Cloverfield (2008) Analysis

The only music used for this trailer is stereotypical adults 'party' music which is diagetic. The music is fairly upbeat and helps the audience’s mood lift to the mood of the trailer as the parallel music is loud too. The camera is handheld adding a sense of realism - the audience experiences the trailer as though we are the man behind the lens shooting his friends at the party. The only intertiles we see appear at the end of the trailer in white against a plain contrasting black background to ensure that the writing stands out and is clear for the audience to read. The intertitles include the producer’s name - to widen the target audience as those who enjoyed the producers previous films will be more inclined to watch his next making - and the release of the film itself obviously letting the audience know when to come to see it. 

The production company of the film is 'Paramount Pictures' which is quickly shown at the very start of the trailer for the same reasons the producers name is shown - a consumer that has enjoyed productions brought to them by Paramount Pictures is much more likely to watch this film if they feel they know a little about it and have enjoyed previous work from people/companies involved in it. The trailer starts with friends at a party wishing 'Rob', the main protagonist, a good time away in Japan. The dialogue is very modern and basic. As an audience member we see the overall idea of the film to be fairly simple and upbeat, which is when our mind is quickly changed. As the room 'shakes' and the characters within the film take themselves to the top roof we see a building explode with 'fireballs' shooting out of it. This is the first sign of 'special effects' that we see drawing the audience’s attention into the film as it builds a sudden sense of excitement. From then on the dialogue changes massively and from here to the end of the trailer we can just hear characters screaming which adds to the chaotic mood that the trailer has suddenly and somewhat randomly adopted. 

In terms of pace the trailer starts off calmly with a sense of happiness and energy as everyone in the party dances to music and chats - however, when the 'earthquake' scenario happens the atmosphere changes along with the pace. As the characters become more and more panicked the camera shots speed up creating a sense of tension for the consumers. When the Statue of Liberty head rolls through the street the speed of the montage of shots increases significantly creating a huge sense of excitement and panic and inevitably leaves the audience wanting more. After the first 'earthquake' experience the music at the party is 'turned off' presumably by one of the characters and they all stand watching a TV of a news reporter explaining what has just happened. This lets the audience in on the events happening at the same time as the characters in the film making it seem more interactive and as if we are actually there as we feel just as 'lost' as to what is happening as the characters in the film do - enhancing our ability to react along with the characters and connect with them. When the first explosion happens the camera itself cuts in and out of focus and occasionally turns on and off in short flickers - this immediately creates a sense of terror for the audience as we have no idea what is happening and sporadically can't see anything at all. 

The trailer for Cloverfield uses the conventional structure for horror trailers of slow, relaxed pace shots to a montage of quick, flustered shots. This usually creates a sense of suspense to the horror trailer however in Cloverfield I found the quick shots to be more sudden and unexpected as the trailer goes from a very simple, fun party to a manic disaster.

Cloverfeilds trailer itself is very different to the majority of trailers as it is a 'scene trailer' and so only focuses on one particular scene instead of a highlights trailer which focuses on the most interesting sections from many scenes. Also, due to research I found out that the trailer was released randomly and without a title leaving audience members confused and therefore 'sending a link of the trailer to their friends' which of course increased the 'word of mouth' about the film quickly and encouraged more people to watch it as they were intrigued to know what it was about.