Sound

Sound in our horror trailer is very significant and brings the trailer together to give off suspense and tension which is an one of the many factors that a horror trailer is supposed to do. Our trailer follows the codes and conventions of a horror trailer regarding sound, some iconic and key components are music, sound effects and voices, these all can be either non diegetic or diegetic.

To achieve the majority of the sounds used in the trailer, Garage Band and FinalCut Pro were used which made the process a lot easier. One of the most recognisable sounds used in the trailer would be the trailer boom, these are usually used when a sudden shot appears, usually transitioned from a cut to black. These are iconic and used in nearly every single horror trailer, some examples are Texas Chainsaw, Saw and Psycho. I did this by finding a clip of the sound, converting it to a MP3, inserting it into FinalCut Pro and positioning into the desired spot.

The pace of the music starts off slow and gradually builds up into a quicker pace as it follows the pace of the trailer, for example, it starts off the with the wind howling in the beginning, however, when you get to around 40 seconds in, where the montage will begin slowly, the music and sound effects get louder and speed up. This creates tension and adrenaline which creates the makes the audience feel like they're actually living the trailer. Some key sound effects include heavy breathing, wind howling and doors slamming, these are all diegetic as these sounds can all be heard by the actors/characters in the trailer. 

Lighting

Throughout the trailer, it can be seen that the majority of lighting used is generally low-key which is undeniably used in every horror trailer to set the tone and atmosphere of mystery as this is what is associated with the dark. This makes the audience vulnerable and threatened like the characters as people generally fear the 'unknown'. 

However, light can also be used as a symbol in horror films which is frequently used to symbolize hope, death, transition and escape. In many horror films we're able to identify that once the sun comes up, there is more hope for life and this is when everything typically is over, for example in 'The Town That Dreaded Sundown'. After all of the events, we see the main character walking whilst the sun is coming up at the end of the film. In our trailer, you can see flickers of bright lights which may symbolize that there is hope at the end.

In some clips we achieved, the lighting was not as we desired as it may not have contained low-key lighting, this was easily fixed by using the lighting tool in FinalCut Pro to mend the bright lighting into dark, low key lighting which gave an eerie aesthetic to the trailer.

Camera Techniques

There are many camera techniques that are used in a horror trailer/film which emphasise the genre of the film. In our trailers, it is very prominent that we used an array of different camera techniques to capture different shots which give different effects on to the audience.

For example, you can see we used a medium shot of the protagonist to showcase her wounds as well as her costume which will reveal what kind of character she is (final girl can be assumed because of her masculine costume and natural make-up).

 

Furthermore, the extreme wide shot of the building at the beginning was used as the establishing shot to show the audience where the film may be taking place as well as to give a glimpse of what genre the film may be. The wide shot gives the sense of isolation as it is visible that the area is deserted as it slowly tilts from the floor all the way to the top of the building.