Here is the official trailer for 'Paranormal Activity'.
The plot of the film is a young couple move to a new home in the USA but quickly become terrorised by a paranormal presence which starts to take over their lives.
As you can see from the trailer, it is in a sort of documentary style where we are sold to the film through the audiences reaction and parts of the narrative- not just the narrative of the film. At the beginning of the trailer it also shows text saying that they held pre-release audience screenings of the film. The audiences reactions in the trailer were used to create 'hype' around the film in the media and via word of mouth. This leads me to believe it had a positive effect because the film made nearly $200 million from only costing a mere $15000 to make!!
The trailer doesn't actually use any music, it uses the actors voices to give some understanding to what the narrative is about. This is surprising because nearly every trailer for a scary film I have seen has used tense music to create tension in the trailer. There are some loud bangs in the trailer to give shocks and make the viewers jump to give them an idea of what is to come in the film.
The film has no A-list actors/celebrities, only Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat who play the two main characters. This is unusual as most successful box office films contain popular A-list celebrities, however this is done because the film is supposed to be about real events and therefore to get this across to the audience they really need to have actors/actresses that make the film and narrative look like it could be a 'real' scenario.
In terms of editing of the trailer, there are jump cuts throughout to give the idea of suspence and a fast moving narrative. It also keeps jumping to the audiences reaction and then back to some shots from the narrative. This is done to again create tension and make you want to know what is happening in the film for the audience to react in such a way.
By Kate.
No comments:
Post a Comment