The document analyzes the styles, music, plots, and editing of three horror film trailers: The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, and Atrocious. The Blair Witch Project trailer uses a dark, gritty style with no soundtrack or stars to portray an amateur documentary. Paranormal Activity switches between footage and audience reactions to scare viewers. Atrocious informs viewers of unsolved murders through found footage and a fast-paced montage of clips.

1. watch 3 trailers for films in your chosen genre (sub genre).
analyse them in terms of their style, music, stars, plot, editing, graphics etc.

2. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT:
STYLE:
-The lighting of this trailer is dark, giving it a grungy/horror feel which
reflects the
conventions of a horror
-The only colours used are black and white; complying with the horror genre
-The cinematography in the trailer is made to look amateur as possible in order to
create the ultra realism. The whole trailer/film is shot in the found footage
style, to make the film look like a real student documentary. Therefore,
this trailer doesn’t stick to the strict conventions of a traditional film
(precise camera angles, shot sizes, zoom, tracking etc.)
MUSIC/SOUND:
-This trailer has no main soundtrack to accompany the film however features
sound effects. This adds to the ultra realism intension of the film
-The sound effects used include screaming, characters in distress and repetitive
music effects (to create tension)
STARS:
-The trailer gives no indication of who is featured in the film, thus giving the
impression the characters are unknown. This is evident as big, budget, different
genre films promote big starts who star in that film.
PLOT:
-This trailer purposely doesn’t give away the plot of the film at all; therefore
this trailer’s purpose is to portray the genre conventions of a horror and,
primarily, to scare the audience.

3. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT:
EDITING:
-There is no conventional editing technique used except for the use of cross
cutting between clips of the film. Used to show the main, scary parts of the film.
-However, also text and music is added to create a professional looking trailer
-Text is also used to to promote how critics perceived the film (good!). Also,
these quotes are written in a conservative way to further emphasise the found
footage style of filmmaking
GRAPHICS:
-There are no graphics used in this trailer as the film is made to look realistic,
therefore no unnecessary graphics are used to make the film look professional and
expensive
-Also, text graphics are used to show the audience the reviews from film/magazine
critics

4. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY:
STYLE:
-There is use of a wide shot to show the audience in the auditorium. Also, during
scary parts of the film the audience is watching, the use of zoom is used to zoom
further into a member of the audiences’ reaction (e.g. hiding face, screaming
etc.)
-The use of night vision is used to show the audience in the auditorium and their
reactions
-Also, the actual film footage is made in the style of found footage; all filmed on
a
hand held camera to add to the ultra realism feel of the film
-The lighting of the film is completely natural (dark) as the audience is in a dark
cinema room, and the film footage is filmed in the dark/night
-The trailer continuously switches from the footage of the film and footage of the
audience. Therefore, the audience of the trailer will feel like they’re on a
‘rollercoaster’ as the trailer is very ‘jumpy’ and frightening
MUSIC/SOUND:
-There is no soundtrack used in this trailer as the films genre is found footage.
Therefore the lack of music creates ultra naturalism
-Also, the trailers style is to show the audiences reaction instead of focusing on
the film
STARS:
-There are no real, big-name stars in this film therefore there is no real focus on
them in the trailer as the audience will lose interest as they won’t know who they
are
-Also, the narrative of the trailer is not primarily about the characters; but to
scare the audience

5. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY:
PLOT:
-The plot remains unknown after watching the trailer
-The function of this trailer is to scare the audience. This is cleverly done by
making the audience feel like there on a ‘rollercoaster’ as the trailer skips from
film footage to actual audience reactions
-Therefore, the main objective of this trailer is to show how the audience
perceived the film (scary, creepy, shocked)
-However, the plot of the film clips is to show how the film is a found footage
film and and made to look real
EDITING:
-The editing used in this trailer is a lot of cross-cutting between the audiences’
reactions and the film footage. This is used to scare the audience and promote
just how scary this film is
-Critics reviews are also added at the end to further promote the scariness and
success of the film
-Also, sound effects are added when switching from text and trailer clip to create
tension and drama

6. ATROCIOUS:
STYLE:
- The film is in the found footage style, therefore the conventional components
of cinematography are challenged in a way that supports the found footage style
of filmmaking. This is done to make the film look like an amateur home
documentary, made by the 3 teenagers
- The lighting is mainly dark to fit with the conventions of a horror; darkness
at night, scary, creepy etc. Therefore, most of the film is shot in night vision
to further convey this
-Wide shot used to show locations of the murder scenes, dog barking etc.
SOUND:
- The main dialogue used in this trailer include the conventional horror;
screaming, shouting, swearing and crying
- The opening of the trailer includes some scary music to promote that this
trailer is of a horror convention. This is also supported by the sped up
talking/screaming from the home footage to create tension and suspense as to what
this could be/mean
-There is also a small snippet of spoken narration at the beginning, used to
inform the audience what the films about
- There is also quite funky, drum-based, fast music played when the trailer shows
pictures of the murder scenes; this creates drama as the music is loud and very
present
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7. ATROCIOUS:
STARS:
-The stars are unknown cast and therefore fit with the conventions of a
horror as horrors rarely use well-known actors as audiences don’t want
to see them portrayed in sinister, scary situations
Therefore, there is little emphasis on the cast as this is not the main
feature of the film
PLOT:
- The main idea of the plot is basically told by this trailer
- The trailer informs the audience of how there has been murders unsolved for many
years; footage has been analysed by police experts etc. We then see snippets of
the footage the police have been analysing and understand what scenarios take
place
-Therefore, with the basics of the plot exposed to the audience, the trailer is
made to scare the audience via the actual story and the footage; not just by clips
of the scariest parts, dramatic music, fast pace cutting between clips etc.
-This differs from the plot features of ‘Paranormal Activity’ and ‘Blair Witch
Project’
EDITING:
-The beginning gives a title informing the audience of the title of the
film and a definition of the film title; in relation to the film
-The use of titles is also used to explain the story of the film, e.g. “the
most horrific murder of the last ten years have gone unsolved”
- The style of using the clips of the film is used in montage format as there is a
wide variety of clips which the editing cuts from every so often in a fast format
to the show the main aspects of the film
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- There is also the use of running the ‘tape’ backwards to give an effect of the