The above screen
grabs are of different scenes in our teaser trailer, that we believe, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products.
1: Genre and how the trailer suggests it. We have chosen
this screen grab to show the genre as we believe that the lighting and the shot
emphasises that the trailer will be a horror, as the man in the mask is in a
darkly lit room with an axe in his hand waiting for his victim to walk by. The
use of black clothing and a masked face also highlights the horror appeal to it
as concealed identities are very frightening as you can not make any connection
with someone's facial expressions through a mask, meaning that everything about
them is cold and full of hatred. Another aspect that highlights the genre is
the type of shot, as since it is a long shot, you are not able to fully
understand who is there, and why they are there, leading to the audience asking
loads of questions. Just from watching our teaser, their questions would not be
properly answered in detail, encouraging them to go and watch our film to
understand everything about this mysterious person. This shot is conforming to
the stereotypical view of horror films as we have used the idea of darkly lit
rooms and weapons. We have decided to conform to the stereotype in this
instance as we wanted our audience to find it relatable to possibly another
film they have seen, that they may have throughly enjoyed, which would
encourage them to view our film also. The props we have used in this shot are
the mask and axe. These props are used to highlight the status of this
character, which would be that he is the bad murderer. The location is the
house, within a study type room. This location highlights familiarity with our
audience members and makes the trailer relatable.
2: How characters are introduced. This screen grab shows
our main girl in a mirror with her camera. This is similar to the style of 'paranormal
activity' films, but our trailer is not supernatural. We have used a shot
of her holding the camera herself, as this introduces her quickly and clearly,
and could suggest she knows something weird is going on, so is trying to catch
it on camera, but at the same time the bad guy is right behind her, but she
does not realise due to looking at her camera and not the mirror. Throughout
our teaser, our characters are not introduced in detail, and we do not have any
talking whatsoever, as we wanted our teaser to follow the villains journey more
than the victims, and focus on the action more than the people.The only
characters that are properly introduced and focused on are our villains. By
having our victim holding the camera, the audience are put in a different
perspective and the teaser is made more personal. It also makes the victim look
more vulnerable and incapable as her only way of giving evidence of herself and
the situation is by filming it, unaware of the danger behind her. This shot
subverts the stereotype of horrors in a way, as usually the camera follows the
victims, instead of the victim's filming it themselves. Although if you were to
look at films like 'Paranormal Activity' you would see that it conforms
to the stereotype of supernatural horror films. We chose to display our
film like this as we wanted it to be different to normal horrors, but still
similar to things they had seen before. The props included in this shot are the
camera and the mask on the villain. The use of the camera makes you feel like
you have been projected into the trailer, as it feels like you are there
holding the camera with the villain behind you. This makes our audience members
more involved in what is happening throughout our trailer. The lighting in this
shot is quite dark, but the area around the camera is almost illuminated. This
is intriguing to our audience members as you are left to try and work out the
room our victim is standing in, and where the illumination is coming from. We
used the 'time lapse' tool on this shot to make it very speedy, but still so
you are capable of working out what is happening.
3: Setting/location. This screenshot shows one of our
villains about to close a door. Where he is standing is lit up with different
lights, which suggests that he is in someones house. By showing a door it
highlights that he is invading someone elses property, and that his intentions
are most likely not good. By having the setting/location being in a house, it
destroys any 'sanctuary' you could have, as your home is supposed to be a safe
place; but in our teaser, the home is shown as a nightmare you do not want to
be in, meaning that anyone watching our teaser would be frightened as it hits
home and makes it more realistic. This is because if your house was targeted,
murderers could always find a way in, as they did in our trailer. This is
similar to that of 'Insidious' as that is also set in a house where you
are supposed to feel safe, and especially similar to that of 'The Strangers'
as in 'The Strangers' 3 murderers target a couple who are in a house in
a very rural area. This shot conforms to the stereotypes of horror films, as
the house is a big scary house, on a relatively quiet street, meaning that it
is the ideal location for a murderer to strike. When producing our trailer, it
was very important to us that we used a convention that is widely used in
horrors, so that our trailer would be relatable. The lighting in this shot, is
the light that is projected from the inside, so infront of the camera, and the
porch light behind the camera. By having no direct light source on our shot,
there is more blackness and shadows, making the shot incredibly creepy, and the
areas around unknown. The costume in this shot is dark clothing, which keeps
our killer's indentity concealed.
4: Title of the film. We have chosen the name 'The
Unwelcome' as it gives a slight insight into what our teaser is about. As
soon as you read the word 'unwelcome' it suggests that bad people are trying to
invade somewhere, where they are not welcome. Against our title, we put a mask,
that fades in and out. This is because our trailer is all about masked
villains, so by putting a ghostly, eerie looking mask, it again suggests bad
intentions. Our title is similar to that of 'The Devil Inside', 'The
Last Exorcism', 'The Grudge' etc. By putting 'the' before
'unwelcome' it suggest more than one person, and is sometimes more effective
than one word horror film titles, for example, 'Below.' When thinking of
our title we racked our brains through many different possibilities that had
links to our nursery rhyme, but in the end we decided that something that had
nothing to do with our soundtrack and music would be much more effective.
5: Special effects. This screenshot shows a 'CCTV' kind
of effect we wanted to create. As the villain is looking up to the camera, we
wanted it to suggest the victim has CCTV in her house, and it is recording
everything the villains are doing upstairs, without her even knowing they are
there. The grey/sepia colour that is created and the slight fuzz gives the
effect that it is trying to capture darkness, and struggling. Although as soon
as the bad guy appears he is seen clearly from his dark clothing, making him
look even more frightening due to the lack of bright, cheery colours around
him. Some other effects we used included 'fade to black', 'fade out' and 'fade
in'. These transitions were used to make our scenes run more smoothly and flow
better, so that there was no harsh cutting as one scene ended and the other
began. We wanted all of our scenes to follow on from one another smoothly to
not cause any confusion and to keep our audience interested all the way
through. Also by the use of 'fade to black' it can create the feeling that
something may jump out at you during the blackness, and creates uncertainty as
to what will appear on your screen next, as you have no prior warning as to
what it could be about. This special effect of the 'CCTV' is sometimes used in
horrors, as it gives the sense of cameras watching all the activity in the
house. This is more common in films like Paranormal
Activity as the characters in these films intended to capture the
'activity' in their house on camera. In this way the shot conforms to the conventions
in horrors. The mise en scene in this shot, is a high angle shot with the
killer wearing dark clothing, and the grainy grey/light brown colour. This shot
makes the audience members feel above the villain, but the absence of light
colours makes the whole surrounding area much more sinister and frightening.
6: Camera work and editing. Throughout our teaser, we
have tried to be experimentive and original with our shots. In the screen grab
shown, we have used a low angle/ olique/canted angle shot. This was to give the
idea of a 'point of view' kind of shot, where our victim could have been
looking up at the dark, hooded figure, whilst still trying to hide. The use of
the reflections around him highlights exactly where he is, and makes the
darkness around him seem much more spooky and puts you at unease. Other shot
types we tried to use included eyeline shots, low angle shots, high angle shots
etc. By using different shot types it showed different perspectives and gave
the idea of everyone being watched some way or another. One shot that we worked
hard on to perfect is the shot shown in picture 1. This shot was of our
villain spinning around in the chair, and then suddenly, he's gone. We edited
this shot so that the two together fit perfectly, and it just appeared to be
that he had vanished. We spent plenty of time trying to do this, as we felt it
could create more tension as no one can just vanish. It also leads to
questioning as to where he has gone, and how he has managed to disppear so
quickly. A different form of editing we did, was to create a really blurry
scene in the snow, which could connotate our first victim being knocked out and
dizzy, and watching one of the villains enter the house. This shot was taken
from ground level so it appeared as if she was lying on the floor, leading to
more questioning about what was happening, encouraging audience members to go
and view our film. An effective shot we found was the very end car one, for
this shot we postioned the camera on the dashboard of a car, and the way the
shot appears is that the victim has a camera already set up in her car. This
shot feels more personal as it is taken inside the car and she appears very
lonely as there is no one around. The lighting is also effective as it is
simply from the interior light of a car, so the dimness of it is relatable to
audience members. By watching this shot, it could potentially reach out to our
viewers, as if someone was to hide in their car and wait for them, they would
be in exactly the same situation. This shot conforms to the conventions of
horrors as it is a low angle shot showing the killer with a hidden identity. By
the shot being a low angle, the killer is made to look superior and powerful,
which is how the villain is always percieved in horrors. In this shot we have
used a few props on the window sill to give the audience a homely feeling. The
use of small, personal possession type props, makes the audience feel safe and
protected, but coupled with the face staring throught the window, makes the audience
feel vulnerable and under attack. The use of the light reflecting on the window
also conceals the identity of the villain a small bit more, as the reflections
detract your eyes from seeing everything about the villain.
7: Title font and style. This screen shot shows our
titles that we have throughout our teaser, that are used to create suspense.
The font we used was arial with a simple white aspect to it and quite small. We
used arial as our font as we wanted our titles to look spookly simple, so that
you are able to clearly read them, but instead of them following the horror
convention of font, we subverted it by using a basic font. The use of the white
font contrasts again the black background, creating an emptiness around the
writing due to all the negative space. This can help lead our audience members
to fear the titles, as they do not know what will come after them, or if
something could potentially pop out of the blackness around the writing.
8: Costumes and props. Costumes were a main aspect in our
teaser. This is shown clearly through our use of masks and dark hooded items of
clothing.We used masks and dark clothing, as it entirely conceals identites, so
you are unaware of the villains, age, sex etc. The use of the hood covers what
colour hair they have, and the use of masks and hoods, suggests that at some
point; those features could be removed, to reveal identities, but from watching
our teaser trailer, they will have to view the film to find out. Both of our
victims were in casual clothing, but instead of putting them in pale, light
clothing to show purity and innocence, we subverted the stereotype and put them
in dark clothing. We put them in dark clothing as we did not want to conform to
any stereotypes, and just wanted our teaser trailer to be original and
exciting.
We used a lot of props; including an axe, van, car & rope.
In our teaser it was essential that we had props as we wanted it be made clear
that our villains were serious and could be anywhere. The use of the van made
it seem like they are unstoppable, as if a van plowed into a car, the van would
be better off, and the use of the victims car showed that she had an escape
route, but that escape route was destroyed down too one of the villains being
in the car with her. We gave our villains props like a rope and axe, as these
are quite violent weapons. A rope can be used to tie people up and hang people,
and an axe can be used to inflict fatal injuries, so these props showed that
our victims were never going to escape. The use of dark clothing & masks
massively conforms to the stereotypical view of horror films. By having our
killer appearing like this, he is patronising and hidden, so no facial
recognition to make you associate with him can be found. This is a convention used
in horrors as it makes the villain seem much more cold and emotionless. The
mise en scene in this shot is quite dark lighting with a mask prop close up in
the face of the camera. The use of the dark lighting keeps the audience tense,
as they cannot see everything clearly, and the use of the mask right up in the
center of the shot makes the audience feel patronised and under attack.
9: Story and how the teaser sets it up. This screen grab
shows our victim wearing one of the villains mask. This shot sets up our story
as it shows that the villains have not killed her, but instead converted her
into one of them, being a cold, heartless killer. This shot leads audience
members to question how she ended up like that, and what happens during the
progression to her appearing like this. This then encourages audience viewers
to go to the cinema to watch our film through the information they have gained
from our teaser. This shot also makes you wonder where about's it is placed in
the film, making you wonder if she was a villain all along. The use of the high
angle shot on her makes the audience feel sorry for her, as she is vulnerable
with someone gawking down on her. This shot, in a way subverts the conventions
of horror films. This is because usually the victim just gets killed off and
the killer moves on, but instead the victim has become the villain. We chose to
subvert the stereotype like this, as it engages the audience and gives our
trailer a unique edge that may have not been used before. Also it creates
questioning around whether she was a killer all along, and what order our film
will play out in. Gilbert & Gubar theorised that woman were either seen as
'the angel' or 'the monster'. In this shot, we are showing our female character
as an 'unkempt madwoman'. We have chosen to represent her this way, in a
negative light as it creates the idea that 'anything could happen' as this
woman has gone mad. The mise en scene used in this shot, includes a few
personal belonging props scattered around, to make the room feel like
somebody's home that has been invaded. The curtains highlight the home setting,
and also highlight that curtains are supposed to keep the outside from coming
in, but instead the home has still been able to be invaded. The dark lighting
could suggest to the audience that the victim turned villain is in a hell type
setting, as she is constricted to a mask and cannot escape, so the lighting
reflects her feelings and personality. The high angle shot makes the victim
turned villain look vulnerable and under attack, making the audience have
conflicting emotions about what is happening.
