2. During the research and planning stage, I looked and analysed at least 5
different horror trailers to help myself understand the horror genre. I
analysed in detail the dated trailer for ‘The Last House on the Left’, which
even though it’s an old trailer, was still very effective as I stated in my
analysing. After researching into ‘The Last House on the Left’ and looking
at other trailers, I saw quite obviously that the conventions of a horror
trailer were: a slow building up soundtrack, the soundtracks were usually
very quiet at the beginning and getting louder and more fast paced
towards the end, dark lighting and colour scheme were also a common
theme, camera shots that showed possible killings but the shot usually cut
before we know if they’ve been killed or not, close up shots of the
characters – specifically the murderer/stalker and the victim. I also
noticed that faster editing came into effect towards the end of the trailer
and cuts became a bit quicker, eerie music is also often used in slower
shots to add suspense. Also, in some trailers, a scare shot that is up for a
brief second, is also included at the end.

3. In our trailer, my group and I decided that we wanted to have as many
conventions of a horror trailer to stay true to the genre. We added slow
build up music which also had a very eerie sound and we had faster
paced editing towards the end. When I was directing the trailer, I tried to
make sure that the scenes were dark , we tried to contrast the dark
colour scheme with our costume choice of a pink jumper for our actress
who plays the victim. Another convention that our trailer has is how we
have a mixture of happy scenes which suddenly turn to the more serious
scenes. In between the clips, as a group we decided to insert text slides,
so I added them, they have the film name, release date and text on a
fade to black transition which gives a brief overview of the film. However,
we did challenge the genre by not including any scenes where it
involved someone being possibly killed, we did this as we wanted to add
suspense, and we felt as a group we may not be able to film it and
create it as professionally as we would have liked. We also used a
heartbeat sound effect which is used in horror trailers from time to time to
add suspense, which I feel it added quite nicely to the trailer. At the end
of our trailer we included a scare shot which added even more suspense
to the trailer.

4. My film poster goes against a the convention of a centred image as I felt
this picture was just as effective. I feel this image is very effective and
definitely would not have had the same effect if it had been centred. I
kept to quite a dark colour scheme but I wanted to make our villain look
darker and ‘creepier’ than our victim, I also wanted to make sure the red
lips stood out against the dark surroundings. I felt the red lips added a
sense of humanity to the actress, while possibly suggesting that our victim
overcomes the villain as red, as well as having connotations of blood and
death, it also suggests power.
I also analysed film posters which portrayed the horror
genre conventions. I noticed that their seemed to be a
repeat of a dark colour scheme, which usually had red
and black as an ongoing theme, presumably to
represent ‘blood’ and ‘death’ to correlate with what is
in horror films. The posters also often use an image in
the central of the poster, with a billing block at the
bottom of the poster in the middle and centred. Often,
the poster will also included a quote from the film or
tagline about the film, it sometimes also includes a star
rating given to the film by a newspaper/magazine.

5. Magazine front covers were a bit harder to create due to the
lack of conventions they had dedicated to a genre. Most film
magazines look a various genres and films. I looked into
different film magazines like Empire. Magazines in general
tend to stick to a colour scheme and the colour scheme is
usually based on the costume in the picture. The masthead is
key to a magazine cover, usually to the left hand side or in the
centre at the top of the magazine. The date, issue number
and price are often placed by the barcode which is usually
placed in the bottom right/left hand corner. There are often
key words such as ‘WIN’ and ‘FREE’, often used to sell the
magazine. The main coverline is also the biggest thing on the
page.
My magazine front cover sticks to most conventions, I have the masthead at the top of
the page and to the left, the price and issue number are by the barcode however, I
put the date above the masthead as I felt it looked more appropriate placed there.
The image takes up the majority of the page which automatically makes it the main
focus. The coverlines are on either side of the image. The main coverline is in the
centre, over the top of the image and is a bigger font size than the rest. I challenge
magazine conventions with the unusually dark colour scheme as magazine covers
usually generalise their colour scheme, however I do think this works well.

7. I believe that together, my main product and ancillary texts work well
together and are very effective. I feel this way because all three products
correlate and definitely look part of one package. They have running
themes throughout with similar and same texts used, as well as the same tag
line used throughout. I personally feel that my trailer is effective and works
well considering it was made on a budget. I feel it has worked due to how
well me and my group worked together and used our ideas and skills
effectively. The editing of our trailer is what makes the trailer effective as the
editing is what gives it it’s fast paced and dark theme. I feel as though the
ancillary tasks complete the package as they match well and working on
my own on them allowed me to go with my own ideas while using our group
ideas from the trailers. Overall, I feel as though together they all create a
good package.