Horror Trailers Techniques and Coventions essay JB

Explore the genre and conventions of your chosen media text. How do you plan to adhere to or develop these conventions?

The genre I have decide on is Horror. The sub-genre of this being either a thriller horror or a psychological. I'm going to focus on 5 trailers; The Ring, Grave Encounters, Paranormal Activity, The Cabin in the Woods and The Purge. Each of these trailers have many different conventions and techniques that I will explore in this essay and how I plan to adhere to or develop them.

One of the main conventions i've noticed in these 5 trailers is the use of words on the screen to give the audience an idea of the plot. This is used in Grave Encounters, The Ring and The Purge. The Cabin in the Woods and Paranormal Activity also use words on the screen but they use it more as a way to introduce extra selling points and less to tell you the plot. The pictures below are examples of these. I could adhere to this convention by explaining my plot broadly to the audience in this way and possible introduce an extra selling point such as "From the director of -insert movie name here-".

Another technique I saw used widely was the use of fast paced short shots cut together with straight cuts. This was used to increase tension and keep suspense and the feel of action. It was used in every single one of these trailers an example being in The Ring at 0:56 until around the end of the trailer. This trailer is shown below. I would adhere to this technique fairly easily by increasing the number of shots I take and editing them together very quickly one after another in an attempt to copy this and keep tension and suspense/the feel of action.

One convention I didn't see much use of was a main actor being in most shots to bring in an audience of his or her fans. However one of the trailers did use the producer as an extra selling point as he was presumably particularly famous, this part of the trailer The Cabin in the Woods is pictured below. This would help because if people have seen another one of this producers films and they liked it it would work in the same way a famous actor would and bring in more audience. Another example of this is in The purge in which they again mention the producer, but instead of mentioning a name they mention he's the producer of paranormal Activity, which might help more as more people would know the film than the producer behind the film. This too is pictured below. I could adhere to this convention by using either an actor or a producer as an extra selling point, bringing his name up on the screen perhaps at a pivotal moment in the trailer.

Another technique used widely in these 5 trailers was the use of a tense soundtrack. It was used in every single one of these trailers and i'm pretty sure it'd be hard to find a trailer for a horror in which there is no soundtrack whatsoever. Most of the music is not just a soundtrack but tense music with a lot of effects of for example people breathing heavily and screams thrown in with it to increase tension. The soundtrack is used to help the trailer be more effective by increasing tension and suspense. It's designed to create an ambiance and make it scarier for the audience. I could adhere to this technique by using the sound effects available to me on my editing software or perhaps by recording my own and using these combined with a music track I find or one I could make that creates tension. The trailer with the most notable tense soundtrack is linked below and the track is played throughout.

A very interesting take on a horror film is Grave Encounters. The trailer makes it seem like the film is a true story. The film itself is filmed in a documentary style but it's fiction which it's fairly unusual. They've pulled this off by creating a trailer that one would see on TV for a documentary which immediately pulls the audience in as it's something they've never seen before. It would be very difficult to pull a trailer like this off without it seeming as though you've completely stolen this films idea and so because of this and the fact that it would be fairly hard to do I'm not going to do something like this although I might use some of the films other convention that don't like to the plot of the film. The trailer is shown below.

One convention most film trailers use is the introduction of the people behind the film. They usually do this by flashing the names of the producers, directors, actors or institutions on the screen for a second or two. In Grave Encounters this is mentioned at the end very quickly after the title of the film. I think this is because they want to still give the trailer the feel that it's a true story and therefore there wouldn't be things like a director. In The Cabin in the Woods one institution is shown on the screen, Lionsgate, when the trailer goes from a happy start and then it turns dark at this point. This is pictured below. The use of introducing things like the institution at pivotal moments in the trailer is used widely in trailers everywhere and is a convention I could definitely adhere to. 

In conclusion there are many different conventions and techniques used in each of these trailers each one being used in a way to sell the film or increase tension and suspense or the feel of action. I could adhere to most of these techniques in my product and perhaps develop a couple if I had the resources, for instance a better soundtrack would require a better sound producing software. It would be fairly easy to adhere to them and would help my trailer look like the real thing and if it were the real thing they would definitely help bring in more audience.

The remaining trailers that weren't linked during the essay are linked below.