Paranormal Activity 3 Trailer 1&2 Analysis (Preliminary)

Watch the trailer of the film and analyse:

 Trailer one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twHFeqqFc30

In this trailer it begins with a home clip of the two sisters from Sep 03 1988. In the clip they're playing in the garden happily with their family. There was a sudden change of mood when it transitions to a sister speaking saying, "What ever happened to us when we were little, I don't remember..anything. Whatever it was it thrived out of here. The more we paid attention to it the worse it got." Whilst she was speaking there were transitions of different clips such as: old photographs, old clips, clips of the events that occurred whilst they pay attention to the things that happened in the past. The transitions that were used were: cutaway, fading out and fading in. Then there was a clip of the two sisters 5 and 9 years old, doing the "Bloody Mary" challenge in the mirror. This consists of standing in the mirror with the lights off and chanting "bloody Mary" three times. The myth is that a woman will appear in the mirror once the lights are turned back on. However, the older sister played around and tried to scare the little sister by suddenly screaming but not paying attention to what was actually in the mirror and walking out. Then there was a cutaway shot to a black screen with a loud scream. Then to a fuzzing screen of "Paranormal Activity 3." I believe this trailer wasn't as scary as it should've been. However, the different shots of old photos and old clips was effective as it gave us an insight of what was going to be occurring in the movie. I believe the purpose of this trailer was to have mostly scary and creepy clips added that didn't add up. The effect of this was that it would lead the audience to watch the full film when it released in October 2011.

Trailer two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCJWNM1a3F8

In the second trailer it opens up with another clip of the two sisters in the garden but on Sep 02 1988 then transitions to a video of the two sisters when they're older. One sister had her arms around the other which could symbolise protection. The camera man then states, "somethings going on." He then continues to ask the younger child to show him the 'knocking game' this was where the little girl knocked on the mirrored cupboard and there were two loud knocks coming from the inside. He asks the older sister, "how do you do it?" she seemed clueless and told him to ask her younger sister. He told the younger daughter that he really liked the trick and she angrily replied, "its not a trick." The boyfriend then realises that there is something in the house that is connecting with Kristi. He then sets up the cameras in hopes to find something. Then they all began to see what she was doing and videoed her speaking to "Koby." There was also a clip of her and her mother, she tells her mother her friends there and her mother replied with, "there is no one there" therefore, Kristi threw water towards "Koby's" way and you could see the outline of a suspicious body standing right next to Julie. There was a priest that came over to tell Julie that it's connected to her side of the family then all of a sudden he starts banging his face against the table and books. There was a cutaway shot to the side of Dennis' ribs of a scratch going all the way down with him stating, "something's digging in my side." There were fast cutaway shots and fading out's of different paranormal clips of things setting on fire and bulb's bursting. Then as soon as Julie suggests that they need to get out of the house, a strong force seems to have pushed her all the way back leading her to be thrown on her bed with the doors getting locked. I believe this trailer is more successful than the first trailer as this gave more of a scare to the audience. This one has more clips of the young girl doing abnormal things such as: the knocking. The cutaway shots were effective and also gave a jump scare effect. I believe the purpose of this trailer was to base more around the 'demon friend' Koby and the paranormal things he was performing around the family and the little girl Kristi.

The camera shots in these trailers ranged from extra large shot, large shot, medium large shot, and medium close up. There was a medium close up of the two girls playing in the beginning on the trampoline. The extra large shots were to show the paranormal activities taking place in the old videos of their childhood. There were medium close ups of Kristi's scary facial expressions. This is effective as Kristi was the one with the 'imaginary' friend 'Koby.' Majority of the camera angles are either eye level, low or high. The camera often zoomed into the little girls while they play. While this is being filmed the angles are either high or eye level due to the height difference. The angles were high in the recording footage from the cameras that had been set up in the high angle. The mise en scene in the trailer seemed homely and also safe as the two children had both of their parents playing with them and seemed to have a lot of toys. The mise en scene of the girls rooms and garden made the setting seem more normal for the horror movie. There wasn't any abnormal settings in the trailer for this, it just mostly had clips of when Kristi and Katie when they were little and other clips of the two sisters from when they had abnormal things occurring when they were older. The sounds were loud and sudden which created the effect of a jump scare. There were scary non-diegetic sounds added in to add to the atmosphere. The editing that was used in this trailer was: fade in, fade out, dissolve, and jumpcut. The jumpcut was used as another way of jumpscare in this trailer. Fade in and out were often used in the transition from their old videos to their older selves.