Teaser Trailer Textual Analysis - BERRY

Film Title: SAW 7

Director: Kevin Greutert

Year of Release: October 2010

Actors: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, Sean Patrick Flanery and Cary Elwes

Distribution: Lions Gate

I am going to be analysing the teaser trailer. This teaser trailer is approximately 52 seconds. This is perhaps over the length of time teaser trailers usually are. While the Saw trailer stands at 1minute and 25 seconds.

The trailer opens with the narration of the Jigsaw himself. At this point we cannot see this and we are great it by a blank screen with the words ‘You can’t hide’ by Jigsaw. The use of the Jigsaw narration is clever and immediately provokes fear within. The words in itself are scary as from watching previous SAW films I understand that his victims can never escape and it almost seems like he’s reminding us that there is no escape with the words ‘You can’t hide’.

The trailer then begins to display captions that do not initially make sense. The first is ‘every master craftsman’ followed by ‘all true geniuses’. We as watchers are confused and have to continue to watch to try and make sense. However, this is effective as it creates a distorted view. Horror movies have a habit of deliberately making things straight forwards. I believe this is because in the movies the victims’ lives are not straight forwards and are ‘distorted’ therefore the makers want us to experience this also.

Non-diegetic sound starts to be played, the sound is quite quiet and almost sounds like a gong instrument. This creates tension as the sound slowly starts to increase we begin to release that something is about to happen. There is then a close up of a young woman struggling to break free. The close up allows us to see and understand her non-verbal communication. She is scared, worried and desperate. The narrator, Jigsaw himself confirms her emotions by saying ‘Fear’ just as we see her.

There is then a fade to the next shot, we hear Jigsaw say the word ‘suffering’ and a close up on a middle aged man in extreme pain and anguish is displayed. We then here diegetic sound as he screams in pain.  The following shot is a high angle shot of two men dangle above a pit. The high angled shot causes them to look inferior, scared and provokes empathy within us.

The majority of the 'trap' scenes all have low-key lighting. This is effective as pain and darkness link. The victims being in a place that is quite dark also adds to the pain and frustration.

The captions have no begun to make sense as they total ‘every master craftsman and all true genieuss always save their best to last’ the phrase ‘save your best till last’ is a phrase and quote that we are all familiar with and it has been used cleverly in this trailer but for horror. The captions are trying to say that this movie has the best as it’s the last. However, there is a double meaning as it could also mean the best victims are here with the most pain and suffering.  This clever technique causes us to think and wonder and more, want to watch the film and find out what ‘the best’ is.

There are then establishing shots of what looks like a city with high-key lighting. For the first time in the trailer we see something bright and not negative. After watching the trailer and then viewing the teaser trailer I noticed that this shot is used in both. However,  at different times. In the trailer it is the first shot and in the teaser it is towards the end. I believe this is because teaser trailers are not supposed to give a story away and are supposed to create a non-linear narrative.

Upbeat non-diegetic sound is then played as the beat and volume increases we saw Jigsaws victims trying to break free. We hear diegetic sound of their gasps of desperation and effort. As the upbeat sound plays we become exited, hoping for them to escape. The sound increases and so does tension.

There are then very quick paced and short cuts of victims and their traps but we do not see the ending of any so in order to find out we are forced to watch the film.

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Skills development

REBECCA
Throughout this experience I have learned a number of things.

First of all it helped me a lot socially, I learned how to work within a team and not just by myself.

Working in a team meant we had to be considerate about the other members of your group. We had think about each others ideas and how we can all contribute to the products using our individual strengths rather than just bickering because we cant agree with each other. So this of course meant we had to be patient with each other and communicate constantly whether it was by phone or internet. Organisation and time management was also important. When meeting up to do work together we had to think about whether one of us had Work that day or whether they was busy for personal reasons so we would try work around that. 

I also learned more about using camera's. I knew a little from my first year of media when making a music magazine but i found out when it come to making these product there was actually a lot i didn't know. I learned about the aperture and exposure and how that helps with the light, and how important light is when taking photographs. 

My skills also developed in Photoshop. I had previously used Photoshop in As but i wasn't very good. fortunately a member of the group was very skilled in Photoshop and helped us all to develop our skills. I also looked at some tutorials on Youtube. 
I also learned how to use final cut pro, but with this I only learned the basics. I knew how to cut and erase and also how to move shots around but this was it as most of the editing was done by another member of the group. 
when editing the trailer i learned how to play around with sound when adding a soundtrack to the trailer. Sound i found was quite time consuming especially when trying to sync sound effects together with the trailer. For example when our victim was running we were trying to sync footsteps with it but in the end we did not follow through with it. 


BERRY

After spending nearly half a year on my A2 coursework i have gained and developed many skills. In the video displayed above i list and explain 8 of them.

HOALIE

Throughout the year I feel that I have learnt many new thing and developed a wide range of new skills that will help me in the future. 

Here is a list of programs and skills I have learnt while working on our A2 media project:

• Final cut pro
• Sound track pro
• Adobe Photoshop
• Editing
• Web Design / HTML coding 
• Photography
• Filming
• Lighting 
• Make-up
• Writing
• Group Work/Communication
• Research Skills
• Organisation

I have learnt a lot editing using Final Cut Pro and Sound Track Pro, even though I did not do the editing for out trailer and only doing a bit of the sound editing, I spent time learning the program in class and at home by watching youtube videos and online tutorials which has given me greater knowledge of these two programs. Before the project started I was already very knowledgeable about Adobe Photoshop and knew how to use it, however I did learn how to use the program more efficiently and save time. I also learnt web design and HTML coding for our blogger site so that it looks more professional like a real film production site. I learnt how to change format and layout, put a slide show on the front, create drop down list and sub list and link post to the drop list.

I learned how to do horror make-up in the process as well. Although make-up was not part of my role in the  group I decided to learn it with the others just in case on the day of the filming the two who are the make-up artist in the group I would be the back-up person to do it, I learn how to do scabs and bruises. 

I feel that this experience has helped me a lot on my communication skills and team work.  We had to listen to each others opinions and ideas and work together to develop a final idea we all liked. We didn't only work during lesson times but also out of class by messaging and also using social networking sites such as facebook. My research and organisational skills has also improved, I learnt more efficient ways of getting research information such as using social networking sites to do surveys. I also organise and prioritise the work that needs to be done before each of our meetings.

Doing this project has also improved my photography and camera skills. I learned about the setting on the SLR cameras we used such as the exposure, shutter speed, aperture and also the different types of lenses and what they do. Compared to what I knew before the project, which were the basics of a SLR camera, my knowledge of the technical and practical side of a camera has improved greatly.

I also learnt a lot about lighting , different types of lighting and the ones most suitable for filming. Such as the worst time to film is at mid-day and the best time to film is dawn or dusk.

Overall this doing this coursework project has made a great impact for me personally as I have learned and experienced a lot this year.

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Magazine Textual Analysis - BERRY

Empire is a British film magazine which is published in Britain, Australia, Turkey, Russia and Portugal.  It is published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media, whose first issue came out in July 1989. Barry McIlheney edited the first issue which was published by Emap, until Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008. Empire is the bestselling British film magazine, continuously beating rivals such as Total film which is published in Russia, Turkey, Australia and Portugal. The annual Empire awards are a major star-studded event which was sponsored by Sony Ericsson, and from 2009 Jameson, the Irish Whisky brand.

Empire is a populist film magazine which aims to both entertain and inform their audience, which is quite different to more ‘serious’ magazines like Sight & Sound. The readers of the magazine are always involved with magazine competitions and they are also given the opportunity to vote for the awards given in the issues and the annual award ceremony.  Readers are having 24/7 access the Empire magazines interactive website, where they can partake in forum discussions which other fans. Empire’s audience are also encouraged to voice their opinions and give feedback on the current magazine issues via their website.

The denotation of the magazine is of a full length picture of a man with a disfigured ‘painted on’ face, sitting down on a prison cell bench. ‘Meet the Joker’ is the title on the left hand side of the picture. The Joker is a character in film ‘The Dark Knight’, played by the late Health Ledger and is directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan.  The superhero film was released in 2008 based on the DC Comics character, Batman. The character on the front page of the magazine as both of his hands rested on his knees, his head is slightly tilted downwards with a grim smirk on his face which is painted very messily and his hair is blond and green. He wears purple socks and shirt with a purple waistcoat, colourful socks and clown-like shoes. The lighting surrounding him is low key, but he visibly seen on the centre of the frame.  There is a batman symbol above his head at the top-centre of the magazine front cover. The batman symbol acts as a light bulb as the white light shines on the Joker. Half of his face is slightly darker as the light reflects on him to show his painted on face and smirk.  The colour scheme of the magazine is purple, green and white, the colours of the Jokers colourful outfit and face paint. The barcode is positioned on the bottom left side with the sub-headings at the bottom right side of the cover.

The ‘Joker’s’ colourful outfits reflects the eccentricity off his personality. He is dressed as the joker the game of cards, which connotes the constant games he plays with his victims. His shoes are very similar to that of a clown which provokes fear, as many people are said to have Coulrophobia, a fear of clowns. He is also quite unusual and unique and his choice of diverse colours and clothing combinations express his difference from the rest of society. The light only shines on half of his face, which allows the audience to see his facial disfigurement, his half shown face could also represent the character of ‘Two faced’ who had acid thrown on the left side of his face.  His awfully dyed/sprayed hair also connotes his careless attitude and it shows that he does not give much thought to what others think of him, foreshadowing his immoral actions towards his society. He sits with his legs open, connoting masculinity and power. His hands are firmly positioned on his knees, symbolising the confidence over his actions. As he is seated in a prison cell, the audience understand that he may danger to society, but the smirk on his face, again, provokes fear among the audience as he looks quite content with his situation. This causes the audience to become anxious as he seems to have an escape plan. The prison bars also represent his dysfunctional upbringing and the loneliness he felt as a young boy/man. Still trapped in his cage of lonesomeness, he decides to rebel and gain pleasure through his sadistic, psychopathic sense of humour.  His grievous smirk makes him look similar to a trapped animal in a pen, enclosed from the world. Through this the audience understand that his has caused him to go crazy.

The front cover’s layout is very similar to a newspaper article. The Joker’s name is spelt with newspaper cut-outs which allow the Joker to look dangerous, wanted and mysterious as he is a hot topic. The sub-heading above the Empire title reads ‘THE DARK KNIGHT WORLD EXCLUSIVE!’ supports the newspaper-story look of the front page as he is wanted internationally. The use of hyperbolic punctuation,’!’, amplifies the urge for an ‘exclusive’ on the Joker. The white font also allows the text to stand out among the many colours on the front cover. The snake-like line of purple graffiti behind the Joker resembles his cunning smirk as the main title resembles his eyes, creating the image of a face. A quote from the Jokers nemesis, Batman, is shown as a warning the people of Gotham about how ‘cold-blooded’ the Joker is. His biased point of view may influence others to believe that the Joker is truly a ‘mass-murdering clown’, not a sane human being. The font also emphasises the Batman’s quote as it is very rigid, disordered and chilling. The white writing also represents the Jokers ‘cold-blooded’ personality.

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