Usually in a psychological horror, there is no distinctive setting. I believe this is because one or more of the characters are mentally unstable and one setting provides stability, so the film needs to convey a sense of instability. We used various locations to film our trailer, including a school, a house, streets, gardens and near to a railway station.
We wanted to challenge the typical convention of a male killer because we felt it would be creepier if we had a female villain because women are associated more with kindness, innocence and not neccessarily with much power.
We used the typical weapon- the kitchen knife- in our trailer and on our poster. This is conventional to a horror film.
Another convention we stuck to was the idea of leaving it on a cliffhanger and then we actually came up with a twist that we planned to focus around, with subtle clues in the trailer, without actually giving anything away. In our film, the twist was that the main protagonist, Mindy, who was overwhelmed with jealousy over her new 'friend' Reuben, was in fact schizophrenic and Reuben was her other personality. This overwhelming jealousy and the fact he seemed to lead a better life than her, led her to attempt to kill him, only to end up killing herself.
We decided to develop, as well as challenge the convention of dark lighting , by using bright light in many scenes to juxtapose the horror of the murders. It could mirror Mindy's mind in the way that she might not see that there is anything wrong with what she is doing, so doesn't care if it is close in daylight because she is mentally unstable.
Another convention of a horror film is the point of view (POV) shot sometimes used to convey a sense of urgency and intimacy for the audience watching. We used a POV shot of a girl being chased by the killer and this creates a more tense effect as to whether the killer will catch up with the girl. This clip in the trailer was also challenged with the use of a handheld camera. The audience said it made them feel more involved and that it was more realistic, creating a suspenseful effect.
Tracking shots are common in horror films because they reinforce the sense of immediacy and urgency and therefore help to increase the scare factor.
One of the shots used in our trailer which is conventional to horror films is the extreme close up of someone's face, enunciating their eyes. This causes the audience to identify with the dead girl and feel sorry for her.
We decided to go against the traditional clothing in a horror film. Normally, the killer would wear casual clothes, but we decided we wanted her clothes to represent her character, so she always wore an item of clothing representing her to be a bit of an animal e.g. a large wild cat. They are usually conveyed to be passionate, dangerous and mighty. We wanted this to be reflected in our trailer, in that Mindy is passionate about Reuben, but this can lead her to become very dangerous.
Another convention that we wanted to follow in our trailer was the a jumpy ending to reinforce the idea that there may be more jumpy bits in the actual film. Our very last sequence was short, but made our audiences jump. This may leave them feeling that it may be worth watching if they get scared and may especially appeal to niche audiences, who like being scared.
