I have chosen to analyse the Other trailer, it is one films which has inspired me, for my trailer. It is also a supernatural which is the sub genre of my film. The plot of the film, centres around the protagonist widow Grace Stewart lives in a mansion with her daughter Anne and her son Nicholas. Grace lost her husband Charles in the World War II and their children are photosensitive and Grace keeps the curtains and the doors closed to protect Anne and Nicholas against the sunlight. Grace raises her children with strict discipline and following religious principles. Grace hires the strange housekeeper, a muted maid and gardener. Peculiar events start to occur at the home when Anne claims that there is a boy named Viktor that visits them. Grace then discovers there home is haunted.
The trailer follows the codes and convention of trailer with beginning with a green band trailer title card.The trailer begins with a woman’s voice speaking, with soft and calm well-spoken English accent. She begins speaking before the trailer has even started and while the dimension films logo is still on the screen. The woman’s voice says ‘Are you sitting comfortably, and then I shall begin…’ This dialogue is very effective because it shows that a story is going to be told and as it is a rhetorical question aimed directly at the audience, it grabs their attention from the beginning. It gives the viewer an impression of the woman that she could be a mother, as if she could be telling a story her children. The audience feel as if the women speaking to them one to one, which makes feel special therefore making them listen carefully to her story.
The trailer then cut to the outside of the house surrounded by fog, setting the location.You also hear a soundtrack, a light piano piece adding to the eerie atmosphere. Before many quick fades showing the interior of the house, you see a grand staircase, spacious rooms, and stained glass windows. This suggests the family living there are wealthy. The woman (protagonist) continues speaking informing the three other characters that her previous servant disappeared. “paintwork has been rather neglected since the servants disappeared over a week ago” one of the three characters replies “you mean they just vanished?” The protagonist declares that they had vanished “into thin air”. This suggests to the audience there is something creepy about the house and that the three people are her new servants.
The woman introduces the three people to her children who are standing under a dim lamp. This creates a symboltic link between the trailer to the film poster as the women is holding the same lamp from the poster can be seen in the The old woman leans down and introduces herself to the children as their ‘new nanny.’
After every scene it fades out, this could be to symbolise and relate with the disappearance of the servants or link with the theme of death in the film. It then shows the daughter speaking to the nanny asking “are you going to leave us too?” “The others said they wouldn’t, but they did and then it happened”. Within a line of dialogue spoken by The daughter, she says film title this suggest the film narrative is missing servants .The daughter comes across slightly disturbed by what she talks says then says ‘And then it happened’ this makes the audience very curious about what has ‘happened’. The music then gets louder and scarier to build up more tension and giving the audience the feeling of panic.
The protagonist tell one of the servants that her children “sometimes have strange ideas, but you mustn’t pay any attention. Children will be children.” This suggests to the audiences that something of the supernatural being is in their home, that the young son and daughter have picked upon and that the mother thinks they are just being naughty and lying. Or it could suggest the Mother knows there is something strange happening in the house she is trying to hide it by telling her servants not to pay attention to her children.
The next scene you see the children sleeping in their curtain move, you hear a stab of noise before the camera focuses on the boy asking her sister “why have you opened the curtains?!” his sister responds in creepy devilish voice “It was Victor”. From this scene the audience can guess that the sub genre of the film is supernatural. The scene cuts to the mother shouting at her daughter; “You told your brother there was someone else in the room” and she replies; “There was”. This suggest the Victor is haunting the house and could have something to do with servants disappearing.
A conversation is shown between the daughter and her nanny where the nanny tells her has seen them too” This tells the audience there is more than one ghost in the house.and continues “that sometimes the world of the dead gets mixed up with the world of the living”. She says ‘Sometimes the world of the dead gets mixed up with the world of the living. The nanny says ‘Sooner or later she will see them and everything will be different.’ While the nanny speak there is a pan shot of the woman looking around a room in the house, she looks very scared as she starts to notice a change in her house.
The shots change much quicker and almost flash on and off the screen, the music gets louder and faster. The shots suddenly stop and show a shot of the woman looking in a mirror, the camera zooms in to shows a door reflected in the mirror, the images of the woman is blurred and the camera focuses on the door that is mysteriously moving without anyone being there. This confirms to the audience there is definitely supernatural presense in her house. The woman, frightened and full of panic in contrast to her calm soft voice at the beginning of the trailer.
A Close up shots are used to show drawings that have been done by the daughter. The drawings are of the people that she sees in the house. The mother then asks “what do the numbers stand for next to them?” girls replies “ that’s the number of times I have seen them” A lot of the shots that are shown from the film are of the mother in panic about what is happening in her house. This scares the viewer and shows them that the film is full of shocks.
There is then a montage of it fast-paced clips in which builds the audience exciting. They show parts of scenes within the film of the women and her children looking scared. They also show the silhouettes of unknown people, “the others” The screen then blackens and you can hear an old woman saying, ‘Sooner or later they will find you.’ This creates a symbiotic link to the poster as those words are the posters tag line. ‘The Others’ then appears on the black screen like light creeping through cracks. At the very end of the trailer there is a sting showing short scene from the film where the woman sees her daughter as an old woman; this is done to show the viewer that the film is not as predictable as it seems by suggesting that there could be a dark side to all of the characters and to give the final twist as well as trying to frighten the audience for the last time before the trailer ends.
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