The Decent Trailer

First of all I am going to analyze the trailer for the film "The Descent", which is a British Horror, and is basically six women in an unmapped cave system, whom get trapped and are pursued by flesh-eating humanoids. The main reason why I picked this film to Analise is that it is in a cave, and therefore relevant to our idea, as of the themes linked with darkness, close-up shots, emphasized sounds and also the cast and how they suffer with the effects of claustrophobia etc. However when reading about the information Ive read on the internet about the film during the filming it explains how they found it too hard and time-consuming to film in an actual cave, and so they filmed most of it in a studio, which obviously is going to be a problem with the filming of our trailer. As of this "barrier" which holds us back slightly we're going to have to not go very deep into the mine, as of the reasons being that it will be more of a risk and also harder to film, so I am going to look into maybe using a green screen for certain shots if the facilities are available to do so. I have watched the film before, and it was quite freaky with some powerful horror scenes which I got scared in, but then again when it comes to horror films I am pathetic! Anyways I'm going to analyze the trailer and pick out some points that may be relevant to our trailer and see if we can apply some of their ideas to our own. Here is the link for The Descent Theatrical Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5I1q4KhKNU
At the beginning of the trailer, it starts of with quite a nice calm atmosphere through camera shots, as you can see with the group shot of all the girls getting a picture together all happy and showing the relationship they have which seems good; however almost straight away the editing is foretelling the audience what is to come as of the quick fade into darkness, with the sound of the camera emphasized, that draws the audience' attention in order to watch the rest of the trailer. After this, there is the quick clip of the scene of them in the car, where one of them says "Ive never been lost in my life!" which again is telling us that this will obviously be a new experience for her, even before the events of the humanoids come into play. It also has a good effect when they start the noise a split second before the shot while it is still in fade, which we could apply in our film trailer, for example the noise of rustling starts during the fade which draws the audience' attention, which then goes on to show the shot of them getting prepared to go down the cave, which is giving it a more tense atmosphere which is relevant to their genre of the film, as well as our genre of our idea. There is more talking between the girls at the beginning of the film trailer compared to the end of the trailer that I have picked up on, and this shows us that the relationship between the girls is broken showing the downhill from the beginning to the end of the film. Sound is possibly the biggest part I think in this trailer, and I to prove this point I watched it with and without sound, and the difference is amazing in the sense of fear and tension that is created upon the audience. Without sound when watching this it seems quite interesting, as you want to know what is going on however that is given even better with sound in the trailer, as it gives you slight hints that the soundless trailer doesn't. Also another note during this trailer whilst being watched without sound, when it gets to the dramatic part where the humanoids are first introduced, it doesn't have the same scary effect, just has an almost monotone feeling throughout, unlike when there is sound introduced to the trailer, it has the tension building from the beginning, which is suddenly converted to the horror aspect when the humanoids are introduced, and makes the trailer more jumpy, giving the feeling the target audience are seeking for when they go and see a horror film. Throughout the trailer there are words that pop up on the blacked-out screen that are basically the themes and feelings of the characters that are portrayed in the film (e.g. Claustrophobia, Disorientation, Fear etc). I think this effective as it registers in your mind, and this is followed by the next clip of the scene which is relevant to the word, and meets the expectations that the target audience want a horror film to achieve, so when applied to a film trailer I think it is a good aspect and makes people want to go see it. From 1:10 of the trailer, it starts to get at its most freaky, and starts of with the word "Fear" in the blacked-out screen that begins to shake violently with a tense noise, which goes to the mid-shot of the woman with the use of night-vision camera, shouting "Is anybody there!" in a stressed out voice, that sends shivers down your spine, and this is followed by the monster standing behind one of the women, and very quick editing of it striking, jumping around and my favorite shot of the trailer of the headlight falling, and smashing on the ground which leads the light to slowly dim out into the next black-out fade. I think we will use a shot like this in our trailer and we have discussed already before using this technique with a lighter to light up the darkness which gets blown out. Following this there is tense noises that are played however not as up-beat as the part when the monster strikes, and it is when the women are almost reuniting in the cave, however all the words that have been shown in the fades before are all in action creating this stressed, hysterical atmosphere. Also within this part of the trailer there is the line of "The battery's on our lights will run out" which is showing how they have little time before there is no hope whatsoever. I think in our trailer we should have some effective lines such as this that doesn't give anything away, yet gives it the effect that there is little hope for the characters. From here on the trailer I think isn't that great in order to apply to our film, as it is mainly screaming of pain that the monsters have inflicted on the characters, and them fighting them, but that wont be in our film.