The document discusses the goals and techniques used in creating a horror film and corresponding promotional materials, including a poster and radio trailer. It aimed to entertain audiences through thrills, suspense and fear while also exploring supernatural themes and psychological elements. Both the poster and radio trailer were designed to attract interest in the film and entice audiences to watch without revealing too much of the plot. The poster uses ominous imagery and a dramatic visual style while the radio trailer employs an eerie tone, snippets of dialogue and a cliffhanger ending to intrigue listeners.

1. By Ellisha Summer Clapham

2.  Due to the fact that the genre of our film was a ‘horror’ and
the sub-genre was a ‘thriller’, the audience pleasure that we
were attempting to achieve was exhilaration, anticipation and
fear through our climactic narrative. This adheres to Richard
Dier’s theories of entertainment: intensity as our characters
experience intense lows, energy as a result of our array of
fast-paced shots, and transparency through our use of
flashbacks to show our protagonists true thoughts and feelings.
The point of our story line was to hopefully challenge the
audiences perception of their individual superstitious beliefs as
we explore the concept of the supernatural, and keep them on
the edge of their seat with our non-linear, complex storyline
which contains psychological elements. In addition to this, we
wanted to scare the audience with our impact cuts and
gruesome scenes (like Agnes’ hanging scene, for example). This
supports the ‘Uses and Gratifications’ theory, considering the
purpose of our film was to entertain. We did include some
serious topics in our film, such as drug abuse and violence,
therefore the BBFC age rating of a 15 certificate will hopefully
project a positive, moral message to our mature audience.

3.  The purpose of our poster was to advertise our film in a
positive way; attracting an audience to want to watch
our film. We wanted to include the name of our film
(‘The Intruders’), the release date, the BBFC age rating
(a 15), and the production credits written in fine print at
the bottom of the poster (Ellisha Summer Clapham:
Director etc). These factors are evident in all film
posters, therefore, in order to make our poster realistic
we had to abide to these rules. We feel that we
reflected the same purpose in our poster as we did in our
film: to entertain, thus reflecting the obvious horror
genre with our choice of a black and red colour scheme
to reflect this. Before designing the poster for our film, I
conducted detailed research into the purpose of film
posters and presented this in another Powerpoint
presentation, then I used slideshare to embed it into a
blog post. Please click on the link to view:
http://bca2media2015group9.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/re
search-into-film-posters.html

5.  Firstly the overall red and black colour scheme enforces our horror genre as these
are stereotypical colours associated with ‘horror’.
 The forest photo used as a background was actually taken when filming our
infamous ‘hanging scene’; an iconic scene in our film as this is what the plot
centres around.
 “Coming to a cinema near you” informs the audience that our film is a new film.
 The fact that we featured a five star rating from a well known newspaper means it
gives our film a positive appearance- making any fans/ readers of the ‘Daily Mail’
want to watch our film.
 The capitalisation of the font of the name of our film attracts the eye of the
audience- ensuring they remember the name for if they want to conduct any
research into reviews or the film itself on the internet, or plainly for if they want
to watch it in the cinema.
 We made the age rating of a 15 clearly stand out amongst a black background to
inform the audience whether the film is suitable enough for them or not.
 Including images of the cast gives the audience a taste of what may be in our film-
as well as reflecting the ‘horror’ genre considering they are scary images.
 The production credits at the bottom of the poster include our chosen distributor;
the renowned ‘Momentum Pictures’. This already creates a potential audience of
people who may want to watch our film based on this companies previous success
in horror films before it, like ‘The Woman in Black’.

6.  We were particularly inspired by this particular poster from the horror film 'Sinister' when
designing our own as it shares the same genre as our film, as well as a similar storyline; they
are both horrors containing supernatural elements.
 The text at the top of the image reading "from the producers of paranormal activity and
insidious" entice the audience who have watched and enjoyed these previous films into
watching 'Sinister' due to the fact that it suggests that they will equally enjoy watching this
film also. We used this same technique in our own poster as we featured a ‘five star’ review
from the popular company ‘The Daily Mail’ which projects a positive view for our film.
 The fact that the font and sizing of the title of the film "Sinister" stands out from the rest of
the text on the page and the fact that is placed directly in the centre means that the
audience's eyes will immediately be drawn to the title before anything else that they see on
the page. This makes the title of the film memorable. We reinforced this in our poster by using
a large, capitalised font for our title ‘The Intruders’.
 Due to the overall colour scheme being made up of grey and black colours, (which mirror the
overall 'horror' theme of the film) the main focus is the redness of the blood on the wall
which is particularly striking. As well as the colour red signifying danger which mirrors the
storyline of the film itself, the evil face intertwined in the blood connotes death and haunting
which is also a theme running throughout the film- as is in ours which is why we have also
incorporated the red theme, featuring images of the main characters covered in blood around
the poster.
 Furthermore, the mise-en-scene of the young girl dressed in the white pyjamas presents her as
a vulnerable character as white is a colour which suggests innocence and purity: however,
juxtaposing from this, the white could also be used to represent death as it is also a colour
associated with angels and heaven, possibly foreshadowing a murder that could happen to her
character. In our poster, we presented our protagonist, Agnes, as almost fading away into the
background by using an effect on Photoshop. This enforces the running question of the film: is
Agnes a ghost or not? However the confirmation of her being a ghost is confirmed at the end of
the film, therefore the poster foreshadows this.
Please click on the link to view the ‘Sinister’ poster which I am referring to:
http://bca2media2015group9.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/research-into-horror-
film-posters.html

8.  Here we can see how the theme of the
colour red is demonstrated in each. This
enforces the horror genre in both posters as
this is a colour which connotes death; a
theme in each.

9. A feminine impression is projected in
both; the ‘Sinister’ poster features a
female protagonist, which is followed
through in ours considering the majority
of the characters featured are female.

10.  They both insinuate the fact their films are
modern, exciting products considering that
‘Sinister’ states it is “coming soon” and ours
states “coming to a cinema”; this shows the
film is brand new, creating a social ‘buzz’
about it before it is even released, always an
advantage for producers when attempting to
achieve a high number in the box office.

11.  However, there are some contrasts. The
producers of ‘Sinister’ decided to take a
minimalistic approach to their poster-
possibly in order to make a statement and
draw attention to the intertextuality of the
demon face drawn in the blood on the wall.
On the other hand, we decided to make our
poster a statement in itself; by making it so
dramatic and filled with images that it makes
it difficult for the audience to take their
eyes off of it.

12.  We also included a 5 star rating from a
popular newspaper, ‘The Daily Mail’, in order
to potentially spark interest for our
upcoming film and create popularity-
however the ‘Sinister’ poster does not
exorcise this, instead it promotes their
producer to spark interest instead.

13.  Furthermore, the ‘Sinister’ poster appears to
take place indoors- in assumption from the
plastered wall and the floorboards which are
both painted white. This creates a feeling of
confinement within this poster, acting on the
fear of any claustrophobic audience
members and presenting feelings of being
trapped. However, our poster clearly
features a background image of a forest
which, alternatively, presents feelings of
being lost or abandoned in the wilderness.

14.  The purpose of our radio trailer was similar to
that of our poster: to advertise our film in a
positive way. However, considering the radio
trailer is a different platform to our poster it will
be approaching a different niche of audience as
it will only be played on certain radio stations at
certain times of the day, (after watershed due
to the fact our film and products related are of
the horror genre). Also, considering there is no
visual elements to our radio trailer- like there is
in our poster and film- it evokes new senses in
the audience and creates the same climax as
experienced in the narrative of our film. Overall,
we wanted to give our audience a taste of what
may be expected in our storyline, without giving
too much away.

15.  http://bca2media2015group9.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the
-intruders-radio-trailer.html
 We wanted to tease the audience by leaking dialogue from
our actual film into the radio trailer, as well as a recorded
voiceover spoken by our protagonist, Agnes, which gives
away some of the storyline a bit more than our poster does
and the rhetorical questions used in the voiceover intrigue
the audience.
 The sinister background music creates an eerie tone,
which reflects the horror genre of our film.
 The large gasp taken from the dialogue of our film creates
a cliff hanger given it’s placement at the end of the radio
trailer; it leaves the audience thirsty for more, enticing
them to want to watch our film.
 Various sound effects used such as the loud noise of people
stomping over some gravel create tension and keep the
audience on the edge of their seat.

16.  We were inspired by the audio of the 2014
horror film ‘Oculus’ to make our radio
trailer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L
lZh2aywuMk
 We feel the radio trailer provides elements
and stimulates senses (like the tension
building brought on by the sinister music)
that our poster can’t.
 Therefore we are appealing to a wide
audience considering we are using different
platforms of media to advertise our film.

17.  The generic ‘horror’ style music used in both
our radio trailer and the one from ‘Oculus’
both create tension for the sinister storylines
which they are advertising, stimulating fear
in the audience alongside the fearful
dialogue.
 Both leak the possible plot of the films,
without giving too much away- just enough
to keep the audience on their toes for the
films release.

18.  The main goal we wanted to reach was to make our film as thrilling, climactic and
frightening as we could in the five minute time limit we were given. As well as this,
we wanted to challenge peoples superstitious beliefs with all of our products-
considering our storyline revolves around the supernatural. We referred to this
topic in both our radio trailer and poster design. In our radio trailer, the voiceover
asks the rhetorical question, “have you ever thought someone was watching you?”.
This instantly evokes fear and anticipation into the audience, especially teamed
with our frightening music. Also, on our poster we utilized supernatural elements
by using Photoshop to edit a ‘slit throat’ onto one of the characters featured. This
instantly creates the perception that this character is the ‘walking dead’, if you
will, projecting a ghostly atmosphere with this product. These two elements, along
with our film, project an overall sinister, ghostly atmosphere which is perfect
considering our ‘horror’ genre and the topics of drug abuse and murder which we
explore.
 We feel very successful in the fact that both our radio trailer and poster reflect our
horror genre. We know this because the audience questionnaire on what genre of
film our poster and radio trailer were advertising- and better yet any possible
topics they thought might be featured in it- resulted in 18 out of 20 people guessing
it was a horror and that it featured supernatural elements, based on the fact some
members of the audience responded with the fact it looked like it may contain
“ghosts”, “murder” and “poltergeists”- which of course, the film itself does.