The Fourth Kind Trailer Analysis

 

A film trailer is a way of advertising the film. Audiences can see them when they go to the cinema as many trailers are shown as advertisements before a film. They are also seen on television and on the internet.  They are intended to grab the attention of the audience, and show clips of the film that are exciting and leave the audience asking questions, so that they want to go and see the film, to find out what happens.

I have viewed the trailer for ‘The fourth kind’. The trailer opens with a CU shot of a camera lens. This is to emphasise that the film is made up of recordings of ‘real life’ footage. The main actress, Milla Jovovich, as herself, talking about what the film is based on. She explains the role of the doctor she is playing and the ‘real life events’ that the movie is based on. When the clips of the ‘real’ doctor are shown, her face is pixelated to enhance the ‘real’ effect, as if she has requested identity protection. This is done with ‘real life’ footage shown.

The other characters in the film are established in clips that show both the movie footage and the ‘real life’ footage in a split screen. This is to make them seem like real victims, making the movie scarier as it is showing the audience that these events occurred in reality.

The editing of clips in the trailer are so that in the middle and at the end of the trailer there are many split second clips put together to give a sense of panic.

Sound in the trailer starts with the voice of the doctor character. Her voice is high pitched and quiet making her sound weak and frightened. The trailer uses a lot of white noise as this is often associated with alien encounters as the use different frequencies that disturb our own. There is also recordings of aliens speaking in an ancient language, and loud roars etc. Generic horror sounds such as screams are also used.

The camera in the trailer is very varied. The establishing shot is a tracking shot over Alaska, probably filmed from a helicopter. Other shots include medium close ups of Milla Jovovich when she is talking about the film, close ups of the victims as they are having alien encounters.  The varied shots give keep the trailer exciting for the audience.

The mise-en-scene is important in this film as they made to make the government offices look official and the homes of the victims look realistic. However in the trailer there is no shot of the alien villains, which adds suspense to the trailer.