Blair struggles with grief after her best friend Abigail is murdered. Unsatisfied with the police investigation, Blair takes it upon herself to find Abigail's killer. The document discusses conventions of the psychological thriller genre that were incorporated into the trailer, including urban settings, low lighting, quick editing, and iconography involving shadows, mirrors and water. Costume and makeup were used to show Blair's deterioration as she loses grip on her sanity while searching for answers.

1. MY TRAILER

2. The Synopsis
Blair and Abigail are best friends but after a
tragic nights out Abigail is violently murdered
by a faceless and nameless killer.
Heartbroken, Blair struggles to deal with her
grief and starts to fall apart. Unsatisfied with
the police’s investigation, Blair takes it upon
herself to find her best friends killer.

3. Codes + Conventions of a
Psychological Thriller Genre
 Low lighting to create shadows
 Low saturation + dull tones
 Use of a hand held camera, creating a shaky effect
 Urban settings
 Quick editing, quick cuts + changes of camera angles,
these are used to give a sense of confusion.
 Iconography: reflective surfaces e.g. water surface and
mirrors, make-up deterioration as the film progresses.

4. Mise-en-Scene
Psychological thrillers are generally set urban locations such as empty
streets and isolated areas.
The make-up and costume can be used to show a deterioration in the
physical appearance of the characters.
The iconography generally includes shadows, water, mirrors and street
lamps.
We conformed to the convention of having our trailer set in an urban location
because we filmed our trailer in London. We showed this through a
collection of shots. For example, the shot below of Blair and Abigail on the
London tube and the time-lapse scene where you can see the London
skyscrapers.

5. Location
Most Psychological thrillers have lots of shots in isolated empty streets,
this adds a build up of suspense and tension, it also gives an eerie
vibe to these scenes.
We conformed to this idea because we wanted to emphasise the dark
atmosphere and highlights how the main characters personality
disorder has forced her to become more isolated.

6. Make-Up + Costume
Here we used the deterioration of Blair’s physical
appearance to portray her mental break down after her
best friend has been taken away from her.
In the picture below her hair and make up are quite messy
showing her lack of interest in her appearance.

7. Iconography
We tried to add as many shadowy scenes as we could in our trailer
which you can see in the images below.
The many shadows across Blair’s face portray her as being quite
suspicious and mysterious.
A common theme in psychological thrillers are the use of mirrors and
water to show distorted reflections.The over the shoulder shot we
did of Blair punching the mirror suggests that she is disturbed by her
own reflection.We also shot a scene of her screaming underwater to
show her loosing grip on her insanity.

8. Quick Editing + Hand Held
Camera
Shot most of our trailer using a hand held camera to create
a shaky affect in the scenes.
This really helped emphasised the mental instability of our
main character because it makes the audience feel like
they are seeing the world through her eyes because you
can see everything around her being really shaking and
everything looks like it is falling apart.