Analysis of Existing Media Trailers

QUEEN OF THE DAMNED

This trailer in terms of the forms and conventions, is very formulaic. It starts off with the appropriate production company logo's, it then swiftly moves onto the shots from the film, through an edit which contains lightning. The voice over kicks in the moment, the production company logos dissappear off screen. The voice over is also matched with the actions of the characters, and the main characters can be easily identified, because the shots help portray them as a main character, this is done simply by using the power of close ups. The pace of the edits are considerabliy slow at the start of the trailer, however sometime nearing the end of the trailer, the edits will become fast paced, and it will break into a montage, with the sound also sped up to match the pace of the trailer. The tension during the start to about one quarter of the way is built up, by progressing from a series of slow paced shots to fast paced shots, and then nearing the end the tension is dropped, relaxing the situation, however left with the problem unsolved, in this case, the pace of the shots slow down, however one of the main characters is seen on screen, saying 'come out, come out where ever you are.' this helps the audience to realise subconsciously that the trailer is only part of the story, and leaves it as a cliff hanger for the audience to see the film. Within this trailer there are many different edits, these have different meanings, such as the fade, which shows that some time has passed, and also the flash, which suggests that something has happened.

HALLOWEEN (1978)

This trailer starts of with the image of a pumpkin, which is seen on the poster for this film. It is an image of a hand which is slowly faded towards the right, to make it look like a pumpkin. This has a major impact on the audience because instantly they can recognise the two icons, the knife, and the pumpkin. The knife obviously represents death, and the pumpkin is instantly identified as Halloween, where people dress up as scary figures to go round and gather candy from people known as 'trick or treatinf.' The voice over in the first few seconds read out; 'THE ONE. THE ONLY. THE CLASSIC. HALLOWEEN.' in a spooky tone, which is echoed for more effects. after this the trailer jumps straight in to clips from the film, in a non-linear format. The sound here is very eerie and it helps with the tension, the trailer starts of scary with some tension and then raises the tension, however most formulaic trailers nowadays tend to drop the tension before the end of the trailer, like 'Queen of the Damned' spoken above. This trailer specifically does not drop the tension, as it could suggest that the killer is STILL out there. Once again helping the audience relate to the film. Other ways the audience can relate to the trailer is by location, this is set in the suburbs, just an ordinary town like the majority of people, so that when watching this film the audience will feel uneasy in their very own homes.

 At the very beginning of the trailer, the shot used, is a Point of View shot, this immediately puts the audience in the shoes of the character on screen, keeping the audience interacted with the media product from the very start. After the character enters the house, and then edits out into a shot with a mask over the screen, frantically stabbing a victim, whose screams can be heard, diegetic sound is used here. The character then leaves the house, and the characters father removes the mask. Seen under the mask is a young boy, still holding the knife with a very spooked out face. At this point the audience is probably feeling uneasy, as they have technically just committed a murder. This also evidently introduces the main character, known as 'Michael' the shot used to introduce this character is a steady shot on the main character, medium to far shot, and it is kept on the character for quite a while, to let it all sink in to the audience.

After this event, once again the film name is mentioned. This is used to break the tension, however it is built back up immediately, by having the ineffective authoritative figure dish out information on the main character, and how he tried for many years to keep him behind bars, and then several other years trying to control him, 'because he realised what was living behind that boys eyes was simply evil.' The final girl in the trailer is seen with the killer behind her, approaching from the dark, this is a form of seeing the feminine figure as monstrous, and the fact that they both share equal amount of space within a shot, shows that they are somewhat the same. This in fact is true, because the final girl is forced to fight, and she uses the same knife the killer had, to attack the killer himself, and if the killer is killed by the final girl, who is made to look like a motherly figure, then she is seen as far more monstrous than that of the killer himself.

This trailer is not very formulaic and does not go with any current media trailers out at the moment, it breaks almost all the conventions of a formulaic trailer. One reason for this is that the fact that we have aged, and the media itself has aged, allowing the media and its representations of society to develop and frantically change. A great example for this is, the fact that yellow once had the connotations of what red does now, this is evidently seen in the 'cannibal holocaust' film poster, which uses the colour scheme of yellow and red, to it's full extent.

SAW 

This trailer is a very unusual trailer, and in terms of conventions it breaks almost all of them, first of all, the trailer it self does not focus on introducing the story line to the audience, but it focuses on promoting the film through the fact that it is 3D. The fact that 'Jigsaw' the main character, reaches out and grabs one of the audience members, puts the analytical into perspective, about how point of view shots put you in the shoes of an individual character, this in turn does the same, effectively more, and because 3D is still something quite new to us, it is very effective in letting the audience now that this is a NEW experience, and that 3D could be the start of a new era.