The Blair Witch Project Black Crow Woods(ours)

Including the production companies not only adds to the trailer looking professional, but it looks effective when the trailer begins. We edited the production company logo more than what was used on the poster for the film, such as texture, colour and glow effects. I believe conforming to this helped our trailer stand out on a more professional level, along with the ‘this trailer is approved for all audiences’ screen we added this screen:

The Blair Witch Project Black Crow Woods(ours)

The title of the film in both trailers are quite clever. The Blair Witch Project’s title is linked to what happens in the film, a group of filmmakers go to discover about the legend of the ‘Blair Witch’, as is ours, ours is is the name of the location. I believe ours works as a horror as it sounds scary. In terms of the title font and style, our font is a bit more suited to the genre as The Blair Witch Project font is quite plain, but does fit in with the rest of that trailer. The title of my film idea works as it creates a lasting impression, as it fades in. It’s quite effective with texture, but not hard to read, so it is clear to the audience.

The Blair Witch Project Black Crow Woods(ours)

As ‘The Blair Witch Project’ was one of our influences throughout the construction and editing of our trailer, I really liked the idea of introducing the story with a simple sentence. Where Blair Witch has it as a sentence on screen, we decided to do it as a voiceover, with an image of the antagonist reminiscing on the photos of his sister, who he’s talking about in the voiceover. So, we conformed to the idea of establishing the story at the beginning of the trailer, but did it in a different way.

The Blair Witch Project Black Crow Woods(ours)

With reference to settings/location, our Black Crow Woods trailer is quite similar to The Blair Witch Project trailer. Both locations are isolated woods, as this creates the sense of isolation and realism, that what is happening in the story could happen to anybody, a main element I took as inspiration after watching The Blair Witch Project, as it makes you more scared.

The Blair Witch Project Black Crow Woods(ours)

Similar to the setting/location, the costume and props used in both trailers are quite similar. The reason for this is to add to the realism of the films, and the gritty feel that the characters are normal people, where the audience believe what’s happening. The costume add to the location, as the characters are in camping clothes as they are in the woods. The characters in our trailer are wearing hoodies and jeans, similar to The Blair Witch project where one character is even wearing a hat. There are no props used in The Blair Witch Project trailer, but in our trailer, we used rope as a prop to add to the realism element as though the antagonist has got the tools from his home.

The Blair Witch Project Black Crow Woods(ours)

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The camerawork in both trailers has similarities too, with the range of shots all contributing to create a ‘home-made’ feel. Shot 1 is a shot of a running scene, where the audience presume it’s the antagonist going to attack the characters. Shot 2 however is the technique in which the running scene is done, which is a hand-held technique which effectively creates the home-made feel.

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The Blair Witch Project Black Crow Woods(ours)

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Following on from the previous shots of similar camerawork, there are also 2 more effective but similar shots in both trailers that contribute towards the home-made realistic feel, which I feel both trailers achieve. Shot 3 is scope of the woods, which in dim lighting(a generic convention of horror) looks effective. We took ours further than The Blair Witch Project does by it being darker but using torchlight to emphasise the setting. Shot 4 in both trailers are close-ups of the characters faces (the main protagonist) showing the reaction to what is happening. Both are in a state of panic and shock, where our main protagonist says “I didn’t think she’d kill herself”.

The Blair Witch Project

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Cuts

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Panning shot

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Black Crow Woods(ours)

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Montage

POV Shot

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Quick cuts

4Static noise shot (used as a transition)

From screenshotting various shots and techniques used in editing in both trailers, I found both similarities and differences. Both trailers use panning shots to show scope of the location, fast cuts for the chase scene that both trailers include and also cuts to create smooth transition in the trailers.

In ours, we put a few shots in we particularly liked. We used a POV shot from the view of the antagonist in Black Crow Woods and made it look hidden through putting twigs in front of the camera, masking the view a little. This adds suspense, and with the sound of deep breathing makes the audience scared. In our trailer, we also used a static noise shot, which added to the home-made feel that the antagonist is filming the attack, but it also worked as an effective and tense transition.

We used a montage at the beginning to establish the plot, which also effectively sets up the process of the antagonist packing ‘tools’ to attack the girls with.

‘The Blair Witch Project’ trailer uses similar ones to ours as I have previously mentioned, but it doesn’t have as many cuts. Where we have set our trailer up as though the antagonist is filming his attacks, The Blair Witch Project is more like a whole thing, as though they’re filming the whole experience.

The characters in our trailer are both presented as typical and untypical of the horror genre.

Antagonist (mentally unstable sister of Blair) Stephen Albright: We present the antagonist typically, never fully showing his face. We see half of his face at the beginning of the trailer, but this establishes he’s human, linking to the subgenre of our trailer. Also, this clearly portrays the motivations of the antagonist and why he’s out to attack the three girl characters in Black Crow Woods. As a group, we’ve also conformed the representation as the audience empathise with why the antagonist is out to get revenge.

Main character (‘leader’ of the group) Alice: We’ve presented the main female character both typically and untypically. We’ve portrayed her as typical as she’s bossy, showing the character traits as in the plot, she bullied Blair Albright which made her commit suicide. However, she’s quite untypical as the audience don’t like her, as she doesn’t treat her friends well but is selfish and this is clearly established through the line of dialogue in the trailer “Blair Albright? Remember her the stupid cow?”

Female character (friend of Alice) Chloe: We’ve shown this character fully conforming to the genre. Chloe is the quiet friend, who Alice bosses around a lot. She does as she’s asked to keep the peace.

Female character (friend of Alice) Lucy: She is Alice’s other friend, but classes herself more of Alice’s friend than Chloe. She’s happy to go along with whatever Alice is doing to be considered as ‘cool’. However, she knows when Alice isn’t treating Chloe right, but doesn’t have the courage to say anything.

As a whole, we didn’t use many special effects as we were trying to achieve the hand-held element in our trailer, as though the antagonist is filming his revenge on the three teen girls in Black Crow Woods.

However, when editing in Adobe Audition, the main effect we used was dip to black (circled red on image). This helped fade bits of footage in and out, making it run smoothly but also build suspense.

We also created a ‘static white noise’ shot to put in the trailer when a different bit of footage is shown. This works not only as an effective transition as though the camera is being switched on and off and different points, but it works well with the hand-held element. Also, it adds to the build up as the noise of the shot is quite loud.

I believe we portray both the horror genre and the subgenre psychological/slasher in our trailer. This is from all of the elements I have discussed – from using montage to establish plot, to keeping the antagonist hidden(hidden pov). The static white noise also contributes to the “film” being hand held, which I believe works.

Aside from the range of filming shots/techniques we have used, the horror genre is clearly established. Firstly, it’s all in darkness/torchlight, and with the underlying sounds of heavy breathing and quiet droning music, it feels as though the situation in Black Crow Woods isn’t right, making the audience sense something bad is going to happen.

We thought about conventions and have conformed to a number of them – such as filming in dark, a chase scene, and a build up of tension. On the other hand, as a group, we have also challenged to some – by showing the antagonists’ face (only on the side) but we did have reasoning, as we wanted to establish the antagonist was human which portrayed the subgenre of our trailer.