PLANNING - Church scene Setting

PLANNING - Storyboards

PLANNING - Original Photography

Here are some photographs that our group took of different locations that may be used in our trailer. We will also use some of these photos for our magazine background and our film posters.

PLANNING - Narrative Ideas UPDATED

After a few discussions with members of my group, we decided to slightly make changes to some areas of our narrative


Title of Film trailer: REBORN 

Characters/Actors: 4 ghost hunters - Me, Sophie Whitlock (ghosthunter who gets possessed by Charlotte Manson's ghost), Shaughna Phillips and Joshua Duff. These actors won't be paid but are willing to work, which suits our groups overall budget of £0.

Settings: City of London Academy classroom and the nearby church. Most of the trailer will be filmed in the church for the action scenes. The classroom room will be used to show the ghosthunters planning how they are going to catch Charlotte Manson's ghost. 

Narrative: based on a true story, the Charles Manson murders in real life. Our group decided to base our narrative on the real Charles Manson but add a unique twist. This is why our antagonist is called 'Charlotte Manson'. It flips the stereotype of females being inferior and getting killed first in Horror Films.
Our storyline consists of four ghost hunters looking for the ghost of Charlotte Manson, a mass murderer of South London, Bermondsey in the late 1960s (based on the real Charles Manson). Rumours within Bermondsey say that the spirit of Charlotte Manson is trapped within the local church that her body was buried under and this is the church we will be filming at. This is also the location of which many of her Victims are buried at.
Her spirit possesses one of the ghost hunters when they enter the church (Sophie Whitlock). Sophie starts acting differently towards the others. Whenever they make ghost jokes she doesn’t laugh or respond in anyway. Her face begins to turn paler as the trailer goes on showing that she is clearly possessed. The spirit is now fully REBORN (relates to our title) within Sophie's body, so Sophie starts killing the other 3 ghost hunters. The spirit of Charlotte Manson is trying to recreate the murders of the late 1960s.

Tagline: 'Manson's back…' We believe this tagline is catchy and mysterious at the same time. It will be easily remembered by our target audience.

Editing Styles or techniques: We agreed that we were going to use a handheld camera for some of the scenes in our trailer, e.g. running scenes to give the effect of realism and illustrate that the ghost hunters within the story are inexperienced ghosthunters because they are young. We will also use some steady camera shots, like panning and tilting, to illustrate our skill and understanding of Horror Trailers.

Props/Costumes: Within our £0 budget. Everyone will wear their own clothes nothing extravagant. Dark coloured casual clothing will be worn by all the characters within the trailer apart from Sophie. Sophie will wear lighter colours than everyone else to break the conventions of horror. This will also make her stand out to the audience more and make her look innocent, so that it is unbelievable that she is killing her fellow ghosthunters. We decided that our killer won't have any props like Murder weapons. This will add the element of mystery that we believe our target audience is seeking from our trailer. The only significant prop being used by the ghosthunters in the story will be the Cross.

We have also developed our story boards and filming schedules for our group. We created our filming schedules so that every member of our group knows what things they are doing and when they are doing them. These filming schedules list the dates we are filming on, director, actors, setting, camera shots/angles, lighting, actors costume for continuity, etc.

Age Rating: Our film will be aged at young people aged 16-21, So we feel that a Certificate Rating of 15 will be suitable for our trailer because nobody younger than 15 can rent or buy a 15-rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, game, or watch a film in the cinema with this rating. Films under this category can contain some adult themes, hard drugs, strong language and one use of very strong language, moderate-strong violence/sex references, and undetailed sex activity. This all suits our target audience as they are over the age of 15.

RESEARCH - Horror Mood Board

The images I have used in this HORROR mood board are very scary to me. They are all characters from past famous Horror films and they will help me inspiration when creating my own media products to relate to the horror genre. Like the questionnaire results said from my target audience, I don’t need to use gore or violence in my media products to attract my target audience. They prefer the elements of mystery and suspicion, so I will aim to create all my media products in this way. My media products need to leave my target audience questioning but at the same time scared. 

Market Research - Questionnaire Results

The questionnaires we gave out to randomly selected people should us that every 9 out of 10 Sixth Formers likes watching horror films. Also, the majority of people said they enjoyed the 'shock factor' of a horror film instead of gore, violence and other aspects.

This suggests we should include a few shocking scenes in the trailer that will make the audience jump. They also told us that they are more attracted to a good storyline rather than gore or violence. This connotes we should make our storyline intriguing to our audience instead of including a lot of violence to draw them in because they want to see a good storyline.

From the results of the focus group questionnaire, we found that the most popular sub-genre was 'gore' and the most popular 'time' of horror was the 1980's so our storyline could be from the 1980's or based on the 1980's horror.

RESEARCH - Possible Subgenres of our trailer

From http://www.cuebon.com/ewriters/Hsubgenres.html

Paranormal is a subgenre with mortal heroes. Such tales emphasize a difficult battle against evil supernatural encroachment, whether by a saintly exorcist or high-tech ghostbusters. There are many popular examples, such as Tobe Hooper's film Poltergeist. (Unlike most 'horror' stories, there's 50-50 chance the good guys will prevail.)

Psychological (surreal)
This subgenre is usually written from a tight viewpoint. Is the protagonist really seeing terrible things, perhaps battling against demonic possession -- or is he (less often, she) going insane? On the flip side, this subgenre can feature an insane protagonist, such as a tormented serial killer. A modern example is the novel Heart Shaped Box, by Joe Hill.
Surreal horror incorporates bizarre imagery, often drawn from vivid, threatening dreams.

Hauntings subgenre tales feature exactly this. Often the persistant ghost is a specific individual, somehow connected to the building or protagonist. The (supposedly true) novel and film The Amityville Horror are famous examples. The TV show The Ghost and Mrs. Muir verged on romance, and the "Caspar" franchise on comedy.

PLANNING - Narrative Ideas for Horror Trailer

Possible Titles of Film:

- The Night that never lived

- Slaughter Reborn

- REBORN (chosen name)

Characters: 4/5 ghost hunters, a ghost, church caretaker

Settings: City of London Academy classroom and a church. Most of the trailer will be filmed in the church

Narrative: based on a true story, the Charles Manson murders. 4 or 5 ghost hunters looking for the ghost of Charlotte Manson, a mass murderer of South London, Bermondsey in the late 1960s (based on Charles Manson). Rumours say that the spirit of Charlotte Manson is trapped within the church that he body was buried under and this is the church we will be filming at. Her spirit possesses one of the ghost hunters when they enter the church (Sophie). Sophie starts acting differently towards the others. Whenever they make ghost jokes she doesn’t laugh or respond in anyway. Her face begins to turn paler as the trailer goes on showing that she is clearly possessed. The spirit is now fully REBORN within Sophie's body and starts killing the other ghost hunters. The spirit of Charlotte Manson is trying to recreate the murders of the late 1960s.

Tagline: Manson's back…

Editing Styles or techniques: We agreed that we were going to use a handheld camera throughout the trailer to give the effect of realism and illustrate that the ghost hunters within the story are amateurs.

Props/Clothing: Within our £0 budget. Everyone will wear their own clothes nothing extravagant. Dark coloured casual clothing will be worn by all the characters within the trailer. Props include fake blood, Charlotte Manson's previous murder weapons, etc.

We have also developed our story boards and filming schedules for our group. We created our filming schedules so that every member of our group knows what things they are doing and when they are doing them. These filming schedules list the dates we are filming on, director, actors, setting, camera shots/angles, lighting, actors costume for continuity, etc.

RESEARCH - Timeline of Horror

1920's - The first horror movies:

Early horror films are surreal, dark pieces, owing their visual appearance to the expressionist painters and their narrative style. Darkness and shadows, such important features of modern horror, were impossible to show on the film stock available at the time, so the sequences, for example in Nosferatu, where we see a vampire leaping amongst gravestones in what appears to be broad daylight, seem doubly surreal to us now.


1920 classics
The Golem (1915/1920)
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919)


1930's - Horror begins to talk . . . and scream.
Horror movies were reborn in the 1930s. The advent of sound, as well as changing the whole nature of cinema forever, had a huge impact on the horror genre. Sound adds an extra dimension to terror, whether it be music used to build suspense or signal the presence of a threat, or magnified footsteps echoing down a corridor. The horror films of the 1930s are exotic fairy tales, invariably set in some far-off land peopled by characters in period costume speaking in strange accents. Horror was still essentially looking backwards, drawing upon the literary classics of the 19th century for their source material.


1930's classics - 
Dracula (1931)
Frankenstein (1931)


1940's - Horror eats itself
Wartime horror movies were an American product and they was banned in Britain. With film production curbed throughout the theatre of war in Europe, horror films were cranked out by Hollywood solely to amuse the domestic audience. The studios stuck with tried and tested ideas, wary of taking risks that might suggest they had no measure of the zeitgeist, and trotted out a series of variations on a theme. This was not an age of innovation, but horror movie memes were, nonetheless, evolving. If the horror movies of the 1930s had dealt in well-established fictional monsters, looking back towards the nineteenth century for inspiration, the 1940s reflected the internalisation of the horror market. The Americans looked at themselves as “safe”, whereas everything else, particularly anything hailing from that frightening, chaotic, unreasonable and uncontrolled place known as Europe was dangerous. 




1940's classics -
Cat people (1942) 


1950's - Creature features 
It is hard to grasp the changes that took place in popular consciousness between 1940 and 1950. In ten short years the concept of a horrific monster had altered irrevocably. Whereas Lon Chaney, Jr in a fine covering of yak's hair had once served as a powerful envoy from the dark side, now there were more recognisably human faces attached to evil. Faces who had fought on both sides in WW2, the developers of the atom bomb and the death camp, mad scientists indeed whose activities would have unnerved even Victor Frankenstein or Dr Moreau.The military action of WW2 had left over 40 million dead, and millions more exposed to the full spectrum of man's inhumanity to man. Homecoming soldiers and bereaved widows had too many horror stories of their own to appreciate fantasies on the big screen, and much preferred the silliness of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein et al. The world could never be the same again, and the dawning of post-war posterity in America brought with it a new breed of monsters, adapted specifically for survival in the second half of the twentieth century.


1950's Classics - 
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
The wasp Woman (1960)
House on Haunted hill (1959) 


1960 Thriller to chiller 
Horror films and thrillers had intertwined way back in the days of the Old Dark House (1932) and Cat People (1942). However, horror's relegation to the B-movie zone in the 1950s meant that those directors who were interested in thrillers had concentrated on producing glossy, stylish, film-noir stories with no taint of the supernatural, the monstrous, and therefore the drive-in. It is interesting to compare the original Cape Fear(1962) with its 1991 remake. And yet... The undisputed master of the thriller, Alfred Hitchcock, chose the 1960s for his two main ventures into the horror genre.


1960's Classics
Psycho (1960)
The Birds (1963)


1970's - Nightmare decade: in front of the children 
Horror movies of the 1970s reflect the grim mood of the decade. After the optimism of the 1960s, with its sexual and cultural revolutions, and the moon landings, the seventies were something of a disappointment. It all started to go horribly wrong in 1970; the Beatles split, Janis and Jimi died, and in many senses it was downhill all the way from there: Nixon, Nam, oil strikes, glam rock, feather haircuts, medallions... However, when society goes bad, horror films get good, and the 1970s marked a return to the big budget, respectable horror film, dealing with contemporary societal issues, addressing genuine psychological fears.


1970's classics -
The Exorcist (1973) 
The Stepford Wives (1975)


1980's Horror films
Horror movies of the 1980s (which probably begin in 1979 with Alien) exist at the glorious watershed when special visual effects finally caught up with the gory imaginings of horror fans and movie makers. Technical advances in the field of animatronics, and liquid and foam latex meant that the human frame could be distorted to an entirely new dimension, onscreen, in realistic close up. This coincided with the materialistic ethos of the 1980s, when having it all was important, but to be seen to be having it all was paramount. People demanded tangible tokens of material success - they wanted bigger, shinier, faster, with more knobs on - as verification of their own value in society. In the same way, horror films during this decade delivered the full colour close-up, look-no-strings-attached, special effect in a way that previous practitioners of the art could only dream about. Everything that had lurked in the shadows of horror films in the 1950s could now be brought into the light of day. The monsters were finally out of the closet.


1980's Classics -
The thing (1982)
Child's Play (1988)


1990s Horror in the 1980s
By the end of the 1980s horror had become so reliant on gross-out gore and buckets of liquid latex that it seemed to have lost its power to do anything more than shock and then amuse. Peter Jackson's Brain Dead (1992) epitomises this; a riot of campy spatter, it climaxes with a zombie orgy through which the bespectacled hero must cut his way with a lawnmower. It's hilarious, and not scary in the slightest. The original creations of the late 1970s/early 80s were simply pastiches of their former selves, their power to chill long having disappeared in a slew of sequels and over-familiarity.



1990's Classics -
Se7en (1995)
Wes Craven's new nightmare (1994)


2000's Global Convergence
Horror movies in the late 1990s predicted dire things for the turn of the century. Whilst January 1st, 2000 came and went without much mishap, many commentators have identified the true beginning of the 21st century as September 11th, 2001. The events of that day changed global perceptions of what is frightening, and set the cultural agenda for the following years. The film industry, already facing a recession, felt very hard hit as film-makers struggled to come to terms with what was now acceptable to the viewing public. Anyone trying to sell a horror film in the autumn of 2001 (as George Romero tried with Land of the Dead) got rebuffed. "Everybody wanted to make the warm fuzzy movies."(LA Times 30/10/05) There were even calls to ban horror movies in the name of world peace. But, by 2005, the horror genre was as popular as ever. Horror films routinely topped the box office, yielding an above-average gross on below-average costs. It seems that audiences wanted a good, group scare as a form of escapism, just as their great-grandparents chose Universal horror offerings to escape the miseries of the Depression and encroaching world war in the 1930s. The monsters have had to change, however. Gone were the lone psychopaths of the 1990s, far too reminiscent of media portrayals of bin Laden, the madman in his cave. As the shock and awe of twenty first century warfare spread across TV screens, cinematic horror had to offer an alternative, whilst still tapping into the prevailing cultural mood.

PLANNING - Typography for Poster & Magazine

Here are some font ideas for my film poster and magazine. These fonts will be used for the title/masthead on both media products. The 3 I selected for each product were my favourite choices as I felt they would best suit the genre of Horror. One of these 3 fonts will be used for the Masthead on my Film Magazine:

One of these 3 fonts will be used for the Title on my Film Poster:

PLANNING - Production Log

RESEARCH - Camera shots/techniques used in Horror films

There are many generic camera shots beloved of film directors, which audiences have learned to associate with a particular genre. This is especially true of horror films, so try recreating the fear yourself -without spilling a drop of fake blood.

The "hand grab"

Suitable for all thrillers and chillers. Nothing is easier to shoot than a hand suddenly grabbing something or someone, the rest of the grabber's body out of frame. Janet Leigh's hand grabs at the shower wall-tiles in Psycho; Carrie's hands shoot up through the grave-soil to grab your feet.

The "back of the head" shot

For the arthouse horror. The camera gets in tight to the back of a character's head as he or she walks along. This blank, unrevealing back-of-head, all but dominating the frame, is surprisingly effective in hinting at an enigmatic menace in the person's mind. As used in the Dardenne brothers' The Son, or Josh Appignanesi's Song of Songs - not horror films per se, but unsettling nonetheless.

The "killer's eye view" shot

There's nothing more disturbing than establishing where the victim is, how he (or more probably she) is going to be vulnerable, and then showing the predator's point of view, forcing the audience to see things from the killer's standpoint. The classic version is seeing the swimmer's horribly vulnerable and tasty-looking legs in Jaws. There's also the killer's-eye-view opening to Michael Powell's Peeping Tom.

The "killer in the mirror" shot

Suitable for classic horror, but also available in many variants in films like Bernard Rose's Candyman. The victim goes innocently into the bathroom - and then we see the monster reflected behind them in the medicine cabinet mirror-door!

This is the easiest shot for the amateur to have a crack at. Get your victim to preen themselves in the mirror, blissfully unaware, while your psycho-monster in a Halloween mask crouches low, out of shot. Victim opens bathroom cabinet mirror-door to get toothbrush and actor playing psycho-monster stands up into position where he will be reflected. Then victim closes cabinet mirror and - yikes! - horrible psycho-monster appears in reflection behind her. You could even dub in a violin shriek for a little extra terror.

This article from the Guardian website will be useful in giving me ideas for certain camera shots and editing techniques when I am filming and editing my own trailer.

'Horrific' Magazine and Teaser Poster First Drafts

Here is the first draft of my film magazine based around the horror genre. As you can see I followed many of the codes and conventions of average film magazines like ‘Total Film’ and ‘Empire’. I placed the masthead at the top of my magazine so that the title will be easily visible when the magazine is placed on a shop shelf with other magazines. I named the magazine ‘Horrific’ as I believe this immediately connotes to the audience that the magazine will be based on the horror genre. The trailer for my horror film is promoted on the front cover of this magazine to portray that the magazine is focused on horror films.

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Here is the draft for my teaser film poster. Through my research of teaser film posters I discovered that teaser posters always contain very little information about the thing e.g. just a film title, background image, possible release date, etc. I used this research to assist me when designing my teaser poster. As you can see the trailer for my horror film is promoted on the front cover. I created this draft before me and the other members in my group decided to change the title. I used an effect to alter the original background image to black and white. I also adjusted the brightness and contrast of the image to make it darker and appeal more to the genre of horror.

(click image to enlarge)

RESEARCH - Analysis of a Horror Film Poster: The Abandoned

(Click image to enlarge)

***For example, in the narrative the baby could be born and abandoned at birth. This could lead to the baby losing its innocence early and wanting to gain revenge on its unloving parents. This was the narrative that came to mind when I first viewed the film poster in relation to the film title, but other audience members may interpret the poster differently. Overall, I believe this film poster is extremely effective in portraying/following the conventions of the horror genre. The colours, layout, title font, background image and other features all indicate that the film is based on the horror genre.

RESEARCH - The Genre of Horror

As I said it is not easy to define the any genre because its based on individual interpretations. Before creating my own horror trailer, I knew that I would need a wide range of research in horror films and the horror genre itself to create a successful trailer. I knew that if I analysed the trailers of the 5 most popular/best selling horror films of all time I could get an strong idea on how these films became so successful and what I would need to do to try and match the quality. Obviously, I will not have the same budget as the big film institutions, but I will try to create the best quality trailer using all the resources I have. To create a successful horror trailer I would also need to be sure of the main codes and conventions of horror films. These include high levels of violence between the characters (usually a killer and innocent people), dark settings, non-diegetic music when the killer is about to murder, etc.

The 5 best selling horror films of all times are arguable, according to www.filmcrave.com, the top 5 horror films of all time are:

1) The Shining 1980

2) Halloween 1978

3) Exorcist 1973

4) The Silence of the Lambs 1991

5) Psycho 1960

The film poster doesn't give alot away about the film which could intrigue potential viewers and attract them to watch this film. I believe the film poster doesn't suggest the genre of horror directly, but more like the Detective murder genre. This is because the poster uses a black background with a spotlight on a man who seems to be wearing a tophat and holding a briefcase, this costume is associated with detectives in films. On the other hand, I think the title of the film poster suggests some elements of horror within the narrative. My interpetation of the film title before watching the trailer is that the narrative involves some sort of exorcism (in relation to the title) and the detective on the film poster has come to investigate what happened.

Throughout the trailer there is dark, evil music, which is non-diegetic playing which is a common conventions of horror films. The diegetic sounds of screams and objects smashing are also conventions of horror films to illustrate the tension building then make the audience jump in fear from the loud smashing sounds. This trailer has a narrator talking at different points. Having a narrator is another common convention of older horror trailers (1970s-1990s).

On the one hand the narrator in the trailer is useful for giving the audience a brief explanation on the narrative so they can get an idea if they would enjoy watching the full length film. As the narrator speaks the speed of the cuts within the trailer gets faster. On the other hand, not using a narrator in the horror trailer can build some sort of tension and suspense so that the audience will be anxious to know what will happen within the film. The use of non-diegetic music instead of a narrator can be more effective in keeping the audience uneasy whilst they are watching the trailer and give them the pleasure of horrors. Fans of horror movies go watch horror movies to experience the personal thrills they get from the different aspects of horror films.


Horrors can be broken down into different subgenres and these subgenres appeal to people in various ways. I believe the Exorcist is a horror films with the paranormal subgenre. This is because paranormal horrors contain supernatural elements against mortal heroes. The supernatural elements of the trailer would be the suggestion of the young girl being possessed by a ghost or evil spirit. Paranormal horrors usually involve the hero (the exorcist) having a 50/50 chance in defeating the villain (evil spirit or ghost).

The characters in the trailer relate to the theories of Todorov and Propp. After viewing the trailer the audience automatically assume that the hero is the detective/exorciser and that the villain is the possessed young girl, which relates to Propp's standard character types. My indication of the narrative after watching the trailer could relate the Todorov's theories of equilibrium, disequilibrium and a new equilibrium. This narrative structure could suggest that the film begins with the young girl acting normal (equilibrium), and then she gets possessed (disequilibrium). Later on in the film, the exorcism may take place, the young girl returns to her normal self and they may find out the exact cause of the disequilibrium. Many horrors dot follow this narrative style so my predictions may be wrong, but they are an overview of how Todorov's theory can relate to horror films.

RESEARCH - Todorov, Propp and Levi-Strauss' Theories

TODOROV’S THEORY – Todorov proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with equilibrium, a calm period. Then agents of disruption cause disequilibrium, a period of unsettlement and disquiet. This is then followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the protagonists and a new equilibrium brings the chaos to an end. The simplest form of narrative (sometimes referred to as ‘Classic’ or ‘Hollywood’ narrative).

PROPP’S THEORY –Vladimir Propp’s theory was formed in the early twentieth Century. He studies Russian fairytales and discovered that in stories there were always 8 types of characters evident. These are: the hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the false hero, the helper, the princess and her father. He did not state these characters were all separate people e.g. the provider could also be the helper. There are only 8 different character types and only 31 things they ever do. Once you have identified the character type (e.g., the hero) it’s easy to guess what they will do (save the maiden, defeat the villain, marry the maiden or whatever) because each character has a SPHERE OF ACTION. This is easily relatable to films and programmes today.

LEVI-STRAUSS’ BINARY OPPOSITION – Narrative tension is based on opposition or conflict. This can be as simple as two characters fighting, but more often functions at an ideological level – e.g., in Westerns, what do the cowboys and Indians each represent? What ideologies are embodied by the opposed sides in LOTR or Star Wars?

RESEARCH - Trailers and Genre Theory

Film trailers are one of the most successful ways of promoting a film that is coming out soon. They are usually 2mins-4mins long and contain the most attractive scenes from the film to attract potential movie-goers to view the film. Trailers usually portray the genre of the film so that people who enjoy that particular genre will be interested in watching the film to fulfil their passion for that genre. Trailers for all types of genres must be rersearched thoroughly before the trailer is made so that the film creators can guess the potential audience reactions to their trailers. Trailers are usually an arrangement of fast-paced cuts to keep the audience engaged in the trailer and be more likely to go and watch the film length film.

Genre is a very elusive concept because it is not easily defined. Genre all depends on people's interpretations and previous created films because people can associate certain things in newer films that they have seen in older films. For example, people would associate the Saw films to be horrors because of the extreme gore and violence in the films, and this idea of horror may have come from older films like Child's Play. This shows that concepts of genre are taken from previous works and adjust with similar ideas for people to define the film in a certain genre.