer is the use of emotive music.  The music is contrapuntal as it carrys on throughout the trailer and changes in pitch, tempo and amplification to flow with the mood of the film.  Another convention it uses is a mixture of dialogue and voice over.  It does this because it is guiding you through the story and once the dialogue and voice over stops it leaves the audience wanting to watch the movie to find out more. 

Horror Conventions:

One convention used is editing shots to slow down the speed of projection.  This is used to increase tension and suspense in the film.  Speed of projection is also altered to speed up some shots to build up a sense of panic.  Another convention used is the use of a mixture of high angle and low angle shots to create a power balance between the characters.  Another horror convention used is the use of a freeze frame. 

In my horror trailer I would like to try to incorporate a freeze frame because I think it is very effective at holding an audiences attention.  One other element of this horror trailer that I would like to use in our horror trailer is the use of a voice over.

Sorority Row Trailer

Trailer Conventions:

One trailer convention used in this trailer for Sorority Row is the use of repetitive music which is increasing in tempo and pitch. Another convention used is that the trailer clearly indicates the genre of the movie.  However the genre is not immediatly apparent from the start of the trailer when the film looks like it could be of another genre, possibly horror.

Horror Conventions:

One horror convention used is the use of small communities.  It is set on a college campus which is a small community with people that will be closely knit.  It makes use of a lot of sound effects to build tension and the use of lots of different camera angles and shots, such as the use of a worms eye shot.  Iconography of blood is used aswell as lots of special effects.

In our horror trailer I would like to use a worms eye shot and the use of shadows to help to build tension and keep the audience drawn in because it could add to their confussion.

Devil Trailer

Trailer conventions:

The trailer conventions used in this trailer for 2010 film 'Devil' uses typical trailer conventions. One convention that it uses is the use of intertitles between shots in the trailer. This is used to build suspense and to keep the audiences interest throughout the trailer. Another trailer convention used is showing the name of the director on screen; M. Night Shyamalan. Another convention used is the use of music and sound effects to build suspense.

Horror conventions:

This trailer for 'Devil' uses a typical horror isolated setting of being set in a lift in a large building. This also obeys the typical horror setting of large buildings with lots of different levels. Expressive camerawork is used and lots of high and low shots are used. Editing is used to create jumps in the trailer and the gaps between shots are filled with upside down shots of NYC to disorienate the audience. Lots of low key lighting is used.

What elements we would like to use in our horror trailer:

In our horror trailer I would like to use the jump cuts between scenes and I would like to experiment with rotating shots to be upside down.

Narrative Theory

We applied four narrative theorists to 'The Shining'.

The first theorist we applied was Tzvetan Todorov. Todorov suggests that stories begin an equilibrium where opposing forces are all in balance. This is disrupted by an event. Problems are then resolved in order to restore the world of the film. The equilibrium in the shining is that the author (Jack) is a stay at home author, living a fairly normal life. The disruption is caused when he gets a new job and relocates away from his family home. Todorov's theory is now that the problems are resolved, however I do not think this the case with 'The Shining' because in my opinion I don't think the issues are resolved. Although Jack is no longer an issue for Wendy and Danny, he has not been defeated and we do not know that the issue is resolved for them as we have no context of what happens next in their lives.



The next theorist we covered was Vladimir Propp. Propp looked at 100s of foak tales and identified the roles of eight characters and thirty one narrative fucntions.
Propp came up with this list of characters:
1) The villan(s) - The villan in 'The Shining' is Jack who kills the other characters in the film before becoming frozen to death.
2) The hero - The hero role could apply to Wendy or Danny.
3) The donor (who provides an object with some magic property) - The donor in the movie could be Tony, the character in Dannys mind.
4) The helper who aids the hero - The helper in the movie is Dick (The chief)
5) The princess (the sought for person, reward for the hero and object of the villan's schemes) - This character could potentialy be seen as Wendy
6) Her father - who rewards the hero, 7) The dispatcher - who sends the hero on his way and 8) The false hero don't fit with the movie. Therefore I don't think you can really apply Propps theory to the movie.



Another theorist we applied was Claude Levi-Strauss. he looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. I think the following binary oppositions would apply to 'The Shining':
Sane/Insane
Mental/Physical
Axes/Knives
Normal/Paranormal
Real/Unreal
Mother/Father
Man/Woman


The final theory we applied was by Bordwell and Thompson. In their book 'Film Art: An Introduction', they define narrative as "a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurding in time and space". They believe that a typical narrative begins with one situation, a series of changes occur according to a pattern of cause and effect; finally a new situation arises that brings the end of the narrative. The situation in 'The Shining' would be Jack being hired for a new job working in an isolated hotel. A series of mental changes occur to him and he finds his whole world changing. Then finally the chase sequence outside the hotel in the maze brings an end to the narrative.

The Return Of The Repressed

Sigmund Freud uses the term 'the return of the repressed' to explain the existence of neurotic symptoms. His theory explains that an unconscious thought or feeling will occur but will not be accepted into the ego of the person. From this point, the thought or feeling is stored as an emotion. The mind will then constantly try to prevent the emotion from being shown but then the emotion will become a symptom.

Freud's idea of the return of the repressed states that humans have a direct mind and an unconscious mind. The unconscious mind stores our emotions. This is because you don't consciously make a decision of your emotion, e.g. you would not think you are now going to become angry, it just happens. The return of the repressed says that these thoughts/feelings which are turned into emotions will eventually be let out.

Horror movies allow us as an audience to feel fear and feel being scared whilst being in a perfectly safe environment.  Watching a horror movie is therefore a way of letting these thoughts/feelings come out.

I choose this trailer because I like the structure of it and I think the special effects used are good. I also like the fact that it is not a very in depth trailer, leaving a lot of the plot for the audience to watch the full movie.  I also like the use of the intertitles in the trailer which helps to lead the audience through the basic plot.