evaluation question 1 - trailer

1. In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
Jessica Thompson

2. Due to the feedback from our questionnaire, we
decided to make our horror film a thriller. In order
to make ours, we looked at existing thrillers and a
variety of other horror trailers, as well as websites
and posters to see the generic conventions that we
would need to include in our own media product.

3. Trailer
When researching horror trailers, we found that they
had an animated production logo at the start and credits,
as well as the release date at the end, therefore we
incorporated these conventions into our trailer.

4. We also discovered that certain horror film trailers used
captions to inform the audience as well as breaking up
different scenes. Therefore, we used various captions
throughout our trailer as opposed to having masses of
dialogue as there doesn’t tend to be a lot of talking in
horror films. The captions were also in keeping with the
horror theme as we made the font distorted/appear and
disappear as well as them being on a dark, scary
background.

5. During the start of our trailer, we used longer, more continuous
shots which show that everything is calm and relaxed. As the
trailer progresses and the danger/horror becomes more apparent,
we used fast cuts, short clips and more cut to blacks. These
editing techniques add to the tension and make the trailer appear
scarier. This is a common convention that we found in most
horror films. It is clearly seen in The Purge: Anarchy trailer.