Question1-In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge formsand conventions of real media products?

I believe that my trailer does follow the typical codes and conventions you would expect from a horror trailer, for example it follows Todorovs theory of everything being fine at the start and then the action taking place. At the start of my trailer Sam (main girl) is cooking dinner, which is a normal day to day occurrence, outside the window it is dark, which makes the lighting inside look more homely. This was done so the audiences feel comfortable with whats going on, on screen. Then we decided to mix it up by adding in fast and short clips to create the suspense and make the audience feel uneasy. We decided to leave our trailer on a cliff hanger and also make sure that our last clip was scary to give the audience one last shock. I believe that our trailer is very similar to 'The possession' because this follows Todorovs theory and also ends on a scary clip.LOCATIONS:The three main locations we used in our horror trailer was Sam's house, the forest and outdoorareas. When planning our locations we decided that we would go for the obvious scary ones such as a graveyard, we later changed this opinion because we wanted to go for a different approach. We decided to film in a house because the audience would be ableto familiarize themselves with it and therefore the idea of danger potentially being in your house, would scare them. We decided the forest because we thought with the trees and the isolated space it would be good for filming ideas. All of our locations symbolize 'isolation' or 'danger' which is what you would expect to feel in a horror trailer, therefore this is why I believe they meet the codes and conventions of a typical horror trailer. The lighting for our horror trailer was mainly in the light, because we thought that the typical elements to a horror film was 'darkness; and we wanted to go against this, to prove that scary things can happen in the light as well. This was a risk because we were going against the audiences familiarity in order to achievea different element of horror. We had a few shots that were shot in darkness which we thought would be enough for effect but not so much as it would come across overdone.

CAMERA WORK:When making a horror trailer you have to take everything into consideration, this goes for the camera work. For our horror trailer we decided to do some of it with a hand held camera, this meant that sometimes we ran with the camera to give it a nervous, shaky look to it. This kind of camera work wouldnt be able to be usedif it was a comedy trailer because it wouldnt work as well. By doing this with the camera it makes the audience think that someone is being chased, it also leads them feeling nervous as the camera work is disjointed. We also decided that we were going todo a _____ because we believe that this would make the audience wonder what would happen next, it also would confuse them and it could also associate with all of the power she has in her head. This camera movement also shows that she is in control of everyone's actions. We decided to use a zoom throughout some of it on important features, for example at the end of the trailer, you can just see Sam's head, this is because we zoomed in on her face because we believe that this would shock the audience as shewould be coming towards the camera. We also used various other camera movements including tilt and pan etc. I had a good idea that we used one long clip, but split it up into 4 sections and add different clips in between to disorientate the audience but not so much that they didnt know what was going on, an example of this was when Sam was walking down the stairs.

EDITING:For this section, this was where we were able to perfect the clips we didnt think worked as well on their own. It also gave us options to make clips more blurred, zoomed and we were also able to put in different effects. At the start of the trailer we decided to add in a 'fade' to fade in the trailers title, so It flowed in with the rest of the trailer. At the end of our trailer we decided to merge two clips together in order to make it look like there was a spirit coming of Sam, to disorientate the audience. We also cut down clips we believed were too long to make out trailer quick and so the audience only got a glimpse of what was going to happen. We wanted them to think 'what is going to happen next' because this is the key phrase any distributor would want its audience to think. We also editing in sound, to make this follow more conventions you would expect in a horror trailer. For example we added in a soundtrack which was scary on the clip of Sam, just before the car comes near her. We believed that this would make it stronger. We also sped up Hannah falling down the stairs so it looked more realistic.

PROPS/EXPECTATIONSSome of theobvious elements we used in our horror trailer were, a dark figure in the window when Sam was cooking, we thought that this would give the audience that something was in Sam's house after doing the Ouija board. This helps establish the link between the two. We also used a knife, which we covered in ketchup so it looked like blood, these follow the typical conventions you would expect to see in a horror trailer. We also decided to use a cat; this was down to the fact that cats can supposedly see supernatural objects, so we thought this would be a good idea, especially because it isnt one of the obvious ones you would expect. We also used an Ouija board as evil is associated with them; I also used the Ouija board pictures we took for my ancillary texts.
STRUCTURE:For our trailer, like I have previously mentioned, it followed Todorovs theory of everything being fine and normal at the start to then disaster striking. Our trailer followed many of the typical conventions in a horror trailer, for example we hada final girl, which confirms carol clovers theory and we also followed a theory. I believe that by using these ideas it made our trailer seem similar to previous ones made and also made it look professional. We choose for teenagers to star in our trailerbecause our target audience was 18 year olds, which links in with the rating of the trailer. We believed that if our audience had people they could relate to on screen, this would make it more relatable and successful. If I was to complete this task againI would ensure that I had a few boys in my trailer so that it wasnt female based because I believe that this could limit the gender balance as an audience. I think males would be more inclined to watch it because it features a group of females in distress, and like my previous research states a man likes the idea of seeing a woman in danger, so he can play the hero and help. Also a man likes to take his partner to the cinema in order to comfort them when these scenes come on. Our horror trailer did not end on a happy note; I would say that our ending was left open for a choice of opinions from our audience. You could seeSams face, but it was up to personal assumptions as to whether you believed she was being possessed, or if it was her all along. This later brings me onto the title of our trailer 'inevitable' we decided to call it this because inevitable means, something is going to happen and theres nothing you can do to stop it. We believed that this linked in very well with our 'possession' theme. Wealso thought it was something that was quite new and fresh, it was an obvious name that you would expect for a horror trailer such as 'blood' or 'scream' which is why we all liked it so much. I also thought that this was a good name because it doesnt giveanything away; the genre of the film is completely hidden until the trailer progresses.. A teaser trailer howevercan lastfrom 30-60 seconds. I would say that our trailer could be classed as both but would more than likely fall into the category of a teaser trailer. Our trailer shows the right amount of information, it has captions which give you clues as to whats going on and lead you to come up with your own conclusions. I also think we have managed to uphold a storyline in our trailer which can be quite hard to do, we have lots of quick cuts which make it more scary and which make it similar to a teaser trailer. We decidedto use these clips because we thought they were the strongest and they were the ones that worked well. It took us ages to sort through the clips and arrange which ones worked in our trailer and which ones didn't. We also decided that we were going to adda soundtrack, which we got off a no copy right website; this helped make our trailer sound more professional. I also believe that the track made the clip look scarier. We decided that we were not going to overdo the sound as this may spoil it and ruin theeffect we were going for. I also think sound is scary and a typical horror convention because the audience never know when to expect it, or where it stops so this leaves them in anticipation. If I was to complete this task again I would add in an introduction clip, which announces the production company and who produced it because I believe this makes it look more realistic. I also think that we could have used more camera angles to disorientate the audience further.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Zj-PSwkZYLs/UNsm0iomBVI/AAAAAAAAAGs/fFb2QVtN-pY/s1600/the-exorcist_73209.jpg

Above I have print screened Sams face; this was our last shot because we wanted it to be scary. We decided that we were going to have her sitting upright looking directly at the camera in order to scare the audience. We got this idea from the film The exorcist because at the shot I have on the right. We believed that this looked scary and we were going to try and re-create it.http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v4_1gjbt5-c/UWRgYX29pKI/AAAAAAAAAM8/wzOrknNhspQ/s200/screen+shot+text.jpg

Above I have print screened a clip from the last house on the left and on the right I have print screenedour clip. We decided that we were going to re-create the idea of the last house on the left by having a caption half way through the trailer to build suspense. We decided that instead of having half of the text blurred we would have ours clear but give the text a typewriter feel to it, to make it lookscarier.