Elements I can use for my trailer –
By watching these examples of psychological trailers i now have a broad knowledge of the conventions that are needed to be incorporated in a psychological trailer. I have gone in more depth for each example trailer saying parts I would include in my trailer.
Sinister –
“True-crime writer Ellison Oswalt moves house with his family into a house where a horrific crime took place earlier in the past, however he doesn’t share this information with his family. His failing career needs saving so attempts to write a book about it. He uses some “snuff” film footage he finds in the house to help in his research, but he soon finds more than he bargained for. There is a figure in each of the films, but who or what is it? As a result, his family start to suffer (as does he), and things take a turn for the worse. Will they survive?” – Written by Michael Hallows Eve
Elements we can use from this trailer in our trailer are:
- The news report flashback, but for ours we can illustrate or link it to what will happen in our actual movie. We will need to make this very brief and concise so that not too much information is given away.
- A still of what the venue looks in the day and in the night – inside and outside (where the majority of the filming will take place; this will set the setting and mise-en-scene
- The part when Ellison Oswalt goes up into the attic and see’s nothing but the box could prove significant for out trailer as we have a box that contains past shakespearian texts/references that is important in our movie.
- eerie, unsettling, non-diegetic sound effects will also be something that will emphasise what is on screen and attract the audience.
- Minimal conversation with all the characters, enough so there is some sort of known as to who is who.
- Title pages will be very important – With description of past work that has been very successful
- editing pace, sound incrementation as the trailer goes on – it should be very fast at the end
- Curricular structure – end with one of the shots at the start of the trailer but with minor change of mise-en-scene
- end title page with the name of our movie at the end. But it should be a fast transition in and out.
Narrative construction –
- This trailer uses a linear narrative structure, whereby it goes from start to finish. It portrayed in a increasingly tense build up, where it starts soft – music, setting, lighting and the general scenes and then it gets more and more intense – the music becomes louder in volume, you start to hear more asynchronous sound effects that give off an eerie vibe and the lighting gets darker in juxtaposition to the narration.
- For our trailer we can use this structure as a way to latch the audience in, as it builds in tension the audience would become more and more engage.
Black Swan Trailer –
A movie about a ballet dancer (played by Natalie Portman) who wins the lead role in “Swan Lake”. She is perfect for the role of the delicate White Swan – Princess Odette – but not so much for her alter ego Odile, the Black Swan. As the movie goes on Nina’s pursuit for perfection of the black swan leads her to become more and more like the black swan.
Elements we can use from this trailer in our trailer are:
- Narration – Can be used to empathise what is on screen or our narrative.
- Mellow/quiet background music that has a clear link to our movie – unsettling eerie music that engages with the audience – this will mean that if the music is heard anywhere else people will link it to our movie.
- The background music can increase in volume as the editing pace increases.
- Clear narration setting the scene of the movie, brief beginning and showing the problem – don’t show the resolution
- A Clear distinction from where it goes from good to bad.
- Mix match of sounds of the trailer in one scene where everything is sped up
Narrative Construction –
- The narrative structure for this trailer is cross cutting, they use the best parts of the movie to engage the audience. This cross cutting structure also keeps the audience’s minds active so they can try and work out what will happen in the movie.
- For our trailer we could use this technique as a way to keep the audiences attention as with a lot of movie’s this days the audiences are passive, so they do not need to think about what is happening to they can just watch. Getting the audience involved is something I think is important.
The Shining Trailer –
Signing a contract, Jack Torrance, a normal writer and former teacher agrees to take care of a hotel which has a long, violent past that puts everyone in the hotel in a nervous situation. While Jack slowly gets more violent and angry of his life, his son, Danny, tries to use a special talent, the “Shining”, to inform the people outside about whatever that is going on in the hotel.
– Written by J. S. Golden
Elements we can use from this trailer in our trailer are:
- History of the venue – with a twist, to give a psychological thriller theme
- Establishing shots of the venue with no people to give the conventional ghost town feel – including different shot types such as: pans, handheld shots, tracking shots, POV shots, Close ups and medium shots, high to low shots and low to high shots, over the shoulder and many more
- Visual effects to the clips
- special effects with clever editing is feasible.
- flashing shots/ clips
Narrative Construction –
- This trailer uses a cross cutting narrative structure. Where certain clips are taken from the movie and constructed in a way that corresponds to the narration. How ever the narration is from the actual movie that have been mixed together so it makes sense.
- In our trailer we can use this – over filming we can use mix and match clips so they illustrate a story via audio but visually it could be a mix to confuse the audience.
Trailer representation –
The movie Sinister and The Shining represent an insecure family as Ellision Oswallt in The Sinister lies to his family about wanting to move when in actual fact it was a selfish move to revamp his career. Putting his family in danger. In The Shining Jack Torrence embodies the past of the hotel and becomes a violent; making him an insecure farther, putting his son in danger. The movie Black Swan represents the life of a ballerina in a in the ballet Swan Lake. It stereotypes ballerina’s; being anorexic, wearing tutus, having a pink bedroom with lots of trophies and music boxes, everyone is bitchy and competitive and conceited. Culturally in all the three trailers there is an ethic minority, there are no African Americans, the characters are all white Americans or Russia.
Target Audiences
The genres for my three chosen trailers being psychological thriller the conventions of this genre are spine tingling, adrenaline rush, thrilling and includes gore and violence. It keeps the audience constantly on their toes. I would say the target audience for these trailers/movies are people that can endure the depths of the gore and violence. They are not gender specific. The age would vary from 16-25. However for the movie Black Swan as it is a Ballet based movie the target audience for this movie would be a more female audience, there is also a love element in the movie which is stereotypically for a more female audience. This audience may use the movie for escapism from reality, which is a common ideology whilst watching movies.
The income bracket B – middle classed,C2 – the skilled working class and E – students. As these movies are fairly old buying the DVD or an online copy vary from £4-£7 so they are not overly expensive. Which means all of the classes are eligible to be the target audience.
For our movie trailer ‘Foul Play’ the target audience will be teenagers because the actors are teenagers and we are also teenagers so we will have an idea of what that audience want in a move. People whom are interested in Shakespeare as we have some references to some of his work can also be a target audience. As we have used elements of all three trailers (The Shining, Sinister and Black Swan) the target audience will be based around the same. As these three movies are very successful they are reliable base to start from.
Examples of elements we will use are the fast jump cuts, eerie asynchronous sound effects like in black swan where she is in the studio and she hears strange sounds.
Amos Mukombero 