Planning- Treatment

Target Audience- The target audience for our horror teaser trailer is above 15. After looking at the IMDb's age ratings we decided this as our trailer consists of some disturbing images which might not be suitable for children under that age. Also, our film might appeal to older audience because of the genre of it. It will also appeal to the people who are thrill seekers. The film is solely based on a teenage girl who tries to fight the evil and in order to do that she has to take help from her mother. The concept of our teaser trailer will attract female teenagers as it would be a different thing for them to watch. The film doesn’t have the same old concept of a male protagonist saving the day. During the research of our teaser we came across the concept of ‘the final girl’ which suggests that there is always a female character surviving and the last and only one to survive. Keeping that in mind we designed our narrative and based our story-line around a female protagonist.

Narrative/Idea- The film revolves around our protagonist Jenna, a teenager with the gift of being able to perceive events the future. She is an antisocial girl who is constantly secretive, even towards her own family. However, what she does not know is that her family were also hiding secrets from her. Jenna’s whole family has the ability to see the future. This resulted in an evil spirit becoming attached to her family tree; aiming to take each family members life. In the trailer, Jenna will be staring out the window, unintentionally activating her power. She will see the inevitable murdering of her mother, who will leave a message with the remaining life she has within her, knowing Jenna will see it through a vision. This will emotionally destroy Jenna as she understands the concept of not being able to alter time. Before the trailer ends, she will have one more vision which is going to be a montage of a race between her and the spirit. Will Jenna find a way to banish the spirit once and for all or will the spirit succeed in the destruction of her family? The last image left with the audience will be Jenna looking directly at the audience. This will leave the trailer on an ambiguous note, generating fear and curiosity.  

Purpose- The purpose of the teaser trailer is to promote the full trailer and the film that will release later on. A teaser trailer is one way of marketing the film to the audience and creates awareness about the film and keeps the audience hooked to the story making them eager to wait for the full film. It will also establish the genre of the film and help the audience understand what the film will ideally be about. The codes and conventions of the film will help illustrate the genre of the film to the audience and help them find out if they will be interested to watch the film. Alternatively, our teaser trailer revolves around a female protagonist who tries to fight to protect her loved ones. This would attract the female teenage audience to watch the film.  

Characters- There will be three main characters of the teaser trailer. The first will be Jenna, the antisocial teenager the story is based on. She will wear dull colours reflecting her depressing personality. Her clothing is simplistic to show she is a reserved character in contrast to other characters her age. Jenna’s mother is the second character. She is called Rachel and behaves as an ordinary mother. Her clothing is modernised and she is constantly caring for Jenna’s well-being. Her tranquil behaviour and appearance is what will deceive the audience of her secretive traits. In order to try and protect Jenna, she does not reveal their families to her. The last character is the spirit. It will never be physically seen, but will appear at times creating havoc for Jenna and her family. Shadows may appear to show the spirit is around creating a gloomy atmosphere and generating mystery over the spirits appearance.