Plot

In order to create a film trailer, it was important that we first established the overall storyline/narrative/plot of our film. Our plot is as follows.

Two young children, Holly and Michael, are family friends, and grow up together being very close. However as the pair get older, Holly becomes popular and fed up of Michael being incredibly clingy around her. The film begins with three girls sitting with a badly drawn pentagram, trying to summon the devil - two of the girls are incredibly into this activity and the other is sceptical, and quite scared. The girls believe that the pentagram has done nothing and give up. However, when possessions of Holly's friends start disappearing, the girls realise that their actions may have done something after all. When more strange happenings begin to happen to all of Holly's friends but not Holly, she starts to think that maybe she is the problem.

The situation escalates when one of Holly's closest friends, Natalie, goes missing. Believing it to be the work of spirits yet still her fault, Holly is too scared to tell the police exactly what has happened as they begin their search for her. The friends of the protagonist all begin to get injured, and Holly pushes everyone away, believing she is the common denominator in everything that is going dangerously wrong. Despite completely isolating herself, the important people in Holly's life are still being targeted by something or someone, but Holly (still believing this is the work of a supernatural being) feels that she cannot tell the police too much information.

She gets several phone calls off of her old friend Michael, which she tries to decline. After a few hours, she finally picks up the call to hear Michael tell her that he is in a ditch after being attacked. She goes and helps him, and then tells him that he shouldn't contact her or talk to her if he wants to stay safe.

Holly begins to lose her mind now that she has completely isolated herself from any support that she may have, including from her mother, Sarah. In addition, she holds herself responsible for the disappearance of her friend and the injuries of her other friends. Furthermore, Holly thinks that she is being stalked and that there is always someone watching her.

Towards the end of the film, the real cause of the crime, hurt and destruction around Holly is revealed to be from her old family friend Michael. Michael didn't like the fact that Holly had other friends and didn't really want to spend any time with him. He became angry and vindictive, and started to commit small crimes like stealing the purse of one of her friends, or breaking something valuable of theirs. 

However the paranoia increases and he becomes more psychotic and lashes out at one of Holly's friends, and while another of her friends, Natalie, is on the way to meet her, Michael successfully manages to kidnap her. Not knowing that Holly believed that she was haunted, Michael became worried that Holly would realise it was him that was causing all the danger. Therefore he caused his own injury in the ditch to make him appear a victim, and rule him out as a suspect, both to Holly and to the audience. This is particularly emphasised as Michael is not featured heavily in the film apart from in the ditch scene and the end reveal.

Natalie is found still alive but Holly's closest friend Amy is shown to have been killed by Michael.

Settings and Locations



These are some photos of some of our chosen locations for our film/trailer. The first photo is of some tables in a school, which is a natural setting for a girl of school age to be in. By using this setting we are able to create a verisimilitude. This location is used in the first part of the trailer, when Holly's life is being represented as normal and happy. School settings are seen often in thriller films, such as The Gallows. The next photo is, once again, from a school setting. The lockers also create verisimilitude and like the tables, are featured in the first part of the trailer when Holly is being portrayed as being a perfectly normal school girl.

 

 





 

This photo is of a line of trees, which we decided would be a good place to film. It creates a feeling of isolation due to them being in such an open space but nobody being around. It also creates the feeling and illusion of being trapped, inside the rows of trees, despite the fact that it is outside. This is similar to Last House on the Left where they drag an injured person through the woods.

 

 



 

The below photo is the location that a dead body is found in the film.

 

Title

A key part of creating a film is coming up with a good title. Therefore we wrote the plot first and then came up with titles that alluded to events and concepts from within the film. For example:

As Yet Unknown was the first suggestion, referencing the fact that Holly didn't know what was going on and who, if anyone, was hurting her friends.
The Unknown was clearly a very similar suggestion to the previous one, once again referring to the fact that Holly didn't know what was happening. It also simply refers to one of the biggest fears of many people.
Isolation was suggested because throughout the film, Holly pushes everyone close to her away until she has no one - she isolates herself.
All Eyes On You clearly connotes the idea of being watched, and although I believe it is an effective title, we found that as we developed our plot and ideas, it didn't quite fit with the storyline.
Secrets, as a title, would allude to the fact that Michael was responsible for Holly's misfortune, however this wasn't something we wanted to make clear until the end. In addition, there is a film from 1992 called Secrets and a film from 2007 called The Shadows.
In The Shadows was the title we chose to use. It was more obscure than The Unknown but still suggested the concept of unknown and unfamiliarity. It connotes that the supernatural may be involved but still fits, perhaps even better, when the audience discover that Michael is the problem.

We were worried that there would already be a film called In The Shadows but after investigation we could on find the 2014 film What We Do In The Shadows. Although it was released recently, we hope that there will be enough significant differentiation between the two films for them to be easily distinguishable, especially as they have different genres with our film being a horror/thriller and What We Do In The Shadows is described as a "mockumentary horror comedy".

Production Company Logo

 
Above is the production company logo that we have chosen to use. Instead of using a logo from last year, we decided to create a completely original one. Not only does it add a personal touch (Lucy, Eva, Viki: the names of everyone in my group), it is also short and memorable. The colours are an easily recognisable and the pattern combined with the colours is often associated with technology such as computers. However, we believe that the production logo may not actually fit with the genre of film that we are trying to create. There are a few things that we are considering to make the logo more fitting. Firstly, we may simply darken the colours of the production logo, meaning that we keep the red, blue and green but they have a more sinister appearance to them. Another option is changing the circles to black, white and red; colours that are commonly associated with the horror/thriller genre. Our last idea is to change the middle circle to a pentagram - a significant image from the film itself.

Here is the original design for the production company logo, designed by Viki and Eva. Although the colours and sans serif font remained the same, we decided to change the pattern as there was no real significance to it.

Characters

Holly, 17 - main character and protagonist - 'In the Shadows' focuses on Holly and her journey as she believes that she is haunted. This belief comes from two main events in her life: attempting to summon a demon with a poorly drawn pentagram (due to her increasing interest in the supernatural) at the start of the film, and then throughout the film her friends and people she spends time with begin to either go missing, or get injured, or towards the end of the film, die. Holly has short brown hair and is very pretty, with good grades and a stable home life. Overall she is viewed by most as normal and fairly average.
Holly's sexuality is alluded to in the film, as she is asexual (she doesn't experience sexual attraction). Although we made sure it wasn't the main character train of our main character, we felt like the representation it could give of the sexuality was important. This is also a significant factor of her friendship with the antagonist Michael, as he is obsessed with her, and when he discovers this fact about her he doesn't understand and this causes more problems in their friendship. Holly already quite dislikes Michael due to his obsessiveness towards her and tries to avoid him when she can, despite the fact that they grew up together. We chose the name 'Holly' due to the connotations attached. The Holly plant is well known for being spikey and sharp. This suggests that Holly can hurt those around her. She is played by Shauna Ellis.

Michael, 17 - antagonist - Although Michael is eventually revealed to be the "baddie" in the film, he is only featured in the film a few times, and is actually only a side character until the end, when a series of flashbacks explain the story and Michael's involvement. He hasn't really got any friends but was a close family friend of Holly's as they grew up. He develops an obsession with Holly and begins to get jealous when she attempt to "shake him off" by not spending any time with him and avoiding him as much as possible. The aim of the film is to make Michael seem insignificant in the film until the end so that the audience don't suspect that he is the reason for Holly's friends misfortune, instead of the supernatural. As Holly no longer spends any time with him, or particularly cares about him, Michael grows more obsessive, desperate and paranoid, and so starts victimising Holly's friends to try and make Holly spend more time with him instead of anyone else. We chose the name Michael as it is quite a common, average name and so wouldn't necessarily be a suspect. He is played by Matthew Robson.

Amy, 17 - Holly's best friend Amy is the first victim of Michael, and although this begins with small things such as having her purse stolen but she is killed by Michael near the end of the film, as he becomes more psychotic and paranoid. As Holly and Amy are so close, Holly confides in her friend about the belief that she is haunted, cursed or being stalked. However when Holly notices that the crimes are happening to her closest friends she attempts to cut her out in order to save her. Clearly this does not work as Michael gets angrier and ends up killing Amy. She doesn't like Michael as she notices that he behaves in a strange manner. She is played by me, Lucy Robson.

Natalie, 17 - Natalie is another close friend of Holly's and another victim of Michael's crimes. She has a strong interest in ghosts and the supernatural and got Holly interested in it too. Although the two girls are close, they only recently became friends. Michael kidnaps Natalie so she can't go and meet Holly when they had arranged to go out together. She is played by Eva Bennett.

Sarah, 42 - Another main character in 'In the Shadows' is Holly's mum Sarah. She is close friends of Michael's mother and wants Holly to be friends with him, but is put in a difficult position when Holly expresses her dislike of him and his obsession. Holly and Sarah are close but Holly doesn't share her fears with her mum. She is played by Helen Robson.

Production Schedule

Script

We have decided that the trailer for 'In the Shadows' will include almost no dialogue, and instead be made up of two montages. Therefore the script for the trailer is very simple, with only a few voiceovers. Apart from that, the only sounds during the trailer will be music and perhaps an occasional sound effect. The general layout of our trailer, including the script, is as follows:

[film production logo fading to black]

[cut to Holly]

Holly (crying, looking scared): Weird things keep happening.

[fade to black]

[first montage of scenes of Holly looking happy, with friends and family]

[cut to black screen]

Amy (voiceover): So what's the problem?

[ second montage of several fast cuts of 'bad things' happening to Holly and her friends]

[cut to black]

[film title]

[institutional information]

[cut back to Holly]

Holly (same scene as earlier): Help me.

[cut to black]

Pitch

 

Conventions of a Horror/Thriller Film

Conventions of a horror/thriller film are an important thing to know when creating your own horror/thriller film. Therefore, these are what I believe to be conventions of such a film:

• Low key lighting
• Quick cuts
• Tension music
• The unknown
• Range of shots
• Antagonist has hidden identity
• Familiar and unfamiliar locations
• Audience is unclear on what exactly is happening
• Violence is featured
• Good v Evil
• At least one thriller genre (crime/psychological/horror/sci-fi etc.) featured

We have used almost all of these conventions in our trailer as these are clearly important within a horror/thriller film.

Conventions of a Trailer

In order to make a good trailer, the conventions of a film trailer must be established. These are:

• Low-key lighting
• Fast-paced music and clips
• Intertitles/voiceover
• Film production logo
• Film title
• Hashtag/website
• Film certificate
• Character introductions

When making our trailer we are going to attempt to use all of these conventions to make sure that it is effective and persuasive as possible.

First Thoughts: Editing

We already have some ideas about how we are going to edit our trailer. We want it to be a montage as this is a key convention of trailers that we want to follow. The montage will be in non-chronological order.

One idea we have for our trailer in terms of editing is two split in into two sections. The first section would be slow paced editing, while the second would be fast paced to build tension and excite the audience. We may add fade to blacks when we feel they fit, but our main aim is to edit the shots to the beat of the music, especially in the second section.

We also plan for many of our shots to be dark to fit the horror and thriller genre. However we are also aware that it is difficult to get the right level of darkness when filming. Therefore we plan to film some shots in the light and then change the opacity of the clips to make them appear darker. This was we had control of the lighting and weren't trying to film everything in a short period of time in the evening.

We want to add some sound effects such as screaming and snapping twigs. We want to film the twig snapping sound ourselves and unlink the audio to the video.

First Thoughts: Music and Sound

In terms of non-diegetic sound, we haven't decided exactly what  we want, especially  in terms of what music we want. We only have a few basic ideas for what we are looking for. In the pitch we talked about wanting a track that is "fast-paced" and "reaches a crescendo" in time with the action on screen. However, in the pitch we also highlighted the significance of silence and the implications that it brings. The contrast between the fast music and the silence could emphasise a particular moment.

The trailer will have two different parts, a slower paced, happier montage and then a fast-paced dramatic montage. Therefore, we may choose to use two different tracks, so as to really highlight that the mood has changed.

Another element of sound that we know that we want is a voiceover of the main character Holly giving a brief explanation of what the story is about.(i.e. "I think I might be haunted.") We are, however, unsure whether we actually want this to be diegetic or non-diegetic, as we could show Holly's face as she is saying this, which would give us the opportunity to show how scared she is.

Apart from this, we don't plan to have any other diegetic sound in our trailer.

First Thoughts: Plot

After being given the brief to create a Thriller trailer, we had several ideas for a movie plot. Here are some of our first thoughts and ideas:

- A girl is at a large party, perhaps a party of one of her friends. However in the background of many shots there is a man who is likely to have not been invited. It is unclear to the audience whether this man is real, a ghost or a figment of the main character's imagination. The trailer would then include parallels of the party (i.e. screams of excitement) with a girl (possibly the main character) being attacked (i.e. screams of fear or pain).

- The main character, obsessed with the supernatural, takes part in several activities that could lead to summoning a spirit/ghost/the supernatural including a Ouija board and a pentagram. They then get possessed and start attacking innocent people.

- A girl starts to receive photos of her in her bedroom, in public, at school and in other situations, as she is in those situations. This suggests that she is being stalked but she cannot tell who by because there is never the same person around when she receives these photos.

- A couple move in to a new house, and there is a door that doesn't open, but there is no lock on the door and no clear reason why the door won't open. There is no exterior window. However the room is next to their bedroom and at night the couple can hear noises coming from the locked room. They wake up one morning to find polaroids of bodies stuck to the door, suggesting that these photos were taken inside the room.

Many of these ideas were combined and developed to create our final plot, including an obsession with the supernatural, a potential stalker and not knowing whether the problems are being caused by a ghost or by an actual person.

Setting/Location Research

One of the most important elements of planning a thriller trailer is deciding what locations to use. To do this, I watched several other trailer and researched the most common locations.

School (The Gallows)

Although the film is set in a school, it mainly take place in the auditorium so it is not necessarily recognisable as a school. However this shot includes lockers which is common in a school, meaning the audience can instantly make that association. As almost anyone who watched the film will have gone to school, this adds a layer of verisimilitude and is likely to scare the audience more.

Forest (Last House on the Left)

The forest, and being surrounded by trees, is a common setting for horror trailers, as it often creates the feeling of the unknown and being lost.

Bedroom (Carrie) 

 

Another common setting for thriller films is a bedroom. Like the school setting, the verisimilitude of this location is likely to scare the audience more, making it ideal for such a genre.

 

Car (Catfish)

 

As part of the Catfish film is him making a journey, one setting is in a car. Due to the low keylighting and clothing of the people in the shot, this isn't necessarily a scary shot, however it perhaps shows that not all the settings have to be overly scary.

Fairground (When A Stranger Calls)

 

 

Although a stereotypically happy environment, When A Stranger Calls, manages to twist this location into one that should be feared, mainly using juxtaposition. This is interesting as it proves that locations don't have to be stereotypically scary.

Thriller Brainstorm

 

Above is a collection of ideas and thoughts on the Thriller genre, which was one of the first pieces of research I did. This spider diagram was useful in developing the early stages of the plot for my Thriller film, and working out what should be included in the trailer.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Another thriller trailer we looked at was "The Exorcism of Emily Rose".

The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a filmabout a girl who dies after she is exorcised. Her death is blamed on the priest that performed the exorcism. During the 1 minute 58 second trailer, there are between 85 and 95 shots and many of them are a second or less - the trailer had fast paced editing. The trailer features 8 characters, including Emily and the priest.

The main narrative in the film, is the court case that follows Emily's exorcism, although it could be argued that Emily being possessed, shown in flashbacks, is a different narrative. There are a range of settings in the trailer, the main settings being a prison, court, a mental hospital, Emily's house, outside Emily's house, the town/city and Emily's school.

The non-diegetic music is the same track throughout, however it gets faster and louder at certain points of the trailer. There are also some sound effects, including screaming and a demon talking. The sound of a gospel choir also features, and silence is used for emphasis.

There were 8 intertitles in the trailer. The first said "based on a true story", which is likely to make the audience far more tense. The following intertitles then explain the premise of the story so that the audience can get an idea of the narrative and sets up the film.

Film Poster Annotation

Magazine Cover Annotation

Catfsh

As we will be creating our own horror movie trailers in the future, we looked at some horror trailers as research in order to learn what makes a good horror trailer. We looked at Catfish as it has a low budget, and we will be working on a very low budget.

Catfish is a film documentary that follows a man (Nev) trying to meet his online girlfriend in real life. However, as the story progresses it begins to seem that his the girl that he has been talking to (Megan) may not have been completely honest about her identity. 

In the trailer, there is around 68 camera shots, many of which are during a 2.20 trailer. Within the trailer there are 6 characters: Nev, Nev's two friends and Megan, as well as Megan's sister and mum. There are also other members of Megan's Facebook family but they are not heavily featured in the trailer which suggests that they are not as important as characters within the narrative.

There appears to be only one narrative in the film, in which a man goes on a road trip to find a girl who he met on Facebook. 

The main settings in the film are: Nev's house, the car, Megan's house (and outside of it) and a ballet studio/theatre. The car is seemingly one of the most important settings in the film as a lot of the film is focused on the journey.

The non-diegetic music starts quite upbeat but as the story develops it becomes more sinister. Over the music there is also a non-diegetic voiceover by Nev, explaining some of the narrative.

There were 12 intertitles in the trailer and almost all of them were in a typewriter style. Intertitles included reviews of the film, introductions to characters, details of the film, and the last intertitle was the title of the film.

A good film trailer  for a horror movie includes lots of quick shots and a range of settings. Quick shots increases the excitement of the audience as so much appears to be going on in such a short space of time. Having a range of settings is also good for this. It should give enough information for the audience to be able to follow the general direction of the film without giving away the most important twists and revelations. This creates suspense meaning the audience are more likely to want to watch the film so that they can find out what happens. Music is important within a trailer as it sets the mood of what you are about to watch. Many movie trailers choose to include reviews of the film in the trailer, especially those by trusted journalists and film critics. This makes the audience trust the review and once again, interests them in the film.

During our research, we also looked at trailers from 'The Black Pond', 'The Gallows', 'London to Brighton', 'Leave to Remain' and 'Monsters' as these are also horror films that had a low budget. We found that on average, they had similar features to Catfish, i.e. the amount of shots, settings, characters, as well as the type of music etc. This solidified our view of what should be in a horror trailer and gave us inspiration as all the films had a low budget and appeared to be impressive, and we have a low budget.

Magazine Cover Replica

My recreation of the film magazine

The original magazine cover

I recreated the Total Film Magazine that featured a promotion of 'Jupiter Ascending' using Adobe Photoshop. Although I didn't use the same editing software as the creators of the magazine did, I feel like my recreation was fairly successful. I encountered some problems, including the font and colouring for 'TOTAL FILM', and I couldn't make the title appear metallic. I also struggled with the background. I found that I could not add Jupiter or the lens flares to my background, however I feel like it is suitable. Overall I found it difficult to find the correct font in most cases. I also found it difficult to find the right pictures of Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum, however eventually I found them and once I did, I used the magnetic lasoo tool to cut them out.