The film trailer starts off with an establishing shot, then a medium shot followed by a long distance shot, the setting is nice and everything seems to be normal but then when the voice over starts you understand that the young girl is having disturbing dreams but she doesn't remember them, the music and the atmosphere makes it feel eerie and makes the audience on edge. The little girl replies to her mum, "I don't remember" it is a good follow onto the Tristar company logo, the music and the voice over keeps playing, this is done to keep the mood continuing, this is very effective and keeps the audience hooked on what is happening. You then get the bright lights of the headlights of the car, this draws your attention to the car, it is the followed by the a long shot of the car driving off into the distance, this shows us that they are going away somewhere, the soft music is continuing but now you can hear the car as well, this gives a hint to the audience that something is wrong, with close ups of the cars headlights, the little girl, the mum and the radio. After the shots of the car driving away the tagline comes up of 'Toluca Country, West Virginia', this would show an american audience that is a safe place, but due to the music it creates an eerie atmosphere. In this little section it has an element of chiaroscuro, this is where there is elements of light and dark, it is really effective in Horror film trailers. Soft music continues to play to keep the eerie mood but now you can hear the car as well, after the shots of the lights and the girl, the radio starts to loose signal and by the camera movement with the mums reaction, you feel scared and you get the sense that something is wrong, following this when the mum looks up you see the a ghost walk out in front of the car, the music stops and you hear screaming and the car breaks screeching. From the slow pace mood music to the high pace screams and the swerving of the car, it creates tension and makes the scene much more powerful and effective, then silence. Silence is used in horror films as a technique to build up suspense, create an atmosphere and to leave the audience on edge, asking for questions.
After this sequence, you get another sequence of slow moving shots mixed together this builds up the tension, as the dust starts to fall, music starts to play and the pitch and sound of music increases as the camera moves over to the welcome sign. This sequence is done to show where the mum has gone too, with the music and the dust, it makes it feel dream like and as if the mum is in a new place. When the camera moves over to the welcome sign, you now know from the beginning that 'Silent Hill' is the place that the little girl had disturbing dreams about.
After there is a series of shots of the mum ringing her husband, this is the iconic thing an audience would expect, the woman ringing her man to come and save her, following this shot there is a view of a family photo, the camera stays over the photo for a few a seconds to convey that they are a tight, close family.
Then there is information about the place they have gone to via the technique of taglines, the mood music sets the mood and the sound effects play with the shots of scenes and then silence, the words explain to the audience what the place is like..
"what was once an ordinary town"
- the following shot, the husband is researching about Silent Hill, and find outs that it is a tainted town that got burnt down and that it is still burning today.
"has been transformed by evil"
-followed by a slow motion of the mum looking around and then running, you then see shots of the wife trying to find her daughter.
"mysteries without answers"
-followed by the husband talking to the police trying to find his loved ones and then you see the mum behind a door.
"secrets without explanation"
-followed by shots of young girl, scarey version of young girl and then you hear a siren which links the next title and continues to play throughout the next bit of clip.
"fear without end"
-followed by shots of running and then someone says, "Its coming!" then you see the mum walking down some steps and then darkness and silence. At this point you get the feeling of this place being cut off from the rest of the world. This is a very effective way to explain to the audience a bit about the film without giving too much away.
After that sequence you see light from the torch the mum picks up and then you hear and see this lady who tells her what she must do to find her daughter, this then turns into a voice over and you see clips from the film with taglines in between the scenes. At the end there is the sound effect of a heartbeat and a sequence of shorts shots and then a scream to build up the tension and to scare the audience, followed by the credits and then the name of the film.
In the film trailer there are a range of camera movements and camera shots, they link, matching the genre and the music and sound effects to enhance the feel of the shots and how we feel after watching it.
BUT..!
That is the Theatrical Version of the Film, there is also a Teaser Trailer which is normally about 30-40 seconds long...
In Silent Hill's Teaser Trailer, they have kept the beginning of the mum and daughter talking like in the Theatrical Trailer, as this must be key narrative to setting the story. But they have used a different shot, they have a shot of the stairs and the ash/dust falling, this shows the audience that these stairs must have a strong storyline in the film. Quietly in the background you hear a simular eerie music like in the Theatrical Trailer, the camera then holds on a view on the stairs for 3 seconds and then the title of the film appears on the right. We are already half way through the teaser trailer and we have only seen one shot of the stairs. We then get an increase of pace, built up with music and shots of the film, this last for about 10 seconds, so we don't get to see much of what the film is about, but that is what a Teaser Trailer does, it just gives you a tiny little snippet of what is to come of the film. At the end we hear heavy breathing and a medium close up shot of a scarey looking girl which lasts for about 2 seconds, and then the breathing dies down and it blacks out, followed by the welcome sign to Silent Hill.
This Teaser Trailer is very effective and gives the right amount of information about the film out, it is a great comparison against the Theatrical Trailer.
I really like this film poster, it has an element of irony in it, as at the top it says " Welcome to Paradise". When clearly this film genre is not relating to paradise.
The poster has used a technique called Chirascuro, this term means light and dark, so the colour scheme used is black and white.
The image of the silhouette of a person, is a very strong image and sets off an eerie image of the film.
They have put 'Silent Hill' in block capitals, it has slits in the words and looks like it has been moved. The title of the film is key for the poster, it needs to stand out, to attract the audience and in this case it really does stand out.
In both the image and the text, they have been faded in. This makes the white bits on the image and text really stand out.
It is a really eye catching film poster especially as they have only used black and white colours.
