Paranormal activity 3 film analysis

The film genre is supernatural thriller. The audience can tell this because the villain of the film is a ghost or poltergeist, and there are links made back to the previous two films in the trilogy which also attracts the previous audience to see the next instalment. The trailer lasts one minute and forty four seconds and has a total of eighty shots that are pieced together using fades to black and static and inter titles.The diegetic sound of screaming is used throughout the trailer to create the thriller and scary effect. The poor quality of the dialogue matched with the handy cam adds to the realistic feel of the film. Non diegetic sound is used throughout the trailer to scare the audience such as a “wooooosh” sound effect. The trailer establishes that the film is based around a family in their own home, and also establishes that the daughter of the family has some connection to the ghost.The inter titles are used to help establish the narrative, such as “discover how the activity began” to tell the audience what the film is all about and the end title “Paranormal Activity 3” is one of the last thing you see. This is because the company want to leave you with something that you will remember so that you would go and watch the film. There is also a web address on the screen in red, this could be to draw the audience’s attention to it, or be the representation of blood.Being a trailer for a follow on film, it builds on the foundations of the previous two films to create and air of expectation for things to go wrong and a sense that something like this could happen to you. The trailer leaves you with the expectation that the film will be even better than the previous film because it says “this October discover how the activity began”. The mood of the film is very dark and eerie which fits in with a supernatural thriller.In the first half of the trailer nearly all the shots are eye level point of view shots because they are shot using a hand held camera, but there is one interesting shot where the camera pans back and forth like a security camera but we are shown its not a security camera but a standard camera mounted on the swivel base of an electric fan, I feel that this effects the way the audience perceive the trailer and its message. Rather than the shots seeming too professional and clean, but rough as if it really was just one of the family setting up the camera to “maybe capture something”.The mise-en-scene is constructed to look like an ordinary hose that any normal person would live in, which then adds to the shock of the super natural goings on and captures the audience.

Using this trailer is a good marketing scheme because it leaves enough of the story out so that it would make people want to go and spend money to see it. I think the trailer is quite successful in targeting the audience that has seen the previous two films but at the same time it doesn’t really do much to attract a new audience I feel.

List of ten codes and conventions

1.  Age rating information

2.  Use of inter titles

3.  Screams

4.  Darkness

5.  Fast editing

6.  Exaggerated sounds i.e. when the lights go out

7.  Special effects

8.  Voice bridging two shots

9.  Web address

10.          The studio name and logo

●

The films code of enigma in this film is, “will the family survive?” and “who is doing all of this?”

Film trailers are a very useful tool in promoting a film as it gives the audience a taste of what is to come but leaves them with a question at the end, which will only be answered if they watch the film.

—