My own synopsis

This is during the winter, two teenage girls had an opportunity to be at home on their own as their family are away. They are excited about this as they are having a week without their family and trying to be independent. However, there is some strange noise every night and they didn't notice it. It is getting until the end of the week, and there are more strange things happening. They are scared and hoping that their family is coming back sooner. On the fifth day, the grandmother suggested they should all go back to take care of the two girls, and she seems like she knows something behind it. The girls realised that there is something wrong with the house then they asked their family about the story behind it. The grandmother told them that there was a child been abused and killed in this house and the ghost is returning for revenge. On the last day of that week, the ghost appeared and it was trying to kill everyone....

Planning and Shooting

At the very beginning of our planning stage, we first decided what is going to happen in our trailer and created the characters. We then started to storyboard of the scenes and decided who is going to play which role. As I am going to be the ghost (Isabelle), Gemma is going to be the camera girl, Emma and Emily are going to be the two girls who get injured towards the end of the trailer. We also came up with a prop's list that included a white dress for the ghost, some fake blood and blood bags, latex makeup and bruises makeup, few torches, a rope and a diary. For location, we are going to be shooting in Emily's house and at the graveyard in Great Yarmouth.

This is our first draft storyboard and we drew about 30 shots. We have written some notes for camera directions, locations, editing, sounds and etc. Our initial ideas are storyboarded. However, we have made a few changes, such as added some parts where Isabelle (the ghost) is going to follow the girls back into the house after the graveyard scene. Our shooting plan may not be exactly the same to our storyboard as at this very first planning stage.

Audience Research

In our group, we have done online surveys and questionnaires for audiences to fill in online and we handed out surveys to audiences too.
We found out that our target audiences are mainly female between the age group 15-18who mainly watch horror films with mixed sex friends. They like paranormal horror movies with gorey parts and set in abandoned buildings which the storyline based on something hidden being uncovered. And the majority of our target audience don't like trailers giving away the killer's identity.
We have decided to ask these questions about the audiences to find out whether our idea of our horror trailer would target our core audience. This audience research changed our initial ideas and we have decided to put some gore elements in our trailer, as well as the location of filming. At first, we have planned that we are going to shoot in the cemetery, however, the results tell us that the audience likes the story also happening in an abandoned building, and we have chosen to put some scenes that are going to shoot in an isolated house. For the storyline, we have decided to discover something hidden and the return of the repressed.
We have chosen to do our audience research on surveys online, (surveymonkey) and surveys handing out to people, because we all agreed that surveys are easier and better for interviewees to fill in the answers. However, surveys are not as quantitative as questionnaires.
After we have the result from the surveys, the result is similar as we expected. According to the result, we have decided to put more scenes during night times, and our initial idea of "things from past uncovered" which is the most popular answer for that question, it shows that the target audience thinks that this is a good theme for a horror trailer/movie.

Here is our charts for the surveys.

Synopsis

As a group, we came up with a synopsis together and have decided the scenes that will be shown in our trailer.

Synopsis:
In 1990, Isabelle is abused by a man and she hung herself in the graveyard after the tragedy and she was found dead. One night in the present, a group of teenage girls are joking around in the house about this tragic story and daring each other to go into the cemetery at night. As they were joking, one of the girls suddenly turned the lights off to scare the others. But then a shadow of the abuser appeared but only one of them saw it. She tells the others to stop the joke but they dared to go to the graveyard. They went into the cemetery and messing about which made Isabelle angry and the ghost has returned. The group of girls are murdered by the ghost one by one. And the girls are going back to the house and found out that Isabelle's tragedy happened in the same house and the ghost followed them home and...

Ideas:

The killer, who is named Isabelle, creepy teenage girl (ghost) with drapy hair, only showing the outline and shadows of her, as well as close - ups of her face.

Night shots in Gorleston, cemetery.
Isolated house with a tree where Isabelle hung herself.

Handheld camera work in the graveyard scene.

Heartbeat and whispering as the background music.

Quick flashbacks to show what happened in the past to Isabelle when the girls are going to the cemetery.

initial shot ideas:

#1 group of girls in the house talking and joking. Start on establishing shot of the house to show the location. Then zooming to the window to show where the girls are, and into the room.

#2 Handheld camera work in the house messing about with it. Say they are going to the graveyard. The shadow of the abuser is shown.

#3 Messing about in the graveyard and made Isabelle angry and brought her alive, flashbacks showing what happened to her in the past.

#4 Whispering as they approach the graveyard.

Moodboard

Here is my moodboard with the things that I find scary. Things such as clown faces and dolls. As well as people wearing masks, such as the killer in Scream. And the scary loaction that we could use to film our trailer is graveyard and all of us agreed that cemetery is suitable for our trailer.