Demonic poster analysis

Overview of our film trailer so far.

The generic conventions of our genre which is a psychological thriller are:

•Everything is usually dark.

•Creepy girl who scares/intimidates the teen characters.

•Dim-witted, promiscuous blonde girl who never survives.

•Creepy adult who scares other characters

•Attractive male who’s brave and would risk his own life to save others.

•A struggle of good against evil.

•Evil forces

 

With these in mind we linked into ours:

• A creepy girl who attacks the other teens.

•She is possessed by an evil force

•The location that we are using is a dark scary wood, as we thought that this fit nicely in with our chosen genre.

The definition of a psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the wide-ranging thriller genre. However this genre often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre into the typical traits of the thriller genre.

Our USP is the fact that the little sister turns out to be the villain, this goes against stereotypes as she seems to be caring and sweet like a child should be.

The re-occurring that is consistent throughout our trailer is the strange alien like sounds that occur before Emily attacks her victims.

Possible fonts for our intertitles.

Will reform itself...

^{Will reform itself...}

Will reform itself…

Into the lonely.

Will reform itself…

Taking the animatics

We went out to our location about 11 times and used 3 different places in total (a lake, woods and classroom). Every time we went out to take photos we made sure that each member of our group was available so that everyone felt like they were taking part of this process. The biggest issue we had was the weather as it was very unpredictable and on a couple of occasions we were unable to take photos due to the rain.

Friday 13th Film Poster Analysis

Our group animatics so far...

Media Storyboard.

The Cabin in the woods film poster analysis

The film title “The Cabin in the Woods” is pretty self-explanatory as you expect the film to be based around a cabin that is situated in the woods, the audience will expect there to be a story behind the woods and that’s why they’re going there.

The main image is of a cabin which looks to be never ending, this suggests that there is no escape once you’re in there. It also resembles a puzzle such as a Rubik’s Cube. The image is multi-layered as in the background you have a faint picture of the trees and then the cabin floating on top of them, it creates a code of enigma as you are left wondering why the cabin is all twisted and is some sort of game as it looks like a puzzle.

The poster employs the iconography of a psychological thriller as the main image used is confusing and the colours (black and white) create an airy feel to the poster reinforcing the idea that this movie is a thriller and not a horror as there is no blood or explicit scenes on it.

The film stars in this film are Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Connolly, Anna Hutchinson, Fran Kranz and Jesse Williams. The main actor in this film that most people will know about is Chris Hemsworth as he has previously played the main character in the film “Thor” which made millions at the box office.  This will attract more of an audience as the people who saw “Thor” will be interested to see him play a completely different role.

The poster does not show the stars only the names of the actors at the bottom of the poster.

The poster’s tag-line is “You think you know the story” this suggests that there is more about this cabin that originally meets the eye and that you as an audience are the only ones that are meant to know this information.

The credits on the poster are conventional to a film poster as it has the names of the producers, directors, actors/actresses and the company name “Lionsgate” on it, the film director is not that well known as he has only worked on T.V programmes or low budget indie films such as “Cloverfield” The writer Joss Whedon however has worked on over big projects including “Avengers Assemble” which also consisted of Chris Hemsworth playing one of the main characters, he has won 8 awards making him a well- known writer.

The experiences and pleasures that are offered to the audience is mainly the intellectual puzzles as the pleasure is trying to unravel the mystery behind the cabin and trying to unlock the secret before the characters have. The target audience appears to be 18-30 as the general ages of the cast are around those ages and the plot of the film going by the poster seems to be an intellectual story which is aimed at a slightly more mature audience who enjoy figuring out things.

The film has a well-known actor in it which is the main USP of the film but also what makes it different to other film posters is that they have not put any characters as the main image of the poster in fact the main image is of the cabin distorted as it is all twisted, this marks it out as different because the audience is already questioning the concept of this film before watching it intriguing the audience into watching the film to find out what its about.

The Blair Witch Project, Film poster analysis

I chose to analyse The Blair Witch Project film poster as I like the fact that it is quite clear and basic, I think that it’s good that the main feature is her eyes as they show the fear the best and that the woods are blending in nicely with the cover.

Changes made to our film trailer plot:-

•We added the over the shoulder shot of the Facebook event showing the details of the camping, as we believed it would be a good technique to show in the trailer as it will only be a couple of seconds but will set up the narrative of the plot.

•We decided to change the main male characters name from Garin to Jack as we believed that Jack would fit better in with the plot and is a more suitable name for the character.

 •We have also cut quite a few killing scenes from the film trailer as we didn’t want to give away too much of the plot and still wanted to leave some of the mystery so that the viewers would want to see the full film.

 •We added more scenes to emphasise Emily's jealousy towards Jack and Amy's relationship, so that the audience become more attached to Emily’s character as they feel sorry for her.

 •Added more shots of Emily being possessed as before the audience could've been confused as to whether she was being possessed or had just gone crazy over jealously so we thought this would clarify the story a bit more for the audience to be able to understand.

 •We changed the order of the scenes as we had to choose particular scenes for the trailer that would entice the audience in and make it look the most interesting as possible, for example we left the scene about the curse until the end instead of at the beginning as it created more of a code of enigma , we edited more of the action scenes together as it shows the audience some of the climax's throughout the film.

•We finally came up with the film name which is "Deprived" we thought this was a suitable name as it reflected the way that Emily feels, as she believes that she is being deprived of her brothers attention and highlights how lonely she feels, therefore in return she deprives others of their life.

First draft of our film trailer plot

A group of four friends decide to go on a camping trip to celebrate the end of summer, before they all go their separate ways to college. This is shown on an over the shoulder shot of a Facebook event giving all the details.

There is cheerful music at the beginning of the trailer showing a tracking shot of Jack driving his car to the campsite unaware that his sister is in the back of his car. Once he arrives at the campsite he gets out of his car and hugs his girlfriend. This annoys Emily and she storms out of the car bringing attention to her.

Jack shouts at Emily for sneaking into the car without permission this upsets Emily and she runs off to hide. Once Jack calms down, after a while he goes to find Emily but realises that she is nowhere in sight.

Back at the campsite Tom takes out his camera to film their final time together before they go to college, when he notices a shadow lurking behind the trees.

The next shot is off the group trying to find Emily, when all of a sudden Lauren notices a figure sat the ground with her back towards them, as they approach the figure they realise its Emily but only now she is wearing a white dress and her hair is pushed over her face whilst making indescribable noises.

Lucy asks “Are you ok, Emily?” she simply responds in a strangled tone “Emily’s not here anymore” before she clambers to her feet and charges towards Tom whose holding the camera, pushing him with an inhumanly force before everything goes black and all you are to hear are the whimpers of the scared girls.

There’s then a group shot of them back at the camp sat around the fire, this is when Tom tells the rest of the group about the curse that a little 8 year old girl with schizophrenia murdered her brother not far from the woods, and she supposedly ran into the woods before getting trapped and drowning in the lake. The stories say that her dark side still haunts the woods looking for new victims. He explains that it was meant to be a joke, but Jack is furious saying that it’s his fault that this is happening!

Lauren has been left alone and begins to hear strange noises, afraid she reaches for a torch but panics when the battery isn’t working, she then questions “Who’s there?” but there’s no reply, she then smacks the torch in hope that it will light up but when it comes on she is not so thankful as she is faced with Emily stood in front of her with an evil grin. The screen turns to complete darkness before you hear the painful screams of Lauren shouting for “Help!” before once again the silence is reinforced, the picture comes back and the camera focuses on the torch on the ground covered in blood.

The camera is a bit shaky and unsettled and the audience is only able to hear strange chilling sounds before the camera shows Tom being pulled into the dark helplessly screaming and scratching across the ground trying to get away.

The final scene is of Jack and Lucy stood with their back to the lake, the audience is able to see Emily standing behind Lucy before she puts her hand over her mouth and drags Lucy backwards into the water. The screen then cuts to Emily stood at the edge of the water with her head tilted to side with a sinister smile across her face, she’s hunched over looking almost lifeless, before she suddenly sprints towards the camera with a low chilling scream, the screen then turns dark and the title of the film comes onto the screen for the final shot.

My final Group plot

 

A group of four friends, between the ages of 17-20 decide to go on a camping trip to celebrate the end of summer, before they all go their separate ways to college. They all decided that they would meet up at the Fermwood campgrounds at 5pm on Saturday; Tom chose these specific grounds as they hold a curse of a little 8 year old girl with Schizophrenia who lived nearby, but ran away to the woods after brutally killing her brother, there were rumours that she got trapped and drowned in the lake eight years ago, although her body was never recovered. This led to the tales that she supposedly she still haunts those woods, her dark side still hunting for new victims. Tom believed that this would be a good joke to scare the girls.

Just as Jack is about to leave his house, his parents explain that they have been invited out therefore Jack has to stay in and look after his 14 year old sister, Emily. Annoyed with the fact that they’ve ruined his plans he decides to go out to spite his parents, he waits for Emily to go to her room before sneaking out to his car; he then remembered that he left his torch behind, when running back into the house, it gave Emily a perfect opportunity to sneak into the car as she didn’t want to feel left out.

Once he arrives at the campsite, the three others have already set up, Jack gets out of his car to greet his friends and hug his girlfriend Lucy, this angers Emily as she’s jealous of the relationship that Lucy and Jack have, she storms out of the car bringing attention to her presence. Jack furiously shouts at Emily bringing her to tears, she runs off and hides from her brother. He goes the opposite way to calm himself down.

Back at the campsite The rest of the group build and light a fire for warmth as it begins to turn dusk, Tom takes out his camera to film the girls reaction when he reveals to them the curse, as he starts to film he notices a dark shadow lurking behind one of the trees, confused he brushes it off thinking that it’s all in his head. Jack decides to find Emily and apologise to her as he feels bad for the way he treated her, he begins to panic when he realises that she is nowhere in sight, he sprints back to camp to get the others to help, ruining Tom’s plans to tell the girls about the curse. They begin searching for Emily when all of a sudden Lauren notices a figure of a girl sat on the ground with her back towards them, she tells the group and as they approach the figure they realise its Emily but only now she is wearing a white dress and her hair is pushed over her face whilst making indescribable noises.

There is a chilling silence before Lucy asks “Are you ok, Emily?” she does not respond and when asked again by Jack she answers in a strangled tone “Emily’s not here anymore” as she says this she clambers to her feet and charges towards Tom who’s holding the camera, pushing him with an inhumanly force before everything goes black and all you are able to hear are the whimpers of the scared girls. We then see the group gathered around the fire confused as to what just happened, until Tom breaks the silence and tells the group about the curse explaining that it was only meant to be a joke.

Jack is livid with Tom and blames him for what has happened to his sister, he decides to get up and search for his sister alone as he feels that he can’t trust Tom anymore, but is followed by Lucy who tries to console him. The audience are then faced with a P.O.V shot of Emily watching Jack and Lucy through the trees. This pushes Emily over the edge and she sets back to camp to kill Lucy’s best friend Lauren, Emily waits until Tom leaves to get more wood. When alone Lauren hears are strange screechy noise, afraid she reaches for a torch but panics when the battery isn’t working, she then questions “Who’s there?” but there’s no reply, she smacks the torch in hope that it will light up but when it comes on she is not so thankful as she is faced with Emily stood in front of her with an evil grin. The screen turns to complete darkness before you hear the painful screams of Lauren shouting for “Help!” before once again the silence is reinforced.

Tom comes back after gathering wood to be faced with an empty campsite, confused as to where Lauren is he edges to where she was sat, he notices the torch flickering on the ground and as he approaches it he realises its covered in blood, in a stream of panic he runs for Jack and Lucy unaware he is being followed.

He runs through the trees and spots Jack and Lucy sat on the bank of the lake, just as he’s about to call them he becomes speechless when he hears the airy screeches surrounding him, he becomes terrified and starts sprinting towards the couple until he trips over, he crawls through the mud and is within touching distance of safety when he lets out a scream and is dragged back into the darkness, spooked as to what they just heard both Lucy and Jack stood up looking around, but they  couldn’t see anything.

Jack stands in front of Lucy protectively but is unaware that Emily is standing right behind her and taps Lucy on the shoulder as Lucy turns around Emily covers her mouth and pulls a sinister smile before violently dragging her into the water, Jack turns around after hearing the muffled screams only to be met by Emily standing at the edge of the water holding the bracelet that Jack had given Lucy on their anniversary, her head is titled to the side with an twisted smile on her face,  Jack is shocked and asks “What have you done Emily?” Emily replies unremorsefully “They had to go they were taking you away from me”.

Jack says coldly “This has to end, I’m so sorry Emily” before putting his hands around her throat and tightening his grip, a tear falls from Emily’s eye and breathlessly pleads “Jack please stop, it wasn’t me, I was possessed, stop!” he loosens his grip when he realises that his sister is back, she goes on to say tearfully “I’m so sorry I couldn’t control she was too powerful, I didn’t mean to do it, please forgive me!” Jack thinks over what his sister has said before stumbling back unable to control his emotions. He notices Emily curled up on floor seeming vulnerable, he can’t help but feel like he needs to be the protective older brother and goes over to console her explaining that it wasn’t her that did it.

The final scene is of Emily in her bathroom looking in the mirror, Jack shouts to her asking if she’s ok, Emily replies with a cheerful “Yes thank you, I’ll be down now” before you see her reflection in the mirror as being the possessed version of her, Emily pulls a menacing smile before she whispers “Don’t worry” then it fades to a black screen.

My Media presentation

My group discussion

This discussion is where we shared all our ideas about what we believed what be a good film plot. Lucy's idea was a psychological thriller about a mental institution where they became trapped and one by one were killed off until the final character realised that he had become mentally ill and never escapes from there, although this was a good idea we had trouble of thinking of a location where we could film it.

 

Garin ideas were another psychological thriller about a brother who suffers from schizophrenia who enjoys playing hide and seek with his little sister. They order a take away one night while their parents but the delivery man also suffers from schizophrenia and basically sneaks into the house and begins having a break down, he starts playing a twisted version of hide and seek by killing her brother and chasing her around the house while she panics for her life. The ending is that he realises that it's his schizophrenia that is making him do this and that it was wrong, he gets put in a mental institution for life. The issue with this was that we didn’t have access to the actors/actresses who were those ages.

 

My story was where a group of friends who go camping but doesn’t realise that there is a curse in those woods of a little psychotic girl who murdered her family and died there. She apparently still haunts the woods looking for new victims, one by one the teens gets killed off until there are two characters left, however the twist is that they get arrested by the police for the murders and when they try to explain the story the police treat them as being mentally ill and are section to a mental institution. The problem with this plot is that it is stereotypical to other thrillers and is not very original.

 

The conclusion that we came up with is to incorporate as much of each other’s plot as possible, using my location of the woods as it is easy to access, there would be a group of friends but the main girl has undiagnosed schizophrenia and flips out by attacking her friends, and we finally agreed that there should be a lot of chase scenes to increase the intensity of the trailer.

What is a film trailer and what is it's purpose?

A film trailer is a short promotional advert for an upcoming film that will be shown in the cinema.The trailer is a teaser that will give a little taste of what the film will be like.The purpose of a film trailer is to encourage and entice the audience to watch the film in the cinema, thats why it is important that the film producers choose the best scenes of the film to go into the trailer as it a vital piece of marketing for the film. Film trailers have become increasingly easy to research as you are now able to look on 'youtube' for upcoming films instead of only seeing it at the cinema.

Generic conventions of a psychological thriller.

 

Mise-en-scene: usually set in an isolated area, where there is no communication to anyone who could help them. Everything tends to be in a dark setting so you are unable to make out who or where any of the characters are.

Characters: There are two main characters in a thriller. The heroes are often men who deal with dangers in their everyday life. The villains are also typically men, with a creepy/shady sense about them. In a psychological thriller they are quite intelligent as their able to think of original ways to taunt their victims.

Themes of a psychological thriller: It’s mainly based around something that society is worried about, for example kidnapping and isolation, there also tends to be some scenes that are meant to make the audience feel uneasy for the characters such as a stalking scene. It’s likely to be shown from the victims P.O.V so you can see and feel what they’re going through.

Music: Airy sounds. They mostly use string instruments such as violins and piano to create that chilling effect.  Then when the scene is hitting its climax the music changes to a low dramatic beat to get the audiences hearts racing.

 

My individual film synopsis

GENRE: Thriller/Horror

Research: Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch Project

Target audience: both male and female, ages 15-30

A group of five friends aged 17-21, have just finished College and all they’ve got on their mind is where they can party to celebrate it, unfortunately all the parties that are going on don’t take their fancy. Therefore they decide to organise their own, only problem is they don’t know where to host it, until Callum suggests the old Fermwood camp grounds as it is an old disused camp site with a chilling background story of a family being murdered by their psychotic 13 year old daughter, six years ago. She was later found out to be an orphan, and feeling like her whole life was a lie, she brutally murdered both her parents as revenge, which she so deeply believed she deserved.  Both parents’ bodies were found almost unrecognisable. The daughter supposedly committed suicide in those woods as she couldn’t cope alone, but her body was never recovered, people say her ghost/spirit lives on in these woods taking revenge on anyone who is brave enough to enter. This story only made it more exciting for the teens, who thought it would be fun to find out for themselves if it was true or not.

 However, things take a turn for the worst when they decide to use an Ouija board to channel the dead releasing more than they hoped. When the party gets in full swing Ross and Kate realise the generator is broken, so decide to go off into the woods to find out if there is any other source in the other campsite, unfortunately as they travel further into the woods they begin hearing strange noises and what seems to be strangled screams, frightened they both head back to camp, Kate begins to panic when she realises that they are lost she screams out for help, but as she turns around she discovers that Ross has disappeared leaving behind a blood smeared flash light, terrified and confused she starts to sprint through the forest but trips over a log on the ground breaking her ankle, you see her crying on the floor before she is dragged off into the darkness by something unknown, all you are able to hear is her painful scream.

 Back at the campsite the rest of the group are enjoying the party until they hear the echoes of Kate’s agonizing screams. Callum now feeling like the alpha male rounds up the others to go find their lost friends, when Jade refuses to go after feeling uneasy about the events that have just occurred, Callum callously leaves her behind. Shortly after Callum and Sarah disappear into the woods the airy noises once again surface, Jade becomes increasing scared as the noises increase to its climax as Jade cowers the noises sharply stop leaving a chilling silence. The camera then shows a point of view shot of an evil looking girl screaming and running towards the camera before the shot goes black and once again you hear the excruciating cries from Jade. Sarah and Callum hear the screams, spooked they start running out of the forest to the nearest road but Callum gets caught by a trip wire which slices his leg, the strange noises echo through the forest again, as they give up all hope of ever escaping. Until they see a police car approach they begin to shout out for help, only to realise that the police are looking for them as there have been murders reported.

The two teens are arrested, and when they try to explain what really happened, the police treat them like they are mentally ill and both Callum and Sarah are sectioned, but separated into different hospital wards. No one ever believing them about what was lurking in that forest and who really murdered their friends, until it happens again!

Inkeepers trailer analysis

1.       The genre of this film is a Psychological thriller. 

2.       The audience is able to identify this at the beginning of the trailer from the airy music and darkened out portrait of a woman which looks quite scary.

3.       I think the target audience for this film is between the ages 15-25 mixed gender as that is similar to the characters in the film. It targets the audience well as it tells a background story of why a woman killed herself in this place which I think is a good technique to entice the audience into thinking what made her want to commit suicide?

4.       The film trailer last 2 minutes and 6 seconds which is your average length of a film trailer.

5.       There are 80 shots throughout this trailer. The opening shot of this film trailer is close up shot of a portrait which seems quite old. It then zooms in closer to show you the blank expression on the woman’s face. The next shot is of a high angled shot of the hotel showing that that is the place where it occurred. The camera then focus on a medium long shot of a corner of a room before the door slams shut, this could be representing where she hung herself.

6.       There are quite a lot of fade to black transitions throughout this trailer, I believe this is a good editing technique as its builds up more suspense for the audience as their left wondering what will happen next?

7.       The diegetic sound in this trailer is a mixture between dialogues and sounds effects. The one male character says “I have my microphone so we can make do with EVP investigations” This shows that they are going to try and investigate the paranormal to try and see if the can connect to Madeline (woman who committed suicide) The main female character says “we might have a good chance of catching some real contact” this suggests that they want to paranormal to talk to them and they want a reaction off them. The next piece of interesting dialogue that the spiritual woman says is “They want to live” this shows that want to escape and are going to make themselves known.  At the end of the trailer it hits its climax this is where you hear screaming from the girl before you see her hiding in a room suggesting that something is chasing her. They diegetic sounds are the exaggerated sounds of doors creaking, this shows the age of the building and it also emphasises on the dowser that smashes on the floor this could be representing the spirits escaping and coming to life.

8.       The Non-diegetic sounds used throughout this trailer is the voice over of the girl who is describing the background story of the building and what happened there.  The music  starts of being airy and low beat with a scratchy noise making it seem paranormal, the beat increases each time the screen cuts making each scene more dramatic, The piano plays by itself a chilling tune showing that the spirits are trying to frighten the people. The music at the end is old fashioned jazz music this is to make the audience feel that it was a long time ago when this incident happened.

9.       The trailer represents the characters as being work colleagues who both have a hobby in paranormal activity, The girl is quite young as seems to be quite interested in finding out why the woman committed suicide and if she’s still in the hotel. She is represented as being the main character as she is shown throughout the trailer and the camera mostly focuses on her, she is also shown in of the final scenes suggesting that she survives. Whereas the male character is only shown briefly showing that he isn’t the character that the audience should be focusing on.

10.   The narrative of this trailer is that they go to a hotel where a woman commited suicide because her fiancé left her at the alter and that ever since then people have reporting seeing her roaming the halls looking for a new love. The two characters got there to try and communicate to her but it seems like they get more than they wanted, when strange things start happening and at the end you see weird faces and a man’s shadow doing frightening movements, you then see a stretcher being wheeled out with a body under the sheet suggesting that someone has been killed, before seeing the girl panting will blood on her face suggesting that the thing that they’ve unleashed is chasing her.

11.   What this reveals about the plot is that the woman that killed herself is evil and starts terrorising the characters by  chasing them and killing them, its suggested that the female character survives as she’s is the final scenes, which makes you wonder if the male character got murdered.

12.   The film trailer creates a code of enigma as the audience is left to wonder why the spirit begins to start attacking them, it also sets up the mystery of if there’s any survivors and if so who?

13.   The trailer communicates with the audience by using inter titles such as “there is a secret in every room” this makes the audience feel like they are the only ones who know this and that there is more to this hotel than they first thought. The use of a voice over also makes the audience feel like the trailer is interacting them more in the film as its giving them background knowledge of the hotel.

14.   The mood and expectations of this film is that it will be scary and there will be some suspense scenes for example people lurking in the shadows etc. you also expect there to be some murders and a lot of psychological scenes which plays with your mind.

15.   The camera shots that are used mostly in film trailers are close-ups of the main characters faces to show the emotion of them, there are also a lot of quick pace cutting shots this is so that it doesn’t give too much of the film away but makes the audience want to go and watch it.

16.   The mise-en-scene is constructed in this trailer by the use of costume and the setting of the hotel rooms where the furnishing and wallpaper is dated suggesting that there hasn’t been any changes since they suicide happened and the prop of the blood on the girls face at the end shows that she has been hurt and is fighting to get out.

17.   The film studio has used this trailer to market its product as it uses the most exciting scenes in the film to try and make it the most appealing to the audience as possible, so they will spend money to watch the film in the cinema.

18.   This film trailer is successful in targeting the audience as it uses the unique selling point of a documentary instead of your standard horror movie.

19.   The codes and convention of this film trailer are that its film like a documentary which is different from other horrors, what also makes it different is that they have gone there with the intention of communicating and interacting with paranormal presences whereas in other horrors the characters are clueless to the things like that. However there is a main female character which is usually in every horror film but what makes it different in this trailer is that she is seen as being a strong character instead of being you stereotypical vulnerable character. It also sets the audience up to feel sympathy for the woman who committed suicide which unusual for a horror to do.

20.   I believe that film trailer are an effective promotional device for films as its gives the audience a little taste of what the film will be like, film trailers are also easy to access at any time you want by going on YouTube or searching it on Google and is the most important thing that will entice the audience.

House at the end of the street (2012)

The genre of this film is a psychological thriller. The audience is able to identify the genre as soon as it start from the loud dramatic music and the fact that she looks terrified cowering under a table using it as some sort of protection. It last approximately 2 minutes 5 seconds, which is your average length of a trailer.

The opening shot of this trailer is a medium shot of a girl crouching down under a table her expression suggests that she is shocked as to what she is looking at, the transition used in this shot is a quick zoom into her face so that the audience is able to see her expression more clearly. The next shot is a low angled medium-long shot of the same character smashing a window with a hammer this shows that she could be trying to escape from something that is chasing her. Throughout this trailer there are a lot of fade to black transitions, this could be to build the suspense for the next scene.

The diegetic sound in this trailer is mostly dialogue and screaming or panicked screeches, the male character says in one scene “Listen we have a new neighbour ok, her name is Elissa and her mom just moved in, I want you to leave her alone, do you understand me!” This suggests that he knows what is going on and it seems like he almost has control over the girl that he is talking to. The emphasised noises of the door and floorboards are used to show the age of the building that they’re in. The close up of the clock and exaggerated noise of the ticking suggests that time is precious and the fact that it’s going backwards is significant as it shows the audience that it’s going back in time. There is quite a lot of non-diegetic sounds used throughout this trailer such as the dramatic heart beat sound at the beginning to the screechy, electronic sounds in between the inter titles.

The unique selling point of this trailer is the fact that it shows the ending at the beginning and then goes backwards to reveal the whole story and how they ended up there in the end. This goes against the normal codes and conventions of how a film trailer should be presented.

The trailer represents the relationship between Elissa and Ryan as being romantically involved with one another, as you see them kissing on the sofa. It also shows a mother and daughter relationship who seem to have a close bond as it is just them two who have moved her together, also suggesting that she could be a single parent.

The narrative and what it reveals about the film plot is that they have just moved into the neighbourhood and that there seems to be a story to the “house at the end of the street” you know that the little girl in that house who killed her parents and that is why Elissa and her mum was able to afford the house. It also shows that Elissa could be trapped in that house and is trying to escape, this is shown in the scene where she gets dragged down the hall and then is strapped onto a chair shouting “No” in a strangled scream. This reveals that the plot is surrounding the story about that specific house and is concentrated on her trying escape there and finding out who really murdered their parents there?

The trailer creates a code of enigma as you don’t who the little girl is or why did she killed her parents in the beginning and how Ryan is involved with her, you also are left wondering if Elissa will survive and if there will be any murders. The trailer interacts with the audience through the use of inter titles which are “Before you experience the fear,” “Before you know the pain,”  “To witness the horror,” “To uncover the truth,” “You have to go back,” “To where it all began” this gives the audience all the information without giving too much away and sets you up for the expectations of a good psychological film that tells a chilling back story.

The mise-en-scene in this film is shown with the old house where the murders occurred and the way the girl who killed her parents is presented as she looks deranged with her hair pushed across her face and wearing a long white dress, this is stereotypical of how a girl who plays the evil character would normally look in this type of genre.

A film trailer is a successful promotional device as it lets the audience experience the film first-hand and gets the audience more involved in the film, making them feel like they are part of the experience which is more effective than just reading off a page.

 

The Devil Inside

This film trailer is a psychological thriller/horror about an woman that was believed to be mentally ill and was sectioned into a psychiatric asylum until they found out that she was actually possessed.

A2 coursework overview

This year we have been given the task of making a film trailer for a new film of our genre choice, we then have to complete a film poster to entice the audience to watch our film, then our final task is to produce a magazine cover featuring the film attracting our target audience.