The Lovely Bones teaser trailer analysis

The opening shot fades from a whole white background to a smaller white background with black text and border. The text reads; ‘from academy award winning director Peter Jackson’, this tells the viewers details of the film which

may attract niche audiences such as individuals who follow this directors work. The fade in technique used in this shot helps create a peaceful opening similarly working alongside the use of non-diegetic sound; the audience are

immediately exposed to a light, happy sound effect which works nicely creating a sense of cheerfulness around this film.

The second shot is delivered through a jump cut; the audience can see two girls laughing while lying on the bed beside each other. This scene is

emphasised through the use of dialogue – the girls can be heard laughing which increases the happy vibe to the teaser trailer. This shot lasts only 1

second; however, this is enough for desired effect to be conveyed.

The next shot has more dialogue from the characters – the audience are given details into who each character is; a close up of the young girl allows viewers to realise her young vulnerable age, a teenager, she exclaims “Bye

dad”, which shows a close family bond. A pan out from the girls face to a long shot of the scene whereby the setting and other characters can be seen then

allows the audience to recognise the father, who exclaims back to his daughter; “Bye sweetie”.

The lighting in this shot drastically changes to a high contrast ratio between front and fill light – this creates an atmospheric almost unreal choice of

lighting. The camera zooms to a close up of the young girls face once again. The dialogue is spoken by this character; she explains her age to the

audience, fourteen years old.

This shot is then quickly jump cut to a video footage of the same young character riding a bike. The footage seems to have a retro filter which

suggests to the viewer that this film is set back in the 80s or 90s. The use of costume throughout this many shots also implies this as jumpers and jeans

that would have been popular back then are seen to be worn be the characters.

The atmospheric music significantly shifts from the upbeat sound before to a disturbed gathering of sounds that make up

The lighting also turns dark and gloomy – low key lighting is used to create this effect. Immediately, viewers assume something bad has

happened. This is confirmed by the use of dialogue which is continued from the previous shots “I was 14 years old... (two shots later) when I was murdered”. This dialogue is upsetting for viewers as the character

is so young, an emphasis has been put on her age because of this.