Editing Plans

Before editing, we planned a rough outline of what we wanted the overall trailer to look like. The first half of the trailer we planned to be slow and haunting. To achieve this, we will use slow shots and camera movements with slow-paced music to create an eerie feeling and scared response. We may also experiment with effects such as slow motion and different transitions to see if this makes it more effective and intriguing to the audience.

Approximately half way through the trailer, we want the pace to pick up. To do this the slow shots will become quick cuts and fast pace editing will emphasise the chaos and panic shown on screen taking the audience by surprise and drawing them in. During research we found that trailers for thrillers, horrors, action films etc include many more shots than trailers that advertise rom-coms, dramas or comedies. For example, overall the trailer for Carrie (thriller) includes 134 shots whereas the trailer for Clueless (chick-flick) includes only 68 shots altogether because Carrie aims to create suspense with the quick shots but Clueless doesn't.

When we begin the editing process the first step will be to cut out any unnecessary footage and order the clips we have. We intend to use normal cuts between shots, however we think fade transitions may be effective where suitable to emphasise the slow, eerie atmosphere, particularly for the transition from slow to fast pace in the middle.

During filming we were wary of the lighting as we wanted most shots to have low-key or external lighting since this is a typical convention for thriller genre to create tension. Despite this, we are worried that some outdoors shots seemed brighter on camera so it looked like daytime although it was actually evening. To fix this we hope to either lower the brightness of the footage using the editing programme or put a dark filter over it.

We have already got an idea of the non-diegetic background music we want for the trailer and we plan to cut the shots to match the beat of the track. I have done this before for previous projects so am certain this will be simple enough to do and make the trailer look professional and well put together.