Film Trailer Analysis

The first movie trailer I have chosen to analyze is Insidious: Chapter 2, which is the latest film released within the fairly recent Insidious series which is a horror film about a little boy who lucid dreams in his sleep and demons try to possess his body whilst his spirit is else where.

The first noticible convention to nearly every film trailer is the green screen right at the start annoncing the target audience for the film about to be advertised. In the case of Insidious 2, it says "The following preview has been approved for APPROPRIATE AUDIENCES" which basically means that this film is only suitable for certain ages groups and may contain sexual scenes or violence etc because of this. 

One thing you notice straight away about this trailer in particular is the two advertisements at the top. I believe that this is exclusive to movie trailers that are posted onto YouTube however it is a great source of advertising for the film, especially by encouraging you to write about the trailer on Twitter by using the '#INSIDIOUS' which brings in a free source of advertising to the film. The other source of advertising the the memorable date of "friday the 13th" which is the date the film is released in cinemas. 

 In the opening scene of this trailer, we are introduced by a major key tonal music which appears to be very happy which builds suspence as we are aware that this is in actual fact a horror film. We see images of a happy family; a dad playing with his son and the mother watching from the window with a grin on her face. This is acomponied by diegetic sounds of the little boy laughing to show happiness. There is no voiceover in this trailer, the plot is understood by conversation and comments said by the characters as well as brief titles on screen. The text we first see is "it began two years ago" which indicates that this is a sequal of an earlier film and that the story has not yet finished. 

The same, happy music played on the piano continues to play as the scene changes to their Grandmothers house where they appear to be just like any ordinary family. The more subtitles appear which say "their child inherited a gift" which is quite ironic in the way it makes it sound like it is a good thing when we, as the audience know that its not. With the happy music still playing, the father reassures the mother by saying "nothing is going to bother us, not anymore.. we have our son back" and we are then shown images of the innocent children sleeping in their beds. 

There is then a fade to a blackout and then the mood completely changes. We see the mother sitting on her own displayed in a very close up angle with an eye-line match to present a point of view shot. She is sat in a very dark room and there is silence for a few moments. And then a very dreary music of the child's song "row, row, row your boat" is played acoustically and then moments later, a ladies voice is heard singing it on the baby monitor which means she is in the babies room. The mother notices that the babies toys stated moving and goes to investigate it, accompanied by non-diegetic sounds to cause fear and suspense amongst the audience. 

In the next change in camera angles, we are presented with an establishing shot of a dark room filled with very old fashioned furnature. The shot is quite high up making the mother look extremely vunerable. She walks around the room, and as she walks back past, she is shocked to see a figure sitting on the sofa. With the haunting children's music still playing, the ghostly figure stands up and walks out of the room.  We hear a massive bang coming from the upstairs on the house and the mother runs up the stairs and screams for her baby, with the haunting children's music still being played and sung by a very dreery woman.

 

The next screen we are experienced to is text which says "from the makers of Saw and Paranormal Activity" this is said approximately half way through the trailer and it highlights two very famous movie series, Saw containing 7 movies in its series and Paranormal Activity containing 4. This captivates the audience because they associate good horror films they may have previously seen to this film which may make the audience want to see the it, through the association of the others. When this screen comes up. the colours signify a horror genre, together with the haunting music that accompanies it.

In the next scene, the music changes to a minor key tone with enhanced sounds to bring suspense and fear to the audience. we experience a few shots that have slow zooms to draw attention such as the fear on the grandmother's face. The scene then cuts to a dark room with everyone sitting round a table. The room is lit up by candles and is given a red lighting affect to represent danger. a line of dialogue said by one of the characters is "tell us.. what does she want" and it is clear that the film features a supernatural element.

Close up's of stereotypical horror elements are used such as skulls, lit with candles to produce a spooky effect and also a close up of an Ouija Board which is typically associated with the supernatural. Also, a close up of a strange figure or doll wearing what appears to be a gas mask.

In the next scene, we hear a slight voice-over from the young son which says "i heard voices in the hall way" which is accompanied by a high angle establishing shot where the father is close up and the son in the distance, making the son look vunerable. You can see the fear in the son's face as he is aware that something is not right. We then see a cut to a scene where the mother and son are having a conversation where the boy asks if there is something wrong with his father.  A close up shot is used to emphasise the fear on the little boys face. 












The next scene is really odd and unexpected. It features the father doing what appears to be pulling out his tooth. The scene remains silent however diegetic sounds are used to emphasise what the father is doing. We, as the audience realise the son was correct in believing there is something wrong with his father as we see him doing something very strange and inhumane. We are left wondering why the father is acting so wierd.

Next, we are produced with more text, simply stating when the film comes out. Accompanying this text is a song called "tiptoe through the tulips" which isn't directly related to the film in any way, however it is the music was used in the first Insidious and is used to associate the audience with the events from the first film (the video on the left is from the first Insidious film, demonstrating that the same music is used in both for audience association).




Throughout this trailer, dialogue is not used very much and when it is used, it is usually just one sentence lines. Such as in the next scene where we hear a slight voiceover of the grandmother saying "whatever it was that was haunting my family, it is not done with us."  and we then just see short close up clips of the fear expressions and after a loud bang made with non-diegetic sounds, we see horrifying scenes of dead bodys with closeups to produce suspense.

We next see text that simply says "the terrifying secret"which leaves curiosity amongst the audience. It aims to do this by leaving the audience wondering what the secret is, this attracts people into wanting to see the film.

In the next scene, we see a dark room filled with childrens toys that are frantically moving on their own. The whole scene signifies horror through the stereotypical feature of the dark room and also the feature of the childrens toys, often associated with this type of film.

After some more text that says "will be revealed" (referring to the "terrifying secret") which again, keeps the audience in suspense... We see a series of 16, 1 or 2 second clips. These clips are some of the most dramatic and scariest clips throughout the film, the fast paced clips are effective in producing fear.

After the series of short clips, the final scene of the trailer commences. The scene is not accompanied by any music, it is just pure dialogue. The scene opens by a fade in from black, contrasting to the fast paced series of scenes we have just witnessed. It consists of two men in a pitch black room with the only lighting being a hand-held lantern. One man says to the other "there is a man standing in front of you, he's talking to you" (only he can see and hear him because of his power to see the supernatural), the other man (the dad), replies "what is he saying". The other man then replies "he's got your baby" a haunting line that he repeats many times, getting louder and louder as he says it, building suspense. There is then some daunting music that starts to play which gets louder and louder and then there is a loud bang which makes the audience jump. Next, there is a horrifying image of a pale, naked old man, standing right in front of the dads face, also screaming "he's got your baby, he's got your baby, he's got your baby".

The scene ends and then the name of the film finally pops up on the screen, accompanied by the "Tiptoe Through The Tulips song" that i mentioned earlier that appears to be the trademark music of the Insidious series. It is a common convention in most films that the name of the film isn't displayed until the end.


The music then changes to another soundtrack associated with the film and more text is displayed which is in the same style as the title with the same colours, fonts and background except the text displays what date the film is being released to cinemas. The initiates that the trailer has ended.