Original Brief

I am continuing to study media at A2 and I have been set the task of producing a promotional package to promote a new horror movie. The package will consist of a movie trailer, movie poster and front cover of a movie magazine. The promotional package will promote a movie that will succeed in scaring but also exciting the audience and all three pieces should follow the conventions of their retrospective forms. The main challenge is to achieve this while also ensuring the horror movie ideas and whole promotional package are as original as possible. I am really looking forward to the challenges of this project and exploring the horror genre further.

Early Ideas on Location

This image is an overview of the area I was thinking of filming in.. The contrast between the light outside and the darkness inside is what first caught my eye, as it reminded me of the 'good versus evil' 'idea'. The room had an archaic atmosphere and I could picture ghosts floating by in my trailer (if I had the equipment and knowledge to be able to edit it in this way)

I was considering setting my horror movie between the 1920's or 40's as this would support the idea of having ghosts involved. I thought this was a good location, as it was stylish and sophisticated. The white, light curtains and piano seemed like the ideal props to add tension, for example having the curtains move as if something supernatural is controlling them or having the piano play music seemingly by itself.

The carpet was mainly red, with gold and blue leaves- I thought the red could be representative of blood, supported by the blue leaves- which could represent the death of a person, as when they die their body becomes cold. The material of the carpet was luxorious, possibly suade or velvet which added to the archaic feeling as modern areas do not usually use this material in abundance.






The stained window glass made me think of old-fashioned gangsters or the mafia, and also reminded me of churches- which links to religion and is often part of a plot in horror moves. If I could replicate similar stained glass windows, I would probably like to have it all smash- but without showing what made it smash to add even more of a shocking factor. And hint that a ghost or spirit is responsible for it.

Further Early Ideas

While taking what were meant to be holiday pictures, I saw that this harbour at night time would be a  good setting for a horror movie as you couldn't see anything clearly. Everyone is afraid of the dark at one point in their lives, and especially afraid of what they cannot see. The strange purplish hue in the fourth picture, inspired me to add elements of supernatural as movies often use editing to get the same effects. An establishing shot of a strip of shops and restaurants- when you can only see the lights adds tension as holiday destinations should be peaceful and light not dark and not being able to see everything. Also when the lights blur, as a result of moving the camera it reminded me that when a person squints their eyes to see more clearly it sometimes makes it more blurry- which made me think of having the main character have a moment where she does not feel well and a point of view shot would look similar to the second picture but more distorted.

Additional Early Ideas

While on the plane back to England, I had the idea of filming the plane landing and shaking the camera as if the plane had crash-landed. This was part of the 'holiday' idea, and to end the disastrous movie or for the intro I thought this clip I took or a similar clip would be ideal for creating terror among the audience. If I used the idea of a plane crash I would not be able to film a plane crashing- so this would be the next best type of footage to use. I would aim to let the audience think the plane has crashed and everyone was killed, but to add a traumatic element if possible I would find, use of film some footage of people being rescued from a mangled plane. The audience would then presume that, that was the worst part of the movie or the scariest, however if the family continued their holiday they would experience some strange occurrences.

I have been practising editing footage on these videos I have filmed, and explored the sub-genre of paranormal/supernatural. I added a greenish tint to the clip and kept the original sound to give it a more authentic feeling and that it could be real footage and people could experience this or a similar situation. The slight green tint that the Paranormal series employs has inspired me and will be recognised as a paranormal convention- so audiences who enjoyed Paranormal series will be drawn to a trailer that included a similarly edited clip.

Early Ideas

Before the summer holidays i began thinking about what my horror movie trailer was going to involve. While on holiday in Cyprus i became inspired by various places and events and wanted to have the movie revolve around a family that go on holiday and something goes terribly wrong.

While on a bus back to the hotel I noticed the speed at which we were travelling was very fast- this led to the idea of having a killer chasing a victim. I filmed some of the way and then edited the video to make it look old and similar to the hint of orange that can be seen during The Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. As many of the audience will probably have see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, they would pick up on the similar convention used and assume that the movie will be a slasher type movie. However they will soon find out it is more of a paranormal/supernatural sub-genre and be lured into a false comfort. Having the video edited in this way ages it, so it implies someone has actually filmed this and the story was true.

While sight-seeing we were told that this olive tree was 800 years old- this led me to having the idea that a girl would find something ancient that would be cursed and also the harsh looking tree would add some 'history' and reinforce the idea of an ancient curse.

While walking through a tunnel I took a photograph of my cousin, later on I saw that the images I had taken were blurry and the single source of light did not make it a very good photograph. However it did look ghostly, as if my cousin was a ghost walking through a tunnel. If I filmed this, the audience will assume that something bad is going to happen but the tunnel will lead to a beach and the audience will realise the lack of light is what made it so ghostly.