Moral Panic

Amended Narrative

1.Riley's on her bed at home, looking at herself in the mirror
2.Riley talks to Phoenix about feeling watched
3.Phoenix persuades Riley to attend a party
4.Riley argues, she doesn't want to attend the party - typical aspects of the final girl theory (innocent, doesn't drink)
5.Phoenix finally persuades Riley to attend the party and they go
6.Loki attempts to touch Riley in a sexual manner, this is seen by a bystander who knows Loki and Phoenix are a couple
7.The bystander tells Phoenix, and Phoenix then believes Riley is out to ruin her relationship with Loki
8.Riley and Phoenix go home, and while Phoenix is busy in the bathroom - Riley notices a shrine of herself under the bed (in Loki and Phoenix's house)
9.Riley thinks Loki is to blame for the shrine and the owner it
10.Riley runs out of the house, she manages to drop her house keys and Phoenix realises Riley has discovered the shrine under her bed
11.It's a new day
12.Riley "you need to look under the bed! I think Loki's obssessed with me"
Phoenix "what are you going on about?!"
Riley "what are you going on about?!"
13.Phoenix turns to look at Loki who is lying down on the bed with her, and the audience feels as though Loki is the guilty one because of her menacing store
14. Flashback? - past interaction
Riley and Loki were together earlier on in the year
Phoenix manages to distract Loki from her and that is how they begin their relationship
Phoenix' paranoia sets in, because of this event and therefore she is always wary of Riley - this is why they become best friends, so that Riley has no reason to go after Loki

Storyboard

These are screenshots that I took after I analysed my work. The storyboard  I feel isn't a clear storyboard so my group and I will make another storyboard and create a better narrative. As we had little time to think of a clear narrative this is just a rough outline of what the narrative and storyboard will be. I've deconstructed the different scenes to make it clear what will happen. In another post I will make an amended version of the storyboard

Prop List

Research Into Horror Trailers - Cabin In The Woods (2012)

In The Cabin in the Woods trailer, there are several conventions of horror that have been incorporated. Blood and weapons are shown which straight away give off a dangerous feel and shows us that it's a horror genre. Within the first 20 seconds of the film one of the girls says 'doesn't even show up on the GPS'. This already indicates to an audience that danger is ahead of them, if it's not showing on a GPS and they need help, no one will know where to find them. Isolated settings are shown as well in the trailer which is always a recipe for disaster as there is no access to help and something always happens in remote places. The typical conventions of a trailer that worked well in creating suspense was that there was one line used each time. It didn't give away too much of the narrative and the lines used created a picture of peril. In the trailer, one of the main characters suggested they split up and another character said 'really'. This plays up to a stereotypical horror but also subverts at the same time. In a typical horror movie, for some reason the characters decide to split up which allows them to be killed one by one or have mysterious things happen, normally in those horror films the characters agree to it but with the response 'really' it subverts as the character realises that by splitting up it could potentially be more dangerous. One of the characters says 'somebody sent those things here to get us', the word 'things' suggests that the villains of the films aren't humans and it's ambiguous to the audience as you wonder what he means by things. The soundtrack used over the trailer at the end is very fast paced and sounds like screaming which fits well with the horror genre.

This film involves five young people embodying certain archetypes: the whore, the athlete, the scholar, the fool and the virgin. They all contrast with each other as they aren't alike in anyway but surprisingly they are all friends. This film plays up to what typically happens in horror films. Jules is the first to die as she's the 'slut' of the group and normally in horror films its those type of girls that get killed first. In scream one of the rules was 'you may not survive the movie if you have sex', this fits in well with this movie as Jules is not a virgin and is about to have sex and dies. In this movie there was a flexibility of the order of killings but the one rule was that the whore had to die first and the virgin either had to survive or die last which was the case as the whore got killed first and the virgin survived , she maintained her innocence.

I created a collage of images in the trailer that really caught my eye. On the top row on the left, it's clear to see that the person is clearly not human, it looks creature like and shows that something is clearly not right here, there's a state of disequilibrium. The cabin in the second image on the top row shows the isolation of the cabin. It's surrounded by greenery and there are no other cabins or people around. The one way mirror is a bit bizarre in a cabin, it gives the audience a sense of someone being watched unknowingly which is creepy. In the trailer a bird flew into what appears to be an electrical wall which straight away gave the impression that something wasn't right and someone was controlling it. In the second image in the second row, there are several CCTV's which are allowing the teenagers to be watched, I thought this was alarming as it seemed like a game to me, other people are controlling what happens to the teenagers. In the first image on the third row, one of the boys are covered in blood and this shows an audience that something disturbing has occurred. They all look startled and scared which displays fear among them. The second image on the third row shows what appears to be a creature. Looking at the image it's clear to see that it's not human and the teenagers are being chased by creatures. A weapon is shown in one of the images and the situation looks menacing as one of the teenagers is laying on the floor and you anticipate they're about to get hurt but the weapon. 'The secret' gives an element of surprise and darkness to the trailer as an audience will want to know what the secret is. The background colours are black and red. The colour red is the colour of blood and is associated with danger. The colour black shows darkness and mystery which link well with the word 'secret'. A masked identity shows the audience that humans and creatures could potentially be both villains. 

Conventions Of A Trailer

Conventions Of A Trailer on MindMup

Alien (1979)

Research Into Horror Trailers - Sorority Row (2009)

The Sorority Row trailer has several conventions  of a trailer in it such as: We are not shown the  story in narrative order, the trailer builds to a  climax, where it ends, conversations consisting of  one line each and they showcased the stars of the  film.

 Most of the typical conventions of a trailer were  incorporated in the sorority row trailer to create a  narrative for the audience and build suspense.  From the trailer, I was able to tell that the narrative  would be about a group of friends who murdered  there friends by accident and decided to keep it a  secret but someone finds out about it and they each  start getting killed by whoever knows. The music used was effective in building up a climax and making certain scenes more scary. In one scene a chant of a sorority is used which links with the title of the film and also links with the main characters of the film as they are part of a sorority and they are the ones who killed their friend in the beginning. A sorority is normally meant to be peaceful and fun but this film goes against that and turns something fun into something dark and evil.

I've created a collage of the most effective clips from the trailer in my opinion. 'A secret' and 'and death' made me instantly think of the horror genre. The word death connotes horror and tells me something bad is going to happen in the film. It made me think that the secret would lead to the deaths of the people who kept the secret, a lot of enigma was used to make an audience question what all these different titles are about. The trailer was able to create a narrative for an audience and didn't give too much away. The trailer was able to show the murder weapon used for the friend which linked with the image that was found on the phone from the text that all the girls received from an anonymous person which I presume is the killer. The second image on the top row says 'You're Next', this shows there's a hunt going on and something has happened before for someone to say there will be more victims. The actual words are written in blood and the colour red connotes danger. It's typical to see blood in a horror movie. Isolated settings was used when they drove to the place where they were going to bury their friend. Isolated settings is a typical convention of a horror film, night time settings and low key lighting were also used create suspense and fear as shadows were used too, all these elements made the genre very evident. On the first picture in the third row, all that's shown is a girl being dragged half way off the screen, this immediately makes an audience know that she's either unconscious or dead. The trailer consisted of mainly the colour black, the colour black represents darkness, mystery, death, evil and fear which all link with the horror genre. Pull focus was used to show all the actions that were going on, when the pull focus effect was used, so was sudden loud music which made it seem more scary. Music plays a key role in making the trailer more scary. 

Narrative For Trailer

The mind map at the top was the original narrative my group and I came up with. We thought it was a little vague so we wanted to create a different more in detailed narrative that would be easy for an audience to follow. The second mind map is the slightly more detailed narrative, there's shorter steps but it makes more sense and tells more of a story than the first one did. In the actual trailer that we create there will be far more detail but for now this is the basic outline of what the trailer will consist of.

Comparing Prom Night (2008) With Prelim Remake Trailer

All the screenshots on the left are from the actual film prom night, the screenshots on the right are from the prelim task that I had to create.

The top sets of screenshots show the main girl walking up the stairs.
In the film prom night, the main girl Donna is walking up the stairs, in the scene before she is screaming out her dad's name as she can not find him (unbeknownst to her that he's been killed). In the prelim trailer, the main girl is called Courtney and she is screaming out for her mother. We wanted to keep that element the same so that it shows that she was looking for someone just like in the original movie.

In the second screenshots Donna has just finished telling her brother 'turn the TV down'. In my trailer the line the mother says is 'turn the music down'. The phrases are similar in the sense that they are both requesting for sounds to be turnt down. Straight after the phrases are said by both the character in the film and the character in our trailer, something happens. In the original film, Donna discovers her brother dead and in my trailer the mother gets attacked as the killer comes out of the bathroom and attempts to hurt her.

In the third screenshots, Donna in the original film has crawled under her bed as she's hearing noises from the hallway. Courtney from my trailer crawls under the bed as she's hearing her mothers screams from outside. This allows the audience to see the scared emotions from the characters. We kept this similar so it made sense when the mother's both get pushed to the floor and are able to see their daughters hiding under the bed.

In the fourth screenshots, the mother in the original film has been pushed to the ground just like the mother in my trailer. The only difference here is that the mother in the original film is facing upwards but the mother in my trailer is facing sidewards.

In the fifth screenshots, the mother in the original film turns to her left and sees her daughter underneath the bed. In my trailer, the mother turns her head and discovers her daughter underneath the bed. My group and I wanted to keep this similar as it was effective in seeing that the last thing the mothers will see before their death is their daughters.

In the last screenshots, Donna has her hand over her mouth as she's watching her mother being killed by the killer in the film. In my trailer Courtney has her hands over her mouth as she knows her mother is about to be killed.

As we had to remake a trailer, we tried to keep certain things the same such as the things I've mentioned so that the horror genre is evident and it doesn't differ too much from the actual movie.

Development Of Horror

Paul Wells Research (2000)

Paul Wells conducted a small group research of 12-28 people.

The conclusions that he gathered were:
- The relationship to being frightened changes with age, it relates to broader factors affections emotional responses
- Audiences between 1970-1990 were not that used to special effects whereas 'monster' films of 1920-1930's reported very strong personal responses to images and iconography of horror
- Young people are aware of artificially and are becoming harder to shock which films play into this knowingness of horror conventions.

41-55 years (1945-1959) advancements in technology
26-40 years (1960-1974) disliked predictability of films
16-25 years (1975-1984) understood films were artificial

Final Girl Theory

Here's my summary of Carol J. Clover - Her Body, Himself article