Representation

Within our trailer, there are quite a few events that we needed to portray in a way that our target audience would understand. The genre of our film is horror and we wanted to use interesting camera shots, music, mise en scene etc. to portray this in the best way possible.

When thinking about the characters' costumes, we wanted to make our main female character, Helena, seem like she is a normal, older, teenage girl. We decided that she would be dressed in a plain dress and white coat. The denotation of her clothing is that she is simple; however, the connotations of this might be that a white coat indicates she has a lot of money. This is a part of a theory that came from Roland Barthes. He said that ‘denotation’ was the literal or obvious meaning of an image, where as a ‘connotation’ are the ways that we interpret a film or text. Our interpretations also depend on our lifestyles, for example, age, gender, ethnicity, class etc. Continuing to think about this theory, we thought about how the audience would respond to our male character, Eddie. Although the audience does not see a lot of him in the trailer, we made sure he was wearing dark clothes and had his hood up most of the time, so not to see much of his face. The denotation of this could be that he just likes dark clothing and having his hood up, however, the connotation would be that he is a thug and very mysterious.

When we thought about the setting of our trailer we wanted somewhere that would create tension and atmosphere for our film. We chose to film on a road near the forest, giving us the trees to make the mood dark and eerie. To the audience it looks just like a normal road, however, the connotations of this road could be that it is dangerous for a girl to driving down at night, and that this is the place where our story is at its highest peak of tension.

Within our film, we tried to use a variation of camera shots to create suspense. When in the forest, we used a long shot of the car to show the sudden impact of brake lights. This was to give the audience that initial feeling that something is going to happen to the car/girl.

We also wanted to use a montage within our trailer to show the events within the film. This contains two shots of Helena running to show the terror she is experiencing. We also used a close up shot of Helena in a red room, the semiotic of this is that she is in danger and it is connected with the thought of blood and threat.