Evaluation Essay first draft

The very first thing we decided having already planned out a horror film trailer, was that the whole movie would be filmed on a hand held camera, (mainly due to the fact that all we had was a hand held camera, however it may make the film look uniquely different, which can only be a good thing).

The film's basic plot is about a small group of teenagers who wander into an abandoned school, they are just having fun playing around and even find a hand held camera. They start using the camera until all of a sudden they realise that one of their group (Sam) is missing. They look around for him and eventually find him in a room sitting in the corner on his own. Little do they know he has been possessed by a demon, this becomes evident to his friends as his physical appearance has become grim and he starts screaming like some kind of monster. Like a traditional modern day horror film he kills the others off in a gruesome and shocking manner that should frighten and maybe even disturb the audience (who will be adult). One friend will eventually survive and emotionally he kills his own friend who has been possessed by a demon.

The group first had to post ideas on this blog and were given certain tasks for research and planning. I chose to do some research on the films, Paranormal activity which is a new film, the Exorcist and Poltergeist which are both relatively old films. Looking at the details of these films gave me ideas which could be contributed to the making of our film trailer along with the actual story (which we still needed in order for the trailer to work).

We couldn't really point out any specific camera angels/shots since it's a hand held camera being held by the characters, but to name what shots we do have they would most probably be close up or extreme close up. We filmed the whole trailer in a corridor in the school and a couple of empty rooms provided fairly good scenery. We edited out several sounds and vocals that could of ruined the fearful mood in the trailer.

The group needed to decide on a soundtrack for the trailer and we were aided by a website with other soundtracks that could be used for films.

On the whole I think we produced a good horror film trailer with just a corridor, a couple of empty rooms and a spare hand held camera. I think the trailer will give the target audience a good insight into what the film is about and may do the job in advertising our horror film.

Saw film poster

Twisted Pictures

Twisted pictures is an American production company founded in 2002. They are based in Los Angeles California. They specialise in producing films in the horror genre.

Twisted pictures gained worldwide attention through the production of the Saw films 1 to 6 along with other horror films such as dead silence and Catacombs. They are one of the few company's specialising in Horror films at present.

Target Audience

The target audience for our production is going to be adults over the age of eighteen (although if teenagers of a younger age made an effort to sneak in then that can only be good for our popularity). The reason for the age limit is because of the violent,frightening and disturbing content of the film. This film will appeal to anyone who is into horror films and most probably males as this isn't really a film you would wish to take your parents to see.
This is a supernatural type horror film and although I am not a great lover of what most horror films tend to be about nowadays,(a group of teens go into a abandoned place that gets haunted as they die one by one). This is probably just like that, but still worth watching I'm sure.
This will appeal to the target audience as it may be seen as a unique style of film as it is meant to be filmed on a hand held camera which our main characters find and use. I think on the whole it will appeal to the fans of the supernatural horror film.

Key Conventions

• Making the audience interested by creating suspense.
• Use short clips to create some suspense and tension.
• The trailer needs something really scary at the very end.
• Use a flash of a scary scene zoomed in, lasting only a second.
• Use creepy voices to explain information rather than writing.
• Music is very important in film trailers something very slow, monotonous or droning works well.
• Use natural phobias that people are familiar with.
• The element of surprise.