Thursday, 28 April 2016

Conventions and Purpose of Horror Trailers

Looking at existing films and their trailers is very important as it allows us to see how the audience reacts to certain aspects and conventions so we know what we want to make work in our own trailer. We can look at the trailers that successfully reached their target audience and see what made them so successful. It is important that not only do we take the good aspects of trailers, but we should also adapt them and make them better so it is suitable for our own target audience but also gives them something new and fresh. We don’t want to create a trailer that looks like an already existing one because it will be criticized by our audience and will probably make some lose interest.

Existing trailers allowed us to find out the conventions of horror trailers and how we needed to use these conventions in order to make an impact on our audience.

Horror conventions include:
  • Sound effects
  • Musical score
  • Jump scare(s)
  •  Eerie/secluded  setting (Cabin in the Woods, Blair Witch, Evil Dead, Friday the 13th)
  • Technical code
  • Character Types
  • Editing (Slow paced building up to a fast pace section)
  • Iconography (Colours, lighting, weapon props)

Slasher conventions include:
  • Gore
  • Masked or disfigured killer (Freddy, Jason, Leather face, Michael Myers)
  • Generic characters, usually a group of teens
  • Final Girl
  • Equilibrium
  • Sex Appeal

The audience response to trailers is one of the most important parts of marketing a film. Releasing multiple trailers for films allow for the editor and those making the film to make changes to better fit the audience and what they like. How succesful a trailer is can alter how well the film itself does at the box office since the audience need to be persuaded to buy a ticket so getting feedback from the audience is vital for success.

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