Planning

When starting to plan the trailer we had many ideas based around the horror genre. We thought about what the horror genre includes and displayed our ideas as a mood board which we referred to for inspiration. We constructed our mood board using Google images and we searched terms that we recognised as being familiar with the horror genre. I found my mood board particularly useful for generating inspiration but also found it worked as a collective collage displaying some of the key conventions of the horror genre.

After deciding to focus on the horror genre, we decided to ask ourselves some questions to form our initial ideas.

Who will you be working with? Sophie Yates

Chosen genre and why? Horror as this is a genre that we are interested in and feel that we know something about.
Target audience for your film? Our target audience for our trailer is 17-25 as we feel this is the age group that tend to watch horror films. Horror isn't a niche genre as such as it has a wide spectrum of people that watch horror films and doesn't require a certain level of intelligence or specific focused interest such as genres like film noir.

USP for your film? Our USP for our trailer is that it is star driven. We decided this as most horror films we know of are either star or director driven. From discussing it within our pair we feel that a film being star driven is much more likely to attract our target audiences interest as it's a lot easier to recognise the star of a film than it is to recognise a director.
Producer/s for your film? We decided that we were going to use Universal studios to produce and distribute our film as after researching into institutions this was the studio with the most experience of the horror genre.

Distributors of your film? See above answer.

Shot List
When planning our trailer we decided on the following shot list :

1. Tracking shot of the main character walking from her car. Stills images taken in a sequence to give the audience the impression she is being watched.
2. Long shot of the girl opening her curtains. Camera is placed in the trees. Gives the audience a shot of the girl from the stalkers point of view.
3. Shot of the moon moving across the clouds in the dark.
4. Long shot of a shadow in the woods. Edited to be a quick flash to build up tension within the trailer.
5. Shots of photos of the girl being laid down on the table. Edited so the shot is quicker. Gives the audience the impression that the shots are being built up over time.
6. Shot of villain standing underneath a lantern. Editing so the lantern flickers and the villains face is distorted.
7. Graveyard shot of the villain walking towards the camera looking menacing.
8. Shot of the villain touching the girls arm whilst she is asleep. Build up tension within the audience.
9. Mid-shot of the victim holding the knife. Relates to Carol Clover's study of the image of a female victim within horror films.
10. Torch in the dark flickering.
11. Villain with his hand pressed against the window. Gives the audience the feeling that the villain is getting closer to the girl.
12. Girl opens the curtains and the villain appears.
13. Girl crying on the floor. Creates sympathy within the audience for the character.
14. Shaky camera shot of the floor. Gives the audience an insight to the perspective of the girl character as she tries to escape.
15. Hand of the villain appears over the girls shoulder.
16. Girl lay unconscious at the bottom of the staircase with blood across her face. Creates a sense of mystery as the audience don't know whether she fell or has been pushed.
17. Girl on the phone underneath her bed.
18. Girl shuffling backwards on the floor of the woods whilst the villain charges at her with a hammer.
19. Reverse shot of the trailer at high speed.
20. Girl lights a match in the dark illuminating her face and the audience see the villain appear over her shoulder blowing the match out.

Animatic Storyboard

Risk Assessment
Before we could start filming our trailer, we had to consider the risks involved in filming it. We sat and looked at our shots and discussed what risks could arise when filming. We constructed a grid of shots that contained risks and wrote what we did to avoid these.
Please click here to see my risk assessment grid.

Plot synopsis

'A story of a father whose daughter is taken and brutally murdered when she was just a young woman and her body is found in a local riv er. The father is consumed with grief and guilt and becomes withdrawn from his community. Years later, a young woman moves in across the street and she strikes an uncanny resemblance to the father's daughter. He

notices this and becomes obsessed with the idea of her as his mental health deteriorates. The father decides he is going to kill the young woman and he feel that someone should have to suffer for the pain him and his daughter have gone through. He becomes determined to makes the young woman's life hell as she is alive and his daughter

is not. A series of events occur within the film but this twisted storyline turns into murderous violence.'
This was our final plot synopsis for our trailer. We changed the story several times as we played around with ideas for example:

• We had the idea that his daughter simply went missing and the young woman turned out to be his daughter
• We thought about different times of year such as setting it on Halloween or Christmas but we felt this idea would be too similar to films that have already been made.

Location Details

Our film trailer was set in the village of Gawsworth.
We used this house for our interior shots.

We used this graveyard for some of our exterior shots to create a sinister atmosphere.

This was the location for our point of view hand held camera shots to give the audience the characters sense of fear.

We used Maggoty Wood in Gawsworth for our shots with the shadows and torches. We also

used the woods for some of our

end shots in the trailer where the girl is struggling with the villain.

Actors List

Chloe Yates- plays the girl within the trailer being stalked by the villain. She is also a theatre student and we felt she would be a versatile actress to include within the trailer.

Mark Blackman - plays the grief stricken villain.
We felt that Mark fitted the image we had for our villain very well and has had experience in the acting field before. Mark is also the voice used in our voice over and we felt he was suitable for this as he is a radio presenter and has many years experience in working on the radio and with voice.

Script for dialogue and voice over
From conducting research into other film trailers voice over and dialogue, in particular the film 'The Tourist' I saw it was crucial that t

he voice over and dialogue indicates the storyline to the audience, as this is what makes them want to watch the film. I decided that my dialogue and voice over included within my trailer should indicate my plot line to the audience in order to make my target audience want to watch it.
This is the script for my voice over:
Key : Professional voice over
Villain

Random voice
Victim

'When a man’s obsession drives him toofar
The only solution is murder

What do you want from her?

Come here!

A story of revenge, loss and love

Go away!
His past will always haunt his future'

I feel that the professional voice over reveals the overall basic plot line of the story and reveals a little about the story of the villain.
I think the random voice shouting 'What do you want from her?' indicates to the audience that there is a person within the film that is helping the victim and confronts the villain and this could entice the target audience into watching the film as they want to find out who the voice belongs too.
The victim shouting 'Go away!' indicates to the audience that she is scared of the villain and is desperate to get away from him.

From the voice over I feel that an audience will be able to gather a substantial understanding of the storyline and the relationship between the victim and the villain.

Music and music choices
From our research and analysing horror teaser trailers we knew that our music would be a key element in creating the tense atmosphere that will make our teaser effective.
Firstly we googled 'copyright free music' and found a really useful site : www.freeplaymusic.com

We used the search tools and selected categories such as 'Feeling -suspense and terror' into the search tool. The website then generated results that we could listen to previews of and if we wanted to use it, download the track as MP3.
We chose tracks that we thought were atmospheric and we also chose tracks that we thought would work well together in creating a tense atmosphere that was full of suspense.
Sound effects
We also thought about sound effects and sourced them from our media technician's catalogue and sound bank. We sourced clips of screams, punches, sighs, and a typewriter. We knew that we didn't intend to use all of the sound effects but thought they would be useful for experimentation and to see which sound effects worked best with certain shots for example the shot where the villain is charging at the victim with a hammer.