During summer, my group and I created a trailer based on a slasher sub genre. Throughout the trailer there was a girl stumbling in the dark woods before stopping abruptly and her mouth being grabbed by her antagonist of whom she was running away from. There are a range of conventions used which apply to certain theories on genre.
An example of one of the theories applied to our trailer is Altman's theory on semantics. Our trailer really focused on this aspect as there were conventions such as the minimal lighting which was used to connote evilness. The use of the glove hiding the antagonist's only part of body shown in the trailer. Furthermore, the syntactic throughout wasn't made clearly as things such as the narrative weren't made obvious however the relationship between the antagonist and its victim was clearly not a lovely mutual one and was emphasised through the stalker's actions.
Another theory made by Altman includes ideas of pleasure given by the audience when watching the film/trailer. The 3 pleasures are visceral, which means the audience feels a physical emotion when watching the trailer which I believe our trailer failed to do as the number of scenes including violence or any quick form of action was minimal. Furthermore, the emotional and intellectual pleasure was also not present throughout the trailer as the editing had no changes in the pace of the scene (from fast to slow) therefore this contributed as a factor as to why it didn't give any pleasure.
Another theory is Neale's of which I believe our trailer followed despite not being detailed as he suggests that certain genres follow the same/typical conventions i.e. the minimal lighting connoting a malicious atmosphere, the stumbling into the woods, the location being isolated meaning the antagonist and victim were alone. These are all conventions typically found in slasher horror movies along with the sharp weapon used against the victim which represents a phallic object as it penetrates her skin which further leads into ideas of teen punishment; another typical convention found in slasher movies.
Despite not including Altman's second theory, my trailer followed Mittel's theory where the trailer is apparent as a horror film through the use of sound, which was heavily based using the violin consequently creating suspense.
In conclusion, I believe that our trailer would have been much more effective/ of better quality if my group and I had followed the genre theories as it includes the typical conventions and ideas of which a slasher horror movie should include.
Comments
Post a Comment