The horror-mystery genre of this 2010 hit, 'Insidious', is clearly conveyed through the four vital components of movie-making - shot types, editing, sound and mise en scene.
Shot Types
There are a wide variety of shot types used throughout this trailer - one of the first being a medium close-up of the father figure Josh, as a woman asks him "Are you ready?" and he answers "Ok". This gives the impression that the audience is being asked if they are ready for this terrifying trailer and what horror the film has to offer. This frightening feeling is constant all the way through the trailer, such as when there is a medium camera shot showing a curious/ scared looking Renai (the main mother character) around a dark hallway in the house and ending up in the children's bedroom where we are shown a slight high angle shot of a wooden horse rocking ominously by itself. The camera then reverses to a low angle shot so that we see Renai bend down to steady the rocking horse, and the camera slowly moves up towards the ceiling where you expect to see something terrifying, but are actually just lured into a false sense of security when there is nothing there. This is a useful horror trailer technique that I could use in my own trailer to keep my audience on the edge of their seats in terror. Next, there is a point of view (or POV, for short) shot from Renai's POV as she looks up at the ceiling and the camera too looks up at the ceiling to show us what she is seeing. The shot looks up at the ceiling as there is some strange banging noise, and the camera goes back to a high angle shot showing Renai drop a baby monitor in terror as something abnormal yells in a deep voice out of it. There is another POV shot to make the audience feel like they are walking through the dark corridors of the house with the speaker (the elderly medium woman), and the shot ends with the POV looking in Dalton's (the main boy in a comatose state) bedroom and seeing some human-like dark shadow stood in the corner. This POV is particularly successful in putting the audience in the character's shoes and making them feel more involved in the film, whilst keeping up the terror through the twists and turns in the house hallway. Finally, there are two good uses of extreme close ups in this trailer - the first is when the camera focuses closely on the door handle moving up and down, as though someone is desperately trying to open it on the other side and this coupled with the loud distorted music creates a frightening atmosphere. The second and last extreme close up is when the camera focuses extremely closely on one of the eyes of the elderly medium, and we see her eye move quickly side to side in fear. This combined with all the various shot types in this trailer are successful in creating tension and fear.
Editing
Like most horror films, this Insidious trailer sticks to the typical editing codes and conventions for the horror genre by using mainly jump cuts and text. For example, the cuts from the actual film footage to the text "From the makers of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and SAW", and this is a clever enticement technique since these two films are infamous in the horror genre and have generated millions, thus giving people the feeling that Insidious could be as amazing and scary as Paranormal Activity and Saw. The trailer starts out positively, with a series of jump cuts revealing the typical everyday lives of the family from Renai fulfilling her motherly housewife role when cooking breakfast in the kitchen and her and Josh laughing happily together. However, the spooky atmosphere is maintained with the metronome sound continuing over the top of the jump cuts and the speed keeps it fast-paced and the audience on edge until the last jump cut - when the son Dalton is climbing a rickety ladder and the ladder rung unexpectedly snaps and Dalton tumbles to the floor. After this upsetting scene and throughout the trailer afterwards, the "INSIDIOUS" text enlarges each time the trailer cuts away from the film footage to the text, and it becomes more distorted and unnatural over time, even to a point where the text is so large that it is panned across the screen with flashing lights and what appears to be several rows of eyeballs - this keeps the audience on edge and unexpecting as to what will happen next throughout this fast-paced series of jump cuts/cut aways, and the distorted imagery. Towards the end of the trailer, the jump cuts speed up and there is a series of disturbing scenes - from the dark rooms inside the house to the elderly medium woman chanting against the paranormal entities that are haunting Dalton. The chanting sound combined with the music gives a disturbing eerie atmosphere as well as maintaing the fear aspect. The last series of jump cuts include even more terrifying scenes - for example, people being levitated around the room, screaming, and one of the untimely horror fear methods, darkness. There is a final cut away to again clarify the film title "INSIDIOUS", and this text then flashes in accordance with the flash of a photo-taking camera (such as the ones used to see paranormal activity, as shown earlier in the trailer) and the text "everywhere april 1" conveys the release date and that combined with the terrifying trailer will leave a positive impact on the audience.
Sound
Sound is used to its full advantage in this trailer to establish the horror movie genre and scare the audience. A spooky-sounding distorted soundtrack is heard as the text flashes from "INSIDIOUS" to "IS", and this adds to the overall distorted vibe of the fastly-changing text. Throughout the trailer, the ominous ticking sound of the metronome can be heard playing over the actual film footage, and this gives a slightly creepy feeling to it and sets the overall pace of the trailer. There are points in the trailer in which the shots cut to a new shot in pace with the metronome sound, and it quickens the pace and thus creates suspense. Furthermore, voice-overs of the characters speaking clarifies the storyline and creates a mystery for the audience. For example, Renai says "It's not a coma - they don't know what to call it" - this creates mystery as to what is wrong with Dalton, and the footage later shown in the trailer conveys that this may be due to some unearthly paranormal entity. Silence is also used to create fear when Renai is walking around the downstairs hallway, and all you hear is the creaking floorboards. But suddenly, there is a sinister yell heard from upstairs that causes Renai to drop the baby monitor she is holding and would also frighten the audience - this is successful in making horror-fanatics believe that this film will definetley be terrifying. After this initial bout of suspenseful silence, the soundtrack gets more uptempo, with more distorted screaming and abnormal sounds that get louder as the trailer progresses with its fast jump cuts - again creating suspense and tension for the audience. However, the soundtrack suddenly quietens to a faint humming sound, as the camera moves slowly through the dark corridors of the house. The metronome sound is still playing, and this combined with the quiet humming keeps the audience alert on the edge of their seats, since they know something terrifying will soon occur. Lastly, the metronome ticking sound continues as the title and release date is shown on screen. The metronome fades out and the audience think that the trailer is finally finished, but the distored soundtrack is abruptly amplified as some frightening being runs at the camera - this would be terrifying for the unsuspecting audience and will be memorable for them afterwards.
Mise En Scene
The mise en scene used in this trailer consists of everything from props, scenery and costumes to lighting, colours and make up. In the first few jump cuts, there are scenes of the family in everyday life looking relativley normal - there is day-like bright sunny lighting and Renai on the phone whilst busying around kitchen cooking breakfast like a typical housewife. Josh's masculine money-maker status is clarified through his costume of a suit, tie and briefcase, and thus these two characters fit their typical female-male roles perfectly. As soon as we see Dalton climbing the ladder in the attic, we know something bad is going to happen from the dark, damp looking room and the even darker lighting. The ladder looks thin and rickety, and is also covered in cobwebs which leads us to suspect that the ladder will unfortunetly break whilst Dalton is climbing it. After Dalton's accident, we see Renai and Josh looking sad and unhopeful through their facial expressions and the sterile, white look to the scene clarifies the hospital location and matches the parents' grief. Next, horror is created successfully through mise en scene when we see a small boy looking frightened and closing a door at the end of a dark corridor, and after that we see the ominous dark shadow of a person appearing behind some blinds. This creates mystery also, as it leaves the audience wondering as to who or what this shadow could be. Moreover, in one of the scenes we see the parents knelt down on the floor looking fearful, surrounded by a room that has had all the objects thrown around in, and left with bloody handprints on the bed sheets and this too adds to the mystery/horror feel. Lighting is used effectivley throughout this trailer through the dark ominous rooms and corridors - for example, we see Josh bending down in a dark room to look at something with a flashlight and it creates suspence for the audience as to what Josh will find. In my opinion, lighting is the main aspect in this trailer that contributes to the overall horror vibe. Lastly, props are used successfully when some frightening being appears behind Josh wearing a blood-red mask, giving it a demonic appearance and adding to the paranormal theme. All of these factors (lighting, props, costumes and location) contribute to the horror/mystery theme and keep the audience on the edge of their seats throughout the trailer.
The Ring (2002)
'The Ring' is again of the horror-mystery genre, and its genre is clearly conveyed through these four essential components:
Shot Types
Like the Insidious trailer, 'The Ring' trailer uses a wide variety of shot types in order to catch the audience's attention whilst conveying the horror-mystery genre, and I will highlight some of the most significant shots. One of these first significant shots is a long shot of a dingy corridor with a closed door at the end, and we can see light from the other room seeping through the space at the bottom of the doorway. This creates a mystery - what is behind that door? Is someone in danger, or is an unknowning character watching the deadly ring tape? Then this flashes to a rather strange extreme close-up of a fully-black eye with the text "IF YOU WATCH IT" over the top (as if the eye is watching the film in terror itself), and as this trailer goes on and keeps flashing back to this eye we realise that it is actually the eye of a horse. The black horse eye is wide with terror, and this conveys the horror theme whilst also creating a mystery as to what the horse has to do with the film. Next, there is a high angle shot showing the back of a young boy (Aidan) sitting on the floor watching the deadly tape, and the high angle in contrast with Aidan lower down on the floor symbolises how he is the innocent victim caught out by the video. This shot later switches to a low angle shot taken beside the TV, where we still see Aidan watching the tape but then we see a woman (called Rachel, presumably some sort of relation to Aidan) running up behind him yelling "No!" since she know's that the tape will bring death. This rises the suspense in the film and sets out the storyline of Rachel setting out to discover how to defeat the ring before it kills her and Aidan. After these initial fast-paced scenes, the shots slow down and we see a wide shot of dark hills - thus establishing the scene and mystery of the whole film. But this dark yet peaceful scenery quickly moves back onto the quick scenes - suddenly, there is a medium close-up of Rachel watching the video, and we see the ominous white ring shining on her face from the TV. There is a inquisitive expression on her face, as she tries to understand how to defeat the video, thus referring back to the horror-mystery genre again. During more of the quick jump cuts, we see a cut-in shot of two hands meeting and holding each other, possibly in fear since they know their deadly fate is soon coming. More tension is created when the shot cuts to a high angle shot of Aidan walking upstairs towards the camera, with his eyes seeing something that we cannot see. What terror befalls Aidan at the top of the stairs? The audience will never know unless they see the film for themselves, so this is clever in enticing viewers to go see the full film in the cinema. Later, there is a long shot of Rachel walking determinely towards an old, dingy house which again links to the mystery part of the film - Rachel is determinley setting out to solve this video mystery, and prevent her and Aidan from recieving the same fate as people who have watched the film before her. The trailer then speeds up, and the scenes flash from an extreme close-up of a pale girl with lank brown hair (possibly the ring girl?) to a POV (Point Of View) shot from inside a filing cabinet, which is opened by a man frantically searching for files - presumably about the ring video. The pale girl is quite a frightening sight coinciding with the horror themes, whilst the frantically searching man adds to the speed and mystery of the film. This then switches to a close-up of Rachel clutching Aidan and crying, which makes viewers think that all hope is lost and even Rachel has realised that she will surely die - a horrifying thought. However, the last significant shot is an extreme close-up of a human pupil dialating - the majority of people know that this usually happens when someone is scared, so this conveys a sense of terror which is enforced throughout the trailer. The shot types in this trailer cleverly keep the audience on the edge of their seats and frighten them whilst making them curious into wanting to see the whole film at the cinema.
Editing
The editing in this trailer is very similar to that of the Insidious trailer, and is thus sticking to the typical codes and conventions of horror-mystery trailers. Firstly, the text "THERE IS A TAPE" is slowly shown on screen, and it disappears by the grey fuzzy TV transition cutting it off - this added with the constant flickering transitions makes the trailer seem like it is a tape similar to that of the ring tape, and thus coincides with the overall plot of the trailer. In one of the earlier scenes, the shot is edited to change it into a shallow focus shot - basically, the text "SEVEN DAYS LATER" is in clear focus at the front of the shot, whilst a woman walking through the door and turning on the light in the background is blurred and out of focus. This could possibly represent how the woman's life is fading as it comes towards its inpending doom, and her life is therefore slowly blurring out. Throughout the trailer, jump cuts are used but played at different speeds - at the start they are fast but then slow down as Rachel tries to uncover the mystery of the film, and then they speed up even faster towards the end as the tension is rising and hers and Aidan's lives are at stake. Towards the middle, there are jump cuts from Aidan watching the tape, to a stone well (from the video) to the text "YOU DIE." in darkness surrounded only by a glowing white ring - this white ring of course links to the film title 'The Ring', and the text brings an element of danger. Moreover, this trailer cleverly uses fading to make long scenes run quicker - in the scene where Rachel is sat on her bed holding the tape, one shot fades into another so it zooms in on her fear quicker and makes what could be a dull scene run a lot quicker and keeps up with the pace of the rest of the trailer. This is a technique which could be useful in making our own trailer. Towards the end of the trailer, the jump cuts get more panicked as it cuts from the sun setting on a different side of a tree as to before (before, it was on the right side whilst now it is on the left), which then cuts to a man kicking and overturning a table in frustration and then cuts to a horse running towards the camera. The sun setting on the oppoiste side of the tree as to before conveys how time is passing quickly and how their seven days is fastly running out, whilst the man kicking out is self-explanatory - he is getting frustrated at not being able to resolve Rachel and Aidan's death sentence. The black horse could represent how death is coming closer to Rachel and Aidan quickly, since the colour black significantly has connotations of death. Lastly at the end of the trailer, "the ring" title appears on screen with the now-recognisable white ring glowing around it and it distorts and wavers just like a typical old video tape would. This title sequence then closes by the shot closing into a small dot in to middle, like what used to happen on the older televisions when switched off. Overall, I believe that the editing used in this trailer is extremely clever in linking back to the video-tape theme whilst keeping the audience on the edge of their seats with the sheer horror and mystery of it all - in my opinion, this editing is much more successfully done here than done in the Insidious trailer.
Sound
Firstly, there are various shots of the inside of a video tape with distorted sound effects of the tape reeling over the top - this of course coincides with the video-plot of the film, and the distorted sound can be quite eerie and disturbing when listened to properly. Much later around 30 seconds into the trailer, we see Rachel running to Aidan as he's at on the carpet watching the tape and we hear her yelling "No!" and the distorted tape sound that was used before is silenced, before starting up again after this initial yell of horror. This yell lets the audience know immediately that watching the tape is not a good thing, and starts out the premise for the film. Throughout this trailer, there are constant voice-overs of disturbing messages from the film - phrases and questions such as "What do you want?", "When you die, you see the ring" and "I saw it". The phrase "When you die, you see the ring" is echoed a few times and keeps becomes more repetitive as the trailer gets more hurried towards the end. These eerie and disturbing phrases are sinister and distorted to make them sound even more ominous and in my opinion, they are the most disturbing aspects of the trailer and add to the horror-mystery genre significantly. Lastly in the final scene of the trailer, there is a long beep sound (like the sound heard on old tapes when they have broken or stopped playing) and the screen turns fuzzy - but through the fuzziness, we see the outline of the ominous ring girl and this injects a final surge of fear into the audience. The sound used in this trailer is extremely clever in attracting the audience, and reinforcing this feeling of terror.
Mise En Scene
Finally, the mise en scene in this trailer encompasses all of its forms (props, costume, make-up, location and lighting) to create the upmost mystery and fear. In one scene in the film, we see a dark wooden canoe boat sailing forawrds into the fog which we cannot see through - what will be found on the other side, and will it be dangerous? The darkness and foggyness leads us to believe so, but we will never know since the scene cuts off - and this cleverly creates more mystery for the audience who will want to find out more afterwards. The lighting stays pretty much the same throughout this trailer - remaining dim, cloudy, dingy, grey and black. This contrasts to the Insidious trailer which started out reasonably bright as the family went on with their regular day-to-day lives until Dalton's devastating accident and then darkness ensues afterwards. Furthermore, a mirror prop is used to make scenes more frightening - in one scene, the camera focuses on an old mirror on the wall and we see Rachel walking slowly in the reflection and it gives the impression that something bad will happen to her and again, heightening the sense of horror and mystery for the audience. Later on in the trailer, Rachel is sat on a couch looking hopelessly at the tape in her hands with an ominous red light covering everything behind her. This red light could symbolise her impending doom and possibly Hell since she wiould end up their if she didn't solve the mystery of the tape before it killed her but in addition, the colour red is associated with fire and blood and thus has connotations of danger - but also determination. The red may represent how as the danger increases, Rachel is becoming more determined to defeat the ring before it defeats her. Mise en scene is further used to create fear when we see the the ring girl sat in a wooden chair with her back to the camera, in a puddle of water with her own hair still dripping water into the expanding pool - this probably relates to the stone well that repeatedly flashes on screen, but the sight is extremely terrifying and makes the viewers not want the little girl to turn around in case her face is as terrifying as her dripping form. Lastly, the costume and make-up is kept quite dull in this trailer - the clothes worn are dark, possibly to link to the dark setting of the film and the deathly connotations, and all of the characters make up (especially Aidan's) is kept extremely pale as if to match how the dead would actually look! All of the mise en scene in this trailer cleverly links together but in my opinon, the contrast in bright happy lighting to the darkness after Dalton's accident in the Insidious trailer is more successful in attracting its audience, as viewers of The Ring trailer may end up being bored by the constant darkness.
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