1. Group Planning

2. In our groups first initial meeting we began to
plan the basic story outline of our trailer. We
felt it was crucial to first establish this as we
could then begin to plan when we needed to
shoot/props/costumes and actors etc. We
eventually decided on a Guy Fawkes style
killing spree taking place on November 5th.
The killing would carried out a lawyer ‘gone
wrong’ trigged by the recent unsolved murder
of his wife. We decided it would be crucial to
portray this loss in the trailer to establish the
story without being overly open. Once this
storyline was established we began planning
the following:

3. Location
We decided we would need several main locations as the victims were supposed to be separate people and
therefore needed separate lives and separate locations. We decided to shoot our victims in a:
• Kitchen
• Outdoor Pool
• Outside (in a tree)
• Basement
We felt that each location needed to be within a home setting as we wanted to hint that the killer had, had a
previous personal experience with the victim (and so knew where they lived). We also felt that horror within
the home created a realistic and frightening scenario. Not only this, but the home setting is an iconic location
for the horror genre and can be seen in films such as Scream and Halloween. We also used one other
location, a graveyard, where the killer is seen dropping a rose on a graveyard. We chose to use this at the
beginning of the trailer as our first establishing scenes.
Location screenshots from trailer

4. Characters
Our use of characters in our trailer was slightly limited by the sub-genre of horror we had chosen for our trailer.
We were only able to display, in our trailer, the villain (killer) and his victims. However we felt in a final film
outcome there would be far more characters as we could elaborate more on the actual storyline.
We felt we should choose an actor to play the villain that would be both appropriate for the storyline and the
genre. We ended up with a male character. Our actor was mid 20’s which we felt was appropriate for the type of
background lifestyle we had established for our character and also for the age of a villain. We felt the villain had
to be mature as his attacks were carefully planned and meticulous and therefore could not be too young.
However., we also found it unrealistic that he would carry out these crimes if he were to be much older than 30.
We chose our villain to be male as we felt the reality of a man losing his sanity after the loss of his wife was much
more feasible to an audience than a woman losing her sanity after the loss of a husband, due to gender
stereotypes. Looks wise, we wanted our character to appear seemingly normal as we wanted to play on the
fact he was once a normal functioning man that had a psychotic break. We felt if we made the character look too
dangerous it would appear he had been a serial killer always.
For our victims we used a variety of both genders as we didn’t want the killings to be linked to the often sexual
sadistic desire displayed in serial killers in horror films, or even as a background theme. We wanted the killings to
be purely vengeful and we felt this would be more realistic with both genders used. Our victims were supposed
ex-clients of our villain so we felt that there should be a large age range. Our victims range from 17 to mid 20s, we
felt this would be a more realistic character choice as not only one age range commits crime.
Main villain
Victim

5. Props
Props is an obvious key element to the horror trailer and so we tried to make the best prop choices possible and
keep some of our prop choices iconic to horror. Our props range from murder weapons to general objects that
set the scene or storylines. Our props are as follows:
• Kitchen Knife: the kitchen knife is portrayed to be the murder weapon in one of our scenes. This prop will
also seen being used by the victim (for its proper use) in an earlier scene, we felt this would help create fear and
tension in these scenes as not 20 seconds ago was it in the victims hands. We also felt the use of a knife was a
wise choice as it is extremely iconic to horror.
• Rolling Pin: the rolling pin will be seen being used to harm one of the victims in the trailer, we felt the rolling
pin would fit in well in this scene as it was shot in a kitchen setting, and it would create a fear that the killer
was desperate to kill as he used whatever was closest to him to harm the victim. We also felt using ‘within the
home’ props would create a tension on its own.
• Noose: we are going to use a noose to hang one of our victims in our trailer , we felt this prop would create an
eeriness to our trailer as this type of prop is more often appropriate with suicide. We also felt it would hook the
audience as it made the killer unpredictable as he did not have a style of killing and changed his method with
each victim.
• Rusty Pole: we wanted to keep our murder weapons appropriate to each setting as we wanted to portray how
desperate the villain was for vengeance and how desperate he was to kill. This prop will be used in our
basement scene. All these props will help add gore to our trailer.
• Yellow Rose: this prop is one of our only significant props that isn’t a murder weapon or involved in a murder
somehow. We are going to use this prop at the beginning of the trailer in our establishing shots. We will
capture the villain at an earlier date dropping the rose on a grave, hinting at a loss.