Analysis of a trailer

I looked at the film trailer for the horror film "Soroity Row" released in 2009 as this is in the same genre that my trailer will be in.

Narrative

This trailer follows Todorov's theory of narrative structure and begins with an equilibrium of a "typical" American Soroity which lasts for around 20 seconds, establishing the story and characters. Text is seen over the top of the equilibrium, hinting at what may still be to come. This entices the audience and captures there imagination, making them want to see the film. It is quickly disturbed by a murder, showing the disequilibrium of the story, more text follows moving the story along at a faster pace. Dramatic events then follow, a chain of murders and mysterious events occur showing the horror aspects of the film, and keeping the audience enticed and interested in seeing the film.

In this trailer there is no repair of the disruption that the audience sees and there is no restoration of a new equilibrium; as by revealing these the whole story would be revealed and people would not go and see the film. This is a technique used in a lot of films and is extremely effective.

The voice over at the beginning of the scene also helps people to understand the narrative of this film. It is a guide to establishing the equilibrium at the beginning.

Audience

The target audience of "Soroity Row" would be teenage and young females, and also young males, simply because of the mix of attractive females and horror. Also females enjoy the "Americanised" social films.

It has been given a BBFC rating of 15, so this automatically suggests its content is unsuitable for anyone under this age.

Sound

This film trailer uses a lot of diegetic sound, the sounds of the screaming girls shows the horror that they are facing due to their actions. The speech is extremaly americanised and uses a lot of annurisms this shows the target audience, as this normally attracts young people and teenagers.

The speech of the characters acts as a voice over throughout the trailer, I think that this is extremaly effective and gives the audience a deeper connection and in sight into the film. The speech works in tandum with the scences and is very effective.

The non-diegetic sound is the music played, it is up to date so that people can respond to it. It corresponds to what is happening in the film i.e. the party scene at the beginning.

Mise-en-scene

Setting

The film is set in a typical American town, with a close nit community and a typical high school where the action is centred around. The majority of the film is set at night; which has a scarier, more mysterious effect.

Costume, hair and make-up

The costumes of the female characters are very up to date fashion, which is typical of the teenage generation as they are extremely fashion conscious and savvy. The villains costume is a black hooded clock, concealing his or her identity. This creates a scary effect as there identity is unknown to all.

The hair and make up for all of the characters is minimalistic and simple, as the circumstance they are in has no demand for heavy make up or complicated hair styles.

Theories

Hypodermic Syringe - developed in the 1940's this theory suggests that the audience is represented as being passive and media institutions/organisations 'inject' they beliefs and views into the audience and in turn they accept this information as being the truth.

Disadvantages of applying the theory is that we cant cross reference it to the 1940's as times have changed dramatically.

This theory can be strongly applied to young children as they are the leas likely age group to question what they see, quite often in U and PG rated films, life lessons i.e. smoking is dangerous are interwoven into the film so the children are taught.

An example of when the hypodermic syringe model comes into practise is on April 1st (April fools day). the media can release a story and more often than not the audience are likely to believe what they see. As people we like to think that we are active not passive but in this instance we are not.

The hypodermic model can be applied to the film "Natural Born Killers" according to this model, if an audience sees the characters in the film getting away with their crimes and being romanticised, then the view will take the message accept it and imitate it.

An example of this in the film industry is "Fatal Desire" a movie based on the real life murder of Brian Miller and has reportedly been influenced by other murders. Another example is "clockwork orange" which was banned through fear of imitation of the violence.

The hypodermic model should not affect our trailer because we haven't created any violence that can be replicated.