Mise-en-scene Mood Board - Genre Research

Location

Usually an isolated area where characters have no one around to help them.  Usually surrounded my forest or field or even a graveyard. In our trailer we have decided to base it on orphans so I included a picture of an old fashioned orphanage to inspire one of our locations.

Lighting

The lighting in horror films are used to create effect of something bad happening, like darkness and light flickering as it is unknown what is in the dark as you can't see anything, so creates fear within the audience. Also shadows are seen as sinister and make the scene/character more mysterious.

Characters

There is many types of characters featured in a supernatural horror film. There is always a ghost or demon or someone who possessed by one (usually female in supernatural horror - stereotypically weaker so easier to control, whereas in other sub-genres it is usually a male character who murders people - stereotypically stronger). This is the character that is feared as it is unknown what to expect and how to stop them as well as the amount of damage they can cause.

There is always an innocent non-believer character who won't believe it til they see it, as well as someone who is effected the most and the most afraid of it (usually female - damsel in distress). And the final usual character is the 'saviour' who finds out how to get rid of the ghost/demon (usually male - a priest or love interest).

Costume

Usually the ghosts will wear white gowns and usually have long hair that covers their face (converts to element of unknown). In supernatural horror films the story usually follows a family so they would wear clothing typically to their age group. In other sub-genres it depends on the characters stereotypical personality for example in slasher horror the 'dumb' blonde would usually wear slutty clothing. However this won't be reliant for our trailer as we aren't doing this sub-genre.

Props

The props we will use in our trailer will be stereotypical to the characters. There will be use of children's toys as the ghost orphans are young and would be playing with toys. Also we will use typical props such as skulls and cobwebs and burned candles to emphasise the scene is set in an old abandon place and suggests death and isolation, important themes within horror film. Also as we plan to have a priest character so we will have props such as a bible, crucifix and rosary.