A2 TRAILER ANALYSIS

A2 Trailer analysis

Using YouTube analyse a Horror film trailer

1.  What is the purpose of a film trailer?

The purpose of a film trailer is to show the audience small clips of the film that’s being released. It’s to engage the audience into what’s going on so that they will want to see the film.

2.     In what ways is the story established?

The film narrative is established in part by using a narrator to explain in small detail what’s going on in the film as well as using small talking clips. They shows certain clips from start to finish to show the story line in basic

3.  What enigmas are raised for the narrative to deal with?

The problems that are raised in the film are the things that begin to change in the film.

4.  In what ways are the characters established?

The characters are established through the opening scenes of introduction. The clips establish who and what the characters are, for example the little girl with the black hair, the clips are edited to show her appearing and disappearing, making it clear to the audience that she is not part of the family and that something is not normal with her.

Information on characters is introduced by revealing certain things within the clips. This helps the audience put together the story themselves by not actually telling them what’s going on or what’s happened. Information on the characters can be found on the internet, as the trailer reveals the film is based on a true story, so they can look into it.

5.     What does the viewer learn from the voice-over?

The voice-over establishes what kind of things that goes on in the film causing the audience to learn the basic story line without knowing the insight to the film. The narrator helps put the pieces together.

6.     How is dialogue used?

The dialogue reveals to the audience the problems that go on within the film and how they are created, basic words fit together.

Sometimes dialogue is juxtaposed against

7.  How and when are action clips used?

Action clips are used when the trailer dies down and goes quiet, giving the perfect opportunity to create a dramatic entrance for the action clip, creating a shock and thrill towards the audience.

8.     What do they signify?

They are significant for creating suspense to the audience at the end of a trailer. This is when the action clips mainly come into place

9.     Describe the pace of editing and visual style.  What mood does this evoke for the viewer?

The visual style is slow at first creating suspense to the audience. This creates an exciting mood for the audience as it encourages them to want to watch the film.

10.  How are titles and graphics used?

the title is generally put at the beginning and the end of every trailer, this is so the audience don’t forget the name of the film.

11.  In what ways is the genre signified to the audience?

The genre is signified to the audience by the use of imagery and the themes that are used, for example using dark backgrounds to highlight the title.

12.  How are the stars established?

The stars are established by highlighting their names when they pop in the trailer. Making it clear what famous people, or people you recognize are in the film.

13.  Describe the overall structure of the trailer.  I.e. when particular information is introduced.  Does this follow a conventional pattern?

The pace alters whenever something interesting comes into the scene to make sure the film isn’t portrayed as boring, if the trailer only shows boring bits at the beginning of the clip and good bits at the end, then the audience wont watch it, as it needs to be exciting throughout the whole film.

14. How does the trailer appeal to the viewer?

The trailer will only appeal to target audiences. For example people who enjoy horror. It does this by making it clear at the beginning of the trailer what genre the film is.

15.  Summarize the forms and conventions of the trailer.

The trailer has typical conventions of a horror film. For example slow paced music at the beginning and fast and scary when something bad is going to happen. Also the fast movement of the slides, to show roughly that something intense is happening. Fast music is used at this point to create the tension/suspense.

Teaser trailer analysis

film magazine analysis

Summary of film analysis film 2

Summary of analysis for first film

Worksheet Analysis of Film Poster

	Film Poster
Name & genre of film	Scream/ Horror
Key image (camera shot/angle – purpose); expressions, posture/body language. How do they reinforce the genre?	The key image is of the main character in the beginning of the film. It’s a close up shot on the woman’s face. The expression of her face shows she’s in shock, almost as if she’s seen something that’s scared her.
Lighting & how it influences the meaning of the text & genre.	The connotation of her face colour, black and white, represents shock/horror, pal as white, and loss of colour in her face from shock.
Costumes/dress codes; icons/props, make-up – how do the challenge or reinforce the generic conventions.	The colours of the poster reinforce the genre affect. Black represents darkness; however white typically represents innocents and purity. The contrast between them leaves the audience deciding whether the films genre is combined.
Background, colour ( connotations) & layout & how they influence meaning.	On the front cover of scream there is no background only a facial close up shot, this is to leave the audience thinking why is she pulling that facial expression? What’s going on? It leaves no clues.
Copy (text) – Size, font style, colour & content (title/tagline/credits/ratings etc)	The title of the film is in a big front, presented in the colour white so that it’s bright and bold against the black background. It’s contrasting.
Target audience	The target audience would be teenagers of both sexes.
Representation of Characters – Age, race gender, Culture, sexuality etc. Do they challenge or reinforce the genre conventions.	The characters are a typical stereotype of young wild teenagers in college wanting to have fun.
Institutional	Product details (credits, cast, director/producer/studios/certification/web address etc).
Enigma/Narrative image (How does the poster create a ‘story’ & entice its intended audience to go see the film?) What questions does the poster ‘ask’ of the audience?	The poster creates the story by not actually giving it away what’s going to happen, creating tension towards the audience, making them to want to see the film..

Detailed Creep Analysis

Scream Evaluation

Reviews For Scream

Changes in the two horrors, Scream and Halloween

The changes in horror genre

After the film Halloween was made, producers changed in this particular genre, the typical conventions within the films techniques. Conventions that were used in the film Halloween have been copied making it too unrealistic, it’s not something that could/would happen in real life, and it’s not believable enough, however the violence that was in the film is the kind of thing that happens in society today, for example: people getting stabbed is not as uncommon as it used to be.

The influence of violence from Halloween, projects towards young children as something that’s seen as ‘cool’ and encourages them in a bad way. Horrors were largely projected towards the male gender, this is because they enjoy graphic scenes and in every horror the sexual nature is always involved, causing a big engagement. This was called male gaze theory when women are shown naked to satisfy the male audience’s fantasies. However this cuts out a large part of the woman society, this convention hasn’t changed since the Halloween film. On the other hand, in Halloween, when a victim was being killed, parents where no were in the film, however in the film Scream, the young girls parents turn up at the last minute but were still on the scene.

The director Wes Craven of Scream 1997, decided to change how he made horrors, showing a significant change between Halloween and Scream. As Halloween was made in the 70’s the quality of the film was not as good, for example creating clichés through the use of steadicam which is often used for stalking scenes to create realism that a victim was being followed, however this created good tension as to when something was going to happen in the film.

In the film Scream, mocking’s of the typical conventions that were used in Halloween, as well as other films, were used as a guideline as to when someone was going to get killed/murdered, the actors mocked this in Scream, however it still represented when they were going to die. An example of the mocking’s, was when the boy was standing in front of the television telling the other teenagers the typical ‘sayings’ that are mainly used in horror films. This reinforces that this is when they get killed because, the boy stated that the victim generally says “I’ll be right back” and they never do. This happened in both films. This use of pastiche was used by Wes Craven to highlight the outworn generic conventions of these predictable horror films.

Another difference between the films Halloween and Scream is the background music. The music in Halloween was monotonous making the killers approach too obvious to the audience, however Scream uses atmospheric music and also an unrecognisable tune, the director has changed the music throughout different scenes so the audience don’t expect what is about to happen. The sophisticated high Tec soundtrack created a better quality of suspension build up throughout the film/scenes. The music was carefully timed in Scream, to keep synchronised within the actions.

The significant difference of the camera use in Scream shows the point of view from both the victims and the killers angles (high and low), creating a sense of sympathy for the victims, also the victims realisation is not as dim as in scream (the characters were not as stupid, for example Drew Barrymore in the opening scene not ringing the police in the first place, normal common sense). Also the fast moving camera work and editing create good affects in Scream, unlike voyeuristic stalking in Halloween.

Promotional posters for the film Scream used the most well-known character, Drew Barrymore, she’s been known in the films, E.T, Charlie’s angles, 50First Dates and many more famous films. The reason for her use in the picture was because they wanted to create suspense, making the audience believe she’s going to survive throughout the film, even though she doesn’t, this creates a shock to them. This goes against the typical generic conventions of a horror film, or any film, for the big named actors to die first. This is a significant difference in the two horrors.

Horrors such as Halloween rarely use big names as they are budget films and cannot afford to pay actors like that to play a role. Examples of the budget cuts is that they used unknown actors, everyday suburban locations, boring, obvious typical conventions such as the soundtrack to the killer, no high Tec special affects etc. However Scream was a big budget film with a number of known actors, for example, Neve Campbell (Sydney), Courtney Cox (reporter), Henry Winkler (headmaster) and Drew Barrymore (1^st Victim).

Other differences would be that Wes Craven created the equal fights in Scream making it more realistic, as they get their chance to get away, and are able to inflict injuries upon the two killers, argument e.g. when Tatum hits one of the killers with a bottle.

This is also a significant difference; there were two killers instead of one in Scream.

However Wes Craven reinvented the Halloween masked icon in Scream, and the killers in both films use knives, which is also an icon for horror films. He created the same killers. Wes Craven still kept some of the old conventions used in Halloween so the diehard horror fans could still anticipate the events, but challenged most of the clichéd outworn conventions. This revived the horror genre and the audiences for these films grew. 

A2 Halloween Evaluation

Brief

A promotional package for a new horror film, to include a teaser trailer (maximum 60seconds), together with a film magazine front cover, featuring the film. Also to produce a promotional poster of the film. (All images and soundtrack to be original).