Genre Essay (Timed 30 mins) - EDITED VERSION

Within this essay, I am going to speak about my summer trailer that was based around a young teenage girl who started to become her own demon within when she ran out of her pills, we decided to base this in the psychological sub genre as it plays on the fear in our minds. The genre theory was ultimately started by a theorist named Steve Neale who discussed the idea that genre means a 'type' or category where things are placed based on their stereotypical conventions, which can also lead further into sub-genres where these codes and conventions are much more specific in order to make them recognisable to the public. Therefore, our trailer was succesful with this theory due to the use of mise-en-scene within the trailer. For example, the props such as dolls and knives are distinct opposites and the subversion of the childhood innocence from the dolls with the use of the object portrayed as phallic and violent imagery is something that is stereotypical of the horror genre. More over the use of blood highlights the danger and harm the vitim is going through within the film; which helps emphahasise this further. More over, the theory derived by Rick Altman states that horror trailer must use specific enigmas and semiotic symbols in order for audiences to be able to identify trailers and films as a part of the horror genre industry. Within our trailer, we managed to successfully get this across, due to the mystery created at the beginning of the trailer where she starts to become mad, the use of fast paced transitions and short camera shots intensify the enigma as the audience wonder what is going on in the film and must then watch the full version to find out. Another theory of Altman's that can be applied is the idea around a set of three audience pleasures a horror film must have in order to be the most effective possible. These three pleasures are visceral, emotional and intellectual puzzles. However, only one can be applied successfully which is something we must work on next time so that are trailer can be extremely conventional. The pleasure I found that was most prominent in our trailer was the emotional pleasure from the use of our dark and dim lighting, abandoned setting and creepy mise-en-scene which gave viewers that eerie atmosphere created in horror films. However, since there was no real gut feeling caused by these codes, we must include them and improve the way in which we shoot them to gain visceral pleasure. Next, I am going to talk about the theory created by Mittell about audience choices. This idea is based around how from a person's experience we then base the decisions we make about watching films on what we have already seen and know. Therefore, in order to achieve this theory, people must watch our trailer and instantly recognise it as a horror film. I believe we managed to do this as the shots such as the burning dolls and the extreme close up of our main character's demonic eyes inflicts a sense of fear on the audience as it is not pleasant to watch, which is what horror films are all about. Lastly, the genre theory also created by Neale was the theory that genre must go through change and it must develop in order to break down barriers and relate to the context with the society we live in today. Therefore in past horror films, objects such as phones would not have been possible to use, however in our trailer we decided to include this at the beginning as a scene of the main character is shown, where she is trying to get hold of her friends to call for help but no one answers. Today, this can also be considered a stock scene as it is typical in horror films for the protagonist to feel all alone when they are going through trauma. Furthermore, since we included the prop of a knife within our trailer you could also argue that we have slipped into the sub genre of the slasher as this is a main weapon in these types of films that the characters use and is not as prominent in psychological films.