Media paranorm

Synopsis- Paranormal Activity 3 is a American supernatural horror film released in October 2011 .It is the third in the paranormal activity series the films are set in a backwards order so this film is set 18 years prior to the first two. The plot is of two young girls who have been haunted by a demon from a young age and them and there parents try to capture the paranormal goings on through placing cameras around the house.

Stars- Chloe Csengery. Jessica Tyler Brown, Christopher Nicholas Smith.

Genre- Thriller/ Horror

Directors- Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman

The style of the Film is found footage, in this particular advert some of it is done in a documentary style because the advert is only 1 minute 37 seconds long, enough of the film needs to be given away to make people interested to come and see it, so it is done in the style of the parents talking over the background to there girls and in other parts we hear bits of information given away from older versions of themselves. Such as something happened when they were younger and that it has thrived on fear letting first time viewers of the film to get an understanding.

There are constant cuts between horror and happiness making the tension build from the beginning starting with the girls on the trampoline, ghostly scenes become more constant towards the end and the happy scenes run out. Drawing the audience into becoming more interested in finding out the story.

As this is a found footage/ documentary style film the sounds throughout the trailer are mostly diegetic the main sound you hear in this trailer is the sound of the video camera glitching as this is the way the scenes cut between each other which , the glitching is natural of video camera’s but because we are expecting scary things from the trailer it is a good sound effect to use the make the audience jump. Other sound effects in this trailer are screams from the actors, children laughing which is stereotypical of other horror films, and banging from the demon. The two girls do a bloody Mary chant right at the end which is creates a slightly musical theme.

The editing of this trailer fits in well with the genre and style of the film the main technique's used are cross-cutting and jump cutting from scene to scene, even in this trailer we can see that the film is filmed through a variation of different low budget cameras in the trailer there is editing between handheld camera’s, cctv cameras and the camera on the tripod which the girls use. The glitching of the camera and the sound effects are edited in to target the audience at the right points.

Handheld

CCTV

Graphics

The graphics of the film title suit the film because they look typed which suits the film as it is in the style of being ‘home made’. The obvious colors of red and white being used which fit the connotations of blood and ghosts and the faded shadow in the background gives the ghostly image. The use of this graphic throughout

is a constant reminder to the audience that they are watching a documentary style movie and that it is filmed on a regular camera such as one the audience themselves could own. This all helps to add to the horror and realism.

Trailer Analysis

Overall I think this trailer Is very successful in making itself a ‘must see’ film. One particular strong point of the way these trailers are made , is that they are able to appeal to an audience who haven't seen the first 2 films just because it doesn't’t really give away any aspects of the story, just portrays an obvious strong theme of paranormal goings on and horror.

I think that the trailer is strong in the way that children are such a large part of it. Although it is becoming more this Is not such an obvious stereotype and tends to appeal to audiences who like to be scared because everyone spends time around children. The ‘found footage’ element is shown strongly in the trailer, which is something that we are interested in for our own movie.

How can Elements of Paranormal activity

3 be used in creating our own

trailer?

Theme

We can take the theme of not seeing the cause of the paranormal activity and put that in our trailer because with found footage films that seems to be the most realistic option. The theme of an average middle class family being haunted for no reason. And them filming themselves trying to find the paranormal activity themselves.

Characters

I like the way that the paranormal activity trailer uses one of the characters to talk to the camera at certain times and make it more clear what is going on, so we will definitely consider doing this as something that we could perhaps interpret in our own way and add into our trailer. The actors in this film are not largely famous for anything, which is going to be the way with our trailer anyway.

Shots and Sound

The camera shots in the trailer are very effective as they are varied and shot from lots of different angles, for example there is the cctv style camera which Is hanging from the ceiling giving a birds eye view of the action. I think that the use of different shots is really effective as it creates much more tension and overall makes the trailer more interesting and attractive, so this is an element of the trailer that we will definitely look into when creating ours, especially as we are doing found footage using the same shot all the time could become repetitive.

I think it could make our trailer interesting if we took the sound of the camera glitching especially as ours will be in the forest so having a diagetic sound will build the tension but just in a different way, also if ours is filmed in the daylight in the forest we are going to need an effect sound to create a fear of normality and the pretty forest being threatened.

Mise-en-scene

The overall mise-en-scene of our trailer will be fairly different from that of paranormal activity, because we are filming it in a completely different location. But elements such as the costumes being basic and just everyday outfits, the ghost being unseen, and lighting ours will be similar and not overly edited we are going to try and work with the daylight as it appears they have in the paranormal trailer.

How is the narrative portrayed in the trailers, how could you use them

in your trailers?

The narrative is portrayed in this trailer mainly through cross cuts telling different parts of the story, the trailer starts of innocently with the children playing on the trampoline and in their hula hoops showing all normal things you would expect for two little girls, with toys all around them and dressed in girly clothes and smiling, as the trailer continues tension begins to build and cross cuts become more frequent showing much smaller previews of different scenes, getting scarier as they continue and allowing more to be revealed as the trailer goes on although the narrative isn’t given away to much, but enough is given away to make it obvious to the audience that there is an interesting story behind it, this is so that people have an interest in going to watch the film when it is released.

Who is the target audience and how does this trailer

appeal to them?

From looking at surveys and research online I have been able to conclude that the main target audience for paranormal activity is from age 16-30, although this is a very large and varied age group the main target audience is of course fans of horror movies. I think that the main gender would be males as they seem to be the most interested in horror movies. But overall paranormal activity can appeal to a large audience because of its genre. People who don’t even enjoy horror movies still watch them for the thrill of it with friends. The trailer appeals to its target audience because it shows how terrifying the film is, and it is very jumpy which people who enjoy horror movies like. You can also tell that there is a chilling story behind the film which may be what makes the film appeal to an older age group.

I think that we will be able to direct our film into the same target group as paranormal activity, because ours will be similar in the fact that it will be found footage and the evil will be something that you never actually see which is how paranormal activity managed to appeal to there target audience, we would be able to make ours appeal to the same group by taking ideas, which lots of films tend to do with films with a large fan base.

Who does this trailer represent?

The Paranormal activity 3 trailer represents a middle class american family, a stereotypical traditional white american family of two little girls and a husband and wife, other members of the family make appearances through out the film to help tell the story. They live in an average american neighbourhood and house and live a normal life up until this point. A lot of other families will be able to relate to them which is what makes the film so haunting because it is relevant in peoples life’s. The family have never done anything wrong to deserve what happens to them which puts this fear into people watching and makes it realistic.