Textual analysis of posters

When i did the analysis of the three horror film posters i noticed that they had similarities and differences in the way conventions are used in existing products.

Images used: In all three of the posters they used one main image. The devil inside and Insidious both used the main character whereas The cabin in the woods used where the film was set, in a cabin. All of the three images are of the main subject that featured in the film. They all show a sense of possession, for The devil inside and Insidious they both have unrealistic eyes as on the Insidious poster the little boys eyes are scratched out and The devil inside has completely grey eyes, this all gives the audience a slight insight into the storyline of the film and what might happen. As well as the main image Insidious and Cabin in the woods also have an image in the background of where the film is set, Insidious has the house in the background and The cabin in the woods has some trees representing the woods. But The devil inside is just black with faint scratches, giving the idea of someone or something being trapped. 

Colour Scheme: All three of the posters have similar colour schemes, they all use dull colours like black, greys and whites, Insidious and The devil inside also use a hint of red which is perceived as the colour that represents danger. Each poster uses three main colours making the main image stand out more. All of these colours are representative of the horror genre which will attract people who are interested in this type of genre. This making it easy to spot on the DVD shelves.

Font: Each of the three posters have one main font which they use throughout the whole poster, they also use this font in the trailers which shows good continuity.   

Tag lines: Out of all the three posters they all have at least one tag line. The taglines are there to give us a insight into the film and keep us guessing for example Insidious' says 'It's not the house that's haunted'. They are generally placed above or bellow the main image or if there is two above and bellow. They fit in with the poster by having the same font and colours as everything else. They all link in with the main image for example The cabin in the woods says 'You think you know the story' and the people going to the cabin think that they are just going for a holiday in a cabin but unbeknownst to them everything is about to change.

Release date: Two out of the three posters have a release date on them. This is found under the main image, in capitals and the main colour of the poster its self, this is to make it stand out to the public.

A

Analysis of Shots Used.

After analysing the six trailers it was evident that, conventionally, there were a few main shots used. 

• Extreme close-up/close-up.
• Establishing shot.
• Point of view shots. 

In almost all of the trailers used, the 'Extreme close-up' shot is common. This type of shot is designed to create intensity and tension for the viewers as everything about the shot is emphasised. For example, in the 'Insidious' trailer, from around 1:33 to 1:39, is littered with extreme close-up and close-up shots. Combing this with fast paced cuts, the intensity is taken to the next level. As the close-up shots focus the entire energy of the filming to one spot it concentrates the drama. For example, in the same trailer, a close-up of the door handle is shown for slightly longer giving the common fear of not knowing what's behind the door. This is completely made by the style of shot. It clouds the whole of the house and the door itself so the tension can be built waiting for the door to open. We'll use this shot type a lot in our work as it seems very achievable and can increase the films intensity quickly. 

The establishing shot is evidently one of the most important shots in the trailers as it features in the majority. Throughout films of all genres it seems that the establishing shot is generally placed at the beginning of a filming sequence to identify setting. Although this is evident in the trailer of 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' at 0:13; horror trailers seem to use the shot more widely. In the same trailer, at 0:48, another establishing shot is used. Commonly in horror films the action and terror usually derives from one source, usually a house or general area. In 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' it's a house. The shot depicts a character to the left of the screen walking towards the centrally focused house. As the run-down and dirty house is the central focus it's clear that the house will be the main focus of the film. So, this shot not only gives brilliant viewing for the audience, it also allows for a subtle insight toward the plot which we previously established as the key role for a trailer. 

Point of view shots have been widely used in cinema for many years. A shot in this style gives the audience a feeling of involvement as they're seeing the scenes as the depicted character would. However, the horror genre in particular has expanded and elaborated upon this shot type and given it new dimensions. To create an even more 'incorporative' feel to a film the point of view shot has been developed with a 'handheld' and home-made style. This evidently marries the horror genre perfectly as whole films, namely Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project have been shot in this style. The slightly unfocused and unstable style of these shots means that the terror of the scenes is heightened as things are less clear; again tapping into the primal fear of 'the unknown.' Although not found too commonly in the six trailers we have analysed we feel this style of shot is brilliant in achieving our sole aim of creating a terrifying and convincing trailer. On this basis we'll utilise this technique in our work.

B

Horror Trailer Findings.

After analysing each of the six trailers we found many conventions; in terms of the techniques and styling. We analysed trailer length, shot types and angles, writing/titling sequences, colours, mise-en-scene, lighting, storyline and dialogue. By comparing and contrasting six different trailers with this information we can create our trailer to suit the conventions of the horror trailer.

Generally we found that trailers last around the two minute mark, with 'Scream 4' SPECIFIC WEB PAGE having the shortest trailer at 1:29 and 'The Devil Inside' SPECIFIC WEB PAGE having the longest trailer at 2:31 minutes. (analysed via www.youtube.com). Evidently, trailers have the primary incentive to advertise the film in an exciting and dramatic way without giving away too much of the film's plot. From the texts we analysed we found the two minutes gave ample time to portray characters, protagonists and 'bit-piece' plot so the 'crescendo'of the film is not given away; thus preventing the film being ruined.

'The Devil Inside' trailer was the longest one of the trailers we analysed and, after watching the full film, we found that the scariest or most exciting parts of the film were shown in the trailer. This seemed the film was riddled with filler scenes. Yet 'Scream 4', the shortest trailer of them all, showed both victims and protagonists within the plot yet didn't reveal the main parts of the film. However, some of plot seemed abit vague and uncovered. So, we've decided to balance the two and go for around a two minute trailer as we believe it'll allow us to reveal enough of the plot without it dragging on or being too vague.

To gain a better understanding of how horror trailers are generally filmed we analysed how many shots and what shot types are often used. Over the course of the six trailers we found varying amounts of shots taken - from Scream 4 having only 58  shots in a 1:29 trailer to the Cabin in the Woods having 126 shots in a 2:25 trailer. The amount of shots used is evidently dependant on the length of the trailer; yet all have a lot of shots overall. This evidence will help greatly in how we'll have to shoot our trailer - obviously fast paced with a lot of cuts to create a fast paced and dynamic film. The use of extreme close up and close up shots seem to be extremely common in the genre. Points of intensity in each of the trailers are emphasised by an extreme closeup so emotions are clear - this adds to the 'scare-factor' in which the film is designed. So, we'll try and use this shot type a lot to create the intensity and fear needed to obtain a convincing trailer. Handheld camera shots and films have become a lot more popular in the film industry. The first real use of this style of shooting was found in the 1999, $248,639,099 grossing phenomenon 'The Blair Witch Project.' More recently, in films such as the The Devil Inside and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, this style is again used. This gives a brilliant 'home feel' to the trailer which intensifies the drama as it seems more realistic to the viewer - it's not trying to be some Hollywood blockbuster. I think using this technique in our filming will only add to the fear factor. 

Each constituent element of a successful horror trailer is bound together by clever and convincing choices of mise-en-scene. With different styles of horror (psychological or physical) the mise-en-scene changes dependent. For a lot of the physical horrors, such as 'Scream 4' and 'Cabin in the Woods'the clothing and setting are fairly coherent with one another. For example, the clothing in each start fairly normal standard clothing then deteriorate throughout to more dirty and blood covered. The clothing that is used throughout the trailers are casual, this is so it relates with the target market group. Props and settings are equally important to master. Everything has a purpose in the trailer. For example, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre trailer has a lot of props and settings with dangerous and creepy connotations. Burnt cars and un-used farming machinery are littered throughout the film - in which both have dangerous connotations. This adds to the eery feel needed to create a horror film. On the other hand the trailer of 'The Devil Inside' is completely different. A lot of the setting had religious references or even based in a very clean hospital. With such a contrasting theme of story line to clean hospital the fear factor is again heightened. Throughout all of the horror trailers analysed it's clear that the settings are generally dark. This taps into the primal fear of the unknown - Achluophobia- Fear of darkness. (www.phobialist.com)
So we can go either of two ways - old and eery props and dark settings or a very clean cut feel which emphasised the dialogue/acting. Both techniques have proved to be effective in making a convincing horror film, yet I think the darkness style would be more effective and convincing as getting hold of an empty hospital may be difficult.

With such short trailers, around the two minute mark, dialogue is at its shortest. As it's obviously difficult to gain a genuine value for how many words are uttered, we simply noticed that minimal words were used. Some trailers, such as 'Insidious' did use a substantial amount more of dialogue to describe the complexity of the films situation - however it was the only trailer that used so many words. Generally, the focus was on the scening and the acting so dialogue would only take from the intensity. By looking at Texas Chainsaw Massacre it specifically uses little dialogue over a harmonic and eery music score. (The songs played at the beginning is called 'Song to the Siren' originally by Jeff/Tim Buckley, but most famously covered by a 1980's goth band named "This Mortal Coil", but the version in this trailer was recorded by a girl from a band called "Moneypenny" in the WB studio and isn't available for download anywhere, nor has it been released on CD.)www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_OVI4uet-w. The soft tone of the singing is very eery and completely contrasts the aggressive scenes shown. The dialogue gives a background to characters and potential situation without it dragging on. As the scenery changes around a minute it the dialogue dies down and heavy breathing and screams are a lot more predominant. This again heightens the trailers intensity and makes for convincing horror viewing. We found this technique makes the trailer seem a lot more proffessional, so we'll use this technique in our filming and use very minimal dialogue throughout. This will also be helpful, as maybe the camera quality isn't the best it could be so the dialogue may sound unprofessional anyway.

B+C

Textual analysis of dvd covers

After analysing the DVD covers of Insidious, Cabin in the Woods and Devil Inside, I discovered there was many similarities between them used to engage the reader to choose their DVD, this therefore will help me when creating my own DVD cover as I will be able to stick to the typical conventions used in existing products. 

Images used – All three DVD covers used one main image in the cover, 2 of them used the possessed main character and the other one used an abstract image of the cabin showing it wasn't what it seemed. I think this technique is very effective as it makes the reader focus solely on that image and feel drawn to it! All three main images give an insight into the films storyline and allow the reader to make predictions towards the film without even watching it. Cabin in the woods and Insidious use a background image behind their main image so show the films location, again I think this is effective as it gives more insight into the film showing where it’s set. Devil Inside however just uses a coloured background, I think this is to show more emphasis on the main image of the nun.On all three back covers of the DVD small stills of the film are used as images, I believe this is to give an idea to the consumer of what happens within the film but also creates mystery to link the disjointed linear storyline images together. 

Colour scheme – All three covers have a clear and simplistic colour scheme used throughout their products. They all use colours such as black, brown, reds and whites as these are the main colours associated with the horror genre, therefore when a consumer is browsing through DVDs and sees one of these covers they should instantly be aware of what genre the movie is and an idea of what it entails.

Tag line – All three covers use taglines either under or positioned on their main image, these are used to create mystery and entice the consumer to watch the film. The taglines usually create them to ask questions and become to intrigued that they feel compelled to watch the film as they are intrigued by the tag line. All are short sentences and are pretty vague so when constructing my own tag line i will stick to these rules. 

 

Blurb - A short blurb is used on all three of the DVD covers as it gives the consumer a brief description of the plot line and helps intrigue them to watch it. All use informal and mysterious language that don’t give too much away into the details of the film, the blurbs are 8-12 lines long. So therefore when constructing my own blurb I will stick to these rules.  

Film Ratings - On the covers they all have to display their age certificate given by the BBFC, on the DVD covers they display this rating 3 times throughout the cover! This therefore gives the impression that they use their age certificate as a selling point as it shows how 'scary' the film and shows its 'not suitable' for people below 18/15, this can be appealing to younger audiences as it will intrigue them to watch it more as they are 'too young'. 

C

Preliminary research of trailers.

Insidious:

Length - 1:51

Shots - Estimate 111

Writing - 20 times

Colours - Black, brown, grey, pale blue, red and cream

Mise-en-scene - House and hospital

Lighting - Dull

Storyline - A boy is possessed by a devil and his parents are trying to solve it.

Shot types - Establishing shot, close up, extreme close up, long shot, two shot, over the shoulder.

Dialogue - Minimal

Cabin in the woods.

Length - 2:25

Shots - 126

Writing - 14 times

Colours - Blues, brown, black, grey, dark green

Mise-en-scene - Cabin, woods, house, controlling zone

Lighting - Dull and natural

Story - A group of teenagers go on a road trip to a cabin, where they get more than they bargained for. Together they try to discover the truth behind the cabin in the woods.

Scream 4

Length - 1:29

Shots - 58

Writing - 5 times

Colours - black, red, grey, brown, dark blue

Mise-en-scene - School, house, party, living room

Lighting - Bright, dull

Story -  Ten years have passed, and Sidney Prescott, who has put herself back together thanks in part to her writing, is visited by the Ghostface Killer.

The Devil Inside

Length - 2:31

Shots - 89

Types of shots- Mainly handheld camera shots, lots of extreme close ups.

Lighting - Mainly artificial - darkness uses added lighting

Mise-en-scene - lots of religious clothing and references. Houses, church, mental institutions

Filming - Sound is harmonic, uses well known nursery rhyme. Starts with slower shots and cuts - then begins to build up.

Story - A woman is possessed and her daughter looks into it, it is implied that she becomes affected.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Length - 2:21

Shots - 99

Lighting - Dark, natural to start - artificial later on when fear becomes hightened.

Mise-en-scene - Dirty, creepy props - normal clothing for victims. Run down house, burnt cars.

Story - Group on a road trip, get to a house riddled with traps and begin to get attached.

Dialogue - Minimal

Emily rose

Length - 1:59

Lighting - Dark and artificial

Story - Girl possessed and tried to be helped. Again not all is revealed.

Editing - 'Heartbeat' shots are again used.

Dialogue - Minimal

C

Conventions of Horror trailers.

We looked at the conventions of the horror genre to collate information regarding the common threads. To gain a better understanding of the common themes we found these definitions of horror.

"Horror is a film drama seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from the viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_film)

To extend our knowledge of the genre we looked at more definitions - this allowed us to gain a fuller understanding of what they're about and also come to our own conclusions.

"Horror Films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience."

(http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html)

"A film in which very frightening and especially unnatural things happen, for example dead people coming to life and people being murdered" (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/horror-film)

By gathering these three definitions we can firmly gain a grasp as to what a 'horror' film actually is. Reading through, the definitions only differ slightly. This gives us the ability to gain our own assumption as to how to plan and design our trailor because we have a full understanding of the genre. We'll work on the basis that our trailor has to be frightening to create a negative emotional reaction from the viewers meanwhile being captivating and entertaining.

Looking at the history of the genre it's clear that there's always been gory and violent undertones to horror films. So as we're obliged to comply to these themes we can plan our trailor around these references. 

B+C

Conventions of a film trailer

Rationale
To gain an understanding of what makes a horror trailer a 'horror trailer' we had to undertake some textual analysis. We needed to look at a variety of successful film trailers such as, Cabin in the Woods, Insidious and The Devil Inside. We need to do this to find out the key aspects of this genre and then we can choose whether to include or manipulate these techniques.

Findings
A film trailer is a preview of a new upcoming film that will feature in cinemas or be out on DVD shortly. They usually include key moments from the film that are not in chronological order and do not give any crucial details of the film away however leave the audience intrigued and wanting to see more. 

Using the internet we enitially watched exitsting film trailers to discover key conventions of trailers which we could therefore use when creating our own.

Key conventions of trailers... 

• Montage (a series of shots edited together from different points of the film) - This is used to highlight the most humorous  dramatic and fast-paced parts of the film to make it appeal to its chosen audience.
• Voice Overs - Most trailers use these to help the audience understand the narrative and to help portray the story in a limited time. Some trailers use the main character for the voice over to help the audience connect with the character and understand how there feeling, this can help to distinguish what type of film it is. 
• Music - Music is used throughout all film trailers to connect with the audience, enhance a scene and help to convey the films genre. Each genre has a different type of music e.g. action movies have fast-paced, loud music to create excitement and suspense.
• Tag lines - These are used to convey the film plot line and enhance the voice over. They are useful in trailers as they convey the message of the film strongly to the audience and entice them to watch it more. 
• Use of actors names - The use of the actors names are used purely to entice the audience to want to see the movie and can attract people outside their target genre market to come and see the film as they may like the actors in it. 
• Name of the film - The films name is featured to obviously let the audience know it however can be used to help recognise the name. Names are usually short and memorable and feature in a specific font relevant to the film, this way audiences find it either to recognise it. 

C

Making Our Decision

We were given the option to produce either a music video or a film trailer. After discussion we decided we would like to produce a film trailer, film poster and DVD cover as we thought it would be challenging and different from anything we've done before! After some discussion we decided our film trailer would be of the horror genre as we thought it would allow us to explore different film mediums e.g. tension filled music and dark eery lighting.
To gain, at least, adequate information on the conventions of trailers and the conventions of horror films we would have to undertake in deppth research. The trailer it self will have to be the main focus of our research as there's so much to look at. So we will analyse five or six trailers all of the horror genre. The aspects in which we'll researcht, range from the fairly wide uses of mise-en-scene - E.g. clothing, setting, props  and location, to the more specific choices of varying lighting, dialogue, camera shots and angles and sound. By analysing five or more texts we'll be able to find common threads of the genre and adapt our pieces to fit the conventions. Similarly in depth research will have to be used to analyse our poster and DVD pieces. Lighting, positioning and camera shots etc will also be looked at so our print-based pieces will have a professional look. 

C