In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenege forms and conventions of real media products?

I believe that my horror trailer has many conventions of existing horror trailers, which help build suspense, create tension and show key features of the genre.





The trailer itself features mainly the two main female characters and "Bloody Mary". Many shots feature the final girl, which is a longstanding horror character type (originating from the movie "Halloween, 1978" and the character of Laurie, played by Jamie Lee-Curtis). The male characters are barely shown, to create a relationship with the audience and final girl from as early as the trailer instead of focus on male characters. Only a male character is shown dead in the trailer to bring in more of a female audience. The film is aimed at an audience on 16-24s with a hopeful balanced mix of males and females, as recent studies have shown that more females of this age group are going to watch horror films in large social groups that it seemed sensible to aim the film at this audience as well as including features such as gore, fast jump cuts containing horror and danger to make sure that male audiences are not alienated. The characters are all of teenage ages again to appeal to the target audience. Our trailer is 1:03 minutes in length which is around average for a teaser trailer, like many current teasers, our trailers uses small, quick shots showing action and horror scenes to engage with a wide audience to bring in many viewers.



The trailer employs many horror camera techniques which I think have all been very successful. Shots such as the canted angle of the two female characters running is very horror styled due to it breaks from the average on the level shots used and creates a feeling of uneasiness and mystery. On the canted image we also used a high exposure to create a strong visual effect which makes the image visually more interesting. The clip of Bloody Mary walking down the stairs uses a lack of light as a key cinematic feature to create the haunting effect of Bloody Mary further.

My product teasers the audience by showing different parts of the narrative such as interior shots which feature at the climax of the film mixes with exterior shots at the beginning of the film. These work because they leave many un-answered questions: who is protagonist looking off screen too? Who is running and why are they running? Who is hanging from a tree? All of these un-answered questions will make the audience want to watch the film and find the answers. The fact that the story is based on folk laws and myths, it adds a sense of realism to the film and an idea of actual horror and a true story appeal to the film these would make hardcore horror fans, who enjoy the bloody murders and the on-the-edge of seat fright, interested in the film. Another technique used is quick cuts, these keep the pace of the trailer as fast as well as showing many parts of the film quickly without giving things away.

The use of un-answered questions, quick cutting and the mixes of interior and exterior shots all are conventions of teaser trailers as they show the film with a small part of narrative before showing fast shots of the other parts of the film. These all tease the audience with many hooks to come and watch the film.

Comparions One
Originally uploaded by jamesgarwoodsmedia

These are the first five comparisons between my trailer and the already existing horror trailers.

(Stills from Bloody Mary on the left, with other trailers on the right).
CLICK ON THE STILLS TO READ THE ANALYSIS.













These are the final four comparisons between my own trailer and existing ones, along with a small summary in the grey section at the bottom. CLICK ON THE STILLS.

Comparions Two
Originally uploaded by jamesgarwoodsmedia