This document discusses how the filmmakers applied key media concepts to their horror film trailer idea during the research and development process. They analyzed representation, narrative, genre, audience and institutions, and media language. For representation, they ensured the characters fit common horror film stereotypes. For narrative, they refined the plot based on research of similar films. For genre, they determined the revenge horror categorization best fit the revised narrative. Audience and institutions research provided context but did not directly impact the student film trailer idea.

1. HOW HAS RESEARCH
IMPACTED ONYOUR IDEA ?
Apply the 5 key media concepts to your trailer idea.
Representation
Narrative
Genre
Audience and institutions
Media language

2. Representation
The representation of our characters became more important to us the more we built up the narrative of the characters.
Because our characters were the group of stereotypical teens in a horror film we needed ours to also carry the same traits
commonly found in horror films
When Creating the initial idea for our film trailer we didn’t take into consideration the types of roles our characters would
play to represent the stereotypical roles portrayed in films. An example of this is how women are represented in horror
movies, when we first created out characters although we had a mix of male and female characters they didn’t fill the roles
they needed for it to be obvious they were females characters in a horror film. Because of this we went back and looked at
our characters and how we could change them to fit the roles they needed, First we changed the name of our now ‘final
girl’ to an androgynous name (Sydney) to create the traits of the final girl. We also made sure her role in the story and how
her fate plays out fits the narrative but also fits her role of the final girl. We also took a look at our other female character to
see if we could make her fit the traits of the flirty sexually represented girl but because of our narrative decided not to do
this because of the role she already fills in the narrative. We did however take into consideration what names we use
because of her character giving her first more ‘innocent 'personality a more innocent name.
We also decided to look at the male characters in our movie also giving there characters traits so they fit into the
stereotypes of the horror genre. For example we changed one of our male characters to a more heroic character helping
the ‘final girl’ to survive to the end of the movie.

3. Narrative pt. 1
Narrative is another thing that once we looked more into our idea and the story we wanted to tell we needed to slightly
change or in some cases completely replace in order to create a narrative that not only makes a good story but made
sense in the horror genre.
The original synopses of our horror story once we decided one the one we wanted to use told a horror story of revenge
however the order we had things on as well as the way we told it sometimes either didn’t make sense or just needed to he
shifted around to create a better pace and narrative. Once we had the plot laid out and the narrative relatively done we
still had gaps and plot holes that needed gilling a tweaking to give the narrative and the shots a better horror vibe, this is
also around the time the characters were changed to fit the new horror narrative. To decide how we could make the trailer
have a better horror feel and to give us better shot ideas we watched trailers that told similar narratives to our own. We
started by looking at some generic horror trailers that we though had good shots and editing, after that we moved closer
to horror films about revenge as well as ones that applied to a similar location that we decided to use for out trailer. On
good trailer we found and used in research was ‘The last house one the left’ the story of revenge as well as the location
being very close to the one we are using helped us to create our shots and narrative to have better structure and story
telling, but to not give too much away using interesting and fast paced mixed with suspense shots to keep the audience
watching.

4. Narrative pt. 2
When we were planning our story for the second time we also took into consideration what Todorov, Propp and Strauss.
First of all we looked atTodorov and what he said about the structure of a story and a conventional narrative. This was
helpful to our story because as stated before we were confused on the order of how some scenes should take place but
with the help ofTodorovs theory we were able to get and order that made sense.
When looking at Propps theory though the structure of his theory doesn’t apply to horror films as well as other we still
used the idea of character roles when structuring our characters around the narrative and how the different character
roles are used to help tell the story.The way Propp explains how the characters interact with each other was also useful
because it helped us to set some of the scenes so they were more interesting and relevant to that shot.
Lastly when researching narrative we looked at Levi strauss and his theory on narrative structure. His theory on binary
oppositions helped us to build the relationships between our characters and our villain. His idea was also that media texts
unconsciously reflect symbolic values and beliefs. This idea can be uses to horror films when dealing with hidden means as
well as paranormal settings.

5. Genre
When we first decided on the narrative we were going with we wasn’t too sure what the category of genre our movie
would go into other than it was obviously going to be a horror narrative. Because of how we originally wrote the synopses
without the new added parts with the sister and the idea of revenge we though our trailer would fit into the paranormal
haunted horror genre and we didn’t thing about it too much until we changed our narrative to what it now is. After the
research and change to the plotWe decided that our trailer best fit into the revenge horror category and knowing this is
what really helped us move in the right direction in terms of resect to create all the other elements of our horror trailer to
give it a stronger clearly structured narrative.
We did however decide to keep parts of our initial idea of the young boy being a ghost, so although the narrative changed
not making his character the main antagonist his presents is still important giving the film a paranormal vibe even if the
main genre is still Revenge horror.

6. Audience and institutions
While doing research into films in general as well as horror we looked at how they advertise to the audiences they want to
reach out to as well as how they gain a large following for there movie before its even out to the public. Knowledge Richard
Dyers star theory became very useful her because it became clear that a lot of movies including horror used star theory to
sell there movies because of the actor or actresses following, for example ‘The women in black shaped a lot of there
advising campaign around the lead actor Daniel Radcliff because of his large fan base coming from lovers of the ‘Harry
potter’ franchise. It also became obvious that this is why the film was pushed to only be a 12 rated move, because a lot of
the fans of Daniel Radcliff will be around that age after watching Harry potter.We cant use this in our trailers unfortunately
because its impossible to get an big names, but this research is still useful because we got a look at how the age rating can
be manipulated to get people to watch a movie.
We also researching into how films our advertised to its audiences and how they branch out to other groups too. Movies
that put all of there time into there main audiences often do very well at the box office because they use thing such atTV
and in horrors case good times such as in the evening or things like the internet and social networking in locations that will
reach its audience the fastest such as horror trailers onYouTube videos that relate to horror. Its important to note it doesn’t
always work like this, in some cases movies with massive budgets can advertise all over the place in lots of different ways to
get people talk and get excited about the movie bringing lots of people to the movie anyway.This research although useful
in terms of understanding movies was not helpful directly to out trailer because. One its not a real movie and two, even if it
was most of this advising techniques are too difficult for use to carry out. Because of this Audience and institutions didn’t
really effect our idea too much.