Director Interviews- James Wan

This is James Wan who has directed numerous horror films, such as 'The Conjuring', 'Insidious', 'Insidious: Chapter 2' and many more.

In this interview he says that the horror genre is a fascinating genre, which allows you to really step out your box. This tells me that I can be really creative with the horror trailer I will be producing, by using adventurous camera shows, which provides high effectiveness through them, by using different use of mise en scene to portray different messages, and even putting plot twists. He explored the horror genre by making various different films, which subvert and conforms to the genre. For example, the 'Saw' franchise was primarily to scary and disturb people by using the mise en scene of blood, guts and gore; in comparison with his newer film 'Insidious' where he used the use of 'Astral Projection', which is an outer body experience, therefore not an out of blood shred, but still as frightening.  He also likes to scare people, with his films, which is a main accomplishment which he believes horror films should do. This suggests that our trailer should reinforce that there will be scary events featuring in the film.
He begins to talk about the development of characters within horror films. He says that nowadays horror films are like action, they try to jump into the 'action part' of horrors, without gaining an insight for the characters. This could be used for our trailer as we could attempt to give an insight of each character through the actions and mise en scene shown through our production. However, as we are only producing a horror trailer it may be difficult to show this as we do not want to give too much of the film away but also we have a time limit which we have to stick too.
He mentions about the scare moments about films, whihc he states should be realistic, not the stereotypical 'bang on the window, and it's your friend with saying here's your credit card'. This is vital information which we should take in account as we want our trailer as realistic as possible, therefore we should make our shots build an unnerving atmosphere throughout our production.
The most vital information I gained from this director interview, is how to make a good horror film. He says 'for coming up with something someone hasn't seen before', which would obviously make members of the public go to see it as it's something new, a new cinematic experience.