Harry's textual analysis of a horror magazine front cover

Fangoria is an internationally-distributed US film fan magazine, specializing in the genres of horror, slasher, splatter and exploitation films, with the whole magazine series being in regular publication since 1979.

The fact that Fangoria specialize in a sub-genre like ‘Slasher’ made it very wise to do an analysis of one of their magazine covers as ‘Slasher’ is the sub-genre our trailer will be based around.

Cover I analysed

Now lets move onto the magazine cover itself.

The main image, on the cover, is off a mid-close up shot off a woman staring at something to her right with what appears to be an infected left eye, blood coming out of her mouth area dropping down onto her cleavage area and she also has deformed teeth in an almost zombie/vampire-like manner. This image, of this woman, is very graphic and horrifying thus giving the audience the idea straight away that the magazine, in question, is of the horror genre. The fact she has blood dripping from her mouth, has fang-like teeth and the fact she is staring blankly at something to her right could mean that this woman has indeed attacked, and possibly murderer someone, and that she is on the lookout for her next victim to draw blood this. This woman is also wearing nothing but a low-cut top with lots of cleavage showing, this could mean that ‘Fangoria’ still stick to the idea of ‘sex sells’ and that their intended audience would be of the male gender, as it would be males who would be attracted to an image of a woman in a low-cut top with cleavage showing, no matter even if she does have blood pouring out of her mouth.

This idea of ‘sex sells’ is further shown when a heading just above her breasts says ‘JENNIFER’S BODY’- showing that the film, its intending to promote, is about a woman named Jennifer and her body. The tagline underneath that is in fact a play on words. It is a play on words because the woman being pictured is ‘Megan Fox’ and the tagline says ‘Megan Fox will eat you alive’, whilst some men might like the idea of being eaten alive by Megan Fox, in a sexual manner, this tagline is more being used in connection with the image she is in and the danger she possesses and the blood around her mouth shows that they actually mean she will eat you (feast on you) alive.

The title can also be seen as the most important part of the magazine, it can be seen as this because the text ‘Fangoria’ overlays the womans head, rather than be focused behind her. This shows that the editors want the title to be the most seen factor upon the cover. The title of the magazine being ‘Fangoria’ also has connotations of horror as it makes us (the audience) think that a Dracula-type person will be involved inside the magazine, as they have fangs, and can thus give us an idea as too why the woman, in the main image, has such deformed teeth. The font of this heading is also in a vampire-like way, as the ‘F’ and the ‘A’ trail of at the bottom of each letter, much like the stereotype of vampires teeth where their two teeth on the side of the first two in anybody's mouth are bigger and longer than the rest of everybody's set of teeth. The font is also in Red, showcasing an added idea of blood being apparent in this magazine and giving the audience a fear of being hurt. To the left-hand side of the title is also the word ‘Fangoria’ again re-written and the number 226 written next to it, giving a reader the information that this is the 226th issue of this long running, successful magazine. The date, in which this issue was released, is also giving but instead to the right-hand side of the title. The word written being ‘SEPT’, showing this is the September issue of Fangoria.

Issue to the far left and date to the far right

The use of colours in this cover are used to a bare minimum to keep it simplistic but effective. The only colours used for Red, White, Yellow and Black. This does enough to give the audience the idea that its a horror magazine as Red connotates danger and Black keeps the audience on their toes as they don’t know what will appear next etc.

To help any sub-heading stand out from the main image it has to be written in a different font and different colour to the main heading. Hence why ‘PANDORUM’, ‘DISTRICT 9’, ‘CARRIERS’ and ‘GRACE’ are all written in their own respective fonts and in white colouring, so it stands out from the massively Red title.

Although, saying this, one sub-heading isn’t in white colouring. This sub-heading is ‘I SELL THE DEAD’. Rather than be in a White font, it is similar to the title and is in Red font. Reason for this could be pointed towards the fact that the word ‘DEAD’ is used in this sub-heading and Red indeed connotes death and so it was suiting what the sub-heading had too say.

The tagline, under each sub-heading, is written in Yellow for all of them and just gives a quick run down on what the film being mentioned is about. E.g; ‘CARRIERS’ tagline is ‘worse than swine flu’ showing why the film is called ‘CARRIERS’ because they’re carrying a flu.

Just like any magazine, this one also has a bar-code which states how much the product is and where it is released. With Fangoria being $9.99 and being sold in the USA and Canada It also follows conventions any normal magazine as it is placed at the bottom left of the image.

Underneath this bar code is also the link to Fangoria’s website. This would help any audience be able to further their interest in the magazine and travel onto the website to look up any additional information, that they seek.

In terms of lighting an audience quickly gather that this magazine will be quite a dark, evil magazine. This is because the image of the woman is shown in a quite low-key lighting and the whole background behind her is completely black.

behind Megan Foxes shoulder

Harry's textual analysis of a horror poster

Movie title: Prom Night
Year of release: 2008
Director: Nelson McCormick

Production by: Original Film, Newmarket Films and Alliance Films
Distributed by: Screen Gema
Actors: Brittany Snow, Scott Porter, Dana Davis, Jonathon Schaech, Idris Elba, Kelly Biatz

Synopsis: Donna’s senior prom is supposed to be the best night of her life, one of magic, beauty, and love. Surrounded by her best friends, she should be safe from the horrors of her past. But when the night turns from magic to murder there is only one man who could be responsible, the man she thought was gone forever. Now, Donna and her friends must find a way to escape the sadistic rampage of an obsessed killer, and survive their Prom Night.

The budget for Prom night was just over $20 million and part of this budget was spent to market the film. One of the ways they marketed it was through the use of a poster, for the film. The poster is what I’ll be analyzing in this blogpost.

I had no real defining reason as to why I had wanted to analysis Prom Night, except the fact that it can be argued that the target audience, for this movie, would be the same age as my group’s movie. Now why you might think that with a title like ‘Prom Night’ this couldn’t possible be a horror movie, the use of some mise-en-scence elements on the poster, like props, gave away instantly the fact it is indeed a horror movie. I guessed that the target audience for this film would be the same as my groups because of the fact that it contains elements of experiences like a prom night that my age group would be going through and most characters within the film are of the teenage aged group.

Straight away you can see that there is only 4 main colours used in the poster, with those colours being; Grey, White, Black and Red. It can be argued that these colours enable the poster to be effective as these dark, moody colours to not draw the audience’s attention away from the main image of a girl screaming, whilst wearing a tiara. These colours also enable the poster to follow the usual conventions of a horror poster and help an audience recognise straight away that this movie is of the horror genre. This is because the colours make the image dark and with darkness it gives an audience a sense of not seeing the whole picture in it’s true light, thus making them fearful and anxious of not knowing what will happen.

The colour red is only used sparingly in this image, but this is used to be very effective. An area in which red is used is only on the title and the heading, which lets the audience know when the film is due for release. Now the colour Red can be seen as a connotation of evil, blood or death, further giving the audience the idea that this is a horror movie Ways in which this use of Red, is effective, is that whilst making the title stand out against the mainly dark setting it doesn’t steal the main focus away from the image of a woman screaming, This is because although the use of Red is very bright, the font style and size isn’t too big or extravagant meaning it can draw you attention to the text just not enough to pull you away from the main image. But this writing can give audiences ideas and it does this, in this poster, as the edges of the text have been slightly blurred into the picture. This gives of an impression that the writing is written in almost a blood-like substance. This gives the audience ideas as it imply that violence and harm will be inflicted upon character, in the image on the poster. This also thus helps to again establish that this movie is indeed of the horror genre.

The poster, as a whole, has a very worn, dated and almost damaged look to it. This look can reflect an idea that the character, on the image, has maybe gone through a struggle, battle and has had some haunting experiences. It also goes completely against the normal idea of what a prom night would be like, supposedly the best night of your teenage life yet the worn damaged look conveys that in fact it wasn’t the best night but possible the worst night of your life. This would only make the intended audience want to watch the film more to find out why this persons night had taken a turn for the worst.

example of 'worn' poster

 
To go with this idea of the best night of your life, there is a tagline, which reads out ‘A NIGHT TO DIE FOR’. This tagline is actually a play on words. It is a play on words because the line ‘a night to die for’ usual suggests a great night that you’d want to live again and is usual used between the ages of 16-21 years old. (Our target audience) It is a play on words because, given the genre of this movie, the phrase could genuinely mean a night to die for, as in actual death. This tagline further gives an audience the idea this film is based around death and killing.

word play

Whilst there is only one prop used in this poster, it is used in a very clever manner. The prop in question is a tiara. Tiaras are usually associated with proms and with what women wear to look their best and feel like a ‘Princess’. This makes it a stereotype of a college prom night and again backs up the name of the title. Ways, in which it is used in a clever manner, is that the placement of the tiara upon the characters head and the manner in which her hair is very messy can suggest to an audience that the character is indeed in a distressing manner, needs help and/or she has become involved in a struggle with a potential killer/antagonist due to the fact that at prom a girl is expected to look her best and not have her hair messy and tiara randomly placed upon her head.

The tiara, in question

Her NVC also highlights just how much fear this character is in. Due to the fact that the tiara has been randomly placed on her head, to show fear, it has in turn covered up her eyes and thus draws your attention to her mouth. Her mouth is NVC, as she isn’t speaking, and so it conotates fear as this girl appears to be in a state of shock due to her mouth being wide open and/or could mean that she is being attacked and so has an open mouth due to the pain she is receiving. The fact her image also takes up the majority of the poster plays an important part, as this vastness in size could represent the size of the scream she appears to be making and so could be seen as a call for help the fact she could be screaming at the top of her voice.

Characters mouth open, almost screaming out

The fact that the victim is female also follows one of the biggest conventions of the horror genre. Women are often portrayed, not only in cinema but news, as being weaker than men, more vulnerable to harsh acts such as rape and hence why they’re often used as victims in horror movies.

Just from looking at the poster you imagine that there are no real ‘A-list celebrities’ involved in this film. This is because upon majority of posters there are the names of the actors involved, so as to give the audience an added reason to go out and see the film in question. This is where ‘Prom Night’ is different. Instead of having the actor’s names they just have the Movie title, a header and a tagline in the form of text. This gives us an idea that this film could be from a small production group, who couldn’t get any ‘big name’ actors to star in their film.

Not a single actor/actress mentioned

Whilst it can be argued that the fact there is no real actors being mentioned on this poster is only because it’s a teaser poster, there are some details about the people involved in the making of the film (production). This is located to the bottom left-hand corner of the poster and is the smallest piece of writing on the poster, arguably because this information isn’t likely to draw in an audience and is only used to give someone a quick run down on who was involved in making the movie and to give them credit, for helping to make it. The people involved in production might not help draw in an audience but depending on which company was involved in the production might. This is why ‘Screen Gems’ is mentioned and their logo shown at the bottom right hand corner of the poster.

Production group, who produced 'Prom Night'

In conclusion, I believe the poster is very effective in what it sets out to do. Its sets out to draw the audience in and give away a rough idea of what the film will be based on. It does this, to minimal fuss, without giving away too much of the story’s plot but whilst also drawing in its intended audience The use of the tiara is very effect and it’s placement is also connotation fear and tension for the girls life as she is evidently in distress. Overall the play on words for the tagline and the use of colours really help to sell the film and also set out the genre of the movie clearly.

Harry Textual Analysis of a teaser trailer

Movie title: Saw
Year of release: 2004
Director: James Wan
Producer: Gregg Hoffman, Mark Burg and Oren Koules
Production by: Evolution Entertainment and Twisted Pictures
Distributed by: Lionsgate
Actors: Cary Elwes, Michael Emerson, Ken Leung, Leigh Whannell, Tobin Bell, Monica Potter, Danny Glover

Synopsis: Saw is based around two males waking up in a bathroom together, chained to pipes, no escape, a dead man lying between them holding a tape player and a handgun.
Upon playing the tape they find out that their only way of escaping is one killing the other by 6:00 or their wife and daughter will die. These two men are the newest in a long line of victims of the notorious ‘Jigsaw Killer’. Although, ironically, he has never killed any of his victims but instead finds out ways to manipulate his targets and make them kill themselves, or each other.

Saw was the first, in a very successful, sequence of 7 movies of the Saw series. Each movie grossed millions at the box office; with Saw grossing $103 million from a low budget, in the region of $1million - 1.2 million. Part of this budget was spent on trailers and Saw’s teaser trailer is what I’ll be analyzing in this blogpost.

Before I’d even watched the trailer, I soon found out that it doesn’t follow the usual conventions of a horror teaser trailer. By this, I mean that the video itself is ‘1:01’ minutes long. This means that it doesn’t follow the usual conventions of a teaser trailer as a normal teaser trailer lasts between 30-60 seconds in time. So Saw is ‘1’ second over the usual convention of a teaser trailer.

 
The trailer starts off with a T.V. being played showing a masked figure saying the words ‘I want to play a game’.

It then cuts to a 1 second clip of quick, scribblings of a cut out piece of paper, being held in by a pin, with the heading being ‘Doctor Questioned in Jigsaw Case’ then there is use of internal digetic sound with a man doing a voice over saying ‘The Jigsaw Killer’, giving the audience the idea that the so called ‘Jigsaw Case’ must of been involved a murder of some kind. 

Another cut quickly shows a dark, black background with the words ‘It’s His Game’, written in an eerie white font. The darkness of this background connotes danger and makes the audience feel tense, as they cannot see what will possibly happen next.

As there is a transition and the scene now moves, there is some dialog to throw doubt into the viewers mind, as to who they now think the ‘Jigsaw Murder’ is and what he does. This dialog has the same man speaking again, saying the sentence “technically speaking, he’s not really a murderer. He never killed anyone. He finds ways for his victims to kill themselves.” This quick dialogue from 0:07 seconds to 0:13 seconds is very effect in creating tension, it does this through a variety of shots in the trailer. 

During these 6 seconds we see 3 different images, letting us get an idea of what ‘Jigsaw’ looks like, what the man speaking looks like and lastly a black, ghoul like figure walking in what looks like an abandoned basement. With the first image it shows a man standing in a window, being recorded, possibly showing that police have him under surveillance because of how dangerous he is. We know that he is being recorded because of the old style video recording sign in the top right of the shot, with the image zooming in, we don’t see enough of the figure to know what costume he is wearing, so we can’t tell whether he follows the usual conventions of an antagonist.

The next shot, showing the man speaking, just shows a man sitting on the floor of a grimy basement with no shoes on, dirty feet and just a blue shirt and navy jeans. The shot in fact doesn’t go along with usual conventions of horror for the use of lighting as the lighting in this shot is ‘high-key’, showing lots of light on the person, almost giving the viewer ‘hope’. This connotates him as a hard working man, from wearing a smart shirt and the fact he has his shoes and socks off, going with the popular phrase from a hard worker of ‘I’ve worked my socks off’. It also gives us an idea that he is in danger, from the fact a hardworking man would not be stuck on the floor of a dirty bathroom, talking about potential murderers.

The scene then cuts to the a quick shot of a dark, grim-reaper-like, figure slowly walking. This shot is entirely different from the last. Reason’s being that we cannot see the person, in questions, face or see any features about them. The setting is also different from the last shot, with the figure being in a basement type setting, instead of a bathroom. We can tell this from the use of props, such as the vault turner to the left of the figure, showing this is where you work gas or heating like you would in a basement. There is also different lighting used in this shot, rather than have high-key lighting, showing the figure in a happy/hope manner there is “low-key” lighting and an eerie green flog behind this person. Giving the viewer, the idea straight away that this person is the antagonist and person to be fearful of.

We then go back to the bathroom scene, but straight away see the person that the first man was talking to. This person has NVC of a very worried expression, almost fearful of his life. We quickly gather that this mans name is “Adam’. This is because we hear a voice saying “hello Adam’ – possibly showing why ‘Adams’ face was so worried, because someone knows his name. Then it cuts to a shot of the original man and again we hear the same voice saying “Mr Gordon”, meaning the person speaking is addressing them. “Mr Gordon’s” NVC has gone from calm and collective in the pervious shot we saw of him to a very worried one. We sense this because he now has a worried expression and his shirt is soaked with sweat – connotating that he is sweating out of fear for his life, because this voice also knows his name. His head also tilts upwards, to show that he could be looking at something, or something scary has caught his eyes from the fact his face becomes more and more worried the more he looks up.

Adam (top) and Mr Gordon (bottom)

With the score still playing, it then makes a drop and transits into more writing, this time saying “AND IT’S YOUR MOVE” – this could go along with the whole idea behind the Jigsaw killer and what he said earlier of “I’d like to play a game” as ‘and its your move’ could be seen as playing a game and now its your move to make in the game.

In a fury of shots it goes from lights being turned on and the camera following each light as they’re turned on, too a voiceover of “Mr Gordon” speaking saying “He wants us to cut through our chains” and a series of quick cuts showing a Saw – going with the title of the movie, with a man screaming saying ‘nooo’ and then Mr Gordons voice then coming back into the scene saying “He wants us to cut through our feet”. This could mean that the reason a man screamed saying ‘nooo’ was because he has to cut through his own feet, to be apart of the game Jigsaw likes to play.

The score then suddenly ends and we hear a voice, that had spoken to Adam and Mr Gordon earlier, saying “Let the game begin” and then the shot with the text ‘and it’s your move’ comes back, further showing that this man speaking wants you to be apart of the game he’s playing.

A fade transition then goes to a shot of an old T.V. set, showing the puppet from the very first shot in the trailer. A banging sound cuts the shot to a rather large man on all fours, in what appears to be a cage looking distressed, not knowing where he is. We then hear the same voice saying, “if you want to die, just stay where you are”, almost sounding like he’s giving the victim an offer. A sound of the slicing of a knife then breaks up the scene, to the same man now running about very fast in the cage but getting tangled up in what appears to be barbed wire. We know it’s barbed wire because of the sharp look of it and the fact the man is now screaming, showing the pain that is being caused to him.

 

 
The trailer proceeds to show more of Jigsaws victims as it now shows a woman, with her head locked into a metal head brace. Her eyes are wide open and she is scrambling her hands around the back of the head brace, connotating fear inside her as she is looking for a way to escape the clutches of the head-lock. The use of a ‘ticking’ digetic sound highlights the fact that this woman could be looking to work against a time limit to escape from the head brace. The camera then proceeds to spin around this woman, in a variety of quick cuts possibly showing that she is running out of time to escape and it leaves us on a cliffhanger as the scene then just cuts to the next cut, leaving the viewer with a sense of tense as they do not know whether she managed to escape the head brace in time.

The score is now an eerie sound of what sounds like somebody gasping for breath. Through a variety of shots we see Mr Gordon holding what appears to be his shirt he had on earlier in his mouth and his right up moving up and down quickly. This tells us that he has decided to actually play the Jigsaws game and cut through his own foot, with his arm moving to show him holding the saw and hacking through his foot and the shirt in his mouth to make him able to withhold the pain and carry on without passing out. Notice how the lighting is still high key, so as not to give the viewer fear of not being able to see what’s behind Mr Gordon and his NVC showing an almost manic like facial expression.

We then see two characters, who we’ve not seen before, with a Black man reaching his arm out in low-key lighting as if he’s looking for anyone’s help to get out of the situation he is in and a Caucasian woman crying by the side of a bed, showing that she too might have been apart of the Jigsaws game.

Score is reaching it’s utmost peak, with quick paced sounds being played and we then see a man-like figure running through what appears to be an alley in low-key lighting. The man is dressed in a suit, showing he could be apart of the F.B.I as they dress very smart, and he’s on the look out for Jigsaw, hence why he’s running down a dark alley pointing towards something.

But before we can find out what he sees down the alley the scene makes another quick cut, this time to show a trapdoor shutting in a cellar. This could go back to the point of where the woman had a ‘ticking’ sound playing, showing that whoever was in the cellar ran out of time to escape and thus is now trapped forever. As the trapdoor shuts, the score is timed to make a banging sound the moment the door shuts. This is done to enhance the emotional impact of the scene of the viewers, so they feel as if a door is actually shutting.

The shot goes completely dark for a matter of milliseconds and there is no sound playing, to create suspense but it then quickly comes back into play. This time it returns with high-key lighting being shown, then just as the viewers are given hope it is cruelly taken away from then as the scene then goes dark and a pig mask is shown trying to attack the camera from a bath. 

This is where it then goes back to the original bathroom scene that Adam and Mr Gordon were in, except this time the bathroom isn’t lit up and giving viewers hope, but rather its shown in low-key lighting promoting fear in the audience.

We see a broken chain on the floor, with blood surrounding it. Showing us that Mr Gordon did in fact cut off his own foot and then quickly cutting to an image of a tape recorder on the floor, showing us that this could possibly be where the mans voice saying those things to Mr Gordon and Adam came from.

As the shots progress we hear digetic sound of a person saying “WHYYY” and then just as the scene is about to end we again see Adam, except this time he is hoisting a slab of something in the air and throws it down. This shows to the audience that he was indeed under attack and need to defend hiself. His NVM also shows this, as for once it shows him in a very angry manner, showing that all this time in the bathroom might of drove him crazy. As he pulls this slab down you hear a voice go ‘uhhh’ which could mean that he did infact hit someone and possibly damaged him or her very badly, to defend his own life.

Just when you think the trailer has ended, the score sounds of into Jigsaws voice again, playing over an image of the title of the movie (which we see for the first time) ‘SAW’, saying, “Before dawn, make your choice”. Jigsaws words are also being played over the sound of a children’s toy laughing, showing that Jigsaw just sees this all as fun and games, but instead of playing out completely the sound of this Toy then seems to break down, showing an evil side to even a toy of children’s nature.

The whole trailer then ends, but just before that it comes up again with writing saying “This Fall” – showing when the supposed release of this film is due.

Meeting 07/01/12

First group meeting of 2012;

We're coming towards the stage of actually filming our teaser trailer now.
This means that in todays meeting there was a lot to discuss; such as when we should film, where we should film, how long each shot of our movie should be etc.

This meeting was very worthwhile as we've managed to decide that we'll go to one of our group members, Jouvans, house one day after college to film part of the sequence.
We've also finally come up with our movie title, finished off the treatment and can now look to stop planning and finally start filming.

Jouvan's textual analysis of a magazine

Empire magazine is a highly respected and popular British film magazine which has been regarded as the highest selling British film magazine. Empire magazine is published monthly by Bauer Media Group in areas all over the world such as Austria, Turkey, Russia and Portugal to name a few. The magazine cover I am analysing is Empires march 2011 edition which is centred on Captain America.

The main image is of Chris Evens who plays the character ‘Captain America’ in the film Captain America. Captain America is an iconic superhero who is a very popular superhero worldwide, mostly amongst the younger audience. The costumes in his outfit which uses the colours blue, red and white which are the colours of the American flag. Captain America is wearing props such as  gloves and the shield which connote authority and power. The lighting used is low key. 

Empire magazine uses a selling line which is a common convention used in many magazines today, selling lines are used to attract audiences and to provide the magazine with more recognition. The selling line used on the Empire magazine is ‘Magazine of the year’, this selling line can attract customers in buying the magazine as it is considered the magazine of the year which reassures them that their purchase is worthwhile. The selling line is written in bold capital grey letters and has a modern font with spaced out letters which provides creativity and uniqueness to the magazine.

Empires magazines masthead is positioned just below the magazines coverline and it follows many conventions by having its masthead at the top of the magazine front cover. The image below shows an example of another film magazine called Total Film which also follows magazine conventions by having their masthead positioned at the top of their magazine front cover. Empires magazines masthead is in large capital letters which fit across the magazine, the masthead text is in a modern font which appeals to its target audience which are of a young age as the magazine theme is about super heroes and the younger age group are more likely to be the main target for this magazine. The masthead text is white which is a strong and bright colour, the masthead uses a black outline which makes the magazine appear as if  it is in third dimension and because of this it make the masthead stand out even more which enables the viewer of the magazine to clearly see the magazine title that they are reading.

Above the masthead where the letter ‘m’ in Empire is there is information on the price and the release date of the magazine which is useful information for customers who intend to buy the magazine. There are two currency payment methods which are in pound sterling and dollars, this could suggest that Empires magazines main audience could be American and English viewers in particular.  There is a barcode on the bottom right hand side of the magazine which are requirements of a magazine to feature and magazines vary in the positioning of the barcode for example this particular magazine has the barcode positioned vertically. 

The magazine uses a puff, this is used by magazines to attract the audience into buying the product by displaying something interesting yet not giving to much information away in order to entice the audience. The puff used in this magazine is in the shape of a circular sticker which is next to the magazines main image. The puff is in yellow which is a bright and vibrant colour, the puff has the text ‘Meet marvels first avenger!’.

The magazine has a footer which is used to show the additional information available in the magazine. The footer uses a small print of how the magazine will look like and has different films included next to it. It is on a white background and uses black and grey font colours.

The background used in the magazine is USA flag, this is iconic and famous as the white and red stripes with the blue and white star square is very recognisable in society. The use of the USA flag as the background of the empire magazine is used because it relates to the theme of the magazine which is of the main image of Captain America. The colours used are blue, white and red which are common colours which identify the USA flag.

The magazines coverlines follow a yellow and white colour scheme which are bright colour, vibrant colours which stand out. There is a coverline on the right hand side of the magazine and a main coverline in the middle of the poster. The coverline on the right hand side has plus written in joint-up handwriting, this font style brings elegance to the magazine. The coverlines under it are movies which the magazine will talk about, it follows a white then yellow colour sequence. The main coverline in the middle of the poster is largely formatted, it has the text ‘Captain America’ in white and uses a similar font to the masthead.

Jouvan's textual analysis of an existing teaser trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSHEYVGaWok

I analysed the film ‘The Woman in Black’ for my poster analysis and decided to use the same film for my teaser trailer analysis. I used the same film for two of my textual analysis’s because I wanted to keep a consistently throughout my planning and research textual analysis work. ‘The Woman in Black’ teaser trailer is 47 seconds in length therefore it follows teaser trailer conventions by lasting between 30 to 60 seconds.

The teaser trailer begins with two quick fade transitions shots which show the production and distribution logos of the companies featured in the film on a black background. Non-diegetic music is played at the beginning of the teaser trailer, this creates a terrifying atmosphere for the audience. The non-diegetic music uses haunting tones which adds to the terrifying atmosphere of the teaser trailer which builds tension and suspense for the viewers.

The teaser trailer fades to an establishing shot of a house. The house appears to be abandoned as there is overgrown grass on the house walls and garden, the abandoned appearance of the house could lead to one believing that the house is haunted. This assumption could provide viewers with insight on the type of sub-genre the horror film is associated with as most ghost films are set in or around abandoned houses. A tracking camera movement is used which makes the camera move closer to the house, while this is happening the caption ‘The most chilling story’ appears in a one word after the other sequence, the caption is in capitals and uses a sans serif font. The font is in grey which matches the ghost theme of the movie as grey connotes depression, moodiness and mysteriousness. The caption could persuade the viewers into seeing the film as it has been stated as the most chilling ghost story. Once all of the words of the caption are displayed the setting of house fades and is replaced by a black background

The black background and the caption fades to a close up camera angle of a white male from his forehead to his nose. The man cannot be seen clearly as the shot uses low key lightning, the low key lighting used forms a shadow on the right side of the man’s face. The use of the low key lighting brings curiosity to the viewers because the individual cannot be seen which makes him appear suspicious and mysterious. There is an evident theme used in the teaser trailer as the caption ‘Of our time’ uses the same sans serif font and word sequence as the previous caption. At this point of the teaser trailer the music beings to get louder, faster paced and there is more emphasis on the haunting tones. 

There is a fade to a black background with the caption ‘Comes to life’ which uses the same caption tecqunique and is a continuation of the previous captions. It then fades from the black background to an office setting where the shadowed man from the previous scene is seen spinning a lamp with his hand at a medium long shot camera angle. The character is dressed in a black blazer, waistcoat, tie, trousers and a white shirt, from the characters costume the audience can tell that the film is set in the early 20^th century as the character is wearing old fashioned clothing. The props found in the office are chairs, a sofa, a desk, candles and a lamp. Low key lighting is used in the shot which gives a creepy atmosphere to the teaser trailer. The characters non-verbal communication suggests that he is intrigued as he is focusing and looking down at a lamp.

The shot suddenly cuts to a medium close up of the character who bends down to examine the lamb and whilst he does so there is a tilt movement used which tilts down to follow the characters movement. During the time the character bends down the music previously used stops and is replaced by internal diegetic sound which uses a foley sound effect to make the sound of the lamp spinning become more clearer to hear and much more emphasized.

 The shot makes a quick cut to the inside of the lamb which spins around at a quick pace until a woman’s face can be spotted at the other side of the lamp. This frightens the audience as the shot of the woman is unexpected and startles them, this gives the audience a taste of what is to be expected in the film as it is the first glimpse of the antagonist in the film.

There is a quick cut of the character at a medium shot, the characters non-verbal communication suggests that he is frightened and shocked as he startles backwards and has his mouth open as if he is in shock. The shot is in a stairway which is odd as he was once in an office, this puts the audience at unease and at a confused state of mind. The lighting is mainly high key as it is well lit by a lamp on the wall however there is some low key lightning towards the back of the shot.

The shot then fades to a black background which shows the actors name, the caption however doesn’t follow the theme it did for the previous captions as it doesn’t display each word one after the other but displays the caption once. The music changes to a xylophone tone which is very slowed paced in comparison to the music used in the beginning of the teaser trailer, because the music is slow paced it builds suspense as the audience feel as if something is going to occur shortly.

The shot then fades to a medium close up of the character who is looking on the floor with his head bent down, the shot is taken from the characters right hand side. The speed of the music increases and a person’s hand quickly appears and touches the man on his shoulder. This entices the audience as they don’t know what happens next which persuades them to watching the film. The shot then fades to two shots which feature the horror film title caption and the caption ‘In cinemas soon’.