Individual plan for Horror Trailer- Possible Locations for Horror Trailer & Possible Plan for my Horror Trailer.

Individual plan for Horror Trailer- Props Contained and Costumes of Characters In Film.

Individual plan for Horror Trailer- Characters Contained Inside of My Film.

Individual plan for Horror Trailer- Plot for Whole Film.

Analysis of Horror Trailer 3- The Woman In Black

My third horror trailer analysis is going to be for the film- The Woman In Black. I will apply DISTINCT to the trailer and in depth discuss how the film encourages horror loves to come and watch. Overall I personally believe that the trailer is very frightening, gloomy and terrorising. It firstly starts of with quick credits on the film creation etc and when this happens there is a very gloomy type of screen. It shows a dark horror type of sky with the clouds moving. This creates suspicion to start of the trailer. There is the sound of a train horn and it moving, which has been added over this screen and this is another aspect at the start which adds further suspicion and terror.

The majority of the settings which are contained inside of the trailer are gloomy and mostly dark. To start of with it shows a train moving along in dusk and therefore the trailer begins reasonably normal and not frightening to let viewers engage before and gain and understanding of the story to the film. It shows shortly after a setting of Eel Marsh House where Arthur visits. Despite this being in the daytime it portrays the surrounding and what  type of house it is which is very horror like. It kind of sums up its history with it being old and also haunted. With the lighter setting inside of the train when Arthur is talking to Samuel Daily, you can see the surrounding of the train and what it is like compared to trains in todays generation. This will give spectators some idea of the time when the film is set. There is another setting this time inside of the house. It is very dark and suspicious despite being in daylight once again and this in many ways sums up the house to spectators and what it would be like to stay there. Which of course.. is frightening! There a lot of dark, neutral colours like blacks, dark purples, and greys used to portray further fright in settings. Another aspect of the trailer which is particularly frightening and simplifies the genre of the film is when Arthur is outside of the house in the dark. It is heavily raining as well as thundering and lightening which is typical weather and a typical setting for a horror movie. He sees various dead people which is scary for spectators and shows them the extent of fright which is contained inside of the movie. 

The camera movements are mostly very sudden and sharp. This tends to empathise terror to spectators and make them jump! A brilliant example is when Arthur lights a match and then suddenly the camera immediately jumps to the horror character in front of him which is shocking for viewers. It then jumps back to Arthur’s reaction very quickly. This series of fast, immediate shots creates horror for the spectators and again shows them what the movie will be like when watching. The trailer contains mostly jumpy parts and it is a case of waiting for spectators to when the next frightening part will be. I think this is brilliant as again it prepares viewers for the kind of aspects which the film will contain if they decide to go and watch. An anticipating, jumpy part is when Arthur spins the lamp shade. Everything is quiet and all you can hear is the shade spinning. Arthur looks inside and then an eye pops up suddenly. To empathise the terror on this there is a high pitched immediate sound. Music and sound also plays a large part in the fright of the trailer. There mainly seems to be short sudden sounds of high pitches to empathise horror to viewers. There is a short montage of certain parts of the film in the trailer showing a rook/crow on a table (signifiers of death), a house fire as well as Arthur and Samuel’s reactions to this. These are short sudden clips and increasing sound combined with a mixture of high and low pitches is placed over the top as well as dialogue from the clips to again create suspense. 

Iconography also plays a part inside of the trailer. One particular aspect which I noticed are the three little girls walking towards a window. Before this it shows one of girls foot stomping on a ‘dolls’ head. The fact that there is a doll on the floor shows that they would have been playing with these kind of toys and this is typical iconography for a little girl and the kind of thing which they find interesting at that age. The fact that Arthur has a son and the woman says to him ‘go home to him’ shows that he is away/ working away from his son. This would in a way show the typical iconography of a man- going out to work and earn- he is sacrificing leaving his son. Inside of the trailer there are also various character types. Arthur is seen as the central character inside of the trailer who the film will work around. Samuel is seen as Arthurs helper and friend also and he tends to know what the house is like in some ways because he is local. Arthur is seen as daring in the trailer finding out what is in the house with no ‘local buyer’. With him coming up from London and going into the house he doesn’t know what it contains and what it can lead too. This therefore can make him kind of innocent in a way also. There is a character saying ‘you should have gone when we told you too’, to Arthur. This guy seems to be a local and fond with the people in the current surrounding environment. He tends to be the ‘hater’ maybe along with other locals towards Arthur as he sees him doing something wrong which maybe Arthur does not know he is doing himself. With Samuel being his friend this may lead to locals  not liking him also. The woman who tells Arthur to go back to his son also seems to be a local but one that cares about him . Shee knows what he should do and not stay here. Last but not least there then seems to be the horror type of characters. There is the face which comes up suddenly after Arthur has lit a match and then there is the figure shown in the background of some parts of the trailer in darker clothing which appears to be ‘The Woman In Black’ who seems to be the main horror character. There are also then the dead children arthur see’s when outside the house. These type of characters are the ones which cause the most fright in the trailer towards spectators. 

Lastly there are also some themes contained inside of the trailer. One main one is fear. Of course as explained above and shown in the trailer Arthur experiences a lot of fear as do the spectators also. Neglection is maybe another contained inside the trailer also. When the man says to Arthur ‘you should have gone when we told you too’, they are basically saying that they don’t want him there and with Arthur only recently arriving he is being neglected from an area he doesn’t really know to well. 

Analysis of Horror Trailer 2- The Pact

Overall I think that trailer for the film- The Pact is a brilliant one all round. It is really encouraging for horror lovers to go and watch the film to see what it has to offer. Throughout all of the trailer it keeps spectators on the edge of their seats with fright anticipating what is going to happen.  The short clips as in every trailer from the film in this case which are extremely scary, show the audience the extent of the terror in the movie overall. Something which is really brilliant about the trailer is the way that it instantly shows a horror setting showing the camera entering a dark, gloomy, pitch black door way. This introduces the genre of the film to begin with. I like the way the writing on screen pops us with in a suspicious, scientific type sound to add furthermore horror effect. The majority of the settings contained and shown inside of the trailer are dark and neutral. When the woman is driving her motorbike on the road it is daytime but however it is not very bright and is shown quite gloomy, miserable and depressing weather. It isn’t happy and the setting matches the scared, terrorising content in the film. When day time is shown inside the trailer, despite this it still seems to be quite dark and gloomy overall and when in the house during the day it is exactly the same. When the woman goes and asks for ‘Nicole’ in the house it is daytime and the surrounding area is presented in low key lighting being dull and sets suspicion around the area. When the woman also does the method to try and find out if there’s a spirit in her house with the letters on the floor and the crucifix it is again another point in the trailer with a dark setting. She lights only a candle as her form of vision which again provides low key lighting in the surrounding which is aimed to create more terror for the viewers. Apart from the majority of the settings in the trailer being shown as dark and terrorising they are also more urban. The trailer is based mainly in the central characters house. The most frightening and anticipating aspect inside the trailer is when the woman flickers the lighter to see and when turning round there is a figure present in the same room. Again in this setting it is completely dark to begin with and extremely terrorising for viewers. 

There are also various technical codes inside of the trailer. The camerawork contained seems to be very robust, slow, smooth and simple when starting the trailer and telling the basis of the story of the film. However when reaching scary, intense parts the camerawork becomes very quick, sudden, sharp and distort to empathise terror and fear for the audience. A good example is right at the very start of the trailer when her little girl on video call says ‘mummy. Who’s that behind you?’ and when she turns around the camera sharply changes direction focussing on a figure in the doorway to create terror. There isn’t any actual music added inside of the trailer but there is sound. The sound tends to be sharp, sudden high and low pitched sounds to once again frighten spectators. These sounds only occur of course at the terrorising and scary parts in the trailer and apart from this when showing the rest of the trailer there tends to just be voices talking which also is reasonably suspicious as the mood is quite dull because of this. Also with just the voices speaking in other parts of the trailer it makes the spectators think when the next sudden scary aspect is going to come with loud frightening sound. The costumes of the majority of the characters are plain and simple and not very horror like at all. The make up on the girl who tries and contacts the ‘other side’ is very faint and pale. This however is very horror like. 

There isn’t really much Iconography which I can talk about inside of the trailer but there is however still some. The main central character of the woman as explained is a mother. She appears to have some kind of paranormal spirit inside of her house and of course will do everything she can to protect herself as well as her daughter from this. This can relate to her playing a typical, protective motherly role. She is the victim but also is the hero at the same time. Something else which I can relate to iconography is the male helper. He seems to step in also in the trailer entering the haunted house with the central character looking around. I can relate this to an indicator of masculinity of him helping out being a gentlemen. 

 

There are various character types contained inside of the trailer. There is of course the main central characters who’s life the film focusses around which in this case in the woman. You then have the central characters daughter who appears to be on video call and then I think in her bedroom in the house. These characters are normal everyday people. There is also then the helper who appears to be a physchological kind of woman. As explained she is actually quite a horror type of character with bold eyes and pale skin. She can seem too connect with spirits and so therefore is a different type of character. There then also seems to be another type of helper which is the man. He seems normal just like the central character however and and outgoing, everyday type of guy. You can also tell this from his simple, normal type of costume. 

There are many themes which are present inside of this trailer. One of the main ones is Female Power. As described previously the woman is in most control throughout the trailer trying to fight off the paranormal spirit inside of her home. She has the most power out of the characters and does it all on her own mostly with the slight help of the other characters.

I can also relate this trailer to the conventions of horror. In many horror movies (of course depending on the type), you expect to see particular aspects and witness certain events. For example you would typically expect to see things like blood, death, weapons, large frightening characters, ghosts/spirits etc. In this trailer there are many of these. There is a paranormal spirit in the house which shuts doors, and as shown drags the central character in her house and picks her up etc. The central character also has a knife in her hand at one point in the trailer which is a typical weapon many would expect to see inside of a horror movie. Darkness is another convention in horror movies which is common and something audiences expect to see. As explained when talking about setting, their is a lot of darkness present in the trailer which provides extensive fright. 

After looking at the four theorists as explained previously on my blog some of these can relate to this particular trailer. I cannot relate Tzvetan Todorov as I am only analysing the trailer and so therefore do not know the whole story of the film. I can relate some of Vladimir Propp's theory of character roles from the characters I have witnessed in the trailer. The Villian of course tends to be the spirit in the house. The hero tends to be the central character who is the woman trying to get rid of the spirit/find out what it is, and the man as well as the pale skinned girl are the helpers who aid the woman slightly in the trailer. The donor maybe the girl as she may be able get in contact with the spirit present which is a large help to the woman. The other character roles which are: The princess, her father, the dispatcher and the false hero I cannot relate to the characters in this trailer. Looking at Claude Levi-Strauss’ theory of binary oppositions in the trailer I have identified a few. These are: 

Day/Night

Spirit/Human

Male/Female

Young/Old

Light/Dark

Normal/Abnormal

I cannot relate the theory of Bordwell and Thompson to this trailer.

Narrative Theory in Relation to Halloween

Recently I have been researching and looking at the narratives of four Media Theorists. These people are: TzvetanTodorov, Vladimir Propp, Claude Levi-Strauss and Bordwell and Thompson. The theorists looked at narrative in different ways and how the plot of a film/story went. I will now relate the theories of each of the theorists to the film- Halloween.

Tzvetan Todorov

In relation to the film Halloween, I think that Todorov’s theory doesn’t really apply to the film. Going by Todorov’s theory the film would start with equilibrium with everything being fine and normal and then there would generally be a disruption/disequilibrium (event) which would then set off a series of events within the film. These would happen and then in the end there would be a new equilibrium and everything would come back to normal like at the start. In Halloween there isn’t an original equilibrium. Spectators are instantly put into the horror aspect of the film witnessing horrific events of Michael Myers spying on his sister and her boyfriend eventually killing her after they went upstairs to have sex as he sees this as being wrong. This event of course is right at the very start of the film and sets of a chain of events which lead to Michael being placed in a mental institution, escaping, killing more people etc. However after spectators see the first event of Michael killing his sister it shows the doctor- Sam Loonis as well as his assistant- Marion Chambers travelling to the local sanitarium to have Michael transferred to a maximum security prison. This is the point where he escapes and steals their car driving it away. Again this is another horror aspect and event which has occurred at the start of the film and isn’t an equilibrium. After this stage the film becomes a lot more original and normal where Laurie a 17 year old girl is walking to school. Cutting the long story short Myers is still out there, and this is the point where he sets a chain of events of killing people, one trying to be Laurie but he does not succeed. At the end of the film is the point where he tries and kills her. He does not succeed after various attempts and with Dr Loomis helping as back up shooting him, it knocks back his chances. He is shot and falls over the balcony of Laurie’s home. One minute he is lying on the floor and when looking again he is not there. He is still on the loose prepared to kill once again. The film ends after this point and there is not a new equilibrium with things not necessarily returning back to normal life for Laurie as she knows he’s still out there. This backs up my idea of how Todorov’s classic Hollywood narrative doesn’t apply to the film really in any way. 

Vladimir Propp

Propp was a theorist who tended to look at 8 different character roles and types which generally can be applied to all kinds of narrative. I will now go onto relate these character roles to the correct characters contained in the film- Halloween. All of the character roles which Propp looked at however will not apply to this movie and the movie will not have some of these types characters. 

• The Villain- Michael Myers (Killer)
• The hero- Dr Loomis
• The donor- No One
• The helper that aids the hero- Marion Chambers (when alive, Loomis not a hero)
• The princess. (The sought for person) reward for the hero and object of the villains schemes -Laurie (maybe)
• Her Father- who rewards the hero- No One
• The dispatcher, who sends the hero on his way- No One
• The false hero- No One Claude

Levi-Strauss

Levis Strauss looked at narrative in a way of binary oppositions. These are sets of opposite values which actually reveal the structure of media texts. They were not so interested in looking at the order in which the events were arranged in the plot and instead they looked for deeper arrangements of themes. After watching Halloween there are various binary oppositions in which are created by the narrative and genre of the movie. These are: 

Day/Night- The daytime in the movie is much more quiet than the night of course. The daytime tends to consist of Myers spying and looking upon his victims in the film and not commiting any kind of crime. The night time is completley different as he tends to commit these crimes killing his targets. These are commited at night with a darker setting to fit in well with the genre of the film which of course- Horror.

Good/Evil- Laurie, Dr Loomis, Marion Chambers and the children (good people, there to help)/ Michael Myers (Killer, the evil person).

Healthy/Unhealthy-Laurie, Dr Loomis, Marion Chambers and the children are all healthy/Michael Myers is unhealthy-mentally ill- he kills.

Normal/ Strange- Laurie, Dr Loomis, Marion Chambers and the Children are all normal people living a normal life/Michael Myers is strange, not right in the head. He is a mass murderer. 

Life/Death- Michael Myers aim is to keep his own life and kill others portraying death upon them. Marion Chambers, Michaels sister as well as Lynda and Bob are killed for example and Laurie stays alive luckily escaping Michaels attempt to kill her. 

Past/Present- In the past Michael killed his sister who was 16 at the time for having sex with her boyfriend. This point was a large change in his life which caused him in to become a psycho killer when older (present time in the film).

Male/Female- Mixture of gender in the film-Female- Laurie, Marion, Michaels sister and Lynda. Male- Michael (main focus) Dr Loomis, Marion's dad (sheriff). Female gender seems to be the main focus of death- Marion, Lynda and Michaels sister were all killed etc.

Happy/Unhappy- The majority of characters are happy to begin with- Marion, Laurie, Lynda & Bob together, Michaels sister with her boyfriend and then of course when being killed- they become unhappy. Surrounding people like Laurie who know Michael is on the loose also become unhappy of course because they are scared of him and what he is capable of.

Young/Old- Children are present inside of the film (Laurie & Marion's children) and then of course the older charrcters like Laurie, Marion and many more as explained previously. Michael was young when he committed murder and then when growing older become mentally ill and a psycho killer. 

Advantage/Disadvantage- Michael Myers tends to have the main advantage over all characters in the film. He escaped from the institution he was in and kills people. He's scary and threatening to people and having the experience in previously committing a crime like this he has the advantage to do the same again which he does to people. The normal people like Laurie and Marion and the other characters as explained have the disadvantage being victims. They are on the receiving end of Michaels attempting crimes.

Victim/Killer-(Laurie/Michael) The victims in the movie tend to be the healthy, normal people such as Laurie, Dr Loomis, Marion Chamber and more as previosuly explained. The killer is of course Michael Myers who is unhealthy and mentally ill.

Rural/Urban- There tends to be a mixture of rural and urban surroundings. When Dr Loomis and Marion Chambers go to try and transfer Michael from the mental institution it is in a rural environment. It is a country surrounding and can be maybe seen in the film as much quieter and less safe in many ways. Of couse Michael escpaes from the institution when they try and transfer him and steals their car. The urban surroundings are the more built up areas with houses where Marion and Laurie live. These are maybe seen by many in the film as a safer area and when here no one could get them.This of course was not the case as they could and did with Myers on the loose.

Sane/Insane- The sane characters as like explained are the healthy, normal individuals such as Marion Chambers, Laurie etc. You then have the insane which is of course Michael Myers as he kills and is not right in the head (mentally ill).
 

Innocent/Guilt- The normal, sane, characters are the innocent ones. They are normal people, living their normal life doing their everyday jobs. For example: Marion Chambers is Dr Loomis' assistant which is her job and she ends up getting killed in the end. Laurie is an inncoent school girl who is dragged into all this terror as she is friends with Marion. The guilty is of course Myers as he is the killer comminting the crimes because of his mental health.

Man/Monster- The man is generally classed as the sane, normal everyday person who are of course people Like Laurie, Marion Chambers and others. The monster is classed as the insane, mentally ill, large terrorising character which is Michael Myers.

Bordwell & Thompson

Bordwell and Thompson see narrative as ‘a chain of events in a cause and effect relationship, occurring in time and space’. For themselves, a narrative typically begins with one situation and then a  series of changes occur according to a pattern of cause and effect. Finally a new situation arises which brings the end of the narrative. I will now try and relate this specific theory to Halloween. Firstly at the start of the film there is a situation of Michael spying on his sister and her boyfriend expressing their love for each other in their living room. Like explained Michael appears to be angry by this situation where his sister and her lover eventually go upstairs to have sex and so therefore grabs a knife from the kitchen draw. A series of changes occur via cause and effect as Michaels anger has caused him to kill his sister which is the effect from this outcome. He is now potentially a killer from the cause and effect sequence. After this start of the film we see Michael escape from the mental institution which he appeared to be in. Him being here is a change to his lifestyle which has been caused from the cause and effect situation as well as his attitude and mental health where he is a murderer. The new ‘situations’ which brings the film to an end are the murders in which Michael tries and does commit. It does eventually bring the end of the narrative where at this point he is trying to commit another murder which is upon Laurie but does not succeed. 

Bordwell and Thompsons theory in a film in many ways was simple and true. It is easy to understand. When watching films, what happens on screen isn't always what has happened in the story and to viewers things have also happened off screen. This was there theory that things also happen off screen which are part of the story and these can have a large effect on the film in general. A good example was if to say that a member of a characters family in a movie has died. They may be talking about their death and there maybe a picture of them in the characters home which is shown on screen so it gives viwers an understanding of what has happened. However the viewer has not seen the character actually die in the movie. They would have only figured out what happened to the character who died from what would have been happening on screen in the movie at that present moment. Overall it is a brilliant theory which is very easy to understand and it is also very effective at the same time. It can play a very large part in a film and set up the story from the beginning.

Analysis of Horror Trailer- Insidious

The link above shows the trailer to the horror movie- Insidious. The film was released in the year of 2010 and is rated only an age 15. The director of the film was James Wan with the writer being Leigh Whannell. The film stars Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne and also Ty Simpkins as well as many more. I will now go onto analyse the trailer of the film. After watching the trailer over and over again a various number of times, there are many aspects which I find very interesting as well as clever and also appealing . The idea of a film trailer is to encourage people to watch the film which is being advertised and in many ways to grab their attention to the storyline. I can most certainly and confidently say that this trailer does exactly this. Overall the film took in an astonishing $97,009,150 from the box office after only costing $1.5 million to make. The first thing which was shown on the trailer was the name of the film. I think that this is brilliant as it instantly introduces itself to spectators. The font of the text of this name shown is quite a modern but worn text. As well as this it is also placed on a plain black background and both of these features represent the genre of the film which is of course- horror. They give a more horror effect overall. When the name is shown it is an animation and skips between the name ‘insidious’ and ‘in’ where doing this there is a crackly type sound and this is very mysterious. Setting a scarier entrance likes this prepares the audience for what they are about to see and would if they see the movie.

At the start of the trailer after the name, there is a medium close up shot on what appears to be the central character of the movie. This is very good and is another aspect which I particularly like as again it introduces him immediately to the audience so they can see and judge what he is like to begin with. He closes his eyes as if in deep thought and there is a ticking sound which is coming from a metronome. There is no other sound apart from this and once again the scene becomes very suspicious as well as frightening. After this part of the trailer there is a small montage showing the central character and his family. It shows them having fun and in their normal life but over the top of this montage there is still the ticking sound from the metronome as well as the characters voices. The montage is very important as it is giving the spectators some idea of who is contained as it is showing the main characters and their lifestyle. As in most trailers they give clips from the film to sell their film the audience watching and to encourage them to view. Inside this particular trailer I like the way it shows a clip from the film where a rocking horse is moving with no one present in the room and the female character is wondering what it is of course. There is build up music at this part and then silence when reaching the rocking horse. This is a suspicious, frightening aspect of the trailer again and it shows spectators what they can expect if going to see the film.

Throughout the trailer there tends to be a lot of sudden camera movements. This aspect shows fright, as well as a sense of danger and emergency. As well as showing clips from the day time, they mostly show footage which is in dark gloomy settings to show the genre of the film more as well as to add terror. Rewinding back to the start of the trailer, it advertises that the film was from the makers of Paranormal Activity and Saw. Personally I think this is a brilliant feature to add into the trailer as it may encourage audiences more to come and watch if they know that these people have made this film after previously watching the other films they have worked on and enjoyed them. There is a point in the trailer which is very frightening. There is the central male character and behind him comes the horror character which tends to be a devil looking character. He is only revealed for a short time but it allows the audience to get an insight to what he is like. It also scares the audience as he is suddenly revealed and is extremely different looking too the other characters. As with all, this movie trailer gives a basis of the storyline to spectators to give them a feel to what it is about.

As there was at the start of the trailer, a montage has been included at the end. This is something which I think is brilliant once again as well as important. With the montage at the start it shew spectators not only the characters contained but what their life was like and them having fun etc. The montage at the end of the film shows the frightening events which they go through because of the devil/spirit causing them problems. It shows the changes in their life in comparison to what they were like before in the first montage and because of this I think that this is particularly important. Of course the release date is placed at the end of the trailer to make people aware when the film is available to view. When this is shown it doesn’t just show the date it has an effect which makes it slightly more frightening. It reads: ‘Everywhere April 1’ instead of just saying ‘April 1’. ‘Everywhere’ has been added to give the impression that the devil/spirit is everywhere as well as the film will be on this date to make spectators slightly more scared than what they already are. Finally at the end of the trailer the main parts have finished as well as credits and so fourth. There just becomes a black screen and people think that trailer has finished completely. All of a sudden there is a horror character that jumps forward at the camera very quickly. This was unexpected for the viewers and makes them jump. I think this was another brilliant aspect added to the trailer overall as it builds up how scary the movie is even more letting spectators know this and therefore encouraging them to come and watch more than wanted to firstly.