For my A2 Media project my group and I planned, produced and marketed a trailer for a forthcoming Horror movie. After carrying out a lot of research on the area, we constructed a plot and narrative structure for the film, we then wrote a treatment for the whole film, so that we could pick certain points to use in our trailer. The basic plot of our Horror movie is a slash and teen horror amalgamation, where a class of British upper sixth-formers are taken on a school camping trip. The ‘nerdy’ character in the class, who is constantly picked on by the others, finds and joins a dangerous extremist cult. In revenge to all the harassment from the other schoolmates, Thomas goes on a killing spree. The enigma that runs throughout the film comes to a conclusion where the major cult members are revealed to be the class teachers. Even though the puzzle is eventually solved, we have chosen for the film to have an open structure, the film resolves in the killer protagonist escaping, thereby creating uncertainty in the audience because the threat is still alive.
Our trailer does challenge forms and conventions of horror movies, as after constructing a trailer analysis for ‘The Cult’ and comparing it to analysis that I previously composed, I came to the conclusion that whereas most horror trailers tend to incorporate more close ups and extreme close ups, then contrast them with long shots (Nightmare on Elms Street – 30 Extreme Close Ups and Close Ups. 20 Long Shots.) We used more Medium Shots (14) than any other, however we used different types of shot angles and camera movements in order to portray the intended effect, and to do something different, we used over the shoulder shots and camera movements that will shoot forward to a character or spin around them. Furthermore, our trailer includes many conventional Horror iconographies, such as the woods scenery, a dead animal, a police car, a threatening note and a school. This form is developed, as the memorable costume worn by the cult members is all plain white. Horror films usually associate danger with black or red, white is usually associated with purity and spirituality, however in “The Cult”, white, epitomizes aloneness and isolation. This is comparable with the snow in the trailer, mirroring “The Shining”. Snow is a very uncommon factor in Horror films, however after watching and analysing “The Shining” the idea of using the snow as an eerie and horrific element, of no escape, rather than a pure and calming one came to us and worked very well in the trailer.
In contrast, the location of our trailer is a conventional one; forests have been used in many horror movies. However we challenge this convention as in “The Cult” it is used to resemble solitude, one main aspect of our film is the minimalist aspect of it, we took into account Aristotle’s unity of place, where he says that “a play should cover a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.” Therefore our trailer is filmed in one main location and a very minimal use of characterization enables us to concentrate on those characters and develop them to their full extent. This can also be seen in the trailer of “Blair Witch Project”.
In a sense, the narrative is a conventional one. It follows Todorov’s theory of narrative, it begins with an equilibrium, the disruption is Thomas joining the cult, a recognition of disorder is evident when the group understand that their friends are being killed by Thomas. They then try to repair the damage by defending themselves and attempting to save their friends. The equilibrium is then returned as the danger to that group of friends is over, however the killer is still alive and out there. When trying to fit the characters in “The Cult” to Vladimir Propp’s theory of characterization, the vagueness of it allowed me to assign each character to one of his 8 broad character types, however this theory is dated and too indistinct for it to construct a useful analysis to the characters in my film. The cult in my film who take in Thomas, the misunderstood, nerdy character are constructed through Freud’s theory of the ‘Death Drive’ or “Thanatos” where he claims that the “opposition between the ego or death instincts and the sexual or life instincts” and opposes Eros. I also used this theory when constructing Thomas’s character.
In terms of genre, my product would be considered mainly a genre of order according to Schatz, who separates genres into two types as it sees conflict through violence and resolution through death, rather than through emotion and love. Furthermore the hero in my film is a male individual, however it does not fit Schatz’s theory, as the setting of my film is uncertain, but not fought over. The conflict between oppositions in Levi-Strauss’s theory is demonstrated in my film. “The Cult” expresses conflicts between the individual vs. society and force vs. choice. Thomas is a lonely, friendless and unpopular child who is given a chance to be part of a group, whether he does this because he agrees with the extreme views or because he simply wants to belong is not made certain purposely. In addition Thomas is faced with a great choice when joining the cult and killing his classmates, there are some clues to suggest that he was forced to join the cult, or his mind was played with. Like Altman’s theory of genre, our film aims to connect with the audience via the representation of current fears and concerns of the time. “The Cult” focuses on two major aspects, religious extremist groups and the parents fear of their child’s safety in school, under the protection of teachers, or strangers.
In order to promote my movie, together with my group, we constructed an advertising poster and a front cover of a magazine. The poster fits conventional Horror posters of the 21st century, its “Orphanage” like central imaging of major characters together with the use of faded images contrasted with large, stretched, God like eyes looming over the major scenery of the film; the forest. The addition of the slogan “They are known only as…” followed by the movie title, “The Cult” adds to the mystery and obscurity of the film. We then included magazine ratings and cast names to add to the authenticity of the poster.
The magazine front cover portrays our target audience as film intellectuals, who are more interested in independent films and the filming and production aspect than who the main actor is. Producing this poster was a great way to extend my prior knowledge of Photoshop that I used to create my music magazine in my AS level project.
The development of my technology skills were not only in Photoshop, where my skills progressed especially in using layers correctly and setting the precise capacity levels, but also in iMovie where my abilities advanced particularly in sound editing, fading was a big part of my editing and as my camera had ‘forced fading’ where every shot faded to black I had to think whether I wanted to change the fade, or incorporate it into the transition. In addition in some cases we decided to cut out the ambience from certain clips in order to improve the dialogue, this is used in a lot of mainstream media, such as in the Eden Lake trailer, the audio is added to silenced video. Overall, my sound editing techniques have improved immensely and have helped me to use transitions more smoothly and effectively. Furthermore, my advancement in footage manipulation was a great help when editing the trailer. We started the trailer with several scene setting shots, which then evolved into a quick shot reorder of the story, thereby becoming multi-strand, creating enigma and an open ended finish to the trailer. Also, my developed skills in iMovie helped me to create some contrasts in the trailer, such as the contradiction of the shot of a dog in the forest, cutting to a shot of a dead fox.
Moreover, my camera skills have also improved. We used night vision in one shot, which mirrors ‘Blair Witch Project’ as well as ‘Silence of the Lambs’. The variation of shots in the trailer are also an example of my improvement, running with the camera and climbing trees in order to achieve the perfect shot.
Furthermore, the use of Internet has also been very beneficial whilst constructing this trailer. Using YouTube to research for inspiration, BlogSpot to record our progress, and Survey Monkey in order to collect information about our target audience.
In conclusion, producing, editing and post-producing this horror trailer has been highly helpful in developing my skills in research, development and post production marketing. However, I do believe the if we had better equipment and more time, together with the skills that I have gained throughout the making of this product, the outcome would be of higher quality.
