PowerPoint Presentation of The Woman In Black Film Trailer

This is my in-depth media analysis of the trailer 'The Woman In Black' for the research section of my coursework. As previously blogged, I have chosen my genre to be horror for my trailer, and so I have chosen a similar genre trailer to analyse throughly. The analysis will help build the skills needed for understanding how to construct a successful trailer effectively, enabling me to produce the most realistic and professional looking trailer to the best of my ability. The thriller aspect comes from the supernatural nature of the film, containing a ghost, however it carries the same dark theme that I would imagine my trailer to hold.

The Woman In Black Trailer:

My Analysis:

For this presentation, I received 18/20, and equivalent of an A*. With this, my teacher also gave me points of improvement, such as I lacked stating what the estimated target audience would be, which I then included into my powerpoint.

My First Draft at a Film Horror Plot

This is my very basic plot of a horror film. I tried to use aspects repertoire, such as a young female victim, a male villain, the code of enigma (who is the man), a place usually of safety is turned into a place of vulnerability, etc. I also tried to play of real fears, that you are not by yourself when you are home alone, and that by doing this, I make the storyline more effective as the audience could imagine this to happen to them, as they have had this unnerving feeling before.

Plot:

My plot opens with a blonde young woman walking down an alley at night. She feels cold, lonely an vulnerable with the dark colour scheme to emphasize this, perhaps even the pathetic fallacy of rain. She then returns home, and we see her light the fire and make a cup of tea, before snuggling up into her sofa with the television. It seems as though she is at a place where she can feel relaxed and unguarded, a place where she can feel safe.

However, her shelves catch her eye, and her decorations are not what they were. Instead of her simplistic and basic, yet slightly irregular layout of ornaments and picture frames, they are organised from smallest to largest. Rubbing her eyes she feels as though the tire of the day has finally taken its toll and a good night’s sleep is what is needed. It is only when she settles into a deep sleep that the back door knob starts to gradually turn, footsteps slowly tread across her kitchen tiles, heel to toe. The large dark boots pause beside a table of which a picture lay, with a woman and a man’s smiling faces beam up to the figure. He picks up the frame with a gentle gloved grasp, but his emotions soon turn sour, his hand tensing and scratches across the male’s faces.

When the woman awakes she begins her day as usual, taking a shower, having her breakfast, and so on. A few days later, she walks past the kitchen table and spots a beautifully hand-crafted blonde doll. Alarmed, the woman rings her boyfriend and asks if it was a practical joke, sincerely the boyfriend replies that he hadn't and that it isn't really a funny joke.

Months pass and we see the woman retreat further and further into isolation, cutting off more ties as the disturbances grow more severe. The police have no leads. She begins to get breathing phone calls, romantic letters, and photographs of her doing daily tasks around the house or getting a coffee at a café. Even sending threatening letters whenever she would meet her boyfriend, detailing her betrayal and his disgust. These intrusions escalate to the point where she exits her shower to find a romantic message written in the steam on her mirror, before finally, resigning her only social outlet as online, taking a profile picture and then receiving negative replies such as ‘It’s not Halloween yet!’, checking she sees a face in the window behind her, staring.

Eventually, is left completely cut off from all her friends and family, too scared to leave her home, when a knock on the door provides the answers. It is the police and they have finally figured out who the stalker is and arrested him, despite his plea of innocence. They sit with her and she is shown photographs of a man, early fourties, pale and unhealthily skinny. He minds is overwhelms and she is consumed with flashbacks of coffee shops lines, dry cleaning and grocery stores, even a passing a stranger on a bench. It was him, hidden in plain sight. She breathed a sigh of relief.

Two years later, she has moved states, changed her job, and made new friends, even going by her middle name. It was a fresh start, and this time she could live her life the way she wanted, without fear. Grabbing her coat and bag, she crossed the kitchen and heads for the front door. She stops. There, beautifully hand-crafted, was a little blonde doll.

Horror Film Trailer Repertoire

This is my basic list of the repertoire used for a stereotypical horror film and it's trailer. It was compiled by myself and a group of randomly selected media students to collect all of our ideas.

Iconography

• Blood
• Screaming
• Hooded figure 
• Vulnerable victim 
• Weapon (e.g, knife, gun)
• An attempt to get help
• Focus on one character
• Jump scares

Setting

• A setting that is believable to the audience
  (Somewhere considered either safe, like your home, or utterly vulnerable, such as an alley)
• At night
• A haunted house
• A dark forest
• An asylum
• A barn/cabin

Style

• Gothic tones (red,black,white,grey colour scheme)
• Pathetic fallacy (e.g, raining to represent a negative mood)

Narrative

• An everyday setting where your fears come true (home alone)
• Sometimes a twist in the plot or a cliffhanger
• Sometime a simple plot to focus on the scaring material
• Disrupting or breaking of the equilibrium
• Sometimes it ends with justice or where all hope is lost

Characters

• Relatable to the target audience of the film
• Victim is vulnerable, therefore usually a female or youthful (a child or teen)
• The villain is stereotypically a male
• The villain is usually either someone anonymous or someone the audience has been introduced to beforehand as a shock/twist
• Sometimes the use of children

Themes

• Growing up
• Relationships
• Good vs. evil

Film Trailer Initial Camera Ideas

This is only my basic thoughts of the camera shots and angles that could be used in the thriller/horror trailer I will produce, to create tension and suspense for the audience to intrigue them to watch the film, which is ultimately the goal of a trailer.

My trailer aims to entice the audience to a horror film. The basic outline (which is all the trailer should contain) is a group of teenage characters going into a forest and then being harassed and terrified by and unknown figure, leaving the outcome unclear. I believe that this would create a realistic and practical trailer as it would require little special effects, and the unidentifiable figure should allow the audience’s imaginations to create ideas of who or what this monster is, whilst simultaneously intriguing them to find out. To portray the mysterious figure, I imagine there should be no identification of their appearance, just a dark figure. The power and control could be represented through a low angle medium shot which then zooms into their face (or what the audience presumes as where a face should be) to intrigue the audience, yet leaving them wondering who or what it is by then cutting back to the girl running.

For the music, there may be the difficulty of gaining a realistic soundtrack. Therefore instead of a soundtrack, I do believe that a similar suspense could be created through diegetic sound, such as screams and rustling of the grass, even the pace of the shots speeding up.

To create tension and suspense, my trailer would ideally have a pace that gradually gets faster (synchronised with a soundtrack) and quicker, less clear, shots (e.g, point-of-view shot from behind a girl running) with either dialogue ‘leave us alone’/ ‘who was it?’, or an intriguing sentence of split into intertitle, which are then interspersed between the rapidly speeding up pace of shots.

I would imagine the trailer to end gradually panning from the medium shot of the girl’s side to a close up of her face with eyes darting around and her frantic panting and whimpering, perhaps even a tear. At this point the soundtrack would be loud and at its peak. This is the shot that should cut to black with the details appearing in an intertitle ‘Coming soon to theatres, Nov 8^th ’. 

Deciding a Film Genre

Before I could begin my trailer, I first had to determine which genre would be the more achievable in the tight time frame and little resources I had on offer. The two genres that I considered practical were horror and a female friendship drama. I used the aforementioned factors to decide this, which included considering actors and actresses and the amount of them I would need for a realistic film trailer.

Therefore, I have analysed the two examples of the genres in basic (mainly focusing on the representation), in aim to conclude which would be more successful for me to attempt to  produce.

Horror Trailer:
Woman in Black

The narrative includes the equilibrium of an undisturbed house with a chilling house being broken by the arrival of the main character. The unique selling point could be the collection of cleshe, yet effective scaring techniques (e.g, there is something behind him), and the play on the main scare, which is the children's contrast of their innocence.

It could be fair to assume the target audience of this film is young adults as it relates to the age of the actor playing the main character. Not only this, they may recognise him from his recent success in the Harry Potter film series, potentially appealing to their audience.

The music uses the chimes of the toys to time the cutting of shots, tying the rhyme and the shots together. As for the camera shots, they contain a great deal of darkness, which could be representing the nature of the plot and the history of the house.

The pace of the trailer starts slow, however quickens as the music does, before slowing back down to cause tension and suspense for the shot.

The fact that the trailer displays no dialogue could be due to the fact that, unlike Sex and the City 2, this movie is more about the experience, rather than relationships). Instead the trailer uses the child's rhyme as asynchronous  over the camera shots to suggest that all the shots relate to one another.

There is little to none special effects used, which could convey the filmmaker's intention to allow the audience's imagination to creating some of the effect and suspense.

The credits and intertitles are used to intrigue the audience, 'DANIEL RADCLIFFE' is to ensure the audience of the famous actor involved, 'THE  WOMAN IN BLACK'  is directly after the shot of the most suspense in the trailer, and the 'COMING SOON' is used as it is ominous and unclear, embodying the essence of how the trailer wants to be perceived, with mystery.

Female Friendship Drama Trailer:

Sex and the City 2

The narrative of the film is established through the presentation of the four females, each presenting four different personalities (e.g, a mother, a wife). It could be said that these four women cover a lot of the female demographic, and their gender and similar age (30s-50s) could be the film-makers attempting to appeal to their ideal target audience. However, this equilibrium is hinted as disrupted/broken by the four characters deciding to go on a holiday together, which brings the drama of the film.

The intertitles also aid the trailer by portraying the narrative in an extremely basic form 'THE FUN', yet simultaneously drawing the audience in and emphasizing the main character 'TO CARRIE ON', Carrie. There is also use of voiceover of this character 'Sometimes, you just have to get away with the girls' which is a phrase of which is stereotypical of the target audience (30s-50s females), and therefore, not only summarises the plot, which is that the main four females go on vacation together and appeals to the target audience, but also personalises the film to the female watching by using the direct language of 'you'. This allows the audience to find this more agreeable as it urges them to reflect this statement upon their own lives, building a connection.

The music could reflect the women's class and location 'New York' , as well as setting the tone of the film which is female empowerment 'inspire you' (sung by a female artist, Alicia Keys). In terms of editing, the music used in this trailer could be noted as providing a rhythm for camera shot to cut with the beats.

The camera of the trailer suggest how the filmmaker aims to present the characters. For example, many low angle shots are used, such as the character of Carrie exiting a car, which represent importance and rich.

Conclusion:

In terms of creating a trailer with the greatest chance of success at being perceived as professional, the horror/thriller is superior in comparison to a female friendship drama. Some of the main reasons being that it requires less special effects within the trailer, the dark colour scheme would be easier to work with, more variety of character to chose from and the trailers have more of a structure.