My trailer starts off by telling viewers a famous director was directing my film. A lot of trailers do this because it builds on the reputation of that director and if viewers have seen his previous big film and liked it, they will want to come and watch his new one as they expect a good standard.
I used inter titles in my trailer which is a common convention of trailers and teaser trailers. Psychological thrillers tend to talk to the viewers and get them questioning themselves. This is what I did, I asked viewers how they would react to a certain situation; it intrigues viewers and makes them want to come and see how other people reacted.
The title itself is also an important aspect of a trailer. Conventionally titles in this genre of film like to shock viewers by appearing fast or alternatively, slowly for more effect; or making noises when they appear. I used this convention by making my title appear fairly quickly and with a sound effect. They also tend to be in quite dark colours for more of an ominous effect. My title used white with a dark red shadow on black so I think I developed the conventions, because white is a bright colour and it doesn’t immediately shout thriller until you see the red behind it.
Quite a few trailers have voice over’s on them where mine doesn’t. I originally planned to stick to this convention but then I decided it would work better without voices; it would have a creepier feel to it- in this way I challenged the forms and conventions of a trailer. I did however have whispering laid over the top of my soundtrack. Conventionally psychological thriller teaser trailers have some sort of intimidating effect laid over there soundtrack whether it is whispering or banging so in that respect I again used the forms and conventions of a teaser.
In terms of my actor, I wanted to challenge the conventions; I wanted to have quite a tall bulky lad as my lead character as it is stereotypically a girl who is the victim, the one who gets stalked. The location of the first scene in my trailer is quite stereotypical of a film in my genre as well; walking in a dark wood alone. I thought I would use this convention as I wanted to have the most ominous effect for that scene as I could.
