2. How does the trailer communicate
Narrative?
The strangers
◼ Narrative – A young couple are randomly selected by three
unknown killers in their house and are traumatized. Conventional
narrative.
◼ The trailer starts off with the equilibrium, the sound is calm and
romantic. A mixture of establishing shots of where the movie is
going to be set, along with montage of romantic shots of candles
and flowers and the man proposing to the lover. Then suddenly the
music gets interrupted by a loud bang (the disruption). The trailer
fades to black with words on the screen ‘inspired by true events’, a
common enticement. As soon as the trailer turns scary, there’s low
key lighting used for the majority of the trailer.
3. How its going to influence out
trailer
◼ Just like in the strangers our trailer will fade to black
quite a lot and include low key lighting and both non
and digenetic sounds. The fade to black will scare
the audience as it will show the mysterious
unknown character briefly throughout the trailer and
keep the audience guessing.
4.
5. Characters
◼ Character – White young couple and unknown
killers.
◼ Setting – The film is based in the couple’s house
and the scenes were were filmed mostly in the dark.
The house is located in a secluded area in the
woods.
◼ Our trailer will also be based in a secluded area in
the woods with no other houses nearby and no
signs of normality just like in the strangers.
6. Editing
I Know What you did Last Summer:
Establishing and tracking shots with long edits with transitions
to show the equilibrium is used effectively (Young people
having fun). A convention of horror trailers.
When the accident takes place (the complication/disruption)
the editing is replaced with hard fast cuts which is reflected by
the non-diegetic soundtrack.
The scenes shown reflect the characters terror and creates
enigma.
8. Editing
Flashbacks has also been used in “I know what you did last summer” for example it shows
scenes from what happened last summer and also shows scenes from the present and this
is really effective because time in manipulated through editing.
This demonstrates how what the teens done in the past is affecting them in their present lives
which portrays to the audience that both the past flashback scenes and the present scenes
are linked.
We are not planning to use flashbacks in our trailer however we are planning to use sudden
flashes/ scenes fading to black throughout our movie because it is a good technique like
mentioned before to engage the audience. Flashbacks inspired us to use this method of
editing as we want to scare the audience using our editing techniques.
9. Sound
◼ In an effective trailer diegetic and non-diegetic sound is used to
build tension and scare the audience.
◼ For example in, I know what you did last summer, In fear,
Scream and The Strangers” screaming is a signifier of the
expected content.
◼ Silence is used when characters are alone and vulnerable,
particularly in Scream.
◼ Lastly diegetic sound (windows/mirrors smashing, car beep) are
effective because noises they make also gets the audience
scared
◼ This portrays that if we want to scare the audience we must use
diegetic sound in our trailer and specific soundtrack and sound
effects.
11. Title and Text
◼ Title and text makes an effective trailer because they
portrayed a lot about the trailers we picked and watched.
◼ For example the ‘In fear’ trailer enables us to fear terrifying
scenes in the trailer. The texts actually portray that the
trailer is “gripping and terrifying” and obviously we expect
that in the actual movie.
In Fear
12. Enigma
◼ Between the three horror films, all three of them have
complex enigma's. However, the most intriguing enigma
out of the three films has to be “In Fear”. Compared to
the other two “In fear” Doesn’t show who or what the killer
is. It rather wants the audience to question who the killer
is.
◼ The other movies already show who the killer is therefore
this does not create suspense making. A scary movie
without Enigma is not effective enough.
13. Excitement
◼ “I know what we did last summer ” creates a sense of
excitement by using fast paced music, jump cuts
◼ Compared to the other two film trailers; " I know what you
did last summer" creates a better sense of excitement
because of how the trailer has been edited and the type
of soundtrack they played. It makes us feel as if you're
amongst the the characters.
14. Engage the audience
◼ In the "Scream" trailer the main question the filmmakers
wanted the audience to ask is " why is this killer
murdering these teenagers"? This engages the audience
because it does not portray the trailer’s motive at all. It
creates suspense and keeps the audience guessing.
15. Why we chose these trailers?
◼ We chose these trailers because our film is based on
teenagers and all four films have teenagers in them. This
gives a better understanding on how to develop our film
because it has the same elements as we intend to
portray. As well all them have unknown suspects which is
similar to ours.
