The document discusses how the student's horror trailer fits conventions of the horror genre and horror trailers. It addresses several key points: 1) The trailer uses common horror conventions like the "final girl" archetype and close-up shots to make audiences uncomfortable and fit audience expectations. 2) It subverts some conventions like the "male gaze" by making the female protagonist the driver of the story rather than a victim. 3) Elements like pacing, editing, music, and narrative are used to create suspense and shock viewers in keeping with effective horror trailers. 4) The student drew most influence from Alfred Hitchcock in building suspense and shocking audiences, making the trailer psychological and

1. In what ways does your media
product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions
of real life media products?

2. Section A:
How did your horror trailer fit the horror genre?
Our horror trailer contained many horror conventions that are needed in order to fit
into the horror genre. Thomas Schatz, the critic behind the “Genre Theory” (in his
book Hollywood Genres), said that generic conventions helped to sell movies to an
audience of fans as it gave them clear expectations of what was going to be in the
film allowing for them to understand it. When making our trailer we very much took
this into consideration, ensuring that our trailer was filled with generic conventions,
allowing for us to appeal to our target audience as effectively as possible. For
instance, a large part of camera time in our trailer is the blonde ‘final girl’
archetype, that has become very common with contemporary horror films, shown
by the final girl archetype in Halloween (1978) illustrated by the trailer
https://youtu.be/T5ke9IPTIJQ . This is effective because as Schatz said films
within the same genre should contain similar conventions to meet the generic
expectations of its target audience. However, we did intentionally reverse the
conventions of the ‘male gaze theory’, making the blonde character the protagonist
who drives the story forward, rather than the ‘female victim’ who is sexually
slaughtered like Marion Crane in Psycho.

3. Section A:
How did your horror trailer fit the horror genre?
In our trailer, Maria makes a discovery, solving the uncertainty around her husband
just after kicking him out of the house, she makes all of the decisions in the trailer,
driving it aggressively forward; an example of this is where she shouts “Screw you
then!”, just as he slams the front door. This is further backed up by the fact that she
has the most camera time and is very regularly in the centre of the shot, connoting
her importance. We chose this more feminist characterisation because horror is
growing industry that has a great feel for the always-shifting Cultural Dominant
Ideology, and with equality and diversity being so vital in recent years it was vital to
reflect this in our trailer. Another example of a strong blonde female archetypes is
The Amityville Horror (2005) trailer with the mother beholding these characteristics
https://youtu.be/c5Maq9H1lZ8 .

4. Section A:
How did your horror trailer fit the horror genre?
In terms of cinematography, we were also aware of generic conventions. Another
regular occurrence in horror films is close-up angles because they make the
audience feel uncomfortable. This technique is used very heavily throughout the
film Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) which is shown in the trailer
https://youtu.be/Vs3981DoINw .It makes them feel as if their personal space is
being invaded, just as if they were behind the camera. We used many throughout
our trailer the two with the most impact probably were the one where the knife is
running down the final girls face as blood is trickling down her face and the body
horror of the butchered neck of the psycho killer’s victims. They are both used to
make amplify the body horror, making the audience feel their pain in more explicit
detail.

5. Section A:
How did your horror trailer fit the horror genre?
Throughout the trailer there is also a very strong theme of being loneliness and
being isolated, best shown by the scene where the final girl is being teased with
the knife as the psycho killer runs it along her neck and face. We used these
themes because this is a fear that is present in the CDI; people are so informed
about killers and how they hunt their victims down tactically and carefully in order
for the perfectly satisfying kill. Here we were inspired by Scream 4 (2011) which
beholds the same themes shown in the film’s official trailer
https://youtu.be/Vs3981DoINw .

6. Section B:
How does your trailer fit the conventions of horror
trailers?
I think that when making a horror trailer it is important that have many conventions
working together to produce a successful trailer, one of the most important being
pacing. It is a balancing act between slow editing (which creates all the suspense)
and quick editing (which is what creates panic and jump scares). In our trailer we
tried to make the most of both slow and quick editing with collision cutting, this
combines the two create the best possible montage. The initial slow shots of the
plaiting of hair at the start of the trailer contrast heavily with the car scene located
in the middle. We did find it difficult to get the right balance between the two
different pacing due to the number of shots we tries to incorporate in to the trailer.
To solve this, we added music and took away unnecessary shots, reducing the
time on the inter-titles to maximise the impact of our shots and narrative.

7. Section C:
What auteur influence did you bring to your trailer?
What makes it distinctive?
Despite our use of minor body horror, our film is primarily psychological and
explores the mind of a murderer. This aspect of horror films I find very interesting
and something that I very much tried instil into our trailer. This is why I think I have
taken most influence from auteur Alfred Hitchcock; he had a very good eye with
building suspense and shocking his audiences with the use of collision cutting. A
scene where Hitchcock does this very effectively is in the final attack scene in The
Birds (1963) https://youtu.be/Lw0FP9putKM . He also had a very weird way of
showing his attractions by making actresses’ uncomfortable and only having
blonde actresses’, which was what stemmed the original idea for the storyline of
the trailer.

8. Section C:
What auteur influence did you bring to your trailer?
What makes it distinctive?
Andrew Sarris’ “Auteur Theory” is something that I very much stick by as he said
that what made the best directors was their auteur influence, he said that the
majority of a film was made up with technique then the style and then the internal
meaning; the part where directors would get across their beliefs and feelings. I
think that this is especially important because anyone can make a film but getting
across your feelings with effect is an art, and that is why I wanted to make sure the
pacing on this trailer is as effective as possible. A trailer that uses pacing especially
well is Shutter Island (2009), the use of collision cutting gives the trailer a great
flow allowing for the montage to become a lot more effective. Pacing is the crucial
part of a horror trailer and I think without it the trailer becomes ineffective. I also
think this applies to the body horror, because poor effects indicate the film has
been made on an overly low budget. These are the two factors that are most
important to me and the ones that I wanted to make sure were effective to
represent my attention to detail and realism.