Jassabelle Trailer Analysis

I personally feel that this trailer fits the horror conventions perfectly. The general pace of it both builds suspense, panics the audience and provokes a genuine sense of fear.

The very first time we see the main character - Jessabelle - we see her through an high angle shot automatically portraying her as a vulnerable character and immediately creating a sense of sympathy for her. We see her first in a wheelchair which again enhances the audience's feeling of 'pity' towards her and adds an emotional connect with the consumer and the character.

The first lot of non-diagetic music we hear seems fairly sincere however has a small element of creepiness about it. It’s slow paced and is tinted down slightly in volume when Jessabelle speaks to ensure that the audience can hear her dialogue with a sense of clarity.

We then get a sense of status when the father says to her "..it's really good to see you". He is shot from an low angle perspective giving him a sense of superiority. He also mentions her boyfriend - "..sorry about your boyfriend" - which gives the audience an idea that throughout the film the men have more dominance than the women and, Jessabelle especially, is fairly dependant on them. Here is also when we get our first element of excitement or a small 'jump scare' as we go from a slow montage of shots, finished with classical, slow parallel non-diagetic music to a a very short, snappy montage of shots when her boyfriend presumably dies in a car accident as we see a lorry smash into his side of the car after seeing a close up - a typical horror convention - of Jessabelle’s reaction on her face.

After this we see our first inter title. The outside of the inter title is much darker than the centre which is nearly fully white - this suggests that danger is closing in on the characters within the film. This particular inter title is used especially to sell the film further as it highlights other films that the producer of Jessabelle has produced. This means that those who are fans of this particular producer as more likely to watch this film due to enjoying his previous work. The back ground of the inter titles seems to be of a forest - this could symbolise the link between her character and the forest inwhich she lives near and seems to have her own grave stone in. Other inter titles in the trailer are more to help ensure that the audience is aware of the narrative and not completely lost in a state of confusion.

Again we see elements of status - the camera angle on the mother is shot from a low angle conveying the 'power within her' thus increasing the audiences sense of compassion for the main female protagonist. In fact when we very first meet Jessabelle she is ringing her father - implying that she is weak and searching for a man to save her. 

The general structure of the Jassabelle trailer fits well with the common conventions used in horror trailers. The structure of speed/duration of shots being slow/quick/slow/jump scare.

The jump scare at the end of the film is highly effective. It works so well due to collision cutting. The trailer builds suspense through slow, steady shots and then finally finishes with an unexpected montage of quickly paced 'action' shots. 

There are also elements of body horror in parts of the trailer to highlights to the audience exactly what kind of horror this film is supposed to be fitted within. Body horror links to the 'gory horror' genre and so incorporating shots of 'blood' will help sell the film to 'gory horror' fans. 

Many things such as the pacing of music and shots are used to create tension and suspense. An example of this is the diagetic sound of the tap dripping. The water hitting the sink is enhanced to create further effect. The rest of the scene is silent except for the dripping - creating an enigma. Other elements, such as the creepy whispering, are all used to add to the distubing atmosphere within the trailer. 
Some of the things I liked about the trailer are based around cinematograhpy - for example I feel as though the scene where the main female protagonist is looking upwards as there is a canted angle, tracking shot moving at a quick pace down the stairs just before she gets pushed backwards by what is seemingly 'nothing' there to push her. I feel that the effect made - that 'someone' is haunting her, invisible to our eyes and almost creeping up to her - really adds panic for the audience as we can't see whats going on and due to the main female protagonist being in a wheelchair we feel sympathy for her as we feel like she is vulnerable. Also the high angle shot makes us feel like whatever is about to attack her is far more superior than she. Another emotion this effect creates is tension - as an audience memenber we do not know what is going to happen to her once the 'creature' has reached her. 

A point that I did not like was the close up shot of the mothers face at 1:45. I felt that seeing the mothers face all wilted and old looking to such an extent added a small sense of humour to the trailer and I felt that as an audience member, my imagination of the mothers crooked face was actually better and 'scarier' than actually seeing it in an image.