ANALYSIS OF HORROR TRAILERS:

30 DAYS OF NIGHT TRAILER





Equilibrium. (Todorov)
Establishing shots.
Range of angles.
fast paced in areas.
woman voice over.
Crescendos in music to change atmosphere.
catchy storyline.
silence to encourage eerieness.
screams - frightening
Dark mise-en-scene to suggest something bad is going to happen.
Driving rock score kicks in when the pace becomes faster - creates excitement.
'missing' people - good storyline.
heartbeat.
diegetic & non-diegetic sound.
Police - authority.
vulnerabilty.

AS A GROUP WE ANALYSE AROUND 20 HORROR TRAILERS. HERE IS A SAMPLE OF SOME BRIEF ANALYSIS WE DID.

FOR A PERFECT SHOT:

For a perfect shot lots of variables have to be taken into consideration.

The subject of the film: Always consider the purpose of a shot before you start to set it up. Have you found your subject? What do you want to show about it/them? Is your subject human? - are they wearing the right clothes? Are they in the right mood? Are they doing the right thing in the right place? These are the things you have to think of.

What are the backgrounds/locations:Always consider the background and location in your frames. Does it match your subject? - think colours and textures? Does your subject show up against the background? Does the location give additional information to the audience about the subject? What mise-en-scène will be included in your image?

Composition: Composition is the arrangement within the picture. This is how the audience interacts, as the composition often shows meaning through objects' relationships with each other.

Images are usually composed around the 'rule of thirds'. The rule of thirds is a basic principle where if you imagine breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 parts. The 9 sections help determine if the composition is good, unique, awkward, centered, left, etc.

Apart from arranging objects within the picture, another decision that is made in composition is focus, or depth of field. This dictates the depth into the picture in which objects are in clear focus. You may becide to blur out the background, in order to place more emphasis on central or foreground objects. or you may decide to have everything in your picture in equal focus, for instance in a landscape shot, or a group photo.

Framing: deciding where an image begins and ends - is as vital to the meaning of an image as composition. There are a whole variety of camera angles which can be selected to frame a shot and often what is left out is as important as what is included.

By framing two objects together in the same image, we imply a connection between them, especially if there is a physical link. By isolating an object within the frame - for instance showing a swimmer against an expanse of nothing but sea - we can make it seem insignificant and lonely.

FILMING SO FAR:

So, so far we've managed to film a lot of scenes and put together 45 seconds of final film. This part of the filming is the equilibrium - the 'happy' bit. Starting the editing wasn't that bad as we all worked as a group and made decisions together.

We've had a problem with the weather lately, due to the heavy snow that has been falling. So we had to put off filming for about 2 weeks, which wasn't so good!

But we managed to film quite a rangle of angles, and shot didtances for our trailer. Although a lot of them won't be used or are too amateur, it's better to have more than not enough.
We've used quite a few locations so far in our filming: Jen's house, Heworth grange School, Leam park, and Heworth Grange CLC.
We're all happy so far with the outcome, and there are some hilairious outtakes i need to put up... I'll keep you posted!

POSSIBLE MAKE-UP TUTORIALS:

COSTUME IDEAS:

Hanging scene: grey pants, because that is all that will be seen.

During school scenes: smartly dressed boys & girls. shirts, trousers, smart shoes, jumpers and possibly ties. This is to represent mature students / sixth form pupils.

At the park: Laura- jeans, top, coat, scarf. Chloe- jeans top coat, hat. This is because the girls are out of school and just have normal everyday clothing on.

Torture scenes: Chloe- ripped, dirty, dyed clothing, heavy make-up, tatty hair and pale looking. Thomas- dirty, ripped clothing; dirty face. Boys have dirty, ripped clothing too.

Car scene: Thomas: everyday clothing, maybe a hoody, joggers or jeans and trainers/plims. Chloe- ripped, dirty, dyed clothing, heavy make-up, tatty hair and pale looking.

Idea for Chloe's make-up from google images:















Heavy looking eyes - black and reddy colour eyeshadows, eyeliner, smutty marks on the face and darkened lips. I think the right hand image is perfect looking for a 'zombie' girl who hung herself. I'd just need to add rope marks around the neck, which would look like this...