TEXTUAL ANALYSIS.

The trailer belongs to the 1999 movie, ‘The Blair Witch Project’. It was a small budget movie, released worldwide. The narration of a movie shows us three main characters, who travel to Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch. They all went missing and the footage was discovered later, edited and released. The genre of the movie is ‘horror’ and it is hand held made i.e. ‘Point of view’. The movie related to unsolved mystery of the Blair Witch, and thus movie also shows some paranormal activities.

Our main idea revolves around paranormal, so it was vital for us to analyze trailers of such movies.

VISUAL:

The trailer begins with the lines stating of three students who went missing in the October of 1994. These very first lines engage the audience emotionally to the media text and get the attention. Then continuing this pattern, some critique’s views are shown regarding the movie.

Phrases such as, ‘Genuinely Frightening” and ‘Scary as hell’ are ample enough to get my attention. This is kind of the strategy that we will develop when doing our Advance Portfolio so that we can engage our audience and also raise their expectations.

Talking about the camera movements and shots is very simple. As the camera is handheld, the movements are jerky and shaky. This is also a convention of a horror film. Only introducing the shots taken at night increases the horror effect and the trailer does not show any face or introduce a character visually.

Editing is used in the trailer. Several dissolves and fades to Wight are used. These sudden fade in and out means a fast editing- convention of such genre. The title of the movie flashes and creates disturbance in the viewer.

AUDIO:

Using diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, the trailer gets your attention. The screaming of a girl and of boy calling ‘JOSH’ is a sudden surprise, Getting lost of a character in a Horror/Thriller movie is now a convention. Stereotypically using the haunting score the director has created and enhanced the fright in the audience.

The voice, “Tell me, where you are Josh? “Is creepy and gives you sort of goose pimples.

Thus by a mixture of both visual and audio effects, the genre effect is doubled.

Posted by ZAYAN

Link:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZu1cTg-xUM

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS.

This trailer is of the movie known as “Paranormal Activity 2”. It is a sequel to the last movie trailer I analyzed and we will again be analyzing this trailer bit by bit as we did with the last one. To begin with, this is another movie in the popular horror/suspense genre. This movie also focuses on paranormal beings and by analyzing this trailer I plan to incorporate some of its good points in our teaser trailer.

VISUAL

The trailer started off where the trailer of “Paranormal Activity” ended, we are once again shown the shot where the man crashes into the camera, however it goes ahead and shows us another character this time; a woman, presumably possessed, which lunges at the camera and we are shown the grasps of audience in the cinema. The shot changes to security footage which shows us a baby and dog in a very still and silent room, it changes rapidly to show us a shot of the backside with the pool and kitchen, here we can see that even though all windows and doors are locked, the sauce pans are moving. The shot changes back to the baby and the dog and this time we clearly see a paranormal activity taking place; the chair moving by itself, after that we are treated to cryptic messages flashing across the screen; “Nothing can prepare you” and then back to the dog and baby, however this time, the dog is barking at the door and the baby is fully awake and staring at the same door. The screen blacks out and the message continues “For what’s next”. The shot cuts to a footage of another and this time quickly shifts back to the room for a mere second in which we glimpse a woman standing in the room, without the dog and baby being present. It quickly cuts to darkness.

AUDIO

The trailer mostly consisted of diegetic sounds such as the dog’s barking, however the non-degetic sounds including the camera switching and the heavy, scary sort of noise made in the last scene are the ones used for unsettling the audience and making them curious. Just as the same in the last trailer an unsettling scene was right after a very silent and normal scene in order to put audience off guard.

Posted By Hassan.

Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07XbSk7Rjt4

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS.

This is a trailer of the movie “Paranormal Activity”, as the title suggests the movie is about supernatural elements. Our trailer is also going to be of this specific genre so it was important for me to break it down into little details to fully analyze it.

VISUAL
People: In the entire trailer we were shown two prominent characters; a male and a female and a glimpse of a possessed woman.
Location: The main location used in the trailer is a house occupied by the main characters, the shots featured included of places; the bedroom, the staircase, the hallway and the study.
Camera: This is where the interesting part of the trailer is, the trailer and movie both are shot by a first person shooting technique. It means we see the movie from the character’s point of view, except in the night scenes when the camera is placed in front of the couple’s bed giving us the view of the entire room and corridor outside it.
Editing: The trailer is edited in such a way that the viewer is able to grasp the idea behind the complicated storyline in under a minute. There is also a cryptic sounding message edited between the footage: “Experience it for you self”

AUDIO
Volume: Like in most Horror/Suspense movie trailers, the volume remains normal for most part of the trailer, but in scenes which contain horror or unsettling images, the volume becomes louder. These unsettling shots are usually done either randomly or after a long silence in order to shock the audience and grab their attention.
Accent: All actors had normal American accents.
Tone: The tone used by characters was casual, everyday tone in order to connect with the audience by showing them that the characters aren’t very different from themselves.
Diegetic Sounds: The sounds made by the Paranormal being are also heard in one part of the trailer, a very quite whispering.

Posted by Hassan.

Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ4YZ_pPPNQ

INTRO

Hey! Everybody. We have finally started our advance portfolio...
and the team is:

      

(Muhammad Hassan)                             (Saud Zafar)                                  (Zayan Nadeem)







Posted By:
The Group