Applying Recognisable Conventions

In in an effort to gain a further understanding of recognizable conventions of trailers, in groups we came up with ideas about how to promote a fictional movie entitled BloodShed High. In my group were Alex and Joey. We tried to focused on the USP (unique selling point). This is the part of your film and promotional campaign that is unique to you, thus creating a reason to go. Our USP is that our film is one of the only films with the joint themes are horror and teen. This will entice a large proportion of the teen audience and will also attract young horror movie enthusiasts. We also highlight in the trailer william defoe as one of the main actors, this is because he is heavily ascociated with the horror genre and will attract a lot of people simply due to his tract record. Also we will be advertising a young rising star. Also the films most important features will be highlighted in the trailer, for example the setting, which is a an abandoned mental hospital on an isolated island which has been renovated into a boarding schools. Through looking at others work and analyzing our own, I learnt a lot of key points.

Key Featured of Horror Trailers

1. Trailers are not movies, they are very different. Unlike a film they do not have a narrative they simply highlight the most important features of the film in a short space of time.

2. Audience expectations are key, we have to cater to what the audience expects to see but also create additional new aspects to it, for the unique selling point. Production details at the start a key in building audience expectations, in this case Twisted Pictures firmly associates this film with the horror genre in audience's mind.

3. Make the production company evident, this is important because the audience associates their favorite films with their favorite production company, so if you have popular production company for your genre it will attract more people.

4. The main way to engage the audience is to use the horror movie conventions together to create a coherent film trailer that will entice the audience into seeing the movie. For example, the non-diegetic music helps create a mood and atmosphere to the trailer whilst building audience expectations. This coupled with the use of Actor's names helps provide an experience while promoting the film.

5. Another thing that is conducive to a successful film trailer is to apply your knowledge, knowing the information is useless without application. For example, it is one thing recognising element of a trailer is it quite another to put them in to practice.