Slasher Trailer Analysis; Scream

Shots 0:00 – 0:34 • Firstly the audience views the certificate by the Motion Picture Association of America

listing age restrictions etc much like the BBFC Certificate before a film.• In this shot we see a cutaway from the phone to the girl inn a white jumper, this cutaway

tells us this girl is important/the phone call is important in which it is as a murderous man is on the other end. Using colour connotations we can see that this girl is pure and innocent via the white on her jumper. Also Claude Levi Strauss’s theory of Binary Opposites are beginning to show as the killer is dressed in black which connotes to death and darkness (as we see later) whereas the white connotes to purity and innocence or life.

• The company distributor and production company “Dimension” fades in which is a convention used by trailers with the digetic sound bridging over in a sound bridge sequence. A establishing shot is shown to declare the location to the audience, note she is home alone, this can be easily figured out just by using the juxtaposition of the girl and the shot of the house to deduce the fact she is home alone, someone home alone is a another popular convention of slashers we as the audience can tell slightly that this is a slasher film. This establishing shot could be a POV point of view shot from the killer as the scene otuside loooking on to the house is a almost stalker like manner of shooting in the dark in the trees overlooking or observing inhabitants of a house.

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Shots 0:00 – 0:34• Note that the digetic sound of the phone call at the start is a classic slasher element

which is very formulaic and generic with a killer calling, evidence of its use are in film titles such as “When a Stranger Calls” which is a slasher within itself. We are now as a audience being hinted to the genre of the film which is a slasher. The sound may be subjective due to its amplified sharpness to the young girl, also note the girl is young and seems to be the prey of the killer again following slasher conventions by using young girls as the targets for the killers.

• The shot changes to a tracking shot of the girl with a non digetic suspicious or creepy background music, the edit speed of the shots fasten with only one shot per second, this gives an element of fast pace to the trailer and hints something coming.

• The next shot is a focus and pan of the girl to give the audience a close medium shot to sho the victims facial expressions when the killer states he is watching her and yet cover the window area when the killer strikes. The audience is given strong evidence that this film is of the slasher genre however this next shot confirms the suspicions of the audience as when the victim is grabbed through the glass patio a reflection can be seen of a masked killer immediately following the codes and conventions of a formulaic and generic slasher film as this masked element preys on the human fear of the unknown. Many slasher use this masked elemtn such as Friday the 13th, Halloween and Dead Man Walking.

Shots 0:34 – 1:03• The editing fastens even further with a bright white lens flash to vsually shock the

audience due to high colour contrast. This is followed by a sound bridge of the scream from the previous scene showing the events have followed over into the next shot/scene.

• Using montage editing the juxtaposition of the scream and the girl being attacked with a shot of police cars tells the audience a subtle meaning that regardless of who the Killer murders any help is futile even from the authorities like the police.

• The narrator continues explaining the narrative and uses Roland Barthes narrative theory and talks about the Semantic Meaning to explain the killer motives in which he calls “a game”.

• The next shot is of Sydney who eventually is the final girl, who unsurprisingly matches the description of many other final girls in slasher film as this follows even more codes and conventions of the genre via Sydney having a masculine look with a defined chiselled jaw, smaller breasts than the other female victims and a brunette and not a blonde. She is hinted to being the final girl to the audience via due to her informed persona the audience is given.

• Within the next shots we then see the complete opposite if Sydney a binary opposite whom obviously the victim. She is a ver cliché generic female vicitm and the opposite of Sydney due to her femine look, larger breasts with revealing outlines and a blonde instead of a brunette. Scream then reveals itself to be an extremely formulaic and genric cliché of a slasher film.

Shots 1:04 – 1:57• The next shot moves onto a establishing shot of a house which inhabits the

group of friends found within majority of Hollywood narratives as explained by Vladimir Propp’s fairytale narrative and applies to this trailer as they are a group of friend who are listed in the narrative theory as group of benefactors/friends

• Scream then subverts the expectations of the audience and the disrupts the formulaic structure of the films the shot clearly shows Sydney having sex, this then disrupts the old equilibrium of Sydney’s life and unbalances the equilibrium in her life (according Tzeylan Todorov’s narrative theory of equilibrium which applies to this trailer ) due to her having sex she is now in the killers target range which again is a element found in many Slashers as a convention in which sex gets you killed.

• The trailer then starts to concludes to show the director name Wes Craven who is extremely well known for the Nightmare On Elms Street franchise and various other slasher films. This increases publicity for the film and increases ticket/box office revenue as fans will purchase tickets to watch Scream simply because Wes Craven directed it.

• The trailer then gives an ending card with various producers, actors and directors names on it and states the format of sound ; Dolby Digital.