In this trailer review I shall be assessing 'Diary of the Dead'. I have realised that most horror film trailers start with a very slow start (an equilibrium) as I believe this helps to draw the audience into a false sense of security. Then when everything starts to go wrong (the dis-equilibrium) it effects the audience more then just having scary footage all the way through the trailer. So when I come to organising the order of my clips in my film, I will start off slow and end with fast/short clips. I have noticed that this structure very much applies to 'Diary of the Dead'.
In this clip it shows 'Jason Creed', one of the main characters in this film, doing a video diary and introducing
himself. As you can tell by his facial expressions, he is quite happy as nothing has gone wrong yet. You can also tell that the film is in the equilibrium state because he is clean and has no dirt on his clothes meaning he hasn't yet been attacked by the zombies. What I like about this clip is the transition from itself into the next by using a slightly fuzzy effect that looks like the camera was just being turned on. This helps to give the audience a sense of realism and also shows the style in which the film has been filmed (hand-held camera).
This image was the shortest clip that I noticed from the trailer. The thing about this is that everyone knows this is the error screen for when you have no signal or if your television has broken. This screen is the transition from when everything is all right to when everything goes wrong. Even though this clip doesn't even last for a second, it was very noticeable. I like this idea because it shows the distinct moment in the trailer when the dis-equilibrium occurs.
This clip is of real life footage of riots and looting. Even though a zombie invasion is unlikely in real life, the footage helps the audience to understand the havoc, mayhem and confusion that would occur if an invasion did happen. What I like mostly about the real life footage is that because it is so hectic it could well have been a zombie invasion, but the footage can be interpreted differently by different people.
Towards the end of the trailer the pace of the clips become a lot faster then they were at the beginning. A lot of the clips last no longer then 3 seconds each allowing the film producers to show the audience a lot of the film without giving anything away. Also there are many short and fast clips of zombies faces which frightens the audience but at the same time exciting them and make them want to see more of the film.
When I saw this trailer for the first time, I really enjoyed it. It made me feel like I wanted to see the film and, in fact, ended up doing so. By using the same sort of structure for my trailer, I am hoping I will be able to create the same effect on my audience.
Ross
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