A2 Media Studies Research Max Gilbart

2. Title and Release Date
• This is the crucial information that they want their
audience to know. This is usually featured at the end of
the trailer before the sting so that the audience is left
with the name of the film and when it will be available
to watch which usually includes a scary excerpt to
remember it by.

3. Before the events occur includes a happy family...
• This convention has evolved in time but most horror
trailers I have viewed include a happy family at the
beginning of the trailer. The reason why I think this
element occurs in horror trailers in my opinion is
simply the increase of divorce and single parenting is
now known as a much more common place.

4. Disruption
• Disruptions in Horror Trailers usually comes from a
form of an object in paranormal films. This object
could be small, or it could even be a house. But all of
these objects are either usually cursed with an evil
being.

5. Quick Cut Montage
• This editing technique is used to increase the fear,
heart and tension of a trailer to attract the audiences
attention even more. This is usually combined with
emphasised diegetic and non-diegetic sound to
increase the audiences heart rate.

6. Cut to Black
• This is used generally when there is a fearful situation
arising and to increase the audiences fear/tension even
more.

7. Sting
• This is a small clip at the end of the trailer which
normally comes just after the title, tagline and
institutional information with a stab of sound, this is
intended to frighten the audience and leave them with
a memorable image/video to get them to watch the full
film.

8. Diegetic Sounds Emphasised
• This could include heavy breathing, heart beat or other
quiet sounds to emphasise the silence of the scene.

9. Lighting
• Normally, within a trailer, the theory is usually as the
trailer goes on the darker the lighting is. There are
several ways of lighting on how it can intensify a scene.
A good example of this could be back lighting to make
the antagonist seem more menacing and increase the
tension for the audience.

10. Dark washes over the film
• This also increases fear as no-one in the audience
knows who’s in the darkness.

11. Screams
• This is obviously to enhance the horror in the scene
which could be either showing pain or fear of a
particular character.

12. Particular Camera Shots
• For example high angle shots of buildings give off an
imposing feel and this could be the establishing shot of
the scene. Or even an aerial shot to establish the scene
to maybe show an entire town and make it seem small
so it seems hard to escape from. Or even shots looking
up to the antagonist to enhance fear to the audience.
Or on the other hand the protagonist having a shot
looking down on them showing how fearful they are.