The Shining trailer analysis

The Shining trailer analysis

Genre

• This trailer is an 18 certificate, meaning there is no restrictions.

• First thing we see is a shot of an isolated area, stereotypical horror represents horror as Steve Neal said genre is shown through repetition, I have seen similar shots before.

• Slow editing in the trailer creating an eerie feel, puts the viewer on edge.

• Throughout the trailer we see weapons such as knives and axes that are often used to portray death or fighting.

• The trailer ends showing the movie title in red and black distorting, stereotypical colour and style for the genre.

Representation

• Rather stereotypical, portrays the mother as a protective female, when she holds the child whilst screaming at the male villain.

• Male is portrayed as the psycho villain as expected from a horror.

• Close up shots used to represent the emotions and expressions of characters.

• Creates the question of is the child affected when we see him holding a knife? Children are often seen as vulnerable.

Narrative

• Todorovs theory suggests that in all films we start with an original equilibrium that is calm and settled then disturbed and goes up and down with peaks throughout the film.

• This idea is shown similarly in this trailer, wee see an ordinary family and the father is then affected and goes mad, going to attack his family.

• However it is not like the usual horror trailer as we don’t see many of the peaks in the narrative, in fact we see quite a lot of low points including a lot of speaking.

• However from the trailer I can see the idea of the film, the mother protects her child from a mental father suggested through him attacking the door with an axe.

Audience

• 18 certificate means that no one under that age can watch, making the audience much smaller than that of an action that would be 12 – 15.

• 18 also means that there are no restrictions on what can be said / shown, meaning that it could offend people.

• The trailer suggests that there will be a lot of violence and possibly someone getting killed with an axe? So it would be targeting a very small audience into bloody films.

Media Language

• Cinematography: Lots of close up shots to show fear and emotions but also long shots portraying isolation.

• Editing: Rather slow editing, like a montage showing various scenes including some peaks in the narrative

• Sound: unlike other trailers where we would usually just hear a high pitch / screeching score we also heard a voice over talking you through, including words such as “isolation” suggesting these people aren’t like normal society?

• Mis-en-scene: rather stereotypical, see murder weapons and its set away from the rest of society.