The Final Cut.

Influences.

Throughout the creation process for the Film Trailer although we have had strong ideas as to what we wanted included within the project and what would work best for the specific Audience we had aimed our Trailer at, we also garnered inspiration from various works prior to this. This was explored so that we could understand what pieces were effective in frightening an Audience within the Horror Variety and how we could work towards making our piece a stand-alone project and original in its own context.

Characterisation...

Originally, my partner and myself wanted to have the Antagonists identity sealed behind a mask so we could never come to terms with who the masked killer is, this always adds to the fear factor within the Audience as it never unveiled as to who the killer is and continues on the mystery. This even creates a possibility that somebody like this truly exists within society terrifying the Audience themselves. This is present in a significant amount of Horror features as it proves successful in Cinema to have a masked killer at hand (e.g. Scream, My Bloody Valentine, Friday the 13th).

We drew inspiration from the film 'The Strangers' this is because of the omnipresent Antagonists terrorising innocent people, the lack of identification and the overall Dramatic suspense which makes the Movie so intense. During the creative process of the piece it was around the time of Halloween which inspired by not only the masks and costumes but the frightening elements of the Holiday itself.

We wanted to create our own style of mask as opposed to buying a ready made one which draws similarites and intertextuality from a Film Such as 'Scream' as that is unique and original for the Film itself, in its own context. We imagined the Anatgonists to be stylised in a plain white masks (Similar to that which is featured in 'Phantom Of The Opera') but opposingly would have blood stains smeared down it. The emotionless and blank expression on the masks face makes it more effective on the Audiences attitude towards it, and this ended up being the Final characterisation for the Antagonist.

Trailer Inspiration...

A Film which we found exceptionally useful throughout the creation process was 'The Strangers' as it plays strongly on Freytag's Triangle which follows the semesters that Films within the Horror Genre should abide to the conventions of. The level of intensity and accumulation of the Dramatic impact throughout the Trailer really frightens the Audience even without seeing the Film itself, which is the impact we are aiming for. Generally, Audiences do not too often find themselves petrified whilst watching a film Trailer as they do when seeing the film itself, but we want a larger impact than this, and we want to create the same level of Fear as they Trailer for the said Movie does. So we want to try and construct a massive high rise in the Action and Fear levels as well as including an intense climax that will be drilled into Audiences mind after watching, after the inclusion of a rapid build up to the events in the beginning trimester of the Trailer, which again will hopefully scare our Audience. Although we planned to apply to the Freytag Triangle, we wanted to produce a piece that goes against some of the conventions to not make it apart of your 'Stereotypical' Genre piece. As much as the Film became a major influence for us we do not want pay homage or play on parody of this film, we instead want to use this as a guide of how we want our Trailer to play out, there will be some intertextual references such as the 'Masked Antagonists' but we want out Trailer to stand out on its own and be original in its own way.

Poster Influences...

For the Film Poster we wanted to create a striking yet effective piece of imagery that would grab the Audiences attention from a slight glance. Yet, we also wanted to convey the dark and cynical elements which are involved in the piece through the poster, but also doing this in a unique and modern way. Black & White tones seemed to portray this the best, and so we researched into the Poster Imagery of previous films, especially more nostalgic films. The Exorcist which has an original styling and very striking piece of imagery to represent the Film itself, especially with the black and white to connote to the dark themes within the Film itself. It is obvious that our Film Poster plays homage to this stylisation of imagery yet we have made it so that it interlinks with our Film Project and has its own unique elements within.