Empire Cover Creation Stages

Small tweaks and recently acquired knowledge of Adobe Photoshop has allowed us to make slight technical adjustments to the relationship between masthead and image. Empire is a well known film magazine and therefore we could establish a way of placing the image in the foreground of the cover rather than her head disappearing behind the text! This minor change made a drastic impact to the look and professionalism of the cover. This means big things for marketing and establishment for PARANOIA!

Outlining the masthead text also helped change the feel of the cover. It makes more of a bold statement when outlined in black at 4pt thickness. It also made it better for us to make a connection with our audience as its direct. This links to the connotations of the image as she has direct eye contact with the camera providing the audience with a personal interaction. 

After studying some existing Empire magazine covers, we took ideas and examples to collectively start our cover for PARANOIA. The image was initially the main focus as it had to represent our main character and also determine a pose that worked to emphasize the tag line - 'Pushing the boundaries of modern horror'. This image was the best from a wide selection that we'd taken and once applied it became apparent that this worked to our advantage. 

Our first filming.

We had our first session of filming, on Wednesday 30th and over all it went really well, there were a few problems with, running out of time so we weren't able to get all of the footage. But we did start Kath's death and Ellie's death including make-up. And also some effective little snippets of footage to create tension throughout the trailer.

There was also a couple of problems with props, due to being no tent which was a major part in our trailer, and also having no laptop which is also featured, but we managed to carry on and complete the scenes that we were able to complete.

Paranoia! Makeup Test

This is our Make up test that we made into a small film clip. It shows our make up ideas and practicing cuts and bruising on hands and arms.

Rough Shot List (Basic Plan)

This is a very rough starting point to begin filming with a planned structure. We've also conducted a risk assessment to determine any potential problems or hazards that we could run into during the filming process. Each location has been checked and filmed in order to get a feel for the environment and the lighting availible. This was all done to achieve the maximum quality outcome!

Special Effects Practice

Here I was trying out different effects for our trailer and seeing what we could do in iMovie. We changed this clip to a 'negative effect' so that it looks almost sterile, which could be useful for our trailer to highlight anything incriminating.
I also changed it into black and white to give it a more creepy feeling, and make it look a bit more like a horror film.

We were also playing around with the audio effects and learnt how to detach audio and put on music instead, which will be very useful for our trailer.

Editing Progress

Today we have been editing our makeup testing video on iMovie so we can track our progress regarding make-up and  keep a record of different effects.


We needed to speed up parts of our video which we learnt how to do today - a useful skill for when our trailer footage needs editing.

Make Up Experiments

As a brief outline, we began discussing what types of make-up would work for our trailer as it needs to be quite obviously gory and messy! There needed to be quite a lot of blood and therefore, had to resemble a serious injury. We began having a look at what make-up was available and was easily accessible for us to purchase and work with. During the process, we also discovered that acrylic paint worked really well to create the illusion of bruising and cuts. The yellow and purple tones surrounding the more serious part of the injury made it look more painful and ultimately more horrific. We experimented with eyeshadows and lip colour to give it a more glossy finish and also added a small amount of Vasaline to make it seem fresh and bloody, as if it had just happened. Whilst taking ideas from our research and youtube videos already on the blog, we decided to purchase some fake blood. This made the finished outcome seem a lot more realistic and a lot more messy and bloody which was the effect we wanted to achieve. The more horrific the outcome, the better our appliance of make-up.


Examples of our Attempts

This effect was created by studying existing make-up techniques and applying some of our experimentive ideas and trying to layer the colours and blend the colours to create the illusion of the bruising in specific areas of the face. The cuts were also created to emphasize the brutality of the 'attack' on the girls. We intend to apply these methods to our adaption of the make-up testing and we will continue to build on our techniques in order to identify what looks the best when shooting. 

As we continued to look at existing make-up trials and started developing our skills, we began to study how the application of layers on and around the eye created depth and realism. The use of specific colours was incredibly important in the development. It allowed us to look at where the darker colour had to be used and what blend of colours created a more horrific looking injury. The more vibrant red's and browns helped to accentuate the deep 'cuts' in the face and the gauging of the cheek with a small knife. The effect became more and more realistic as the colours were built up on top of one another and ultimately making it seem fresh and painful. We also decided to control the level of light when taking the image as an example. This was taken into consideration due to the fact that when we film there will be minimal light and we need to be able to see the extent of the injuries in minimal available light. 

Later, we collectively sat down as a group and discussed what areas of the body needed to be affected by injury and where we had to apply make-up to give the illusion of horror that was specific to our narrative and the conventions of horror trailers. This included studying our plot, yet still giving minimal away as we want our trailer to have some secretiveness in order to intrigue our audience in the long run. We then also discussed our pre-planning before shooting as the make-up takes a good 20 minutes to apply with the level of detail that we want to portray. This meant that our time schedule had to allow for the appliance of make-up before shooting can even begin. After we finalized some ideas and organised our time management to accomodate our make-up, we reviewed the tests that we'd already used and created video evidence of the testing and the gradual process of application.

This image is a good example of how the metallic lip colour worked to our advantage in order to create a 'fresh wound'. It complimented to use of fake blood to define the individual cuts and damage to the knuckles and also helped to emphasize the bruising that developed and blended onto the hand itself. The make-up we used to create these effects was:

• Rimmel London Metallic Bronze EyeGlaze £3.99
• Maybelline Enhancing Dust Shadow in No.12 £4.95
•  Collection 2000 Lip colour in 'Rose' £2.99
• Fake Blood from Asda £1.00
• Vasaline (Blue Original Tin) £1.95
• Acrylic Paint in Brown, Scarlett and Violet
• Selection of Make-up brushes and Bristle paint brushes 

possible filming locations!

For outside filming and the tent scenes :-
Ellie's back garden - as she has a tent and has permission to use the space and tent.
Billie's Granddad's - as she has permission to use it and the space to put up a tent.
Jubilee park :- as it a big space and has lots of filming spots, although we may not be allowed, and may cause disruption to other people.


For inside scenes and filming :-
Billie's Granddad's house - as we have permission to use it and wont be effecting anyone else, although we well have to be careful with the furniture and things.

Character Profiles.

Name: Alex Gibbs         

Age: 17

D.O.B: 23/05/1994
Interests: Netball, Singing,

Appearance: Medium length black hair, brown eyes. 5ft 5ish.

Interesting Facts: Only child, lives alone with her mother.

Name: Zoe Jones          

Age: 17
D.O.B: 13/11/1994
Interests: Dancing,
Appearance: 5ft 7, long brown and blonde hair, hazel eyes.
Interesting Facts: Has been Alex’s best friend for over 10 years.

Name: Anna Reading    
Age: 18

D.O.B: 12/09/1993
Interests: Acting
Appearance: Long blonde hair, 5ft 2ish.
Interesting Facts: Lives alone with her boyfriend of 2 years.

Name: Erin Wilcox
Age: 18
D.O.B: 28/10/1993
Interests: Reading
Appearance: Long brown hair, 5ft 4, Blue eyes.
Interesting Facts: Just recently broke up with her boyfriend of a year, so has a little resentment towards Anna and her relationship.

Name: Sophie Wilcox
Age: 16
D.O.B: 19/03/1995
Interests: Dancing, Performing
Appearance: Long dark hair, large blue eyes, 5ft 3ish
Interesting Facts: Is the youngest of the girls, and also suffers from schitzophrenia.

Genre conventions of slasher films

The locations of slasher films are usually natural everyday environments, such as houses and woods like in Sorority Row or in universities like in The Roomate. They usually have an event or an action that trigers someone to start killing - something that the killer has done and doesn't want anyone to find out about, or something the victims have done and the killer wants revenge or payback like in Sorority Row.
There is usually a signifying prop like a murder weapon or a piece of clothing that is used to identify the killer and make them stand out such as the mask in Scream or the the cross in Sorority Row.
The victims in these films are usually attractive young females and the killers are usually male characters.
I would say horror/slasher films are aimed at a male and female audiences of 18 - 30 years of age.


The music is usually creepy and jumpy created for a certain effect and to extract a certain emotion out of the audience. It is usually has no lyrics and is usually repeated throughout the film to create synergy throughout.


The editing is fast paced with quick changes between shots. There is a mix of angles and shots all to create effect and build tension. There is usually close ups and POV shots used to direct the audiences attention to a certain point and highlight key things.

Make Up Idea's

Kitchen Accident - Sliced Open Arm - How To Guide

Impalement on a Blade - How to Guide

Creating an effective Gouge in the skin! - How to Guide

Narrative Outline!

A group of friends decide to take a camping trip away from college, but due to Erin's parents going away Erin is stuck babysitting her younger sister Sophie. So they all decide to camp in Erins back garden instead. One of the girls Alex has never told her friends that she suffers from Schizophrenia, so her friends are completely unaware of any strange behaviour that Alex has once encountered. Whilst with the girls camping Alex loses her medication which keeps her relatively sane, and keeps her paranoia under control. One of the girls, Zoe finds a video on the internet and shows the girls in the tent which triggers something within Alex's mind to make her believe that its real, and she starts to scat out.


When Alex goes into the house to get a drink, Zoe follows her to confront her about her strange behaviour. Alex starts to panic as she doesn't want to tell the truth about her disorder, so instead Alex kicks off and accuses of her of being a bad friend, during the duration of the argument between the two, Alex starts to get more and more angry and strangles her. As she has a moment of realisation to what she's doing its too late, as Zoe is already dead. To hide this from the other girls, she drags Zoe through the house and  hides her in a cupboard. 


As the night progresses Erin goes to look for a torch which is in the cupboard which Zoe is hidden, as she opens the cupboard Zoe falls out and the focus goes to the red kiss which is printed on Zoe's cheek. The girls all gather in the kitchen in a circle, and Anna decides to take control of the group and decides it must be one of the girls that has done it. This leads Alex to another panic, and to try and keep her secret secure, she decides that Anna must be the next to die. Before Alex has chance to get to Anna, Anna stumbles across Alex's pills, but before she has chance to warn the other Erin and her sister, Alex confronts Anna, and brutally stabs her with a knife. Leaving Just Erin her younger sister Sophie and Alex.

What makes a horror trailer effective? - mise-en-scene

A horror trailer needs to promote the film whilst still maintaining a level of mystery, suspense and fright. The mise-en-scene needs to be convincing so that the horror trailer doesn't appear boring or cheesy. 


Mise-en-scene

Scream  - the iconic mask

Costume in the horror genre can be imaginative and often the killer (if appropriate for the narrative) will wear a mask or a certain, recognisable set of clothing. In films where the killer or villain is part of the victim's social group or a friend and they/we don't know who the killer is - they will probably wear casual everyday clothes similar to the other characters. 
Scream (1996-2011) is an example of a costume which provokes questions. The audience or the characters do not know who is underneath that mask. The mask itself is disturbing for the viewers. This is great for the murder mystery element that Scream has. 

The Ring - a zombie poltergeist 

The Ring (2002) uses makeup and hair (as well as some disturbing facial expressions) to make a girl character into something quite scary. She is zombie-like and evil looking - more of a physical monster than just a human in a costume like Scream. 


The Roommate (2011) portrays the killer as a very "normal" teenager who has simply just not been taking her medication. Her makeup and hair are standard and her clothes casual. This type of character appearance is still effective in scaring the audience as it makes us wary that anyone can be a killer and is more believable than a monster or zombie type figure. 

The Roommate - a normal girl?

Obviously certain genres within horror scare certain people and not others and the type of killer that scares them will differ. Our narrative means our character will be very much like the girl in The Roommate - a teenage girl who looks like all her friends but whose hair and makeup gradually get more messy and elements of blood and sweat appear on her face and clothes. 


One idea for our poster is to have a closeup of the killer, so we will need to do her makeup in a convincing way which fits with the narrative. We could use fake blood, scars and cuts. 

Deconstructing a Teaser Trailer - Conventions/Narrative

Trailers are designed to grasp our interest and hold our attention for a short space of time. They are developed and shot in a way that works with easily recognisable conventions. The mood and atmosphere surrounding individual trailers changes and accomodates its audience and narrative. Elements such as music and digetic and non-digetic sound help build suspense, shock, stun and heighten our anticipation of what's to come in the film itself. A teaser trailer is sewn together with clips and short scenes from within the film that highlight a vague outline of the plot, introduce the characters and is often conveyed in a fast-paced rapid style. Our job, as viewers and audiences, have to fill in the missing pieces; which requires our full attention. 


One of the most important conventions of a horror teaser is the inclusion or exclusion of sound. The choice and development of music can heighten someones fear or indeed highlight suspicion and suspense in response to the plot. When creating an atmosphere in a teaser trailer, you need to understand what works and compliments the shot and what can distract from the action on the screen. A voiceover is a good technique to apply when trying to briefly explain the narrative; remembering it doesn't have to be more than a few short phrases or even singular words. Voiceover's are popular features of advertising and indicate the credited information needed to understand what's likely to happen in the film. Like other elements within a teaser trailer, conventions of sound help to build our anticipation and knowledge even further.


How has our research into existing teaser horror trailers helped us to come to conclusions within our planning and narrative production?

When developing our ideas and making decisions about what we wanted to include into our trailer, we had to decide on a basic plot that could be indicated to our audience in a collective way. In order to gather ideas about the styles and conventions we wanted to include in our production process, we studied existing teasers and looked at what made them so successful.


Distribution companies exhibit and release numerous trailers for one film. Big productions with big budgets have a substantial amount of money dedicated to the advertising and marketing. A teaser trailer will usually be introduced to its audience on the television or within cinematic viewing. A teaser trailer is does exactly as the name suggests; 'tease' its audiences. Its a promotional campaign that whets the appetite of the viewers and leaves them wanting more. Word of mouth is the most dominant and successful marketing technique and a teaser trailer enhances this drastically. This creates an air of anticipation within friendship groups, social groups and educational sectors such as schools, universities and colleges.


Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Remake Trailer Deconstruction

Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 Teaser Trailer




The Teaser trailer for Nightmare on Elm Street appealed to us as a group as it includes valuable conventions and shot types that will work well to compliment and develop our narrative as well as leaving people guessing. The idea of 'giving the minimal amount away' adds an element of distress and secretiveness to the narrative whilst still giving enough to piece the story together.


Our narrative is based around a group of girls that have one thing in common; they all take part in the camping sleepover that takes a drastic turn for the worst when their schizophrenic friend forgets to take her medication before attending. The idea that they all have this in common is suggestive and is similar to the narrative behind Nightmare on Elm Street, therefore, it seemed a good selection to analyse in more depth.

Paranoia Font Selection

Whilst choosing which fonts work and which didn't, we discovered that it would be unrealistic to use a really thin sketchy style as it wouldn't make much of an impact on a poster and trailer. Due to the genre of our film being a slasher, we decided to use a font that reflected this as it would appeal to our audience and work to our advantage. We also need to consider the advertising and marketing of our film as the font needs to be the same throughout to make is recognisable and appealing. The more erratic styles also work as it accompanies the narrative of our film. The schizophrenic nature of our main character is shown and the font styles can work to help continue this theme throughout our film and print production. 

As a production team, we've sat down and noted which particular fonts work for certain areas and aspects of our film and what may not completely promote the genre and narrative of our trailer. 

Ambulance Shotgun - This font was the least successful in our decision. We felt that it didn't work with any of the conventions of our film trailer and the genre was in no way presented in this style.

James Han - This font works for the narrative of our trailer, however it didn't work as well as some of the other fonts that we've selected such as 'Uncle TypeWriter'. James Han is an erratic font but it also has an element of decorative nature to it which makes it to feminine and pretty for our slasher genre. 

VKTS Downtown - This font is a successful font to promote the bold, statement style of our trailer. Despite this, it does resemble a rather childish bubble font style that fonts like 'Face Your Fears' don't have and instead resemble that eerie, smeared blood effect that comes across more sinister and for boding. 

As a process of elimination, We left ourselves with 3 of our favourite font styles. 'Ghastly Panic', 'Face Your Fears' and 'Punkbabe' all resemble conventions of our trailer that appeal to an audience and ultimately resemble narrative features and genre characteristics. 

Ghastly Panic - This font was chosen due to the scratchy look of the style. It's spindly and stretched look makes it seem quite haunting and chaotic. The base of each letter has been dragged down making the letters individually look as if they have been scratched in with fingernails. 

Face Your Fears - This font helps to greatly promote the genre and narrative of our trailer. Its smeared style reflects ad resembles that of blood that has been wiped across the screen into letters. The slasher genre of our film makes this font fit the brief and ultimately present its audience with a direct idea/clue as to the horrific, sinister, bloody and terrifying nature of our plot. 

Punkbabe - This font works fantastically to promote the sense of schizophrenic mindset. As our main character suffers from a mental disorder, the distorted nature of this font makes it appeal to the disolved and uncertain style of the text. 

Once we'd finalised our 3 favourite fonts, we began struggling to narrow it down to what would work for our audience and what would appeal as well as promoting the conventions of a horror film and making it recognisable throughout print and film production. Therefore, we conducted a small survey that could determine what our audience thought worked the best. 

Ghastly Panic: 2 out of 13 = 15%

Face Your Fears: 8 out of 13 = 54%

Punkbabe: 3 out of 13 = 31%

After asking our A Level Media class which font was the most favourable, there was a clear winner. With 54%, 'Face Your Fears' came out on top and seemed the most obvious choice. Feedback from our study showed us that this font was the most successful to promote both the narrative and genre of our film.  We can now use the font to create a poster and begin to develop the conventions and shot types to begin filming for our trailer. 

Sorority Row - deconstruction

The music in this trailer begins in a casual party tone with upbeat music that teenagers would listen to, to set the scene of the girl’s normal lives. The majority of the clips from this section are in the location of their sorority house or in the university, the lighting in both of these locations is reasonably light and bright and the furnishings show they aren’t short of money. The brief parts of dialogue help to narrate the trailer and explain the plot of the movie. They also help to create drama and tension. The beginning of the trailer the editing is very fast paced with a lot of quick headshots to show the girls who are involved.

When the girls begin the prank in the trailer, the music takes a darker tone to suggest everything might not go to plan and the panic and worry in the character’s voices adds tension and fear. After the prank begins the use of fast paced editing and fast jump cuts produce panic among the audience especially when the girl is killed for real this is when the trailer starts to take a darker tone and the lighting becomes dimmer creating a contrast from the beginning of the trailer.

As the trailer continues the music begins the build up and the editing continues its fast pace. The final cut of text, showing the name of the movie, when the dialogue “I don’t deserve to die” is played over the top of the text adds and eerie finale to the trailer and leaves the audience in suspense.

The final clip of the older woman attempting to warn off the killer gives a serious note as the woman is quite tough speaking and is standing up to the killer but he scares her away by throwing a knife at her. The way the knife slices into the camera makes the end cut very sinister especially with the sounds effect of the knife enhancing this.


The actors/actresses in this film are all very young and trendy, we plan to use young people in our trailer as well to attract are target audience.

In these posters for Sorority Row they both continue the theme of the cross, which adds a creepy synergy throughout the posters and trailers. The themes of death and the Theta Pi house are also running through the marketing linking and creating a morbid feel to both tag lines especially the right poster where the rhyming of 'Theta Pi Must Die' creates a kind of messed up feeling.The fire behind this tag line adds a violent theme and links with the scared faces of the girls on the left poster.


In relation to our teaser trailer, this trailer brings up a lot of good ideas that we can develop and use such as lots of fast cuts and the climax in the music. We also really like how the trailer has used text on a black background to make tension.

Scream 4 - Poster

There are many variations of the Scream 4 poster but the one we've analysed is the official theatrical one.

A teaser poster, it only reveals the iconic mask, the name, and date and a motto that relates to the way the teaser trailer also promotes the evolving franchise: "New decade. New rules." The lighting is low to reflect the horror, whilst the colours are also very limited. The poster reveals no plot information, the only indication of any narrative is the fact that the iconic character is continuing to star in the film and the franchise has new elements within it. "SCRE4M" is in it's franchise font, with the red "4" following the theme within the trailer. 

Print Production - Paranormal Activity 3

Simplicity, darkness, secretiveness and themes of recognition all work to help promote the film in this poster. Its originality and style is basic however it's in-keeping with the genre of the film, the style of the film and the presentation of the film. The singular number in the centre of a black background helps make it seem 3D and illuminated, therefore working as a type of holographic projection. This compliments the jolting camera movements and rigid style that runs throughout all 3 films. The minimalism works perfectly to help encourage the conventions of the teaser trailer. It gives noting away. This poster relies on your knowledge of the previous 2 films to continue with the story and learn more about the 'demonic possesion' of the two young girls in later life. Without that knowledge the poster wouldn't work or mean anything to the person viewing it. Incidentally, this happens in the exact same way with the films and trailers themselves.


The lack of colour in this print also suggests a very haunted and eerie feel; promoting that sense of uncertainty and helps keep the secretive pattern running throughout. The consistency between the trailer, film and poster is vital.

Scream 4 - a trailer analysis

Scream 4 (Wes Craven, 2011) is the forth film in its slasher series. Because the franchise does not need to introduce itself, the teaser trailer first focuses on introducing the stars. The first 15 seconds of the trailer is simply fast cuts of each character's face. There are plenty of black fadeouts to leave one character's close up to go to the next. This fast-paced editing along with an eerie voiceover both introduces the stars and indicates that they are all going to be affected by the scream figure as he talks to them. This small montage of close-ups ends with an echoed scream by the last characters introduced, and this is where the trailer shows some words: "One movie, redefined fear". This indicates that this particular installment in the franchise is a bit different to the rest, almost as if the franchise has been revamped. The use of red here could represent fear, or blood/death. The words are accompanied with a high-pitched syllable-type sound which is eerie and jumpy - exactly the way slasher films are meant to be. 


After this, the style of the trailer appears to change, from a less mysterious and eerie atmosphere to a scene of teenagers in school, with natural lighting and colourful mise-en-scene. This also brings most of the character's previously introduced into one setting so we can see how they interwine within the plot. A cut to the trailer's first killing, a girl is shown falling onto a van via a birds-eye-shot, which, accompanied with screaming, is the first bit of the trailer which is blatantly shocking rather than mysterious and eerie. This raises questions about the narrative: how will the characters deal with this and escape from the killer? What other deaths will there be? "From the master of suspense: Wes Craven" promotes both the directer and the franchise for people that recognise his name. 

The beat changes to something more steady whilst the cuts flick between classroom scenes to scenes of attempts to film the killer to scenes of killings. The trailer keeps killing footage limited, the audience never sees the full killing to make sure the suspense and mystery is still kept throughout. Red lighting is used in an intense moment, a connotation of death and blood. There is also a handhold shot whilst a character is setting the camera up before she gets killed. 

The music changes to a fast paced, dramatic tune whilst there are lots of fact paced cuts of people running, people being attacked and lots of screaming takes place - all expectations within the slasher genre, and particularly within the Scream franchise. This is the part of the trailer which really promotes the genre and horror scenes. An abrupt end to this montage, the screen fades black and then to a scene of two girls. There is no music, only dialogue which is shortly interrupted by a fantastic shot of the scream-killer running towards the camera with a high pitched, unexpected scream accompanying. 


"SCRE4M" appears on the screen in it's recognisable font, then the last shot of two girls on the phone (an important part of mise-en-scene for this film) pops up, followed by the date of release for the film. 


The fact that this film is part of a franchise means that the audience already has a high level of understanding of narrative style, especially as the slasher genre is particularly repetitive anyway. The audience for this film is a young-adult/teen audience which is reflected in the ages of the stars, and school setting. Although the narrative will be fairly predictable to audiences who have seen the previous films, the trailer promotes it as something slightly different - "redefined fear". It also uses stars (shown at the beginning) as a unique selling point. 


In regards to our teaser trailer, the editing style of this trailer is very inspiring. The fast cuts and fade outs are all elements we are likely to use to portray our slasher killings. The way the trailer cuts between calm scenes and horror scenes is also likely to be adapted for our trailer. The shot of the killer running with the loud scream is also a great shot to consider as it is a very dramatic and summarising image. 

Analysing Existing Products

In order to gather inspiration for the production of our own trailer we had to study the conventions and patterns of existing trailers. Whilst looking at different genres, a trailer carrying a psychological theme seemed a dominant choice. Examples such as The Last Exorcism, Mirrors and Paranormal Activity all have different psychological patterns which can manipulate the audience into feeling aprehensive yet intriegued; making them want to see the film regardless of the conventions of the trailer telling their subconsious that they will be scared by what they see.

As we began scouting different sub genres and alternative storylines, we had to consider how we can use camera movement and locations to help emphasize a particular genre. Typical conventions of the psycological horror films relate to the use of music, plot and the lack of light. 

Teaser Trailers follow many typical conventions. Many use rapid cuts between shots and underlying music to set a particular mood or tone which can sometimes carry on throughout the shots that are shown. Typically, a teaser trailer is no more than 1 minute long; this can vary between 30 seconds to a minute and a half. Studying existing teaser trailers is crucial as it means we can use particular clips and conventions that appeal to audiences and can work in our favour for us to re-create. 

Psychological Horror Teaser Trailer Conventions Analysis  

Paranormal Activity 3 Teaser Trailer

Home Video supplies many different effects when using a camera to initiate a particular feeling. Paranormal Activity 3's use of a handheld camera works perfectly to its advantage. The fuzzy feedback and distorted imagery that the camera can supply helps to initiate a sense of danger or sinister happening that builds suspense and uncertainty as a viewer. 

The laughter of the young children over the top of the more horrifying flashbacks from previous films help supply context whilst also juxtaposing the idea that the good times were always masked by bad throughout these young girls lives. Rapid cuts and slow motion also work perfectly alongside the footage and help to suppliment and evoke a sense of psychological contortion and helplessness; as if the impending doom is not yet known to the girls in the shot. 

Here the camera gives the sense that its malfunctioning or recieving some sort of interfierence. The shot becomes blurred and the sound begins to muffle and becomes scratchy and almost unrecogisable as that particular characters voice. This sense of interfierence allows the audience to make the assumptions that 'something is coming' or that something may happen to the young girl. Due to the context of the flashbacks in between these shots from the previous 2 Paranormal Activity films, we as the audience already know what happens to them and what it is that they go through at this stage of their lives.

As the teaser trailer begins, this interfierence between camera and the shot is used to its maximum. It evokes fear and helps to dramatise the clip to make it seem more sinister and juxtapose the clips that follow. The use of scratchy sound FX and temprimental equipment helps to acknowledge that when this happens on camera, the scenes to follow arent going to be very friendly and help to encourage the fear in its audience to help grab and enable the viewers attention. This technique therefore works as a hook to make the viewer want to see what happens next. 

Paranormal Activity has always had mixed reviews and has been considered as one of the most contraversial horror films in terms of its reaction from its audiences. However, the films capture vulnerable people in normal everyday surroundings which help you to relate to them as people. This 3rd installment helps add to the ever lasting battle between this 'demon' and the characters themselves. Whilst it progresses, the 3rd film is representing their earlier years; where it all began. This, again, helps to add to the psychological conventions of the films as they are presented to us in the incorrect order of the stage of their lives and the order in which things occured. Therefore, it seems clear that the films are subconsiously presented in a distorted manner to emphasize the conventions of psychotic and schizophrenic uncertainty. 

Paranormal Activity Teaser Trailer: Final Cut clip

The penultimate clip to the teaser trailer is the sinister of them all as you actually see a small snippet of the outline of something that was in the room with the young girls and obviously feeds off of the darkness in the house. In the 2 previous Paranormal Activity films, actually seeing the 'demon' never happened. As the audience, this small clip makes the entire teaser trailer fulfil its purpose. The mise-en scene fulfils all the typical conventions on a horror teaser and also helps to set the scene and tone for the entire film. This small clip is a slice of the action and leaves its audience wanting more; therefore working as a cliffhanger.

Initial Ideas.

Film Name:

·       PARANOIA!

Starring:

·      Billie Dean  

·      Kath Mathews

·      Vicky Bates

·      Ellie Durrant

    Summer Durrant

Original Plot:
 Group of friends are out camping, One friend Alex (Billie Dean) forgets to take her usual medication. Whilst camping, the girls decide to watch a clip of some sort on a mobile phone. Due to the lack of her medication Alex see’s the clip as being real, and starts to suffer from a severe case of paranoia. As the night progresses, her paranoia increases. As Zoe confronts Alex of her unusual behaviour, Alex without thinking grabs Zoe and pins her up against the tree, and strangles her, Alex then attempts to drag Zoe’s body out of sight from her other friends, Alex then goes back to her friends, acting normal. When her friends question the whereabouts of Zoe, Alex panics, and decides to kill her friends one by one, so they wont find out about the murder or Zoe.

New Plot:
Group of friends were meant to go camping, but due to Erin (Ellie Durrant) having to babysit her younger sister, the girls decided to camp in Erin's backgarden. It is now Erin's younger sister who is the killer, and has a sort of mental breakdown.

Ways of deaths:

·      Strangulation

·      Drug.

·      Knife

Initial Ideas - Production Meeting 1

To begin our project, we had to start producing a production team name. After playing around with different ideas, we finalized on the name 'paranoia productions'. This came from the group discussion from which we had organized 2 main ideas for a storyline and plot for our chosen style of horror film. As we expanded our collaborative ideas we started to narrow down what makes a horror teaser trailer successful, what type of audience we want to promote our film trailer towards and how we can use our knowledge of existing trailers to develop our understanding and eventually put it into practice when we begin filming ourselves.

We mind mapped our 2 favourite ideas and began to experiment with different possibilities and locations that could work for the trailer and the audience appeal. Features of a typical horror trailer include darkness, abandoned areas, little light, shrieking, rapid cuts and much more. To achieve the ultimate shots we began considering the dynamic of our trailer and what we wanted to include and what wouldn't necassarily work as well. 


As we progressed we also began to consider looking at previous students trailers and what features we feel worked the best and could apply to the creation of our trailer. Insidently, we also discovered that rapid cuts and secretive shots, i.e. showing minimal action in the form of short bursts of footage worked really well. They also helped to emphasize the suspense and dramatics of the plot. 

Background Research

A trailer is a marketing tool used to advertise an upcoming film. It is a montage of shots, usually with a non-diegetic soundtrack and sometimes dialogue which lasts for around 2-3 minutes. The idea of a trailer is to reveal a basic plot whilst maintaining interest and so hopefully helping to sell the film by luring customers in to the cinema to watch it. The directors name, an actors name or even another film produced by the same studio might be mentioned in the trailer so that the audience's attention is grabbed by familiar films or people. A teaser trailer is a shorter trailer, anything from half a minute to a minute usually, which reveals only a glimpse of the storyline. The aim is to spark interest but with a mysterious element to keep the audience interested and awaiting the next, full trailer. 


An example of a teaser trailer: Inception Teaser


An example of a full trailer:  Inception Full Trailer



A trailer might be seen at the cinema before a film of a similar genre starts, on television or online. Television trailers are often only teaser or shorter versions of the full trailer, whereas cinema trailers are the full version. Online trailers of all variations can be easily found at any time on video sites such as youtube.com. The advantage of trailers is, unlike other forms of advertising such a posters, they can be used on television which shows the trailer unexpectedly and doesn't require the audience's effort. 


The genre conventions of horror trailers is dark, low-key lighting, eerie music, jumpy parts and fast cuts. There might be a long cut or slow-paced editing at the start or end to build up the plot or end the plot with a disturbing final cut. There might be frightening costumes and special effects to make the horror stand out. The iconography of horror films includes weaponry, dark forests, isolated places, bad weather, distorted or mutated figures, a villain and a group of victims, pain and screams. Depending on the sub-genre there might be mythical creatures or certain weaponry involved (such as knives and axes for slasher films).