The document summarizes how the author analyzed professional horror trailers to select effective shot types to recreate in their own trailer. They selected shots from trailers like The Haunting of Helena, Holla, Mischief Night, House at the End of the Street, The Intruders, and Nightmare on Elm Street. While some shots were directly recreated, others only served as inspiration. Audience feedback also led the author to research and recreate the intertitles from the Smiley trailer to improve their own.

1. Comparing my trailer to
professional products

2. In my blog in a post labelled “Researching trailers and shot types” I
explained how I researched and analysed a variety of different
horror trailers:
• The Haunting of Helena
• Holla
• Mischief Night
• House at the end of the street
• The intruders
• Nightmare on Elm Street
After doing this I selected certain shots from each trailer that I
thought were effective and that I could recreate into my own as I
was struggling for ideas.

3. The Haunting of Helena
Shown above is the shot type which I selected from ‘The Haunting of Helena’
trailer which I decided to try and recreate into my own trailer, however on the
day of filming the fake blood prop which I had previously used in my rough cut
trailer and film poster had been misplaced, and I thought using Ketchup would
look too unrealistic and would not be as effective so unfortunately I did not
attempt to recreate this shot.

4. Holla
Shown on the left hand side is the shot type which I selected from the trailer
for ‘Holla’. On the right hand side is the recreation I made for my own trailer.
In order to recreate this I had my actor wears black shoes similar to the ones
shown in the professional trailer. I also had my actor open to door slowly but
only slightly to make him seem more creepy.

5. Mischief Night
Shown at the top is one of the shot
types which I selected from the
trailer for ‘Mischief Night’. I felt
researching this trailer was very
useful as it’s storyline is similar to
mine as is it main antagonist.
Although I did not recreate this
shot in my trailer it did help to
inspire me for my film poster. I
created a film poster (shown on the
left) and the main image was of a
young girl with a gloved hand
covering her mouth, although I did
not use this as my final film poster
it was still helpful to create it.

6. Shown above on the left hand side is another shot type which I selected from the
‘Mischief Night’ trailer. On the right hand side is my recreation of this shot. In order to
recreate this shot I had my main antagonist stand on one side of the window as my
main protagonist opened the blinds on the other side, I selected this shot because I
felt it was very effective in shocking and scaring the audience. However, when I
recreated this shot and looked back at it when editing my final trailer I released it was
not as effective as I had hoped as the shot was too bright therefore not making it very
scary, because of this I decided not to use it in my final trailer.

7. House at the end of street
Shown above on the left hand side is the one of the shot types which I had selected
from the trailer for ‘House at the end of the street’. I found it was very easy to select
shot types from this trailer as I had previously used it for research earlier on while
creating my rough cut for my trailer. On the right hand side is my interpretation of the
shot. When it came to filming I decided not to do a shot of the whole door, I felt that
only doing a shot of the bottom of the door would create a sense of enigma as it would
make me audience wonder who is about to enter it.

8. Shown above on the left hand side is another shot type which I selected from the ‘House
at the end of the street’ trailer. On the right hand side is my interpretation of shot. I
decided to use this shot in my trailer because I thought it would be easy to recreate and
it would make my audience want to find out more and what the protagonist is looking at.

9. The Intruders
Shown above is shot type which I selected from the trailer for ‘The Intruders’. During
filming I did not decide to recreate this shot as I felt it would reveal the main
antagonist too much and would make my trailer lack mystery.

10. The Nightmare On Elm Street
Shown above on the left hand side is one of the shot types which I selected from the
trailer for ‘The Nightmare On Elm Street’. On the right hand side is my interpretation of
the shot. I decided to use this shot in my trailer because I felt it would spark terror in
my audience and make them fear for the protagonist as the antagonist is watching
them when they are most vulnerable, asleep.

11. Shown above on the left hand side is another shot type which I selected from the trailer
for ‘The Nightmare On Elm Street’. On the right hand side is my interpretation of the
shot. I decided to use this shot as is the only shot which shows the protagonist and
antagonist together, therefore making it the perfect shot to end my trailer with, leaving
the audience wondering whether the protagonist survives or not.

12. Shown above on the left hand side is another shot which I took from the trailer for
‘The Nightmare On Elm Street’. On the right hand side is my interpretation of the shot.
I decided to try and recreate this shot as it gave me the opportunity to experiment
with props. However, while editing my trailer I noticed that this shot did not look as
good on a bigger screen, the plastic knife looked too fake, therefore making it lack
professionalism.

13. Intertitles
After receiving audience feedback from my audience for my rough cut one of the
features most commented on were the intertitles which I had created. My audience felt
that the intertitles I had used did not link in well with my trailer and lacked
professionalism.
Shown below are the intertitles which I created and used in my rough cut for my trailer.
In order to solve this I decided to do some research into intertitles used in
professional horror trailers, shown in a previous blog post labelled ‘Researching
Intertitles’. The trailer which I researched are:
• The Nightmare on Elm Street
• Carrie
• Smiley
• The Strangers

14. After carefully researching each of these trailers I decided to try and recreate the
intertitles used in the trailer for the film ‘Smiley’. This is because I felt the red and white
worked well together, as the red connotes blood therefore presenting the horror genre. I
created these new intertitles on a software called Photoshop. The step by step
instructions on how to create them are shown in a previous blog post labelled ‘Creating
my new intertitles’. In order to act my own twist to my intertitles I decided to add a
splatter of blood to the last one which reads ‘No Escape’ as I felt it would help emphasise
the horror of my trailer. I was able to do this by downloading a splatter effect from
www.cgtextures.com.
My new intertitles are shown below: