A2 Media - Horror Trailer

1. Careful Use of
Mise-en-scene

2. Make-up and Clothing
For the makeup of our villain, I chose to use dark colours to
make her face look dull and abnormal. I did this by using a
horror make-up palette and used the colours purple, black
and red under her eyes, to create a bruised effect. As the sub-
genre for our trailer was exorcism, I researched the different
types of looks I could give her. I looked at both, images and
YouTube videos for inspiration. The video which really
intrigued me was the exorcist makeup tutorial due to its
detail and the fact that it looked very realistic. I decided to do
something similar by creating scratches on the villain’s face,
like I had seen on the video. To create the scratches, I used
fake clotted blood and applied it using a cotton bud, which
resulted in giving a very raw look, as this is what we wanted.
We chose to use dark clothing for the villain, as that’s what is
typically used in real media texts and we wanted to follow
conventions. We used a long black dress as black connotes
death, evil and danger.

3. Indoor Filming
We filmed majority of our trailer inside the house, as looking at real
media texts, we observed that that’s where most exorcisms/possessions
would take place. The most common room in which we filmed was in the
bedroom, as that’s where most of the narrative was based. We also
filmed in the toilet, hallway, kitchen and living room as we wanted to
show our audience a variety of scenes set in different places.
Furthermore, we usually started filming after sunset as we wanted the
lighting outside to stay the same, as otherwise, it would affect the
lighting inside the house, and wouldn’t seem consistent.

4. Props
We used 3 main props in our trailer, which made our
filming look distinct. The first prop we used were candles,
as they created an eerie feel to our scenes. I think the use
of candles worked very well because not only were they the
only source of light we used in most of our scenes, but they
also gave the room a sinister look. The second prop used
was a knife, as we needed to include a murder weapon, due
to the narrative of our story. We added some fake, runny
blood on the knife and around it to show that a murder
had been committed. We chose to include this as we
wanted to create suspense and intrigue the audience. We
also used a crucifix in one of the scenes, as we wanted our
trailer to have a religious aspect to it, as that is what we
noticed was often used in real media texts. In the scene,
the crucifix was also covered in fake blood, as we wanted
to portray the idea that no one is safe and that anything
can happen to anyone.

5. Outdoor Filming
We filmed a few scenes outdoors, as we wanted different events in
our trailer to happen in different locations, for example, the chase
scene. We chose to film this particular scene outside as we wanted
the trailer to look realistic as possible. The lighting outside fitting
very well with our sub-genre as the scene looked quite dark and
mysterious. We didn’t have many outdoor scenes included in our
final trailer, as the majority of the events took place inside the
house, due to the house being a major part of the narrative.

6. Outdoor Filming
We filmed a few scenes outdoors, as we wanted different events in
our trailer to happen in different locations, for example, the chase
scene. We chose to film this particular scene outside as we wanted
the trailer to look realistic as possible. The lighting outside fitting
very well with our sub-genre as the scene looked quite dark and
mysterious. We didn’t have many outdoor scenes included in our
final trailer, as the majority of the events took place inside the
house, due to the house being a major part of the narrative.