Analyse: Grave Encounters trailer and poster

Another film trailer I looked at was Grave Encounters (2011). The film is about a production crew who locks themselves inside an abandoned mental hospital that's supposedly haunted for their ghosthunting reality show. 

At the beginning of the trailer there is an establishing shot of the hospital that the film is based around. The image is low key lighting with a really spooky feel to the area. This automatically creates a negative atmosphere. The text is white which stands out against the dark, gloomy background.

At the beginning of the trailer there is footage that is supposed to be real footage from years ago showing some of the people that used to live in the building. The footage has be placed within a square with a black background. The footage seems more realistic as it is in black and white and isn't as clear as the other images in the trailer. The black background adds to the sinister atmosphere around the stories from the 'insane' people. There are also dates of when the videos were supposedly recorded. Having these video clips helps to give hint of what the film is about.

There is a mid-shot of the main characters of the film which helps the audience to establish who the film involves. The background is black which makes the characters stand out more. Their faces are lit up by what looks like a hand held torch. All of the characters are dressed in black which could give hints that the characters are in fact invovled in the evil spirits.

A close-up shot of one of the main characters in shown in night vision with a hand held camera. The close up shot allows the audience to see the reaction of the characters throughout the trailer, even though the lighting is very low key and dark. The green coloured image enables the audience to realize the film is set at night which is another typical convention of a horror movie. Especially as many unexplained, strange events occur at night time. At the point in the trailer there is diegetic dialogue  of the man speaking. He sounds out of breathe and scared which will make the audience feel on edge.

Shots of typical conventions of a horror movie, such as blood and unidentified figures all help to put the audience on edge even more and increase the tension in the trailer. In this shot the blood has been highlighted with a bright torch light, this high lights the fact it is being filmed at night. Alongside this shot there is diegetic dialogue of a man speaking who sounds very panicky and stressed.



Captions become more frequent as the trailer progresses. The text is often cut in between shots of the main characters looking extremely scared and worried. The text then relates to the fast pace shots of the the characters. There is non-diegetic sounds while the text is on screen but jumps to diegetic dialogue from the characters. The text is easy to read with the white text against the black background. It is simple so the audience don't get distracted and definitely read the text.

At this point in the trailer the diegetic and non-diegetic sound fades out and all the audience can hear is the sound of the camera filming and the sound of a man saying 'hello, hello.' The lost of sound creates a spooky atmosphere because it will makes the scream of the girl more terrifying.

At this point in the trailer the camera becomes very shaky. The fact that the trailer is mainly done by a hand-held camera gives the audience the view point of the characters. The camera becomes really unstable and moves around really fast as if the person videoing is running away. This makes the audience panic and feel as if it is them who is there. There is also diegetic dialogue of people screaming and running around making it seem more realistic.



The trailer uses typical conventions of a horror movie, such as fast editing and dark lighting. It doesn't tend to challenge any of the conventions and stick with a typical horror trailer style. However, this does still present the trailer well.  

 

Reflection on Trailer and Poster

 

Captions

In this trailer I liked the idea of using captions to inform the audience a bit more about what is happening. The sentences can add to the suspense and help to give me inform that may not be completely obvious. If I struggle to get across my story line in my trailer or feel some inform isn't clear, I might take this idea of using a black background with white text on to give more information.