Horror/Thriller Research

After a long discussion about what type of horror trailer we wanted to try and produce we decided upon setting the film trailer in a post-apocalyptic time. This was after going through options such as a paranormal thriller, such as 'Paranormal Activity', however we thought that it would be hard to come up with a storyline that is actually original and not copying what has already been covered by the film.

We then decided to research films and programmes or series that are set in a post-apocalyptic setting:

28 Days Later



This teaser trailer for the film 28 Days Later manages to create a lot of tension within it. The way that the tension in this teaser trailer is created is through using many different techniques. These tension building techniques include; using dark images and quick flashes; using sound effects to add to the flashing images and fades to black to create an eerie atmosphere. This teaser goes against many of the conventional techniques used within teaser trailers. Conventional technique include using a lot of dialogue from the film almost explaining what is going on, instead of this 28 days later uses fades to black and text explaining what the images are representing. Also the music used in the trailer is very minimal, using small instrumental bursts and subtle music to go with the sound effects to create even more tension, challenging the conventional use of dynamic music that gets louder and quieter in certain parts of the trailer to add to the images being shown.

Survivors (BBC Series)

This is not a teaser trailer, however, it uses similar techniques to the conventional horror/thriller trailer, using quick cuts, music, varying speed and fades to black to create tension and keep the audience on the edge.

It also shows the kind of film we would like to replicate in our own way. Survivors is a post-apocalyptic drama that is produced by the BBC. The story line consists of a virus that wipes out 90% the population leaving only 10% of the population to fend for themselves in an eerie, empty world. This drama seems to represent the strength of people to recover from such a devastating situation and gather together to help eachother, but it also shows the other end of the spectrum, with greed, people taking over warehouses of food and supermarket store rooms and keeping people away from the food with force, using guns and weapons to defend the food. Initially the show bought in a huge audience throughout the UK as they watched the series beggining on BBC 1.Narrative