The possession trailer analysis

I chose to analyse this trailer not only because it is an extremely recent representation of a thriller genre, but also because it incorporates and displays the characteristics of this genre in nearly every shot.
In my opinion a trailor for a thriller should catch an audiences attention from the first shot and create a curiosity and nerve to watch it, this is what possession does.

The editing of the trailer involves short, sharp shots cut together to produce a fast pace, building the tension for the audience watching. I believe there are roughly five – ten long takes used when neccessary which slow down the trailer. A voice-over is used on top of the first block of shots to add context to the action taking place on screen, this helps the audience to make sense of what is happening.
Like most thrillers/horrors i have noticed that the main editing used is in terms of non-diegetic music, normally an low errie piece that repeats and pulses through out the shots, having this music present creates the atmosphere in the trailer and the use of diegetic bangs and crashes in the right places make the audience jump and pulse quicken with the fast pace of the shots.

At the beginning of the trailor the mis en scene reminds me more of a romantic genre, it is brightly coloured and the actors involved are happy adding to this atmosphere, however the mis en scene cleverly changes when the young girl (the main protagonist) comes into possession of the wooden box, the actors become paler, the shots darker and sets dressed to be more dull. The darker lighting helps to make the atmosphere more eerie and also makes you focus more on what is happening in each shot as the visibility is reduced, by doing this the audience are more likely to jump at things happening on screen.

Camera work is very important when editing a trailer, i have noticed in this trailer for possesion there is unusually angled shots being used, this makes the shot awkward and slightly uncomfortable. Also being used are close-up’s, these types of shots are used massively in thrillers, they help to show the fear in the subjects reaction and in turn make the audience fear what is happening.

deciding on a genre.

My ident experiment with stop motion.

Here i have begun placing together my stop motion images to create a short ident.

After getting as far as i have with it, i have begun to realise just how much work it is and sadly it is distracting me from carrying on with more important research.

I have also decided to produce my trailer in a film noir style, black and white. However, i feel that this style ident will no longer work well with the theme of my trailer.

My Photo shoot for my ident.

Ident ideas

I found this stop motion production on youtube and loved the simplicity of it but the amount of effort that has gone into making it and the detail of the drawing, i would love to produce a stop motion for my ident.

quick Ident ideas..

My train of thought about a name for my production company began with thinking about the word camera, i wanted something based along the equipment used to produce a film however i felt this wouldn’t catch anyones attention and so i looked at some synonyms for the word camera and came up with a few more suggestions such as monocle and eyeglass however i chose to focus on the word periscope.

I chose this because i felt i could link it to the word pictures (another word for a movie theatre) easily and it would prove a catchy name for my product.

I have now began thinking about the ident for my production company and because it is a movie trailer we are required to produce i am playing around with the idea of somehow incorporating a camera with film (as shown above) with the name of the company being Periscope Pictures/pics.

postmodern films

Being John Malkovich, i found, was very interesting as a postmodern film. Just by watching the trailer you can see many of the characteristics being used, even watching the trailer it doesn’t quite make sense as there are random and unusual ideas being thrown around within it.

Within the film there is no sense of time or space, as shown in the trailer it is displayed in an office building with a floor at 7 and 1/2, a physical impossibility however here it is made into reality. The whole film is centred around the idea of being able to control another person by getting into there head, it relates well to psychoanalysis but rather than keeping it simple with mind games the concept of ‘getting into their head’ becomes reality when they find a portal into john malkovich’s sub-conscious.

This film rises the issue of ethics, although they (john cusack and his female co-worker, catherine keener) find this portal to Malkovich’s mind, do they have the right to sell it out to other people or should it rightly belong to John Malcovich?

postmodern films

Pulp fiction is well known for being a postmodern film, containing many of the characteristics needed for this style.  Intertextuality is used massively throughout the film with references to boxing, war, romance and gangster and there is an intentional absence of a time zone, there are hints within the way the subjects talk and the props used however these range from the 1960’s through the music used to the 1990’s therefore giving the clear feeling of no-time awareness.

The film is also made to feel very disorientating and confusing due to the way different feeling are thrown together, people are killed without a second thought etc.

All though the trailer does not seem completely unusual you can already see the postmodern characteristics within its short editing, the use of upbeat music within violent, deep felt moments seems disorientating and there is a use of unusual camera angles such as the back of people heads. Also a blaze look in subjects face as they are faced with violent situations.

 

What is postmodernism?

As part of our A2 course, this year we are required to study postmodernism.  Postmodernism is a wide-ranging term and can be used to describe many disciplines such as film, art, architecture and many more.

When trying to define postmodernism it can become very difficult as there is no proven definition. in essence, postmodernism is based on the idea that reality is in no way mirrored in the human understanding of it, but is constructed of what the mind tries to understand is it’s own reality.  In other words, postmodernism is based solely on a persons interpretation of reality and what the world means to us individually.

An example of postmodernism can be seen in this music video by the avalanches called ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’, both the video and the music display different characteristics of postmodernism.