Genre - Horror
Narrative - The Blair Witch Project is an American horror film released in 1999. The narrative is presented as a documentaty pieced together from amateur footage, filmed in real time. The film was produced by the Haxan films production company. The film relates the story of three young student filmmakers who hike into the Black Hills near Burkitsville, Mary land to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch, and subsequently go missing. The viewer is told that the three were never found, although their video and sound equipment (along with most of the footage they shot) was discovered a year later.
Unique selling point - In 1999, there were very few movies that were filmed with a handheld camera, this whole effect makes it seem more realistic and therefore frightening.
Target Audience - Adults
Sound - Immediately loud, scary sound plays, it at first is very simple which will build up the tension in the audience as they do not know what to expect. When the first information is shown, the sound changes for the final sentence; a year later footage was found, to make a dramatic impact and scare the audience. There is no music used throughout the trailer, just long sounds for every clip transition to keep the audience unaware of what they are going to see next. There is then a number of different screams, and panicking voices which gives the audience a glimpse of what is to come in the film from the footage. This will make them very keen to see it and inform them that it is indeed, scary. The sounds stop for the title to be shown, when there is again loud, scary music. The screams then continue until the end of the trailer. This builds up the tension right up to the end of the trailer and keeps the audience engrossed throughout.
Shot types/Angles - There is not much of the film shown in the trailer, it is more captions and quotes. This is effective as then there is no problems involving the basically seeing the whole film before actually going to see it. If they are only shown short clips they will be more interested and then want to go and watch it in the cinema. There are a few close-up shots of the forest in which the actors go to, and someone with their hands over their face. These shots, like the whole of the trailer are fast and dark which gives it a more realistic effect. There is also a shot of someone running holding the camera, this is effective as it shows how scared the actor is and again shows the aspect of them filming it themselves. Throughout the entire trailer you do not see a complete figure of someone, the camera is very shaky and close up.
Pace - The whole trailer is very short, and very fast paced. The very few actual clips shown from the film highlight how quickly paced it is by the running and spinning with the camera. This builds up tension amongst the audience, they want to watch the whole film to see what actually happens and what they are running from.
Dialogue - There is very little dialogue used in the trailer. However, what is used emphasises the horror in the film as it is all screaming and shouting. This is very dramatic and shows from the beginning how frightening and realistic it is. The audience will then be scared by this and interested to know what all the screaming and shouting is about.
Voice Over - Throughout the whole trailer, there is no dialogue used. This is very effective as it is a lot more scary. The feel of the trailer would be ruined if there was a voice talking over the captions, so you are left to read it for yourself with nowhere to escape from the deafening scary sounds.
Credits - All the way through the trailer there is captions with positive reviews of the trailer. This will encourage the audience to watch it as when the feedback is good they are reassured it is worth watching. As you are not shown much of the actual film, the reviews are very useful to the audience. There is no credits showing the main actors or things, because that would also take away another scary element. If this is to be realistic, there would be no famous actors and actresses, they would be random people with no status at all. So again this is a positive aspect with this film, and emphasises the horror and realisticness.
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