Slow pace of editing and gradually builds tension up
Clear binary opposition’s e.g. good v evil
Use of low key lighting
Dominant, hegemonic representation of gender: The Female Victim
Extensive use of close up
Incidental non-diegetic sound
Distorted diegetic sound
Extensive use of narrative off-screen space
Young/teenage characters
Use of hand-held camera: audience identification/realism
Point of view shots
Low angle shots
Secluded location: place characters where there
is no-one around to help them e.g. woods, abandoned house etc.
Characters forget about the threat of the film
Power cuts
Phone lines cut off
Someone investigates a strange noise
Victim falls over
Vehicle won’t start
'The fake scare'
Someone killed early on
Show a different time period '5 years later'
Storm
Quick cuts
The bullet points in red and bold we thought we might want to portray in our own film trailer as we felt that they suited our storyline and would be the most relevant to incorporate in order to give off a typical representation of a horror film.
Captain Spaulding (House of 1000 Corpses and Devil's Reject) Described in the script of 'House of 1000 Corpses' as "crusty looking old man in a filthy clown suit and smeared make-up". Lured tourists into a trap of torture and sacrifice.
Killer Klowns (Killer Klowns From Outer Space)
The clowns are from outer space and their plan is to use the human race as a food source. One of the clowns uses the corpse of a police officer as a ventriloquist dummy.
Horny the Clown (Drive Thru)
Serial killing clown He is a displaced and vengeful spirit who was the victim of manslaughter He kills his murderers children as a form of vengeance
Emmett (Scary Or Die)
Turns from a man into a flesh eating were-clown He was bitten by a clown at his little brothers birthday party and slowly turns into a zombie clown.
John Gacy (Gacy)
The character is based around a real life serial killer, John Wayne Gacy, who sexually assaulted and murdered atleast 33 teenage boys. He dressed as 'Pogo the Clown' and helped out at charity events, parades and childrens parties.
Gurdy the Clown (100 Tears)
The clown was accused of crimes he did not commit He kills people by gutting and dismemebering them with an oversized meat cleaver.
Clown Doll (Poltergeist)
The clown doll becomes possessed by an evil spirit and creeps up on a young boy in his bed. The plastic doll face changes into an evil clown face
Pennywise the Dancing Clown (IT)
The clown tears a childs arm off and appears out of drains It is an inter-dimensional predatory life-form which has the ability to transform into its victims worst fear.
This is the trailer to Halloween (1978). We chose to look at this film because the main character is masked/disguised throughout the film. The protagonist, Michael Myers, is a serial killer and this is what we are looking into for our trailer. Characters
Michael Myers challenges the typical representations of a young child as they stereotypically innocent and naive, however he has just brutally murdered his sister. Clowns are meant to be happy and cheery for children, so the fact that he is dressed in a clowns outfit holding a knife, presents clowns as a horror figure.
Throughout the rest of the film, the adult Michael Myers wears a mask to hide his identity. We were inspired by this as we want our killer to be anonymous, therefore he will be disguised as a clown. Sound Halloween starts with children chanting a Halloween 'trick or treat' song, this makes it seems innocent as they are children, which is ironic for the start of a horror film. The rhymes the children sing echo as if sung in a vast space, this brings out a slight insecurity about the sound as it is so unusual.
"The one, the only, the classic, Halloween. Halloween night, a small American town, fifteen years ago. Halloween. Halloween. Halloween. The night HE came home."
- Halloween voiceover
There is a reoccurring high pitched, non-diegetic drone that suggests something bad is going to happen throughout the beginning. The score is very simple but this suits the simplicity of the plot, it's minimal and repetitive, this creates an awkward sound that is uncomfortable to listen to and creates a tension in the trailer which scares the audience.
Lighting
Low lighting is used throughout the film Halloween with an eerie blue lighting. Together this creates mystery and fear as you are unable to see everything in the shot, adding to the horror aspect of the film.
Camera Angles
A lot of wide angle, long tracking shots are used throughout the film, these point-of-view shots make the viewer feel more involved in the action and therefore more scared. This is a very popular shot to use in horror films as it makes the audience aware that there is something or someone else there that the main character does not know, this adds suspense to the audience and questions them as to what is going to happen next.
We created a timeline showing how horror movies have changed since the 1930s. It looks at what the films were based around e.g. monster, supernatural, psychological and describes how the horror genre has developed. The timeline also has examples of horror movies that came out at the time and their movie posters.
We have decided to go with the genre 'horror'. We chose pictures that have the connotations of being from horror films, these include 'The Dark Knight' & 'Scream'. We also looked at real life events that relate to the genre of our choice. We then decided to explore clowns and chose a selection of pictures of frightening well-known clowns.
