When doing research and planning for our media product, we looked at the conventions of slasher/horror films and trailers. To make our trailer and ancillary texts interesting, we decided to follow some of these conventions, but also to challenge them. For example, one convention of slasher films is that the killer usually prefers to kill using hand-held weapons such as knives, axes and chainsaws. However, in our 'film', we chose that the killer's weapon would be a (sort-of) part of him - metal claws that fit onto his fingers. This is also developing the conventions of slashers as he made the claws himself, which fits into our back story. This is our USP, as our killer is an intelligent young man, who is good at designing and making something that could be quite complex, (especially as the claws are metal) who also got bullied as a school kid. The fact that he got bullied follows the conventions of slasher films, as killers tend to have had a childhood trauma.
Another convention that we followed, was that of the victim. Generally, in slasher/horror films, the victims are a member of the young community, who are punished for having delight in vices such as drugs and sex. In our trailer, the victim is seen waiting for a drug dealer before the killer approaches.
Other conventions of horror trailers is the choice of a voiceover, or explanatory dialogue. Many horror trailers have explanatory dialogue from the film playing over the top of the images shown, to let the audience know what is going on, to make it easier to understand. Most of these trailers, instead of having a voiceover, also have text in between shots as well as dialogue and music. This text is usually a few words every 5-10 seconds, explaining what the film is about using very little words, as to catch your eye and make it easy to read. I think a voiceover is not needed in horror trailers if dialogue and music is used to create the same effect. Sound (music and effects in particular) is paramount in horror trailers and films - without sound they wouldn't be scary. Here are some examples of trailers that don't have a voiceover, but are still effective:
Following these conventions, we decided that a voiceover wouldn't be needed in our trailer, and instead music and dialogue was used. We decided not to use explanatory text either, as our trailer is quite self-explanatory and there isn't anything difficult to understand in it.
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