Analysis of 'The Haunting in Therfield' Preliminary task

Our preliminary task, ‘The Haunting of Therfield’ we tried to achieve a horror genre feature based of ghost and mysterious happenings. We wanted the feature to be eerie and suspense building so then the audience would be on the edge of their seats.
‘The Haunting of Therfield’ isn’t a stereotypical horror genre feature as everything that would scare our audience happens during the day, for example, a girl who has a mysterious feature with her eye and stares creepily straight down the camera breaking the barrier.

At the beginning of our preliminary task is of a whiteboard suddenly being released from its position to reveal the phrase, ‘It’s Time’. Its written as if it was scribbled on the whiteboard and in red bold marker to make the audience feel uneasy to what is about to come and wonder who or what it could be that is going to cause the strange haunting of this school. However, when you watch our preliminary task from our video link you cannot see what is written on the board but we could see it whilst we were editing all of it together. This is something we should think about when we are doing our final project Teaser Trailer.
The next shot is an inter-title of the name of our preliminary task which we decided to use a black background and white font so then it stood out to the audience. We also made the written have an effect of being typed across the screen to emphasise that everything is happening to this particular school. Over the top of this clip we emphasised the heartbeat of the non-diagetic music which we hope would represent the audience’s feelings but also the heartbeat of the characters who are scared of what is happening around them.
After the inter-title we have a zoom in on the girl character in the toilet who to begin with looks like a normal student but then we have a close up of her eye which is completely white. This is to give the audience a chill. The effect that we used also made the shot more eerie as the swaying could be interpreted as the ‘ghost’ that is haunting the school affecting the way the audience would watch the feature.
We added in a ‘White Noise’ feature into our preliminary task which is repeated a couple of times but is only on the screen for a few seconds as many horror genre features are quick and jumpy. We also quickly cut in a close up of the girl’s eye once again, which just flashes upon the screen to make the film and school seem more eerie and mysterious than the audience probably would of first thought.
We then added another inter-title which says ‘The Lessons Begun’. We decided to add a slogan into the feature to make the audience wonder what type lesson the students at this school are going to have to undertake. The phrase is repeated many times to cause uneasiness and it is also in two font colours, white and red. We chose red because this is the colour for blood and hatred.
We ended the feature by running another sequence of the white noise which is to create suspense to what else is going to happen throughout the film.
Throughout the feature we used the same non-diagetic music to furthermore increase the eeriness, suspense and mystery to our film.

'The Haunting of Therfield' Preliminary Teaser Trailer

A Nightmare On Elm Street Trailer Analysis

A Nightmare on Elm Street is another horror genre film. The trailer tells the audience the narrative through the images used. We see how and why breifly of Freddy's past and how he got his features and his hatred to kill, also you are introduced to the different main characters who are slowly tormented and murdered. The audience are also introduced to Freddy's murder weapon; his metal 'claw' hand.
The unique selling point would be the fact that it is a remake of the classic version of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and the famous Freddy Kruger. This also attracts the target audience of adults who liked the classic version and want to see how the film has improved, also it would attract teenagers who have heard of the film and enjoy horror films.
During the trailer there are creepy littles girls singing a rhyme which says ' 1 2 Freddy's coming for you 3 4 better lock your door 5 6 grab your crucifix 7 8 gonna stay up late 9 10 never sleep again' this causes tension and frightens the audience as any form of nursey rhymes used during films creates an atmosphere that something terrible is happening to the characters. After the rhyme a fast drumming is used which goes with the fact that the pace of the trailer quickens and shows fast flashes of different shots showing important features of the film for a short period of time to draw the audience into wanting to go see the full film.
You also hear dialogue from different areas of the film; 'you have nothing to worry about. This wont hurt. One. Little. Bit' showing the audience how sadistic Freddy is and how he has no sympathy or regret for any of his many murders; 'Don't fall asleep' is also heard which makes the audience feel uncomfortable and will probably also affect them into not being able to sleep after watching the film from being to scared which is the aim of the trailer and the film. 'Don't fall asleep' is used as a intertitle as well to further make this statement sink into the audiences mind to make them more scared.
The other credits used were of the basic information of the director Micheal Bay, the release date and also the title of the film. All the credits and intertitles were writted in a creepy, horror style font and in blood red which represents horror and danger.

Cloverfield Teaser Trailer Analysis

Cloverfield is a Sci-Fi film which was produced in 2008.
The narrative of the film is shown by the teaser trailer where the audience see a the characters having a celebration/good luck party for one of their friends to which is ruined by noticing the destruction of NYC. Throughout the teaser trailer you don't see what animal/creature is destroying NYC which makes this one of the uniques selling points to their trager audience as it will be a mystery to everyone and the special effects the producer uses. The target audience for 'Cloverfield' is wide age range but for people who enjoy sci-fi movies and people who appreciate the work of the director, JJ Abrams.
There isn't much music used during the trailer only at the beginning when you see the characters enjoying themselves, when it fades to the destroying clips you only hear the sound of the creature and the dialogue. The sound of the creature is emphasised to further sell the film. At the beginning the dialogue is cheerful and wishing the leaving character goodluck and saying bye to then quickly flash to the next scene and hear someone say, 'you should of left earlier' which is a little bit of ironic humour to also attract in the audience.
The scenes are all shot by a held hand camera to make the film seem more real and also to place the audience in the characters shoes. The shots are at a very quick pace as the transitions are quite fast however the scenes show are rather long of the destruction to again draw in the audience towards the action.
Special effects where used for the explosions and and destruction of the statue of liberty which many people enjoying seeing different ways of experimenting with special effects to make these particular scenes to fit in with the reality of the film.
For the credits and intertitles, they give the basic information of who produced the film, the title of the film and its release date but also the production companies who finaced the film.

The Blair Witch Project Teaser Trailer Analysis

The Blair Witch Project is a horror film that was made in 1999. The narrative is shown by the first intertitle which tells the audience that the film is a documentary of a group of young adults who went into the woods. Having this intertitle makes the film automatically seem more frightening because of the reality that is created for the audience. This then attracts a certain audience of people who regularly entertain themselves by watching horror films.
The low banging of a bass drum is used throughout the whole teaser trailer but is amplified when the titles are shown to the audience. The music creates suspense during this teaser trailer as it is mostly a blank screen so the trailer relies on the music and titles to attract their audience.
The one shot that they trailer does use is a low angle of the girl and a close up of her eye which is crying heavily. Showing the audience that something bad is happening or has happened. The shot is also filmed by a hand held camera which further shows that the narrative is based of true events.
The pace of the teaser trailer is quite slow which makes the audience fear that something may make them jump and make them afraid because of the fact that its mostly a blank screen for many seconds. Making the audience continue to watch the trailer to see if anything happens that may help them understand what the film will be about.
There is dialouge/voiceover throughout the trailer of the character saying sorry to her friends parents and her own because it was her idea to go to the woods and film her 'project' but once the titles come on screen it is only her heavy breathing that you hear. This creates even more suspense for the audience as this speech certifys that something bad has happened to this group of people without giving anything away of how the project has gone bad.
No special effects where used during this trailer which again makes the film seem more realistic and based on true events for the footage to be real.
The intertitle at the beginning of the trailer just give the audience a breif summary of where the footage was found and how the footage was found. The credits don't tell the audience who directed this movie which normally attracts the target audience the only basic information giving is what the film is called and the release date which was halloween. Having the release date on halloween makes the film seem more eerie and scary for the audience as halloween is when people decide to dress up is horror outfits.

Idea's For Main Project

This year for media I was thinking that the group I am working with (Laura and Hannah) should do a horror genre. Most horror genre films consist a group of teenagers - young adults who are the target of a male killer.
I think that our film should follow this certain convention. I also think that the killers POV should be filmed hand held which would be like 'The Blairwitch Project' and 'Cloverfield'. This would make the audience see what the killer see's and how he masters his killings.
However, obviously we're doing a teaser trailer a lot of the information about our storyline wouldn't be released.

The teaser trailer should have a suspense creating soundtrack to grab our traget audience's attention which works well with the shots we use.

The transitions between the different shots of the 1 minute teaser trailer should be quick flashes and a lot of fading to black as the grows the audiences perspective of how dark the film would be.

Conventions of a Teaser Trailer

Most teaser trailers follow seven main conventions.
These conventions are:

• not much information about the film is given away making the film more intriguing
• the name of the film is given
• the sense of genre
• the release date
• the films target audience
• the trailer isn't sepuential
• and the trailer is no more than a minute long

Mindmap Of Genre Ideas And Examples

This is a mind map of the different genre's we are thinking about doing for our teaser trailer. As we did Chick-Flick last year we have chosen to do something different. I personally think that we should do a horror or a thriller because you can play around when editing the teaser trailer to make the suspense grow and toy with the audiences emotions and thoughts of what is going to happen during the film.
The mind map also helps us see what type films we could watch to get some inspiration for ideas that we could contribute into our final project.