The genre of our film is a high school horror. The film is called ‘Revenge’. These types of horror films are normally based in a college or university in America. Ours is set in a UK sixth form college. Even though the location for this horror is very specific, many typical conventions from horror films can be employed. The only difference is the characters are younger and their defence mechanisms are more limited, as they are more vulnerable.
A technique we have used from other horror film trailers is a close up shot of a person s
creaming and the audience g
etting a glimpse of blood splatter on the wall. This can be seen in films such as Prom Night (2008). Screaming and blood splatter is a stereotypical way of showing someone has been murdered without showing all the horrific details, this allows us to show gruesome horror but not exceed our certificate of 15. The main element of a horror film is the type of music that is used. If you watched a horror film with no music it would not have the same emotional effect. The music builds tension w
hich makes the audience suspicious, so when something does happen it makes them jump, this can be seen in any horror films and thrillers. By using only point of view shots and tracking shots we can present an image of someone stalking the person on camera and by doing this the audience can see through the stalker’s eyes. Also by using a point of view shot, identity is hidden, which leads the audience to ask the question who is
the murderer? An editing technique we have used which can be seen in films such as Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and Prom Night. Because the Exorcism of Emily Rose is a supernatural horror they use white flashes to r
epresent the supernatural, but we use white flashes to represent the unknown and as the trailer goes on the white flashes become more distorted - as the characters start to worry about who the killer might be, but the audience is already beginning to suspect. So that the audience do not confuse the white flashes with the supernatural, we added a number of medium and close up shots of people in extreme panic, showing many people being chased or killed from 
the point of view of the murderer; this is seen in the Prom Night trailer. Another convention from existing film is the use of sound effects to make a small action more dramatic. Such as in the film trailer Scream (1996) - as the scene changes there is a non-diegetic and shocking banging noise where the surprise of the noise adds to the tension in the scene. We use this in the crescendo of the music: the scene changes every time the music jumps. To open our trailer we used a long shot of 
an old, dark tree, which is a typical horror convention that is normally in front of a run down, often abandoned, old house. However we developed this by using the tree in our establishing shot to imply that the college is our form of the scary old house. We use the convention of horror by giving the fear of claustrophobia in school, which is where many pupils would want to get away from. But normally a horror is based in a house in the middle of nowhere or 
next to a lake. This is seen in Jeepers Creepers (2001), giving us a sense that we know something bad is going to happen but we just don’t know what. This prepares the audience for something scary, so that when something does happen it will make the audience jump more, therefore successfully achieving the objective of scaring the audience.
The poster and
Empire magazine covers both show an image of a hooded figure. This reflects the theme of our movie 'Revenge'. Throughout the trailer 
the killer’s identity is unknown and his is always represented in dark colours, reflecting a similar image to the Grim Reaper. One of the sub-plot theme is based around a book called ‘Revenge of a Nobody’ that the English Teacher gave her class to read. This is where the murderer get his inspiration on how to kill his victims. The book is shown in the movie poster but it is not shown on the magazine cover, however the title of the book is written inside a blood splatter on the magazine. The reason for the book not to be included on the magazine cover is because the title of the book is more important than its image. This is because the title explains the motive of the murderer, ’Revenge of a Nobody’ which is part of Claude Levi-Strauss media theory (1949) of what the words represent instead of what the words mean. Strauss’ theory consists of a play on words, just because a word is spoken or presented doesn’t mean that this is its true meaning, it could be used to represent something else like a subliminal message. Strauss’ theory also represents a person’s presence as a passing species which will leave only a few faint traces of its passage when it becomes extinct. Which is what we try to represent as our murderer is never shown, only through point of view shots or as a hooded figure. A hooded figure does not necessarily mean that this is the murderer in disguise, the figure could represent death or simply signify the unknown identity of the murderer.
A change we had to make half way through making our trailer was the character of the English teacher, Jean Tyler. Originally the English teacher was male called Gene Tyler but we had trouble on finding a male teacher or student that was avaliable to help record voice overs and scenes in the classroom. The only option we had then was to change the gender of the teacher because our female friend was avaliable to help us record our scenes.
A main stereotype of a high school horror is the social groups or divide that the pupils encounter to develop a status of popularity. But for those who are on the outside of popular groups would eventually become the killer. Usually the popular group would mainly be female, as the outcast is normally male. The outcast would stereotypically wear black and their face would hardly ever be seen because they eventually become the murderer, if we never see his face we d
on’t see his character as important but really he is the important point in the story. The outcast character agrees with Bishop’s character theory (2008) of a character being snert. Snert means that the character is driven by anti-social behaviour; they would seek to offend their target because of something they have said. The outcast character we use in ‘Revenge’ turns into the killer because of the rejection from the girl that he likes, who is a member of the popular group. The humiliation he received when a boy from the popular group calls him by the wrong name and pushes him to the floor would be the turning point towards the outcasts ambition to seek revenge. The only time we see one of the popular people on their own is when they are targeted and attacked. This shows that popular people are more vulnerable on their own, by singling them out the murderer can attack, just like they did to him. We target our vulnerability by setting the horror in school, an experience everyone can relate to. We also target the loss of identity. The identity of the killer is unknown, the terror of the unknown and the horror conventional questions of who and why.
The characters that are represented in our trailer are part of Erving Goffman's character theory (1959) also. His character theory consists of four people, but we only use the first three in our trailer. The first is the protagonist, which is the leading character. In our trailer our leading character is Mary-Alice, as she is the centre of everyone’s attention and the most popular girl in school. She is also the last person alive out of her close group of friends which means she is who the murderer wants to hurt the most. Goffman’s second character theory is the deuteragonist, which is the sec
ondary character. In our trailer this would be Robin, which is the character I play. She is Mary-Alice’s best friend and she is the one who figures out the murdere
rs methods. The bit player is the minor character whose background the audiences are not aware of. This character is the teacher Jean Tyler. In our movie ‘Revenge’ for she is the author of the book ‘Revenge of a Nobody’ and she is the one who gives the book to our killer. At the end of the movie Jean Tyler was going to murder the killer, as it was her plan all along to kill the students as an act of revenge for her childhood, but the mystery of his character is kept secret all the way through the film.
The production st
udios that I would choose to produce the film ‘Revenge’ would need to be experienced in creating a spectacular horror film. Such films like Jennifer’s Body (2009) with a similar location also using the separation of social groups, as similar techniques that ‘Revenge’ needs to create tension. The production company for Jennifer’s Body is Fox Atomic, however they have not had much experience is producing horror films. The only othe
r horror film they have produced is The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007). Directed by Karyn Kusama, Jennifer’s Body was only nominated for one award, which was Worst Actress for Megan Fox. Prom Night was produced by Alliance Films but they are more American and French film producers and ‘Revenge’ is set in England. Dimension Films is the producer of the old classic Scream which seemed to be the most experienced for horror or thriller films. Directed by Wes Craven, a popular director, this film won 7 awards and had 4 nominations. Dimension Films have experience in other productions such as Halloween H2O (1998) and Scary Movie (2000). Universal studios have produced Drag Me To Hell (2009) and The Strangers (2008), however these are not high school horrors so this would not be ideal for ‘Revenge’ beca
use there are certai
n limits when producing a high school horror such as considering the age limit of the characters and the limited knowledge the students would have of murders. The Production team I would choose to produce ‘Revenge’ is Dimension Films because they seemed to be based around the younger generation, even if it does include comedy such as Scary Movie. Dimension Films are continuously producing younger horror films and they are planning to release new films in the near future.
Certificates are i
ssued to films by the British Board of Film Classification and ever since 1984 every video or film that gets released, has been evaluated and given a certificate for the appropriate audience age group. The boundary for a 15 certificate is that frequent strong language is acceptable but sexual abuse is not acceptable. There must be no constraint of nudity and violence may be used but the infliction of pain may not be dramatised. Horror can be sustained or detailed infliction of pain or injury is unacceptable and drugs can be taken and shown but clear instructive detail is unacceptable. The film as a whole must not promote drug use. I would give ‘Revenge’ a certificate of 15 because there is m
ild language used, but the violence is not completely shown but the horrific after-effects are shown. Films with similar genre such as Scream were certificated 18; this is so high bec
ause Scream was released in 1997. However, more modern films like Prom Night which was released in 2008, was given a certificate of 15 and Jennifer’s Body which was released in 2009 was certificated 15. Most high school horrors are around the certificate award of 15, which is because it is based in school so there are restrictions to what students can do and what they know. The reason for rating ‘Revenge’ at 15 is because at this stage secondary school students would be getting ready to leave school and everyone older would have already had their school experience. They would be able to recognise the 
behaviour of the students in ‘Revenge’ from when they were at school. Viral internet campaign seems to be the most popular method of advertising horror films such as Paranormal Activity (2010) as the younger generation this film is marketed at regularly use this form of media to gain information. This movie was released
over the internet before it made it to the cinema and because the majority of 15 to 30 year old people have a computer for social purposes such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter or Youtube, made this film a huge hit. Every household in Britain has at least one television so by advertising a teaser trailer on the television makes the audience investigate over the internet the full trailer and at this stage you are able to capture their interest.
Technology in media is important because it is how we communicate; it is how we create impossible things with special effects and opens our minds to new possibilities. The technology we used to cr
eate our movie trailer was a camera, a tri-pod, and a special effects programme but for a more professional trailer production they would have more technological advantages. They would use tracks for their tracking shots and a crane for their high angle shots, for the establishing shots. Many of these techniques are not available to us. Normally in horror films if the director wanted to film a scene in black and white for affect, they would be able to place a pane of glass in front of the camera lens. This way the colours in editing do not seem fake and are more realistic. We explored what special effects were available on the camera. We discovered different colours can be used such as pink, blue and grey as the primary colour on screen. We could create a symmetrical line down the centre of the shot. Through the special effect program we discovered how to invert colours to a white flash and also how to control the bass and volume between someone’s dialogue and the non-diegetic music. I also discovered how to extend or slow a clip down. By cutting the scene in half and extending one side, normal speed would emerge with slow motion. As we became more familiar with these techniques, we could use them in more complicated situations and create a better, more dramatic effect.
Our initial intention for our High School Horror film was to take Horror conventions that were found in horror trailers and create a British High School Horror using the same conventions to create the frightening affect. Our audience feedback tells us that they recognised the techniques that they would have expected to see in horror films or trailers. These were such techniques as a shaky camera and the narrative voice over lots of shots displaying murder. Our main ambition was to present plenty of scenes where there is a point a view shot showing someone murdering people, showing the social outcast of the college as the predictable murderer. However, we wanted to lead the audience one way so they think they know who the murderer was but we use a female voice at the end of the trailer stating “I write the book, I choose the ending”, this would make the audience think that their first interpretation of the image of the outcast was wrong and now they have no clue who the murderer could be. The feedback from the audience we received shows that they fell into the trap of guessing the wrong person as the murderer.
There weren’t any surprising interpretations that were not intended because the feedback that we received back they recognised everything we wanted to demonstrate. They could sp
ot who the main characters would be, which were Mary-Alice, Robin and the outcast which the other students mistaken his name for “Kevin”. The intention of only referring to the outcast by a wrong name shows his isolation from the rest of the social groups in school, making him the loner. The audience furthermore picked up on our intentional questions we wanted them to be left with at the end of the trailer, such questions like who did it, is Kevin the murderer and is the teacher involved.
Most of our feedback from our audience was positive. The only changes we needed to make from what our audience suggested were to make the voice over at the end of the trailer and a slight change to one of our white flashes. The voice over at the end of our trailer was a bit too fast for our audience to understand straight away and they thought the tone of the voice was not severe enough. So what we had to do was record it again speaking slower and with more of a stern voice. The white flash we used went through different shades of white, but the problem was that they didn’t flow or fade together so when watching it, it felt awkward. Our intention was not for it to go through different stages of white but we had some trouble with editing technology and we were not able to fade it to white but to black. We resolved this problem by taking out the different shades of white and just used the one. Now the two scenes before and after the flash of white flow together better making the trailer easier to follow.
I feel that I have improved the most in my editing skills. I know more about what techniques to use to create a horror convention effect, such as slow motion. Last year we made the opening of a film in a comedy genre, so this year when we decided to go in the opposite direction and do a trailer based on horror. We did not know much about its conventions or what techniques to use. With much research and the studying of similar horror trailers I now have a much better understanding of why these techniques are used for affect and I know how to create these affects. I am proud of the work I have done towards my movie poster and Empire magazine front cover, I have never made a professional poster before but from audience feedback it looks very professional.
A technique we have used from other horror film trailers is a close up shot of a person s
creaming and the audience g
etting a glimpse of blood splatter on the wall. This can be seen in films such as Prom Night (2008). Screaming and blood splatter is a stereotypical way of showing someone has been murdered without showing all the horrific details, this allows us to show gruesome horror but not exceed our certificate of 15. The main element of a horror film is the type of music that is used. If you watched a horror film with no music it would not have the same emotional effect. The music builds tension w
hich makes the audience suspicious, so when something does happen it makes them jump, this can be seen in any horror films and thrillers. By using only point of view shots and tracking shots we can present an image of someone stalking the person on camera and by doing this the audience can see through the stalker’s eyes. Also by using a point of view shot, identity is hidden, which leads the audience to ask the question who is
the murderer? An editing technique we have used which can be seen in films such as Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and Prom Night. Because the Exorcism of Emily Rose is a supernatural horror they use white flashes to r
epresent the supernatural, but we use white flashes to represent the unknown and as the trailer goes on the white flashes become more distorted - as the characters start to worry about who the killer might be, but the audience is already beginning to suspect. So that the audience do not confuse the white flashes with the supernatural, we added a number of medium and close up shots of people in extreme panic, showing many people being chased or killed from 
the point of view of the murderer; this is seen in the Prom Night trailer. Another convention from existing film is the use of sound effects to make a small action more dramatic. Such as in the film trailer Scream (1996) - as the scene changes there is a non-diegetic and shocking banging noise where the surprise of the noise adds to the tension in the scene. We use this in the crescendo of the music: the scene changes every time the music jumps. To open our trailer we used a long shot of 
an old, dark tree, which is a typical horror convention that is normally in front of a run down, often abandoned, old house. However we developed this by using the tree in our establishing shot to imply that the college is our form of the scary old house. We use the convention of horror by giving the fear of claustrophobia in school, which is where many pupils would want to get away from. But normally a horror is based in a house in the middle of nowhere or 
next to a lake. This is seen in Jeepers Creepers (2001), giving us a sense that we know something bad is going to happen but we just don’t know what. This prepares the audience for something scary, so that when something does happen it will make the audience jump more, therefore successfully achieving the objective of scaring the audience.The poster and
Empire magazine covers both show an image of a hooded figure. This reflects the theme of our movie 'Revenge'. Throughout the trailer 
the killer’s identity is unknown and his is always represented in dark colours, reflecting a similar image to the Grim Reaper. One of the sub-plot theme is based around a book called ‘Revenge of a Nobody’ that the English Teacher gave her class to read. This is where the murderer get his inspiration on how to kill his victims. The book is shown in the movie poster but it is not shown on the magazine cover, however the title of the book is written inside a blood splatter on the magazine. The reason for the book not to be included on the magazine cover is because the title of the book is more important than its image. This is because the title explains the motive of the murderer, ’Revenge of a Nobody’ which is part of Claude Levi-Strauss media theory (1949) of what the words represent instead of what the words mean. Strauss’ theory consists of a play on words, just because a word is spoken or presented doesn’t mean that this is its true meaning, it could be used to represent something else like a subliminal message. Strauss’ theory also represents a person’s presence as a passing species which will leave only a few faint traces of its passage when it becomes extinct. Which is what we try to represent as our murderer is never shown, only through point of view shots or as a hooded figure. A hooded figure does not necessarily mean that this is the murderer in disguise, the figure could represent death or simply signify the unknown identity of the murderer.A change we had to make half way through making our trailer was the character of the English teacher, Jean Tyler. Originally the English teacher was male called Gene Tyler but we had trouble on finding a male teacher or student that was avaliable to help record voice overs and scenes in the classroom. The only option we had then was to change the gender of the teacher because our female friend was avaliable to help us record our scenes.
A main stereotype of a high school horror is the social groups or divide that the pupils encounter to develop a status of popularity. But for those who are on the outside of popular groups would eventually become the killer. Usually the popular group would mainly be female, as the outcast is normally male. The outcast would stereotypically wear black and their face would hardly ever be seen because they eventually become the murderer, if we never see his face we d
on’t see his character as important but really he is the important point in the story. The outcast character agrees with Bishop’s character theory (2008) of a character being snert. Snert means that the character is driven by anti-social behaviour; they would seek to offend their target because of something they have said. The outcast character we use in ‘Revenge’ turns into the killer because of the rejection from the girl that he likes, who is a member of the popular group. The humiliation he received when a boy from the popular group calls him by the wrong name and pushes him to the floor would be the turning point towards the outcasts ambition to seek revenge. The only time we see one of the popular people on their own is when they are targeted and attacked. This shows that popular people are more vulnerable on their own, by singling them out the murderer can attack, just like they did to him. We target our vulnerability by setting the horror in school, an experience everyone can relate to. We also target the loss of identity. The identity of the killer is unknown, the terror of the unknown and the horror conventional questions of who and why.The characters that are represented in our trailer are part of Erving Goffman's character theory (1959) also. His character theory consists of four people, but we only use the first three in our trailer. The first is the protagonist, which is the leading character. In our trailer our leading character is Mary-Alice, as she is the centre of everyone’s attention and the most popular girl in school. She is also the last person alive out of her close group of friends which means she is who the murderer wants to hurt the most. Goffman’s second character theory is the deuteragonist, which is the sec
ondary character. In our trailer this would be Robin, which is the character I play. She is Mary-Alice’s best friend and she is the one who figures out the murderers methods. The bit player is the minor character whose background the audiences are not aware of. This character is the teacher Jean Tyler. In our movie ‘Revenge’ for she is the author of the book ‘Revenge of a Nobody’ and she is the one who gives the book to our killer. At the end of the movie Jean Tyler was going to murder the killer, as it was her plan all along to kill the students as an act of revenge for her childhood, but the mystery of his character is kept secret all the way through the film.The production st
udios that I would choose to produce the film ‘Revenge’ would need to be experienced in creating a spectacular horror film. Such films like Jennifer’s Body (2009) with a similar location also using the separation of social groups, as similar techniques that ‘Revenge’ needs to create tension. The production company for Jennifer’s Body is Fox Atomic, however they have not had much experience is producing horror films. The only othe
r horror film they have produced is The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007). Directed by Karyn Kusama, Jennifer’s Body was only nominated for one award, which was Worst Actress for Megan Fox. Prom Night was produced by Alliance Films but they are more American and French film producers and ‘Revenge’ is set in England. Dimension Films is the producer of the old classic Scream which seemed to be the most experienced for horror or thriller films. Directed by Wes Craven, a popular director, this film won 7 awards and had 4 nominations. Dimension Films have experience in other productions such as Halloween H2O (1998) and Scary Movie (2000). Universal studios have produced Drag Me To Hell (2009) and The Strangers (2008), however these are not high school horrors so this would not be ideal for ‘Revenge’ beca
use there are certai
n limits when producing a high school horror such as considering the age limit of the characters and the limited knowledge the students would have of murders. The Production team I would choose to produce ‘Revenge’ is Dimension Films because they seemed to be based around the younger generation, even if it does include comedy such as Scary Movie. Dimension Films are continuously producing younger horror films and they are planning to release new films in the near future.Certificates are i
ssued to films by the British Board of Film Classification and ever since 1984 every video or film that gets released, has been evaluated and given a certificate for the appropriate audience age group. The boundary for a 15 certificate is that frequent strong language is acceptable but sexual abuse is not acceptable. There must be no constraint of nudity and violence may be used but the infliction of pain may not be dramatised. Horror can be sustained or detailed infliction of pain or injury is unacceptable and drugs can be taken and shown but clear instructive detail is unacceptable. The film as a whole must not promote drug use. I would give ‘Revenge’ a certificate of 15 because there is m
ild language used, but the violence is not completely shown but the horrific after-effects are shown. Films with similar genre such as Scream were certificated 18; this is so high bec
ause Scream was released in 1997. However, more modern films like Prom Night which was released in 2008, was given a certificate of 15 and Jennifer’s Body which was released in 2009 was certificated 15. Most high school horrors are around the certificate award of 15, which is because it is based in school so there are restrictions to what students can do and what they know. The reason for rating ‘Revenge’ at 15 is because at this stage secondary school students would be getting ready to leave school and everyone older would have already had their school experience. They would be able to recognise the 
behaviour of the students in ‘Revenge’ from when they were at school. Viral internet campaign seems to be the most popular method of advertising horror films such as Paranormal Activity (2010) as the younger generation this film is marketed at regularly use this form of media to gain information. This movie was released
over the internet before it made it to the cinema and because the majority of 15 to 30 year old people have a computer for social purposes such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter or Youtube, made this film a huge hit. Every household in Britain has at least one television so by advertising a teaser trailer on the television makes the audience investigate over the internet the full trailer and at this stage you are able to capture their interest.Technology in media is important because it is how we communicate; it is how we create impossible things with special effects and opens our minds to new possibilities. The technology we used to cr
eate our movie trailer was a camera, a tri-pod, and a special effects programme but for a more professional trailer production they would have more technological advantages. They would use tracks for their tracking shots and a crane for their high angle shots, for the establishing shots. Many of these techniques are not available to us. Normally in horror films if the director wanted to film a scene in black and white for affect, they would be able to place a pane of glass in front of the camera lens. This way the colours in editing do not seem fake and are more realistic. We explored what special effects were available on the camera. We discovered different colours can be used such as pink, blue and grey as the primary colour on screen. We could create a symmetrical line down the centre of the shot. Through the special effect program we discovered how to invert colours to a white flash and also how to control the bass and volume between someone’s dialogue and the non-diegetic music. I also discovered how to extend or slow a clip down. By cutting the scene in half and extending one side, normal speed would emerge with slow motion. As we became more familiar with these techniques, we could use them in more complicated situations and create a better, more dramatic effect.Our initial intention for our High School Horror film was to take Horror conventions that were found in horror trailers and create a British High School Horror using the same conventions to create the frightening affect. Our audience feedback tells us that they recognised the techniques that they would have expected to see in horror films or trailers. These were such techniques as a shaky camera and the narrative voice over lots of shots displaying murder. Our main ambition was to present plenty of scenes where there is a point a view shot showing someone murdering people, showing the social outcast of the college as the predictable murderer. However, we wanted to lead the audience one way so they think they know who the murderer was but we use a female voice at the end of the trailer stating “I write the book, I choose the ending”, this would make the audience think that their first interpretation of the image of the outcast was wrong and now they have no clue who the murderer could be. The feedback from the audience we received shows that they fell into the trap of guessing the wrong person as the murderer.
There weren’t any surprising interpretations that were not intended because the feedback that we received back they recognised everything we wanted to demonstrate. They could sp
ot who the main characters would be, which were Mary-Alice, Robin and the outcast which the other students mistaken his name for “Kevin”. The intention of only referring to the outcast by a wrong name shows his isolation from the rest of the social groups in school, making him the loner. The audience furthermore picked up on our intentional questions we wanted them to be left with at the end of the trailer, such questions like who did it, is Kevin the murderer and is the teacher involved.Most of our feedback from our audience was positive. The only changes we needed to make from what our audience suggested were to make the voice over at the end of the trailer and a slight change to one of our white flashes. The voice over at the end of our trailer was a bit too fast for our audience to understand straight away and they thought the tone of the voice was not severe enough. So what we had to do was record it again speaking slower and with more of a stern voice. The white flash we used went through different shades of white, but the problem was that they didn’t flow or fade together so when watching it, it felt awkward. Our intention was not for it to go through different stages of white but we had some trouble with editing technology and we were not able to fade it to white but to black. We resolved this problem by taking out the different shades of white and just used the one. Now the two scenes before and after the flash of white flow together better making the trailer easier to follow.
I feel that I have improved the most in my editing skills. I know more about what techniques to use to create a horror convention effect, such as slow motion. Last year we made the opening of a film in a comedy genre, so this year when we decided to go in the opposite direction and do a trailer based on horror. We did not know much about its conventions or what techniques to use. With much research and the studying of similar horror trailers I now have a much better understanding of why these techniques are used for affect and I know how to create these affects. I am proud of the work I have done towards my movie poster and Empire magazine front cover, I have never made a professional poster before but from audience feedback it looks very professional.
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