As my group and I have chosen to do a paranormal type horror
trailer we have now got the decision of making our ghost apparent to our
audience or do we play with their minds a little more and never show the ghost
at all. Some horror films. For example ‘The Others’ (2001) feature the ghost in
their films, it is very effective and at times can really make the audience ‘jump
out of their skins’. On the other hand there are horror films such as ‘The
Blair Witch Project’ (1999) which does not feature the ghost of a certain witch
and has a very uncomforting psychological effect on the audience watching as
the subject that is scaring the characters is not shown.
After careful consideration my group and I have decided that
because of time, money and resources it will be much more effective to show the
ghost in our trailer. When ghosts are not featured in horror films there are a
lot of post-production that has to go on in order for it to be apparent that
there is a ghost without showing it, this may be through chairs being picked up
and thrown across the room. As we would be doing all of our post production in
our sixth form we do not have access to the programmes that all the Hollywood horror
films do have, which would make not showing a ghost extremely hard. We are
going to feature the ghost in our trailer but use music, makeup and lighting to
make our ghost come across scary. Also the timing of our shots, movement and
shot types play a major part in this.
Image from 'The Blair Witch Project' (1999)
Image form 'Grave Encounters' (2011)
