Analysing The Shining
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
The shining trailer uses a generic trailer format where it starts of with the company logo on a title page, which is Warner Bros. Pictures (the studio company) title page. This is to promote, publicize and acknowledge the audience who the movie is made by. (It can also be used as airing time if the movie becomes popular).
The trailer follows a conventional sequence where it shows aspects of the movie by using short extracts in a (what seems to be a chronological order). This allows enough time for the audience to establish the mise-en-scene of the actual movie. There are shots of the location, which is Denvour (also emphasized in the audio, with a voice over saying “I err don’t suppose they tell you in Denvour about the tragedy we had up here in the 1970’s.”). Voice-overs from the movie are also used a lot in the trailer, giving the audience a small insight into what the characters will be like. There is also very quiet spooky, engaging music in the background; it’s quiet so that the main focus for the audience is on the narration.
Narration is of the background of the story that will be seen in the movie. This is clever so that the audience is given a small understanding and context of the movie. The narrators voice gives an unsettling feel, which helps to set the psychological horror genre of the movie. It’s like the audience is listening to a story. “I err don’t suppose they tell you in Denvour about the tragedy we had up here in the 1970’s. Well my name; Charles Greyde As the winner care taker, Came up here with his wife and two little girls ad their buddy Tim. And from what I have been told he seemed like a completely normal individual. But at some points during the winter, he must have suffered some kind of mental breakdown, he ran a muck and killed his family with an Axe.” – the voice over at the start. It almost describes what may, will or has happened; it’s the audience’s decision to figure out which it is. The narrator saying about the tragedy makes the audience want to know about it and watching the movie will give them this information. It follows in saying that “you can be rest assure Mr Almond that’s not me” but the actor Charles says it in a very unconvincing manor. There is a medium close up of Charles and the shot is held there for a shot time Allowing the audience to think whether or not he is telling the truth; it is very impacting and makes you raise a lot of question. This is impact you want from a trailer, as it will get the audience to come and watch the movie.
In the background of the voice over there is dreary and dramatic quiet music that gives emphasis to the narration. As the word AXE is said it jump cuts into Jack Nicholson striking a door with an axe. The build up to this builds a great deal of tension. The tension is then cut off with the axe theoretically.
The editing pace is relatively slow, giving off an eerie feel putting the audience on edge. The pace is effective as it fits with the pace of the narration. This is at the start of the trailer. As the trailer gets more intense the editing pace increases.
Amos Mukombero 