Trailer Analysis: It (2017)

Name: It
Release: 8th September 2017
Director: Andrés Muschietti who has directed another horror movie called Mama which released in 2013 and this was a commercial and critical success as well.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnCdOQsX5kc
Length: 2.26
Genre: Drama/Horror
Target audience: Stephen King enthusiasts, horror cinephiles who are between the ages of 15 - 40 because these are the ages that would remember the original Pennywise in 1990, however it would also introduce younger people into a new kind of horror.
Plot: Children begin to disappear in the town of Derry, Maine. A group of neighbourhood team up to fight against Pennywise, an evil clown whose history of murder and violence dates back for centuries.

The narrative is shown through small clips and narration:

This image shows the group of kids trying to understand who Pennywise is and why is he being a threat.

The threat and murderer that is Pennywise, an evil clown who in this shot is being terrifying.

There are a total of nine characters: One antagonist and eight protagonists. The antagonist, Pennywise is not shown obviously to the camera and uses the symbol of a balloon to symbolise that he targets children. The children are presented as victims through their facial expressions whilst Pennywise is evil for the smile is shaped curving upward yet the eyes are narrowed creating a contrasting contradictory facial expression causing audiences to feel uncomfortable and afraid what the character is trying to portray.

Most of the shots are wide and medium shots in order to help communicate the basic narrative and establish the setting, without giving the ending away. The only time there are close ups is to convey the character's emotion of fear and establish the fear that Pennywise is showing.

CLOSE UPS:

MEDIUM WIDE SHOTS:

The pace at the beginning is rather light hearted and slow as we see a little boy, Georgie in a yellow raincoat going out to play with a boat his brother, Bill lovingly made for him. Then the pace starts to go unsteady when Pennywise pops up in the sewer and the narration is giving a brief overview of the story. The pace then quickens when they are looking at the photos of Pennywise. After that the pace once again goes uneven and slightly fast when it goes through multiple cut scenes of the film before it then cuts to Bill and Georgie. Georgie asks Bill to come with him before repeating the question rather maliciously and the pace drops before quickening when Pennywise is running towards Bill.  

The sound in the beginning is a soft piano that tries to keep the mood of the trailer light hearted and innocent. This eases the audience and settles them for a simple trailer before suddenly cutting to when Georgie bumps his head. The music changes tone and is rather deeper throughout the entire clip. The pitches vary. There is a cut to black when an eerie child whispers saying "We all float down here" and it then switches to a normal pace and pitch. Each time someone says something, a strange clown-like sound plays. The sound intensifies when the projector camera clicks and goes to the next picture, the camera flicking through the pictures grows in sound before cutting to silence and slow clicks between the scenes. During the fast pace moment, there is a clown laugh running through the jumpcuts between different scenes of the film. Once again there is silence before there is a clown scream and once again silence.

There is narration which is brief and only provides the audience exposition as to what is going on. It helps to provide the audience an understanding to what the plot is as well as providing extra detail: "Derry's not like any other town I've been in. People die or disappear six times the national average ... and that's just grown ups. Kids are worse. Way, way worse." This gives the information that it is in a town called Derry. A town where a lot of people go missing, especially children and to the audience it provides information that this is a mystery to be solved.

Special effects have been used for the boat, balloon and Pennywise. The boat and balloon would need special effects because they are inanimate objects and move on their own but for the purpose of the narrative for they move in a particular orchestrated way in order to illicit suspicion and fear, they need special effects in order to move that way and convey a scary emotion. Pennywise would need special effects in order for it to do its scary acts like the scene at the end where it starts to run fast and scream.

The companies shown are Warner Bros. and New Line Cinemas which are both owned by the oligopoly Time Warner. Warner Bros. is a big oligopoly itself as it is one of the six companies that dominate the film business. It mentions: "From Stephen King's terrifying novel" and this ultimately informs the reader that the film was adapted from a book and by the word "terrifying" it entails that the book has had success which is why it is getting an on screen adaptation.

The intertitles and credits are as followed:

This tagline invites the viewer to ponder on their fear and see if they can face their worst fear by watching this film because clowns are a popular phobia that people have and so the film uses clowns as a symbol of fear. As well as this, it informs audiences that the film will release on the 8th of September leaving people to wait for the upcoming film to satiate their interest for the horror film. The font is a bold verdana font as it shows a rather strong masculine message and it makes the movie look more intense and realistic.

The trailer uses a lot of jump cuts and fade to blacks and the reason for this is because trailers are straight to the point and they need to keep the viewer interested as long as possible in the short amount of time. The jump cuts quicken the pace of the trailer and also keep the viewer interested for a while. It gives the viewer a sneak peek of the film while the fade to blacks leave the viewer in suspense on the edge of their seat to the point where they have to go see the movie to match up what they saw within the trailer to the film.

The first lines of the trailer are:

"There you go, she's all ready captain."
"Thanks Bill."

This establishes to the audience that these two children are close brothers and they love each other but it changes as it foreshadows a later event.

The next few lines all talk about the clown:

"I saw something ... there was this..."
"Clown ... yeah I saw him too."

This cut off a sentence is a technique to show the fear the children have and it informs them and the audience that the threat is a clown. It also shows how the kids are all having the same fear and in that they will join together to go against the fear. The next line:

"Look ... it's connected by the sewers. That's where IT lives."

This informs the audience that the threat can go anywhere and is easily trackable. Before it then switches to screams and shout. There is one line which Georgie asks his brother Bill:

"Bill, if you'll come with me, you'll float too. - you'll float too. -  (snigger) you'll float too. -you'll float too. - YOU'LL FLOAT TOO!"

This repeated line signifies to the audience that there is something wrong with Georgie or better yet that this is not Georgie but the clown, Pennywise because the beginning lines show a adorable sweet interaction between Georgie and Bill so this end scene shows that it is not Georgie that is talking top Bill because the repeated line creates tension and drama in order to fuel more fear into Bill and the audience before there is a clown scream to confirm our suspicion that Pennywise has done something to Georgie.

There are a total of three USPs which are: "From Stephen King's terrifying novel", Pennywise and Finn Wolfhard. If it's adapted from a book, it already gains an audience as many people are familiar with Stephen King's work and so having it adapted from a book of a notable horror novellist. Pennywise is a notable character as he was previously adapted for a drama miniseries and the character was played by actor Tim Curry who is well known for playing Dr, Frank'n'Furter in The Rocky Horror Pictureshow. It is a remake of the original drama series and it brings audiences to the film so they can differentiate the quality from the 1990 version and the 2017 version. Finally Finn Wolfhard is a actor who is shown below:

Finn Wolfhard

He is well known in the hit Netflix series, Stranger Things and this series was critically acclaimed as well as the actors. Having an actor like Finn Wolfhard lifts the status of the film and gains a wider audience.

The costumes in the film, are somewhat old and this suggests to the audience that the film is set in the 80s because this was a time when children would go out and play together, riding bicycles with one another. The sets are mostly natural and in either houses or sewers in order to show a contrast of horror and reality. The colours are mostly bright when with the kids but the colours become dull when Pennywise is near showing that Pennywise is a threat and should not be preferred. Most of the lighting is natural high key lighting in order to break the convention that horror is in the dark as there is a show of Pennywise in the day time and it conveys to the audience that Pennywise is a monster that can haunt you anytime of the day.

The trailer follows most of the stereotypical conventions in which there are jumpcuts between scenes and fades to black. It does not give much a away but gives just enough information for the audience to understand the basic plot and it definitely does not give the ending away. It has the sounds of screaming and it uses fear in a rather clever way to show that this is a horror film.

In conclusion I found that this trailer is a perfect example of a horror trailer as it uses various tools in order to gain a wider audience which worked well as it was the most viewed video within a 24 hour time space and so using a well known book helps to gain a wider audience.