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 ’.