After mind mapping our initial ideas for our storyline we developed these ideas into blocking which would give us a strong basis for creating our storyboards. Initially we noted down in stages a rough storyline that our trailer will be based upon and thought about possible camera angles/shots, duration of the shot and editing during this blocking process.
We then developed our notes into a more creative style of blocking in which we created more detailed notes to make the storyboarding process easier. This process was extremely useful because we knew exactly what our storyline was, an idea of shot type and duration of the shot which gave us a good foundation for when it came to storyboarding.
Initial Blocking
Inspiration behind our storyline
In our textual analysis we analysed the trailers for The Conjuring, Insidious and The Damned. In particular, we feel that The Conjuring and Insidious were particularly influential when it came to the creation of our storyline because of the action that takes place, the main themes that occur and the characters that are used. From our textual analysis and our audience research we discovered that the main protagonist is often females because they are seen as more vulnerable and weaker characters which makes them better suited to be in vulnerable positions in the horror genre. Our audience also responded that they think it is effective when children are used in horror films because the often make for effective, unsuspecting antagonising characters. Therefore we decided to use an all female cast and include a girl who is of a haunted and possessed nature and attached to the house the girls go to with the purpose of antagonising the 'intruders.'
The start of our horror trailer sees the girls travelling down country lanes. We have made sure to include a variety of shots such as establishing shots to capture the mise-en-scene of forestry and abandonment which connotes the horror genre well.
Fast pace editing is also a common feature in horror trailers because it shows a lot of action going on which builds up a lot of tension and really gets the audience engrossed in the trailer. So towards the end of our trailer as it is seemingly obvious that the horror is starting to prevail, we will include lots of fast pace cuts to hopefully create that tension.
We found that most of the horror trailers we watched at least included one framing shot of a house which is the location where the action takes place. Therefore, we have actually decided to include a framing shot of the house towards the start of the trailer as well as in the middle. However, the second framing shot is the house in the dark to show the beginning of the key horror action.
One obvious element in horror trailers is scenes that make the audience jump and frightened; especially of the unknown of what is coming next. The trailers we analysed all had these features and it is something we knew from the outset that we wanted to include in our trailer to make it effective and really connote the horror genre.
As our chosen sub-genre is psychological we have chosen to include different scenes where the possessed girl is creeping up on the protagonist, where she does things such as change the television channel and shout things to alarm the other characters as well as chasing the main protagonist girl in order to really antagonise her. We want the main female character to be suspicious of odd things that she finds around the house and as her suspicion grown the girl makes her presence more and more aware to the characters and this is when the horror really starts to prevail.
Overall, the combination of inspiration from existing trailers, our own original ideas and preferences from the audience have allowed us to come up with a dramatic storyline. We have taken into consideration all that we have learnt about tension building techniques by analysing the different elements of trailers, posters, magazines, locations, props etc in order to create an effective horror trailer.
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