The Conjuring film trailer analysis

I am going to analyse a horror trailer; “The Conjuring” by James Wan.  This film has been successful in the box office.

In the conjuring as the trailer starts conventionally as it starts with the distribution and the production company’s logo.  This means that this film has a mass audience as Warner is part of the big 3 major label. This also means that film will highly budgeted compare to independent films. And that it will contain more variety of props, characters, locations and so on to create verisimilitude so that the audience feel more appealed to the film.

As the trailer began it went directly to the story without an introduction or a voice over about the narrative or characters.  In the mise-en-scene the investigator was in the cellar with only one light shining on him when his surroundings was just dark and other props such as headphones, microphone and a technology for spiritual presence. This could suggest to the audience that this is serious and a true narrative, this also gets the audience’s attention as they’ll try to stay prepared and excited for what might come ahead to see if anything makes them jump or not. In the cinematography the camera was a close up on the investigator to express his brave and serious facial expressions. This camera angle is also used to introduce the main characters from the film. There was no sound at that time just dialogue; this could be to get audiences deep attention without putting any sound track at the back.  Also in the mise-en-scene the makeup and costume was brown, plain and vintage this implies to the audience that this film is based in the 60’s. This will get the audience more interested as history horror is much scarier and serious than modern horror.  This scene is stereotypically representing a male to be brave and fearless. The way Ed is also taking lead suggests to the audience how females can be weak and vulnerable to take lead. However this shot could also suggest how Lorraine trusts her husband to take lead and how well they work together as a group.

It then cuts to when the investigator is doing his final search and in the cinematography there’s a long shot but the camera is hand held to create a documentary feeling and a sense of reality for the audience to create more suspense. When the investigator’s heading out the cellar in the sound element there’s asynchronous sound of the doll laughing and the piano playing, this makes the audience feel excited as they don’t know where the laugh came from, but they know that doll is going to be essential in the narrative.

The two main investigators are next seen in a lecture room introducing themselves to the audience. Ironically females didn’t have many rights to do what they enjoy but because Loraine has a talent that she can’t ignore. Although in America women’s rights was finally considered and equality justice happened in 1972 this film was based in 1971 this tells the audience that women were respected in some cases.

In the cinematography there’s an establishing shot of the Parren house in a dark location. This shot gives the audience an overview of the location and how lonely their house is which foreshadows in the narrative as this connotes terror and supernatural presence. In the mise-en-scene the lighting is dark and has smoke coming out with tree’s that look empty, this implies that this story is set in the wintertime perhaps.  We know that this targets a certain audience because stereotypically younger generations aren’t aware of super naturals and what they’re capable of.  Younger generation also enjoy colour, it lightens up their mood and actually enjoy it whether if it’s cartoon or real visual image. Therefore the audience for this film would be 15+. This shot also helps the audience to identify what genre it is because all horror films conventionally have dark locations.  

In the sound element there was diegetic sound of screams and glass frames shattering, this connotes that something horrific has happened and the glass breaking could imply to the audience how their dreams of living in this house is about to shatter. To make this scene more shocking and scary the editing was very fast, this matches the reaction time of the characters and could suggest how uncontrollable these supernatural occurrence are. Half way through the trailer in the editing there was an eye line match of what Lorraine is seeing behind Ed this makes the audience feel part of Lorraine’s gifted visual imagery as they can see what Ed can’t see. This will also excite the audience because it’s different and rare in life.

  

In the cinematography there was over shoulder and an eye line match in the editing. This suggests to the audience that they’re having a n important discussion. The over shoulder is also representing women positively as she’s sharing a moment with the little girl. This connotes that women are friendly and Lorraine is a mother figure to the children by protecting them from the supernatural presence.

In the mise-en-scene there were 3 locations but in one location such as the house; incidents were taking place in different rooms.  This makes the narrative interesting and conventionally different locations have to be used to tell the audience that in real life supernatural occurrences happens anywhere…

This narrative follows Kate Domaille’s 2001 Theory, as she believes there are 8 narratives and this trailer falls in to Circe category because this film is about victims and innocence.  Overall the structure of the trailer follows Todorov’s theory as it the trailer starts all calm and then suddenly the disequilibrium happens. However the ending doesn’t show as that will persuade the audience to see the full film at cinemas.