Technical Analysis

For the technical analysis, I decided to compare two film trailers that are 33 years apart to see how much change there has been over a short period in film history. The trailers I analysed were the 1976 trailer for the film Carrie, directed by Brian De Palma ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJe0iVo8y3A ) and the 2009 trailer for the film Jennifer's Body directed by Karyn Kusama. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beINapRLbFc )

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In Carrie there are a total of about 29 scenes, however the opening scene which is set during the school's 'Prom Night' is re-used and repeated throughout the trailer showing the audience that the main action of the film is going to happen at the prom. The other scenes that are used are quite long, lasting for about 5-6 seconds which considering the trailer lasts for 2 minutes and 14 seconds, builds up the suspense. The trailer uses the convention of a voice over, the audience is told something about either the setting or Carrie herself and then we get a match on action between the narrative and scene. An example of this is, when the voice over says: "the girl who lives in that creepy house," the camera than cuts to a wide angle shot of a big and "creepy" house. After that the camera then jump cuts to a window where we can see Carrie looking out from.

Also, when Carrie is doing something paranormal or evil, we hear the non-diegetic sound of a high pitched violin which mimics the beat of a heart. It sounds almost like someone is running their fingers down a chalkboard, showing the audience that Carrie must be the villain in the film. Furthermore, whilst that happens we hear some non-diegetic music being played, along with that we also see a red coloured screen with a image of Carrie looking straight at the camera; there is then a match on action as the music quickens up to a heart beat pace and we dramatically jump cut to an extreme close up of her eye.

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Unlike the trailer for Carrie, the trailer for Jennifer’s Body uses very different conventions. It has around 52 scenes, which are not repeated once throughout the trailer unlike the trailer for Carrie. The main reason for this is that there is more money put into trailers then there was in 1976. This trailer also uses sex as a selling point. An example of this is that the main character is played by Megan Fox who is seen as a sex symbol and the makers of the trailer know this and use it to draw in the male audience. It explains why the trailer opens with her swimming what looks like naked in a big river. This is not used in Carrie because back in the 1970s this would have made the audience think this was some kind of adult movie instead of a horror movie, times have changed and we as a audience and society have become more accustom to sex in the media.

.....Another difference is the scene length in Jennifer’s Body the scenes do not last longer than about 10 seconds making the build up more tense and drawing the audience in by creating the enigma of what actually happens in the film. Moreover, the convention of using a voice over which is used in the Carrie trailer is not used in the Jennifer's Body trailer. This is because the conventions that are drawing audiences in are different from what they were 30 years ago. However, both trailers use the red screen effect when a character is bleeding or evil, in Jennifer's Body this is used when Jennifer is eating a boy and is part of a sequence of quick cuts. In Carrie, this is used for a good half of the trailer and it symbolises Carrie's turning evil and killing her class mates.

.....Even thought there has been 30 years of changes to conventions and trailers over this period the main plot and classic conventions have stayed the same. For example, they both use female problems as the main plot line, in Carrie she is bullied, in Jennifer's Body the two main characters are fighting over a boy and deals with the issue of self-esteem. Moreover, the convention of building up to the big finish is used in both trailers as it is the classic horror trailer convention and is guaranteed to appeal to the films target audience.
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After analysing the two trailers I can see that the main difference is the fact that technology and audiences have changed. There has been over 30 years of improvement to technology, making the special effects more lifelike and greater in size. As well as that, greater special effects and bigger budgets have made horror films one of Hollywood's top grossing products as well as raising the audience's expectations as what conventions should be used in these films. Furthermore, we as an audience have changed. In our society we expect to go to the cinema and see a very bloody, violent and sexy horror film. Back in the 1970's however, people would have just wanted to be frightened, our expectations have been raised so high that films are classed a flop before the audience have had a chance to view or make any decisions about them.
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This research has shown me how I can shape my trailer to draw in and appeal to a bigger audience. By using some of the conventions which have been used in recent trailers of this genre, combined with some of the classic conventions which will give the audience the knowledge of what genre our trailer is. This will allow us to appeal to our target audience which we focusing around the young adults/ older teenagers demographic. By using these conventions, I think it will make our film look original and create interest from our target audience and make them want to watch the feature film.