Editing and Camera Shots
As with most trailers, quick, fast moving cuts are made to show the action within the movies. With horror trailers, a lot of dark shots are used in order to create suspense. This is also done by adding slower cut and longer shots, making the plot feel slow at first and then having the pace quicken as the trailer displays more of the plot.
The slow pace shots and editing is used in the Scream trailer, the first quarter of the trailer is quite slow and the audience is being introduced to the first victim Casey. This slow paced sequence allows the audience to understand what the narrative is and identify significant props and characters.
Quick editing allows the trailer to build up suspense and then allows the action elements to become apparent.
This is used in the Scream trailer, the last quarter of the trailer are quick jump cuts to different scenes; some action and some important texts that gives the audience information/advice how not to die. The effect of this is to build suspense, keep the audience the edge of their seats and also to make them buy a ticket to go watch it The quick editing also lets the audience ask questions and the only way to have them answered is to watch the film.
Conventional trailers use a range of camera angles and movements to keep the audience constantly engaged. Close-ups to create a tense atmosphere
This can be seen in the Saw trailer, a lot of close-ups are used to create a tense atmosphere and they are able to achieve this because it shows the characters facial expressions, which are usually stressed, scared and puzzled. This helps create a tense atmosphere because the close-ups allow the audience to engage with the character, therefore being able to feel scared or stressed as well.
Key characters can be highlighted in multiple ways such as shot types and narration.
Out of three the trailers I have researched, Scream is the only one that uses narration to help identify one key character, Ghost Face. Throughout the trailer Ghost Face is only seen once and that is through a close-up reflection in a window.
The trailer has the smallest amount of narration to highlight the key character Ghost Face but key characters are highlighted through the use of diegetic dialogue. In the beginning of the trailer the audience are introduced to an innocent blonde girl, getting ready to watch a scary movie. They don't tell the audience her name. Where as when the antagonist phone calls another girl he says "Hello Sydney." This helps the audience identify Sydney as a main character.
"Someone is playing a deadly game…"
"Someone who has seen one to many scary movies…"
"And now he is taking his love of fear……one step to far…"
Light is used to create an atmosphere or highlight key points and characters within the plot. Horror trailers use the absence of light (low key lighting) in order to create an intense and uncomfortable atmosphere
All three trailers use low key lighting;
Low key lighting is extremely effective in the horror genre as it completes its task of making the audience uneasy and hiding behind whoever to protect themselves. Low Key Lighting matched with near to dead silence accomplishes the feel of uncomfortableness and this is used in all of the three trailers I have researched. They use them in similar yet slightly different ways.
The Hills Have Eyes uses low key lighting classically, in the sense that the pair it with the near to dead silence and the audience only hear the laughing of the antagonists, it then followed by an unexpected jump scare. The low key lighting helps create the uneasiness in the scene and also helps build the suspense.
Various colours can be used to represent different things such as themes and genre; it is common of the horror genre to use symbolic colours such as red, black and white in order to make it easy for the audience to identify the film as being a horror
White and red typography are used on a black background; sticking to the conventions of the horror genre. The colour red is used by the horror genre to represent blood and black is to portray darkness and white represents purity and innocence of the victims.
The classic red, white and black colours are used in the Scream texts of the trailer where as the other two trailers use black as well but have completely non-horror clouded text. The Hills Have Eyes uses orange, this is to show the age of the disaster that happened and is also orange to symbolise the desert because the desert's symbolic colours and red, orange and yellow.
