TRAILERS
Paranormal Activity 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90r3CnPI0AM
The narrative of the feature film being advertised is the story of two girls who have had strange things happening to them since they were young, and the trailer is a flashback of when the girls were young and tells the story of why strange things were happening to them. The genre of the film is horror, which is the same genre that we are also creating, and therefore based our research on this theme. Not much of the narrative is revealed, as a lot of quick shots are used, making it more mysterious and encouraging people to watch it and see what happens. There is no voice over used in the trailer, the narrative is revealed through a number of shots which may add to the horror of the film. The narrative order of the shots is in non-chronological order, and it differs to the order of the movie as they may be getting attacked one minute, but then playing outside normally, which would not necessarily occur in the film. There are 19shots in the film, which are every quick and sharp, and they suit the genre very well because it adds to the tension of the trailer, encouraging the audience to actually go and watch the film. The pace of editing starts off rather ordinary and slow, as to maybe create tension for what is to come in the rest of the trailer. It gradually increases as the trailer continues, for example from when the girls are on the trampoline to when the woman is in the bedroom and gets dragged out, there are several quick edited shots. In the trailer there are transitions such as static vision, as this makes a more film-like effect and creates suspense. There is also night-vision, and black and white colouring, such as when the woman is in the bedroom. They have been used to make it look like a CCTV camera, and makes it look more effective and like a horror film, due to the black and white colouring and the high angle from which it is shot. The text says 'Discover' 'The secret' 'Behind the activity', which various shots in between. This links with the visual and the narrative because Paranormal Acitivity 1 and 2 show the girls being haunted and killed, and this goes back to the reason why it occured, the audience are 'discovering the secret' and the reason 'behind the activity'. It sets up the narrative of the film because the audience will already know it is a sequel to the other two films, and also the reason behind the plot itself. There is a high angle shot used when the woman is in the bedroom and gets dragged out, as to create a type of cctv-type view and creating suspense. There are a lot of close-ups used, such as when the girls are on the trampoline and the young girl is standing at the edge looking down, this could emphasise the emotional facial expressions and may foreshadow the negativity which occurs later on in the film.
THE UNBORN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc3Cba0qOco
The genre of the film is horror, a lot of the narrative is revealed in the trailer showing the events in the order in which they happen in the film. This is uncommon to film trailers on a whole as usually the order the events happen in the film don’t happen in the same order in the trailer, thus not giving away too much of the story line. However as the trailer follows the events in the same order of the film this allows us to see a lot of the storyline giving too much away. Also what is common to Horror film is the fact that they don’t show the “monester,deamon” or scary character that the film is based upon, however The Unborn does the scary character is shown from the every begging losing all sense of mystery or suspense other horror films have. The narrative is revealed through short close up camera shots that fade to black showing the sequence of events as they happen. The unborn has little to no Voice overs and instead gives glimpses of the narrative though its camera shots and small sections of writing, for example “he wants to be born now” this gives more depth to what the film is about but also as it doesn’t tell too much is still leaves the audience in suspense, the text also connects with the tittle of the film making the trailer flow and link back to what the film is about which is the “The Unborn”. The text it is black old style font which refers to the monster or story line bring old, this is common to horror films as they usually based on hunting's or myths, the black font is on a white back ground which makes it stand out. About 100-120 range of shots are used in the trailer, the shots are very short and are mainly close up, or shot reverse shot between the characters. The shot reverse shot gives more of the storyline away as it involves in dialogue between two characters, helping explain the narrative of the film and giving away the storyline. The trailer contains a lot of fast paced editing of short shots fading to black. Black is commonly used in horror films as it shows mystery creates suspense and reflects death and disaster. The pace of editing gets faster as the trailer comes to an end and when more of the action and climax of the film is shown. The editing get faster as the suspense is built up creating a bigger impact on the audience and also with the fast pace editing it is harder to see what is going on thus not allowing the audience to see the climax of the film clearly, just giving the suspense and drama away. The fade to black transitions aren’t used in the film, however are used in the trailer to build suspense and also when the shot fades to black it gives the audience that 5-6 seconds to reflect on what they have just saw. Also as the colour black has death, disaster, mystery and darkness associated with it backups the genre of the film which is Horror. A spooky slow soundtrack is used very subtle behind the dialogue running all the way through this creepy soundtrack adds to the genre of the film which is Horror by creating impact and suspense that wouldn’t of been created if the soundtrack hadn’t been there, we commonly associated heightened music and spooky sounds with horror films when something back is going to happen. This feeling of something bad happening is used throughout the film maintains the element of suspense for the audience as they are constantly expecting something to happen. Alternatively the power of silence is also very effective in this trailer 1:10 to 1:13 is in complete silence right before the faster pace editing and the heightened music, this builds the tension as makes the shot really stand out as there is no sound the audience concentrates on the shot.
THE RING http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs_TFlTETH0
The genre of the film is Horror/Thriller. The start of the trailer is broken up between short shots and text, giving a small insight into what the film is about “there’s a tape”..”if you watch it”.. “seven days later”.. “you die” explains the narrative of the film thus telling the audience the basic story line. This is gives away a lot of the narrative within the first 22 seconds. After the first 22 seconds the rest of the trailer is built up of fast pace editing of short close up shots of the action, frequent shots of the static TV screen pop up referring the tape and the TV also close ups of the screen follow the narrative that it is about a Tape that brings death. There is little to no dialogue just a soundtrack of a fuzzy TV that hasn’t been tuned and a voice of one of the characters talking about the tape. Apart from the text at the begging no more of the narrative is given away just short shots that aren’t in chronological orders as they are in the film. The voice over towards the end it of a woman repeating her self saying “you see the ring, you see the ring” which will play on the audiences mind and keep them still thinking that after they have finished watching the trailer. The end shot is a close up of a woman screaming however there is no sound just the sound of a life support machine being turned off implying death at the end of the film. There is about 80 short shots that last less than a second. The visuals along with the text and voice over give a small glimpse of the narrative, leaving the rest of the narrative to the audience's imagination.
