The document provides an evaluation of a trailer for an art house horror film. It analyzes how the trailer uses, develops, and challenges conventions of real media products. It discusses how the trailer uses fast editing and music to build tension, features a clown as the antagonist, and has an innocent beginning that gets progressively scarier. However, it also challenges conventions by not showing violence or having a clear narrative or dialogue. The evaluation analyzes the trailer's poster and website as well, noting how they develop conventions through their designs but also challenge them by omitting typical information.

1. E V A L U A T I O N

2. I N W H A T W A Y S
D O E S Y O U R
T R A I L E R U S E,
D E V E L O P O R
C H A L L E N G E
F O R M S A N D
C O N V E N T I O N S O F
R E A L M E D I A
P R O D U C T S ?

3. U S EFORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL
MEDIA PRODUCTS
● Clown character a
stereotypical horror
film character, as seen
in Stephen King's
horror 'IT'
●Based around and hinted at
the theme of murder and death
through titles
●Titles create a sense of fear
and worry, building up from
innocent headline 'Excitement
builds as hit show Cirque comes
to town' to then the headline
'mystery deaths at local
travelling circus', to finally
'police warning – stay inside and
lock the doors'
●Circus quite a creepy setting/location as there is
the juxtaposition of its innocence and also relates
to the way things like dolls and children are often
used in horrors
●Fast paced editing, fast cuts, thrilling and scary to
watch, in conjunction with some slow mo shots
and some quick shots, keeps audience on edge
and interested

4. U S EFORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL
MEDIA PRODUCTS
●Main antagonist/villain – the clown,
featured a lot in trailer therefore this is
clear
●Fast and close up shots of clown is
quite startling, especially the shot with
the hand on the door, starts off slow
motion and then the clown suddenly
swings around the door and is a lot
brighter, shocking the audience
●Creepy clown costume blowing in the wind,
shadows walking - iconography
●Man running evokes a sense of fear and
that something is happening, this has also
been sped up, making it even more frantic
and scary
●Point of view shot at the end
makes audience feel as if they
are there, this can been seen
because of the hand of the
camera holder in the end shot
– hand held shot, makes
audience uneasy, not sure
what's happening and not in
control
●'Coming to a town near you'
evokes fear from the
audience

5. U S EFORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL
MEDIA PRODUCTS
●Someone screaming at the end, sounds
like they're in danger, real life sounds
●Sound effects – evil laugh to go with
laughing santa puppet, child and woman
screaming
●Music changes – change in feel of music
as it gets scarier, builds suspense, typical
of a horror trailer
●Beginning is quite innocent, shots of circus in
daylight, audience's walking, upbeat music – a
disruption of normality
●Change in lighting as trailer progresses, getting
scarier

6. Cabin in the woods (2012)

7. Scream 4 (2011)

8. D E V E L O PFORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF
REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS
Most typical horror film trailers, conventionally,
have titles narrating the plot in some way. In our
trailer we have used this idea but adapted it
slightly since our trailer is for an art house
horror trailer. We have included newspaper
clipping style quotes to narrate the storyline
and narrate the trailer loosely. This is quite a
unique way of doing so but we have still
included the convention of using titles, but have
adapted it to fit our trailer's more specific style
of horror trailer.
We have also taken the idea of using sound effects but have adapted it to our own specific trailer by
overlaying them with other soundtracks, and also overlaying different pieces of music, to create a whole
new soundtrack altogether. We have made them our own and put our own spin on them. An example of
this would be the classic circus theme tune which we then overlayed with another piece of more sinister,
scary sounding music so that it wasn't too jolly.
Haven't started with slow paced shots at the beginning as such but have used a variety of quick, fast cuts
and shots with slowed down slow mo shots and cuts, and have used music to aid the pace and level of
tension.

9. C H A L L E N G EFORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF
REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS
Because this trailer is an art-house horror trailer it does challenge quite a few forms and conventions of typical horror trailers:
●No appearance of any weapons, blood,
gore
●Challenges typical convention of a horror in
that we are only really introduced to the villain
of the film and hardly any other characters,
apart from the audience which are hinted to
be the victims, and the ringmaster who is also
hinted to be some kind of evil character
●Not a very clear
narrative to the
trailer, keeps
audience
guessing quite a
lot in comparison
to a lot of horror
trailers that let on
a lot of the
storyline and plot
●Unconventional titles in the style of newspaper headlines to
add narration to the trailer and hint more at a plot/storyline
●Titles are simplistic and quite arty in design, challenging typical
horror trailer conventions
●Quite a lot of colour, usually more darkness
in a horror, but this adds to the
hecticness/circus feel and art house genre
●No
dialogue
from any
characters

10. C H A L L E N G EFORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF
REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS
●Fast cuts from the beginning, usually in typical horror trailers there would be a
slower build up of longer, slower shots building up to faster, energetic shots to
create suspense
●No shots of anyone being killed or injured by the clown, not very obvious in
showing to the audience that the clown is a killer, but lots of hints instead, with
shots making the clown look evil through close ups, lighting (transition to red
lighting in last shot)

11. I N W H A T W A Y S
D O E S Y O U R
P O S T E R U S E,
D E V E L O P O R
C H A L L E N G E
F O R M S A N D
C O N V E N T I O N S O F
R E A L M E D I A
P R O D U C T S ?

12. U S EFORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL
MEDIA PRODUCTS
Billing box, including directors name, actors name, production
company, producer etc.
Dark, black colours
One main image of the main character
of the film, slightly obscured and
fading into the black background
Review quotations and ratings out of five
Production company logos and names
Central, stand out title, in keeping with overall colour
scheme
Tag line 'roll up, roll up'
Quite a lot of dark, blank space

13. D E V E L O PFORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF
REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS
Typical stars in the ratings are now hexagons, slightly
different to conventional posters
Used idea of artwork on the poster, to relate to being an
art house horror, developed this idea to come up with
unique design that also correlates with design used in
trailer itself
Used a lot of blank, dark space to really emphasize the
imagery and text, makes the title really prominent

14. C H A L L E N G EFORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF
REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS
No actor names
No huge reference to director or author etc
Quite bright, cheerful colours in comparison to a lot of
horror posters that may include reds, greys, dark blues,
smoke etc.
No 'coming soon' tag line
Arty design on image with bright colours used

15. I N W H A T W A Y S
D O E S Y O U R
W E B S I T E U S E,
D E V E L O P O R
C H A L L E N G E
F O R M S A N D
C O N V E N T I O N S O F
R E A L M E D I A
P R O D U C T S ?

16. USE - Release DateUSE – Billing box
USE - Social
networking sites
hyperlinks
CHALLENGE – no actors
names, director name,
producer name etc.
CHALLENGE – No access
to gallery, about the
film section, cast and
crew, soundtrack,
press.
USE – same imagery
and design as poster

17. How effective is the combination of
your main product and ancillary texts?

18. C O L O U R S C H E M E
Very consistent colour scheme of yellow, red and blue, relating to the
clown mask seen a lot in the trailer.
Colours in
ratings, title
and imagery
of poster
and website
Colour scheme also consistent in trailer and titles

19. W H A T H A V E Y O U L E A R N E D
F R O M Y O U R A U D I E N C E
F E E D B A C K ?

20. V O X P O P

21. V O X P O P

22. V O X P O P

23. V O X P O P

24. V O X P O P

25. V O X P O P

26. A U D I E N C E Q U E S T I O N N A I R E S
1.Our peers thought that our establishing shots were to light and un-
threatening so they suggested that we grade the images so that they are
darker and build on the idea that the trailer is for a horror.
2.They said they thought the clown (the killer) is introduced to early on in
the trailer and they think it would be better if he was introduced near the
end to create shock, but our best visual shots have the clown in and we
really like using the spinning tunnel at the beginning as we find it quite
chilling so we will have to discuss what we are going to do about this.
3.They said that they liked how the fast shots were edited but they think
that we should use more of a variation between slow and fast. Perhaps a
slow cut of the hands round the door in slow motion and then a quick shot
of the clowns head close up, this would create building tension then
shock.
4.They liked the titles that had been used but they thought we should
explain more of the story with them, maybe use reviews as titles or a
newspaper cutting with something like “mysterious deaths at local circus

27. H O W D I D Y O U U S E M E D I A
T E C H N O L O G I E S I N T H E
C O N S T R U C T I O N A N D
R E S E A R C H , P L A N N I N G A N D
E V A L U A T I O N S T A G E S ?

28. C O N S T R U C T I O N
iMovie
-added transitions
-rolling effect onto
film title
-inserted titles as
jpegs
-were able to overlay
music, circus
soundtrack and other
scary music
-able to speed up and
slow down clips
-mute clips
-adjusting brightness,
contrast, shadowing,
colouring of clips
Panasonic gf1
digital camera

29. C O N S T R U C T I O N
InDesign Line tool
Hexagon tool

30. C O N S T R U C T I O N
Photoshop
-adding social media buttons
-adding space for the trailer to
be inserted using the
rectangle tool
-inserted release date using
text tool

31. R E S E A R C H A N D P L A N N I N G

32. R E S E A R C H A N D P L A N N I N G
WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER

33. R E S E A R C H A N D P L A N N I N G

34. E V A L U A T I O N
OPEN OFFICE
IMPRESS

35. T H A N K S
F O R
L I S T E N I N G