Genre, Iconography and Ideology: Film poster analysis

Genre, Iconography and Ideology: Film posters on Prezi

Character analysis: Killers in horror movies

Leatherface, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Trailer analysis continued

From viewing the trailer, the audience could deduce that the story will follow the characters shown encounter frights within the hospital. There is a sense of impending doom and that there will not be a happy ending (although this is uncertain), suggested by the dialogue and emphatic soundtrack. The trailer for Grave Encounters effectively advertises the film because shows the audience clearly what they can expect yet it retains the element of suspense, making the viewer want to find out how the story will be resolved. When it comes to actually creating the trailer for a film, I think I would use the Grave Encounters trailer as an example of how a trailer can promote the movie while still using a small budget. However, I think I would use clear genre markers instead such as an 'old fashioned' serif font in the title and a clear conflict within the plot and include the release date at the end.

The distributor's logo is altered in many of the big budget productions instead of independent film trailers because it draws on the viewer's own experience and subsequent expectations made from seeing films made by the same companies. Below, the logo for Dimension Films fits in with the overall style of the trailer for Apollo 18 as it mimics a malfunctioning camera. The theme of disorder in the opening sequence of the trailer mirrors the film's premise and represents the "mockumentary found-footage style"

Apollo 18

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

The use of a black background mirrors the film's title while the white glow makes the text look eerie and slightly ethereal despite the thick sans-serif font. Perhaps it has not been altered to the same degree as the Warner Brothers logo because the Miramax logo is more text than image based.

Final Destination 5

Familiarity is used in this alteration of the distributor's logo to effect. The Warner Brothers logo in this instance looks a lot like the one used in some of the more recent Harry Potter films instantly telling the audience that it will be a film with dark or fantastical themes and promises plenty of action. 

Trailer analysis

'Grave Encounters':
The name of the film appears quite near the end of the trailer because the trailer features a lot of text instead of a voice over meaning the trailer doesn't appear too text-heavy. Telling the audience the film's title at the end of the trailer helps them to remember it rather than at the trailer's start and moreover, they associate the anticipation the trailer creates with the film title.

The typography, effects and colour used in the title are evocative of ghosts (bright and glowing), suggesting as well as the language -'grave' has connotations of death- that the film's plot involves the characters meeting with the ghosts. The word encounters is enlarged indicating that the movie's focus is on the conflict between ghosts and humans.

As it is a low budget independent film, the trailer does not mention the actors but it does include information about the production team. The name 'The Vicious Brothers' indicates that the director and writers of the film specialise in the horror genre. The information is presented to the audience towards the end of the trailer also so the viewer remembers their names. The viewer might even be familiar with the production team through other types of promotion such as the video clip below.

The type of action from the film presented to the audience emphasises that it is a horror film. At first it is less scary because the plot is being introduced but towards the end the images become quite graphic. The trailer indicates that the film's USP is that it has a strong plot as well as the type of action horror fans would expect. The contrapunctual change that takes place in the middle of the clip (where it becomes about making the programme about the hospital) is signified by the different style of text.

The soundtrack of the trailer is a mixture of a pulsating beat to mirror the build-up of momentum and a high pitched drone sound is more typical of a horror film score, enhancing the eeriness of the action.

Instead of a voice-over, dialogue is used from the actual film so it helps to establish familiarity with the character when the audience sees the film. We can also infer that the man narrating is the film's protagonist so when the trailer begins to show the scarier moments of the film we begin to sympathise with the character. The voice used creates a serious tone initially yet shifts to a more frightened tone to generate excitement within the audience.

The action shown in the trailer is initially shown at the same pace of a clip in the film and as the trailer goes on, the clip lengths become shorter and shorter leading to a slightly longer clip at the 'climax'. The shifting pace mirrors the use of sound effects, keeping the viewer engaged with everything going on all at once.

The last frames of the trailer are the title, the credits for the film and its website. The production notes emphasise that it is going to be a scary film; the writer and director's name ('The Vicious brothers') lead the audience to expect this. Unusually there is no release date for the film which would help build up anticipation for it.

I think the trailer is a more effective advertisement for the film as it draws on the eerie images in the poster and emphasises the scary nature of the film by using music and non diegetic sound effects. Furthermore, the trailer shows some of the action, allowing the audience to get a better feel of the film. I would expect to see this trailer appear in the cinema at a late time before a film aimed at a teenage or older audience because of some of the images that appear in it. Likewise, on television it would probably be shown after family viewing hours to make sure it only reaches its intended target audience. Also, horror and thriller films are shown on TV during the late hours so it could potentially be reaching fans of those genres likely to see this film.
The trailer may be scheduled to air between other horror movies or films aimed at a teenage or adult audience such as 'Fright Night' or 'Final Destination 5'.

The trailer features visual identifiers that enable the audience to immediately recognise the movie's genre:

• Costume
• Setting
• Lighting
• Camera angles

However variation is employed as well. The trailer doesn't include a release date and it doesn't feature all of the visual identifiers of a horror film (such as props and costume) because it is not marketed as a normal horror feature with conflict resolution. Instead the premise of the film is that it is a metafictional 'film-within-a-film' about ghost hunting. The concept is postmodern and quite novel so the audience would expect the trailer not to adhere to all the horror film conventions. In my own horror film trailer, I would be careful to use a mix of conventions and variations because the interested viewer could not find out when the film comes out on DVD or in cinemas by watching this trailer. Although it's a limited release movie, it could diminish a potential audience's interest in the film.