Exploring some ideas...

I started exploring into some ideas we had about what to include in our teaser trailer...

Children's drawings..

The writing on the walls...

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Child Evil - Research

Since deciding on creating a teaser trailer for the sub-genre of child evil, research was needed to determine a believable child character similar to those in the films below.

A key element was to decide if we were going to cast a young boy or a young girl, therefore we've looked into both genders to establish our decision.

Child evil: The Victims

In more detail, this slide concentrates on the possession of Aiden's mind in 'The Ring Two' as Samara's victim...

And now the mind possession of Emily in Hide and Seek:

Child evil: The Villains

There is a difference between those children who are possessed to be evil and those who are naturally born to be.

These are a few more child evil horror films that we could look into:

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Make Up Trials.

After deciding the narrative of our film in our media meeting, we decided to test some make-up/camera shots and editing techniques. These are the results:

For the make-up on Emily we used talcum powder to whiten her face and thick black eye-shadow and eye liner around her eyes. We made her hair look greasy by making an unnatural centre parting and gelling it down.

In terms of the photography, it was simply done with low lighting against a plain dark wall with the camera flash. The editing was done on 'iphoto', where we were able to adjust the contrast, brightness and colouring.

Narrative ideas

We've decided on the sub-genre of psychological horror.
Linking to recent stories in the news (e.g. Jon Venables) and societies views in genral, we'd like to follow the route of child evil.

This film includes the theme of child evil:

Deconstruction of "The Unborn"

The trailer starts straight away with playing on the audience fears by using an establishing shot of an isolated house. It then shows, what seems to be, the protagonist on her own in the house at night. The use of dark lighting emphasises the fear of the unknown to the viewers and keeps them attached to the screen. The whispering also makes the viewer more aware of what is around them. It plays on the fear of vulnerability and again the unknown. Isolation causes awareness of loneliness. The over the shoulder shot also creates fear of moving around surrounded by nothing. This creates a tense and unknowing atmosphere for the audience filling its potential of a psychological horror trailer.

The sudden tense music quickly alerts the viewer that something shocking is soon going to happen. It also tells the audience that a part of the narrative is about to be revealed. The establishing shot of the city and the protagonist jogging through the woods shows the viewer an element of her 'normal' life, many horror trailers do this after a sudden event to help build the narrative and to show more development of the characters. The shot of her in the shower with her back to the camera and potentially (in the film) the rest of the world, creates and evokes the fear of the unknown.

The use of dialogue in the trailer helps unfold the narrative. "What happened to your eye?" suggests to the viewer that an event\ the narrative will develop from this. It also divides the dramatic music within the trailer. The shot of the little boy which then fades creates confusion for the viewer. It also shows an element of the supernatural which immediately alerts the viewer as it is clearer not natural. The use of fading to black clearly divides each scene showing the viewer a different location and speeds up the narrative.

The sudden change in music and location (the graveyard) warns the viewer that the mood is going to change and more elements of a horror film are going to appear. The flashing images and the high pitch music leaves the viewer anticipating that something eg the pace of the trailer might change. In this trailer the pace slows down and the music become calmer but more tense. The camera angle turning her upside down then seeing herself below her is a very shocking but effective image for the viewer. It has connotations that she is stuck in a different world which is made very clear to the viewer. The extraction of the diegetic sound causes a great effect. It shows the protagonist struggling then the sudden presence of the little boy. This highlights the fear of the evil child.

The credits start as more of the evil child is shown. This increases the pace and creates a cold feel as the writing is on a dirty-white background with black writing which shows a great contrast and stands out for the viewer. The pace then immediately becomes much faster and the flashing images/clips make it clear that the film is shocking. The trailer seems to show the scarier parts of the film towards the end to both shock the viewer and so suspense could be built upon. There is then one last short clip after the title. This leaves the viewer shocked and shaken from the trailer, informing them what type of film it will be.

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Questionnaire

This is our initial questionnaire:

We have used SurveyMonkey and uploaded it to our Facebook and Twitter pages.

1. Please state your gender
Male
Female

2. How old are you?
Under 15
15-19
20-24
25-29
30+

3. Which type of horror film would you prefer to watch?
Psychological
Slasher/Splatter
Zombie/Vampire
Supernatural
Other (please specify)

4. What are your biggest fears? (Please select top 3)
Claustrophobia (inability to escape)
Clowns/Masked figures
Torture
Blood/Gore
Darkness
Isolation
Creatures (e.g. snakes, spiders)
Death
The unknown
Possessed humans/Creatures
Other (please specify)

5. In terms of location, where do you/would you feel most afraid? (e.g. an alleyway, a farm)

6. What is your favourite horror film and why?

7. What key elements of a trailer attract you most to go and see a film? (Please rank in order of importance)
Sound
Directors
Production companies
Actors
Special effects
Gore
Editing
Other (please specify)

8. What would you expect in a horror teaser trailer?

9. What clichés do you not want to see in teaser trailers?

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The History of Horror

1890s-1920s

Horror films started as a simple series of shots. Filmmakers, such as Georges Méliès, were important pioneers of early cinema as well as in the horror genre. Méliès led in the development of a film language based on separate scenes edited together in chronological order. Perhaps his most famous films are 'A Trip to the Moon' ('Le voyage dans la Lune'), made in 1902, and 'The Impossible Voyage' ('Le voyage à travers l'impossible') from 1904. These are considered to be some of the most important early science fiction films, although their approach is closer to fantasy. In terms of horror, this can be traced back to Méliès's 'The House of the Devil' ('Le Manoir du diable') in 1896.
In the early 20th century, the first monster appeared in a full-length horror film in the form of Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
Many early horror films were created by German filmmakers during the era of 'German Expressionist', such as 'Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror' (1922) by F. W. Murnau, which is credited as being the first genuine vampire film.

1930s-1940s
In the early 1930s, American film producers popularized horror films, bringing in a series of successful Gothic films, including 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein', both in 1931.
Universal Pictures' horror films continued with success in the 1940s with 'The Wolf Man', which is renowned for being one of the most influential werewolf films.

1950s-1960s

A shift in technology caused a great shift from the Gothic sub-genre of horror films. They then seemed to fit into two classic categories: the horror-of-armageddon film and the horror-of-the-demonic film.

A stream of low-budget films were created and included ideas such as alien invasions and deadly diseases, though these were mainly imported from Japan, due to their society having first-hand knowledge of these themes.

Filmmakers stated to explore with science fiction and merged it with horror to create films such as 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' in 1957.

A very influential horror film of the late 1960s was George Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead' which blended psychological horror with gore, moving even further away from the gothic horror trends and brought horror into everyday life.

1970s-1980s
In the 1970s, the Devil began to appear in horror films, representing supernatural evil. For example, impregnating women or possessing children, after the success of 'Rosemary's Baby' in the previous decade.
The 60s were also influential in horror films of this time and youths became more involved in the narrative.
The mad-scientist sub-genre was introduced as technology began to take off.

1990s-2000s
The first half of the 1990s continued with many of the trends of the 1980s. However, two main problems meant that horror became less popular in this decade. Firstly, horror wore itself out with non-stop slasher and gore films in the 80s and secondly, the youth audience which were introduced to this type of horror grew up and became less interested. The replacement audience were being entertained with special effects of so-called 'new' cinema.
To reconnect with their audience, horror films began mocking themselves and splatter films came to the extreme.

The start of the 2000s saw a quiet start to the genre, but but still managed to produce a major return to the zombie sub-genre, with films such as '28 Days Later' and '28 Weeks Later'.

In the late 00s, 'Paranormal Activity' (2009) re-introduced 'real-life horror', which bases the storyline on a day-to-day situation, becoming a very powerful and ongoing theme today.

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So... What is horror?

Horror, the most unsettling of film genres, is designed not only to frighten and panic, but to evoke our worst, hidden fears.
Horror films captivate and alarm the audience by creating and stimulating fears such as: Nightmares, vulnerability, alienation, the unknown, death, loss of identity/dignity.

In terms of the characters and plot of a horror film:

- The protagonist is usually the survivor of the film

- The source of evil (killer/demon) often has a trademark in the way they act, eg. the weapon they use to kill

- It is usually 'good' against 'evil' (Levi Strauss' Binary Opposition), and the audience follows the 'good' side.

- The outcome is the 'good' side wins/survives and a new state of equilibrium between the characters is formed.

What horror films are there?

The Grudge, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes, The Ring, Psycho, Saw, The Shining, The Strangers, The Exorcist, Dawn of the Dead

These films are very influential in the horror world and will act as inspiration for our teaser trailer. We will not only be producing detailed deconstructions of these films as examples of narrative, but their teaser trailers in order to construct our own.

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