R25 - Trailer analysis - Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

Paranormal Activity 3 Movie Teaser Trailer - Textual Analysis

The Film Title: Paranormal Activity 3

Year of release: 2011

Directors: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman

Production/Financing Company: Paramount Pictures

Synopsis:
In 1988, strange things start to
  happen, a young Katie and Kristi live with their mother, Julie, and her
  boyfriend, Dennis, a wedding videographer, who decides to use his camera to
  discover the strange occurrences. Kristi begins interacting with an invisible
  friend named Toby.


Paranormal activity is a horror that gives out a sense of mystery, as it deals with the origin of demonic presence.

Textual Analysis

The trailer begins with slow pace clips; this is to set the narrative and draw us in to the story, the slow clips are separated by fades into no signals. This is an effective way to start the trailer as it allows us to know what the movie is about, as slow camera movements hold more information than quick ones. The narrative in the trailer is in chronological order this is evident as the camera displays the date and time, and as the trailer moves forward so does the date. However, as the trailer continues the shots become disorderly as the dates start to appear in different order; this easily creates suspense and mystery, leaving the viewer with the want to see the film.

This film is set in a house; this is a feature in many horror films. Various shots like the bathroom and the garden can indicate that the characters live comfortably; the family seem to be happy yet isolated (e.g. Sisters celebrating birthday alone), typical of American horrors, distrusting the equilibrium.

In terms of characters, the main ones are shown the attention, making us warm to them. Revealed characters include the mother, who can be represented as a damsel in distress which supports this particular genre and also the victim as she is thrown back in the trailer and trapped in the bedroom. Another character shown is the Dennis (the mother’s boyfriend) who is the videographer, he is represented as a hero that is daring as the mother and girls turn to him in their times of need, he is also a type of character normally represented in this genre. The girls are a major part of the storyline as one of them is in contact with the demonic presence, which she calls her friend; she can be represented as a helper. A man who seems to be an advisor is represented as a victim as he is targeted first. Lastly, we have the demonic presence which is a mystery and appears in various shapes and is also invisible, it is represented as the villain as it disturbs the peace.

There is no voice over present in the movie teaser trailer, but this is not needed as the diegetic sound of dialogue pretty much sums up the narrative as it is in a documentary style.

Captions are revealed in the featured trailer to give us information about the film; ‘October’ gives us the month the film come out this is to make the audience more eager on the release of the film as it is official coming, the font of the text is very documentary like, giving us an insight to the type of film. ‘Discover’ is the first caption that is written in white connoting a ghost, this connotation can be brought about by the caption, as we may have to find out what is haunting the family, which may in fact be a ghost. The following captions read ‘How the activity’ and ‘began’ which follow through from the previous caption, meaning that the audience have to watch the whole trailer to get the information. The name of the film is revealed at the end ‘Paranormal Activity 3’, which seems to be a convention of a trailer as they try to make the name of the film stick in our heads as it is at the end. The colour of the text is like the colour seen through night vision goggles, which connotes a white ghostly text.

http://mindblownproductions.weebly.com/horror-movie-trailer-textual-analysis.html