The document discusses genre and its importance in film trailers. It focuses on a teaser trailer created for the horror film "Where Ever You Are". The purpose of a teaser trailer is to pique interest in the film through hints and a sneak peek at the plot while revealing the genre, title, release date and cast. Genre is important for distributors to target the right audience and for audiences to know if a film aligns with their interests. Horror films in particular rely on well-known conventions like death, blood, haunted houses and stalkers. The teaser trailer for "Where Ever You Are" uses these horror conventions to appeal to fans of the genre.

1. Genre
by Lucas Ryan

2. I am going to focus on my teaser trailer that i
created as part of a marketing campaign for my
film ‘Where Ever You Are’ The purpose of the
teaser trailer is to entice and interest existing and
potential consumers. It is meant to give a hint
and a small sneak peak at the film and show a
potential plotline. It will usually set the genre and
will give relevant information like the release
date and what the film is called, often it will show
who is in the film as well. In short the point of the
teaser trailer is to get people interested in the
film.

3. Genre?
Genre is important to both distributors and the audience when it comes to teaser
trailer.
A distributor could easily alienate their target audience if they don’t explicitly
show the intended genre for a film. For example if the makers of a new horror
film created their teaser trailer that gave off a ‘Rom-Com’ genre then they will
have targeted the wrong people and lost their audience.
Genre is also especially important when making the film as it is. The
horror genre has many codes and conventions such as death and blood. Having
these concrete conventions allows film makers and distributors to easily create
their film and make sure it fits into the genre because there are so many well
known conventions. Everyone knows that ‘a haunted house’ or ‘a knife wielding
stalker’ are horror film symbols. Just how a wizard or a dragon are conventional
of fantasy films.

4. Genre also easily allows the audience to know
whether they will like to go to see that film. A fan of a
fantasy film like harry potter would expect to see
dragons and wizards not knife wielding maniacs or
torture devices like you would in a horror.
If i saw a ghost film i would most likely go see it
because i enjoy paranormal films but i would only
know that from the trailer, if it has a creaking door or
something moving on its own then i will know what
film it is.

5. Neale (1980) states that 'genres are
instances of repetition and difference'
This to me means that within a genre there are certain codes and conventions that
will appear in most films belonging to that genre, as i said on the previous slide. But i
also think it means that a film has to have something different in it to make it unique
or interesting. Take ‘Insidious’ for example it seems like a common ghost film, the
family moves to a new home and start experiencing paranormal activity. But instead
of the house being possessed its their son, which opens up a whole new narrative
making it new and interesting for the audience because they won’t have seen that
before.
In my teaser trailer there are many traditional codes and conventions of horror films
such as the bloody knife and the hooded staler but we also include more unique
selling points such as the young age of the cast and that they’re British. Despite
trying to portray this as a Hollywood film we wanted to keep the cast English to
contrast with the many repetitive American slasher films

6. Lacey's 'Repertoire of Elements : Se
The woods is the setting of our horror films, it represents isolation and being
lost. Just like many slasher films the characters are isolated from civilisation
either in the forest, at a lake or in a house. We chose the woods because it’s
easy to get separated in the woods, there are many places to hide and you
never know quite how far you have gone. It needs to be a location where the
characters will not be able to find help easily, and help won’t be able to find
them easily.

7. Lacey's 'Repertoire of Elements : Ch
The characters we chose also fit with most horror films. The antagonist is
traditionally a male which will represent power and dominance. Whereas his
victim(s) will be younger people mainly female. Both of which traditionally are
viewed as less powerful and weaker. Our lead character is a female but she isn’t
a strong and independent female instead she ends up needing help and gets
captured

8. Lacey's 'Repertoire of Elements : Na
The narrative is one that is often repeated in horror films, whilst some may call
it cliché it’s proven to work and already has a dedicated fanbase. The narrative
is a group of friends away from civilisation who end up getting hunted down by
a crazed killer. It features almost everything a horror would need in terms of
narrative. It opens with a group of friends having fun (beginning) the friends
encounter a problem (middle) the friends end up fighting for their lives
(ending). It’s a very linear story which works well for horror films as their main
intention is to scare and gross out the audience not make them think hard.

9. Lacey's 'Repertoire of Elements : Ico
The trailer contains all the traditional icons of horror films, we have the
blood, the hanging legs, the stalker and the girls running. We knew we needed
all these to make sure it looked like a horror. We needed to try and capture the
fans of this genre but also draw in new ones.

10. Lacey's 'Repertoire of Elements : St
The trailer just like the film would, contains and is predominantly hand held camera
work. The natural shakiness of the camera makes the audience feel part of the
danger, they film like they are within the film. It also contains very fast cuts and blurry
moments which don’t show much detail, this is to keep the viewer interested but also
intrigued. We feature many close ups to show items and expressions of horror. But we
also have made use of long shots to show how open and lonely the environment is
creating a sense of vulnerability and danger

11. Conclusion
I believe that we used genre a lot to target our film, the horror genre is easy in
a sense because of how concrete it is. There are so many icons and codes and
conventions that will tell the audience its a horror. Except thrillers, horrors
aren't usually confused with any other genres because they are so clear cut
and distinctive, It’s easy to merge another genre with a horror like ‘comedy
Horror’ but they still use the traditional codes and conventions of normal
horrors so you can distinguish between the horror and the comedy.
I think our teaser trailer is very successful in appealing to an audience, because
we made sure we used traditional and concrete horror codes and conventions