Marketing Campaign of Horror Films

To start off with, one of the most successful film campaigns in the horror genre was that of The Blair Witch Project. This film gave the illusion that it was filmed as a documentary. They left the audience thinking that the footage that was taken was actually real. They even left it up on their website saying that it is genuine documentary footage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnWu1sLtgI8&feature=player_embedded this is an example of the 'documentary' style footage that they use throughout the film.

Another successful film campaign would be in The Last Exorcism they used the website 'chat roulette' which is a internet chat site where you both have webcam's on. To campaign the film on this they tricked the people  using the site to think that they were talking to a normal girl, until they realise that she is possessed. This is obviously done using effects but it still gives the people watching it a scare as you can see here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNSaurw6E_Q

Synergy

Synergy is when different forms of media such as Trailers, Posters and Magazines work together in marketing a product so that the success of the film is overall greater due to the amount of media that has gotten involved with the promotion of the product. For example, when Disney films come out, they tend to sell toys and soundtracks as well as the film to market the film in as many different ways as possible. This is nothing but beneficial for the production companies because they will be making money off the synergistic products anyway, as well as marketing the film title in as many ways as they can. 

Film Trailers

A film trailer is an advertisement for a feature film that will be either shown on the television, or it will be shown at the cinema before the film that is showing starts. For example, if you go and see a horror film at the cinema, you will most likely see more horror trailers before the film than any other type. This is because they already have their target audience in front of the screen. The same goes for comedy and the rest of the film genres.
Trailers will usually show the audience the bits of the film that will make them want to go and see the film. They need to be able to do this without giving the parts of the film away that they would want to keep until the end, this means that they cant include spoilers.  

Synopsis

Here is the synopsis of the film that I am going to make a trailer, magazine front cover and poster for. The genre of this film is horror and this is the general plot;

Teenagers go into the secluded woods to enjoy their last night in the summer before they all become adults. Things start going wrong as, one by one, they keep disappearing seemingly out of thin air. Will they escape before the darkness consumes them or will they come face to face with what has been lurking in the shadows with them.