Teaser Trailers

[REC] trailer



At first this film looks like a documentary as the actors portray the firefighters in a very naturalistic way. But we soon realise via the tone and type of music features that it is a horror film. The movie title is shown in the last few seconds of the trailer. No production values are named in the trailer, this helps give it the naturalistic and hand made feel that it is trying to convey. The trailer builds suspense with the running totals on victims and "other" as well as the shots of the firemen climbing the stairs tenses the viewer as they assume something will appear soon. The music is very eery and loud, this makes the audience jump, there is also noise of a video camera, the crackling of it along with the blurring picture when the girl appears is loud and creates panic.

There is no dialogue in the trailer, only the scream from the girl at the end. This makes the audience focus more on the music in the trailer and shocks the audience more when the scream is heard.


Saw 6 Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK8eFme6qzY

The trailer starts with a dark screen and leads the viewer through the dungeons,the dungeon is dark, dank and dirty looking, we can soon tell it is a horror film as we see the clips of previous films. The name is shown at the end of the trailer, against a black screen to have all of the audience's attention. There are not any production values shown in the film although the fact that it is a sequel is referenced during. The use off the many televisions in the trailer showing a clip, teases the audience but isn't clear to see which makes the audience want to come and watch it.

There is no voice over during the trailer, this is probably because the audience can work out what the genre,content,context and general story-line from the fact that there are 5 previous films. Overall I think this a very successful tease trailer as the fact that the trailer doesn't show off much of the film and instead self references the previous films creates interest and helps urge the viewer to go and watch the film as the trailer asks questions and presents statements that will be understood and answered upon viewing of the film.


A Nightmare on Elm Street



This is the longest of the teaser trailers that I am studying and is unconventional of a normal teaser trailer. Many teasers show little or no actual footage from the film (for instance the saw trailer is set in a dungeon, filmed purposefully for a teaser trailer) and the trailer itself is longer than the usual teaser trailer ([REC] is 1.19min and Saw IV is 52 seconds, compared to Elm Street's 2.08min) This could mean there was a lot of post production work involved in the film such as special effects and sound, which took a lot of time to involved or simply that the film had a desired release date.

The trailer itself doesn't actually appear to be horror from the beginning, it looks more of an action/adventure film, this may have been done to attract viewers who wouldn't necessarily watch a horror film. Many of the sounds are either shocking (the thudding of the production values on screen, screams, slashes) or eerie. (such as the children singing) Many sounds are overlapping which, along with the quickly shown images, creates disorientation and confusion for the audience. We are shown the director of the film early in the trailer but the rest of the production values are not shown until the ending shots of the trailer.

There is no voiceover but instead there is text on screen, all are written in blood and therefore contribute to the horror genre of the film. The genre itself is established by the use of blood, victims, (we see many women screaming, running, crying and being attacked) pain and attack (we see the villain slashing people, pipes and walls as well as people being attacked.)