Trailer AnalysisAnnabelle

Annabelle

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paFgQNPGlsg

The trailer opens by introducing the setting of the film with the use of a long shot. As it’s night time it instantly gives it a spooky feel.

It then has a close up of two characters, this is telling the audience they are going to features a lot in the film (main characters).

Quite early on in the trailer there’s a lot of fast cuts with bright lights, building up tension for the audience also causing the to be slightly scared of what’s happening.

There’s a zoom into the doll that’s on the film poster, catching the audiences attention to the doll that they’ve probably seen on the poster already.

Like the other two trailers, the audience are told the producer of the film, in a black out. This allows the trailer to flow better.

A wide shot is used to make the viewer think they are suppose to look at the lady but there attention gets draw to the women walking in the corner. The audience is now questioning where the women has come from and who she is.

The audience was shown a few close ups of the character using the sewing machine, making them wonder if something is about to happen. Building up more tension.

There is then a close up showing that the characters finger started to bleed from the sewing machine.

There’s then some happy, pleasant shots broken up by black outs, which is the complete opposite to the fast paced cuts we saw at the beginning.

The shot is quite bright and colourful unlike any of the other shots before in the trailer.

• Towards the end of the trailer there are more fast cuts, this is like the other two trailer. While the audience sees the fast cutting the music is also building up tension as it gets faster and faster, this is something horror trailers do a lot to make the scenes more scary.

• The trailer includes dialogue and also dramatic non-diagetic sounds when something happens. Towards the end the music sounds like a jewellery box, however it sounds spooky.

How is the narrative portrayed in the trailer?

• The opening clip of the trailer is a small house, this is introducing the setting to the audience. You then see a young couple in bed, this could suggest they are married as they live together.

• You then see the outside of the house again but the shot is taken from across the street so you can see the surroundings. It looks like a stereotypical American street in films. You hear the women talk, she has an American accent, which tells the audience the story is most likely set in America.

• You see the couple with boxes, suggesting they’ve moved house maybe because they’re starting a family.

• The trailer doesn’t give much away about the time the film is set, but from the furnishings of the house it could be early 2000s.

• Towards the end of the trailer there are lots of fast paced cuts, showing the audience a lot of parts from the film. This is making the want to see more of what happens, which may make them want to see it at the cinema.

Target audience

• Annabelle is a certificate 15 which means it’s targeted at 15 years and over. From the trailer I don’t think the target audience would be anything over 23. Most certificate 15 horror films have quite a similar storyline which may not interest the older generation. Even though the characters are normally a similar age to the target audience i think horror films base it around a family when it rated 15 because it’s not as gory or as frightening as 18s, so the family based storyline portrays this.

Who does the trailer represent?

• The trailer introduces the audience to a young American couple. In the trailer they are shown moving into a new house, this could suggest they are a working/middle class couple in their late 20s.

• The trailer also shows a Vicar, they are seen as quite professional, middle class people. But they can also be a sign of death. Which could mean there’s been a death earlier on, or one happens in the film.