IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP, OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL LIFE MEDIA PRODUCTS.

Evaluation Part 1:

Genre translates

to 'type' and this is extremely important to the film industry in particular as it helps audiences to identify which 'type' of films that they enjoy watching. The most important theorist in this field is Thomas Schatz (Hollywood Genres, 1981) who defined 'genre theory' as being the best way to understand media texts as the audience is able to expect different elements in each genre of films. We knew that when created our own production, we had to be aware of the conventions of both horror films and horror trailers.

The horror genre has sub genres such as gory,

psychological or action horrors.

Based on our own preferences, our trailer for The Hanging Tree is a psychological horror such as Paranormal Activity (2007). This sub-genre of horror is usually rated at a 15 rather than an 18 as it tends to contain less body horror which is a generic feature of gory horrors such as Day of the Dead (1985).

We focussed on generic features such as the

creepy location and theme

of isolation which we had seen in films such as The Hills Have Eyes (2006). These can be seen in our trailer with the shots of the dark lake and the shots of the wide open heath with the dead ferns thus having connotations of loneliness and decay.

We briefly used the generic

feature of body horror within our trailer with the shots of the naive victim covered in blood, and at one stage with blood dripping from her hands. We included this because we felt that it would encourage a wider audience to come and watch our film because fans of gory horror would see the generic feature that is usually associated with their favourite sub genre. Such as the infamous scene in Hostel (2005) where the American male hero has his tendons in his ankles cut.

We used lots of close up shots within our trailer, the most successful of which was the shot of the hanging antagonist when she opens her eyes. The proximity to her face feels as though she is really in the audience’s personal space and makes them feel uncomfortable. This technique was used famously in The Blair Witch Project (1999) when the main protagonist is crying into the camera, an image that is also featured on many of its posters.

We also conventionally used

expressionist angles and collision cutting which are some of the most important generic features of psychological horror as they build tension and make the audience jump. This technique was used in films such as The Crazies (2010) in the prison cell scenes where one of the crazies jumps out at the protagonist. We used expressionist angles with the

canted angle on the running shot of the naive victim character as this has connotations of chaos and confusion.

Meanwhile, collision cutting is apparent in the scene where the male hero falls down the hill and it cuts from an extreme close up kinetic shot to a still long shot of him crumpled at the bottom of the hill. This “collision” of shot lengths disorientates the audience this technique was used in Friday the 13th (2009) When the female victim is water skiing and there are lots of loud kinetic shots until the antagonist Jason appears and the shots become very quiet and still.

Horror trailers have a slightly different set of conventions to horror films, they tend to tease the audience more with implications of violence rather than showing them on screen. The purpose of trailers is to set the narrative and encourage fans of the genre to go and watch the whole film. This means that they have their own generic features, especially in regard to pacing. Our trailer

begins with a slow happy montage of all of the characters laughing and messing around, this is generic of horror trailers because it sets the scene and introduces key characters to the audience.

These montages also used in trailers for The Purge (2013) and Friday the 13th (2009). During our section, the tension is being drawn out within this slow happy montage as it has the slow but creepy tune of 'The Hanging Tree' underneath it, this use of contrapuntal music makes the audience feel uncomfortable and slightly on edge. Initially he pace of our The Hanging Tree trailer is quite slow, this is because it is a psychological trailer and this draws out the tension and makes the audience feel tense and fearful.

To contrast with the build-up on tension, our trailer finishes with

an extremely fast montage with a high pitched crescendo underneath it. This sudden increase in pace should make the heart rate of the audience pick up and have a sense of chaos to the trailer. The intention was this startling change in pace would ensure the trailer would stick in the audiences mind after the trailer has finished. We took this style of trailers from Saw 2 (2005) and 30 Days of Night (2007), both of which finish with quick montages with shot lengths of less than 1 seconds for a sustained 10-15 second period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43vIxz2SRVo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxC0Um9zSqY

The auteur influence that I feel makes the trailer distinctive is probably the gory elements of the

trailer, such as the body horror of the makeup on the antagonist’s face and the blood on the hands of the naive girl. I think that bringing the body horror into our largely psychological horror trailer makes The Hanging Tree more dynamic and interesting for the audience to watch as well as making them 'shudder' . I was greatly inspired

by the work of George A. Romero and the way that he uses body horror as a way of desensitising the audience so that they are vulnerable to the more political and social messages of his texts, Especially his anti-racist views and the way that he had black protagonists with high moral standing over white characters.

I was also influenced by the way that he made the body horror using artists such as

Tom Savini with the latex effects. Such as when the zombies bite out the throat of one of the bikers in Dawn of the Dead (1978)This was something that I feel really resonated with me and that I spent a lot of time in bring these elements (though subtly) into our psychological trailer, both broadening our audience and also marking The Hanging Tree as distinctive.