Chaneesa- Textual Analysis of a Teaser Trailer

Film Title: Basement Jack

Year of Release: November 2009

Director: Michael Shelton

Producers: Eric Peter-Kaiser and Brian Patrick O’Toole

Production/Financing: Black Gate Entertainment and Island Gateway Films

Actors: Tiffany Shepis, Billy Morrison, Lynn Lowry and Eric Peter-Kaiser

Film Origin/Info:  Second part of loose trilogy.

Synopsis: Karen Cook would soon be known as the lone survivor of a seven-day killing spree perpetrated by a seventeen year old boy the world would come to call Basement Jack. For the next eleven years, Karen Cook lived in fear that one day Basement Jack would be released. Then, a court hearing in 2006 found that Jack Riley had not received a fair trial and he was released from a state institution. A year later, murders baring a shocking resemblance to Basement Jacks around the town of Downers Grove. Karen Cook that the only option left to her was to find Jack and kill him.

Basement Jack is the second part of a loose trilogy written and produced by Brian Patrick O’Toole. The first film is called ‘Evilution’ and both movies have scenes set in the same apartment building called the Necropoliton.

This textual analysis will be focusing on the teaser trailer for the second part of the trilogy ‘Basement Jack’, which was distributed by ‘Black Gate Entertainment’. The teaser is 42 seconds in length, which is a very good time for a teaser trailer.

The teaser opens up with a man who is dressed like a janitor who is in a dark looking room resembling a basement; he has a flashlight in his hand which he is shining to see if anybody is there. There is no sound heard at this point which connotes loneliness and a cold atmosphere. ‘BORN INTO DARKNESS’ is written in white writing is also seen on the screen.

A fade transition follows to a woman in the kitchen, the woman seems like a zombie with a white mask on so we cannot see her face she also has blood all over her. In the woman’s right hand she is holding a butchers knife but the audience is unaware what the object is in her left hand. There is sound effects of a heart beat and non-diagetic sound of loud charms, these sound are also synchronous because the sound goes with image moving. There is a colour effect on the image shown making it seem unrealistic or resembling a flashback or dream.

A sharp fade follows and returns to the janitor in the basement, it is a long shot of the janitor with his back towards the camera. The audience is then introduced to a new character, who is holding a machete, we cannot see the face of this person as we can only see the person’s back. When the character is introduced, a quick light (high key lighting) shines on the character’s hand and machete where we see blood all over it. For the audience this causes tension as we know the janitor is in trouble. In this shot white writing ‘DRIVEN BY RAGE’ appears on the screen while the character is walking towards the janitor.

14 seconds into the teaser we still haven’t heard any diegetic sound, this gives the audience an idea of mystery as all we can hear is the sharp non-diegetic sounds. We realise that the narration is done by the texts appearing in a number of shots.

There is a sharp cut to another part of a house; it appears as if it is the dining room, this shot is also moderately bloody. There are three people sitting around a table, one of them has no head and blood is splattered on the entire table and on the people that are sitting there. This is a quick shot; the transition into the next shot is a flash of light. It then returns to the basement as the man walks closer to the janitor. As this happens the heartbeat gets faster.

The shot followed is of a medium close up of a man with half of a face, his eyes are still opened as if he died in shock. This shot looks like it is in another part of a house, near a window as the audience can see it in the background. This shot also only lasts a second as if it is a still image or a flashback.

As the sound effect of the heartbeat increases, the tension for the audience also increases. Another still image of a woman with blood gushing from her neck appears on screen. We know she is dead as there is no sign of life in her.

When creating a teaser trailer, the pace is one the important key factor that is involved. From the beginning of the teaser, the pace is reasonably quick however, as the heartbeat gets quicker the flashing images and non-diegetic sounds also increase in pace which contributes to the tension. Towards the middle of the teaser, the fades turned into quick, sharp cuts. 25 seconds and onwards of the teaser the pace slowed down and the fast cuts turned back into the fades.

After seeing the image of the woman, there is a cut back to the basement where a close up is used. At this point the heartbeat has stopped which may connote the end of life as you need a heartbeat to survive. The janitor turns around and we see his facial expression, it remains as a close up. As the janitor turns his face towards the camera the non-diegetic sound disappears, it fades to complete darkness.

Just as the audience believe the trailer is over, a skull appears on screen revealing the title ‘BASEMENT JACK’ in capital letters but the word JACK is bold. This then fades away into “EVIL HAS A NEW ADDRESS.....YOURS!” it then fully fades to black.

A teaser trailer doesn’t have to give away the entire plot of a film as the aim of a teaser is to entice people and make them want to see it. I believe this teaser trailer does this very well. I have also come to acknowledge the fact that you do not have to use a voiceover or any diegetic sound to intrigue people, using narration by text is a very good way to lure people to watch it. Editing a teaser can also be very hard, this is also an important aspect as it plays it too plays a key role of contributing to appealing to an audience.

Chaneesa- Textual Analysis of a Magazine Cover

Denotation: The magazine cover consists of a colour photograph of a man wearing a metallic/chrome plated skull on his face. It is an extreme close up of the face as you cannot see any other art if the body. The background of the photograph is very dark (black) with white parts around also however we cannot detect what they are. The photograph takes up the whole of the magazine cover.

A little bit above the head is the masthead ‘FANGORIA’ and there are six separate coverlines, a puff advertising a competition and a main coverline.

A vertical barcode is visible at the bottom left corner of the magazine.

Masthead: Fangoria’s masthead is very distinctive; the colour of the writing is red with a white outline with no drop shadow. The font used is son serif and the writing is joined up. The writing used is geometrical shapes that have very sharp edges; this is one of the conventions of horror. There is no complication of the writing however it is different but not plain. Having a white outline makes the masthead stand out to the readers and it gives and edgy touch to it. From the name of the masthead ‘FANGORIA’ we can tell that is in an unusual name, and something to do with horror. What’s more the fact it is written in red shows the genre of the magazine as it connotes danger, blood, pain, power, the devil, fire, heat etc.

The cover photograph is of the chrome skull who is wearing a chrome/metallic skull on his face. We cannot see any facial expressions but the mask looks very malevolence so it puts the audience in apprehension of who is behind the mask or what this man is capable of. As the photograph is an extreme close up we cannot see any other part of this body, this may be because they want us as an audience to concentrate of the mask and nothing else as that is the main focus of the magazine. What we do know is that the main coverline relates with photo on the cover.

The main coverline that relates to the photograph says:

“LAID TO REST, HE KILLS YOU BEST!”

‘LAID TO REST’ is a movie that was released in 2009 written and directed by Robert Hall, the photograph on the front cover “chrome skull” is the main character in the film. ‘HE KILLS YOU BEST’ may be relating to how he killed the characters in the movie and they taken that and put it on the cover of the magazine and used it to advertise the film. It is also written in yellow which makes it stand out to the audience which is quite unusual because the genre of horror doesn’t generally use light colours, this goes against the conventions. in addition the ‘HE’ stands out from the rest of the writing as it has been made bigger and has a slant to it, which may show the distortedness of the man as it is emphasised on the word HE. ‘LAID TO REST’ is also written in the colour red but the font is much simpler than the font of the masthead. The main coverline rhymes which shows the wittiness to the magazine.

The other coverlines show that the main topics of this magazine are different films or programmes which also have a dark side to it and don’t cover any other topics but horror. The magazine concentrates mainly on films as Fangoria is an internationally-distrubuted US film fan magazine specialising in the genres of horror, slasher, splatter and exploitation films. There is also a variety of font used for the coverlines which doesn't make the magazine cover look plain; it also has different colours ranging from yellow to silver/metallic colours. There is a puff that is used on the front cover which is advertising a competition for a person to win a DVD, this highlights what type of audience buy this magazine.

The main conventions of the genre ‘horror’ is using dark, red colours and using sharp geometrical shapes, and FANGORIA appears to follow the conventions of the genre although it does go against it a few times by using the colour yellow which seems to bright for horror movies to use also using a puff which is in a circle appears to be unusual also as horror movies use quite sharp shapes like triangles.

When I consider all of these points, I would suggest that the target audience for this magazine would be males aged 16-25, who have an interest in reading reviews of the newest horror movies out. It wouldn’t really appeal to the female audience as it is really dark and most female prefer the opposite.

 

Chaneesa-Textual Anaylsis of Film Poster

Film Title: Orphan

Year of Release: August 2009

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Producers: Joel Silver, Susan Downey, Leonardo DiCaprio

Production/Financing: Warner Bros.

Actors: Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarguard, Isabelle Fuhrman

Synopsis: Prospective parents Kate and John find their lives turned upside down; their marriage is falling apart, and the demons of Kate's past begin manifesting themselves in a series of horrifying nightmares. Deciding that the best means of achieving some semblance of normalcy is to simply adopt, the dejected couple visits a local orphanage. There, they are both drawn to a nine-year-old girl named Esther. But Esther isn't as sweet as first impressions suggest, and almost immediately after welcoming the young child into their home, Kate and John suspect that something is terribly wrong with their adoptive daughter.

Denotation: The film poster consists of a coloured photograph of a young girl looking directly at the camera. It is a medium close up as it stops midway just below the young girls’ shoulders. The background of the photograph is misty and dark but with a light shadow outlined around the young girls’ head. The photograph takes up the whole poster as she is the main focus.

At the bottom of the poster, on the shirt/dress is the name of the film, some of the letters of which are written in upper case, identical to a child like writing. Below the film name is the date of release and a coverline written in red. Above the young girls’ head is the main coverline which is written in white which also relates to the picture.

The title of the film is very distinctive; it is just plain white writing which looks like it has been written by a child who is practicing writing as some of the letters are in upper case. It is a son serif type of font and the writing is also very simple, but it makes a statement. The colour white connotes a variety of things such as light, goodness, innocence, purity, it is also considered to be the colour of perfections. The colour also connotes safety and cleanliness and it has a positive connotation opposed to black, when we think of all these connotations we think of a young child. Knowing the film and watching the film it gives the impression like it’s the complete opposite. It appears like we know what the film is going to be about because of the film name ‘ORPHAN’ although the different coverlines makes it more mysterious because we don’t actually know who Esther is.

The photograph on the poster is of the character Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) who is the orphan in the movie. The picture looks a bit cartoonish which can be somewhat unrealistic, around Esther’s head and bits of her clothing and the side appears blurred and faded out. Esther is wearing a very childlike dress with a crisscross pattern on it; it is somewhat basic and straightforward. Piglets are in her hair finished off with a bow which somehow shows her innocence. There is a mysterious red band round her neck which makes her seem less childlike; overall she has a candid image. Esther has no emotion in her eyes or her face which makes it stern as a normal child would have some kind of life in them or maybe be smiling which tells the audience that something is wrong. The main image is just of Esther and nobody else which refers to the name of the film ‘ORPHAN’ as the definition is when a child has lost both parents, so the poster symbolises that in a way because she is by herself. The poster overall seems to be quite dark, mystifying and very serious.

The main coverline that relates to the main image says:

‘THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH ESTHER.’

This may be referring to why Esther’s picture is so serious and why there is no emotion in her eyes or face. The writing is also plain and simple and makes the audience question whether there is something wrong with this ‘innocent’ looking child. It also makes the audience wonder what exactly is wrong with her. The writers have given the audience a hint of what to expect saying that there is something wrong with her but they haven’t told us as the audience what it is, so it still leaves us in apprehension about what is still to come.

There is also another coverline just underneath the film name with the release date:

‘JULY 24 CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?’

 Asking a rhetorical question seems out of the ordinary and it makes you the audience question what is there to hide, also it is written in red which makes it strange as the colour connotes blood and danger however it also connotes love and passion which says a lot about the film itself, that it is filled with all of these connotations.

Both coverlines use a son serif font connoting that it is reasonably a modern film; it also suggests the film is out of the ordinary as the film name is even written in a distorted format. Considering all these points, I would suggest that the most likely target audience would be people aged 16-25 who like scary, dark, tense films. (Male and female).

Treatment

For our A2 coursework we are going to make a teaser trailer for a horror movie. We will use a digital video camera for filming and Final Cut Pro to edit. The target audience for the trailer is for people of a young age that enjoy watching horror movies, 16-25 male and female. The ideal place to show the trailer is YouTube as it is more practical and diverse meaning many people internationally may be able to see it.

Meeting the Group- Grace

Name: Grace McGettigan


Role(s): Main role is actress within the trailer, creative designer (logo), filming and editing.

Meeting the group- Chaneesa

Name: Chaneesa Chalmers


Role(s): Main role is doing the make up, one of actors in the trailer, helping to edit and film.

Meeting the Group- Robert

Name: Robert Everett


Role(s): Main role is editing, actor within the trailer and filming.