Hayley - Textual Analysis of The Others Trailer

Film Title: The Others (Los Otros - Spanish)
Director: Alejandro Amenabar
Producers: Fernando Bovaira, Jose Luis Cuerda
Production Company: StudioCanal
Starring: Nicole Kidman
Released: 2001
Running Time: 46 seconds

Synopsis

The Others is a psychological horror film by Spanish director, Alejandro Amenabar. It was the first English spoken film ever to receive the Best Film Award at the Goya's (Spain's national film awards), without a single word of Spanish spoken in it. I chose to analyse this teaser trailer because it relates to what our groups wants to create for our teaser trailer, involving ghosts.

The film is set in the British Crown Dependency of Jersey in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. The main character (Nicole Kidman) is a woman called Grace Stewart, who lives in a remote country house with her two children, Anne and Nicholas, who have a very uncommon disease, resulting in them being very sensitive to light (aka. Photo sensitivity). Odd things start to happen and Grace suspects that there are ghosts living in their house. In the end, the truth is revealed to both Grace and the audience. She breaks down, remembering what had happened: Yearning for her missing husband and frustrated by her children, she went insane, suffocating them with a pillow. Once she had realised what she had done, she shot herself. It turned out that the supposed ghosts were the new family that had moved in, while Grace and her children were the actual ghosts.

The trailer starts with a tracking shot of the outside of the house. The outside scenery looks dark and foggy; the atmosphere gloomy. To the side of the shot is the silhouette of a bare, gnarled-looking tree, so that it looks as if we (the audience) are walking (or rather, gliding) beneath the tree and towards the house. Although this establishing shot doesn't show much more than the house and the tree, the audience subconsciously assumes that this house stands alone, in the middle of nowhere. A conventional setting for a horror movie. This shot alone is foreboding of something troubling to come.

Throughout the trailer, each shot fades to black, and then fades up from black. Up until about half-way through the trailer, every other shot is of the silhouette of a female figure climbing a dark staircase with a lit oil lamp in one hand. Each of these shots slowly progress from close ups, to medium shots, to long shots. The oil lamp connotes to time era, which could be either before electricity was invented, or when it wasn't as common as it is today. These shots also create tension, because the audience have no idea who the woman is.

Throughout other parts of the trailer, there are mid shots of the main characters faces and body language. They all look scared or suspicious, which suggests that they are aware of another presence within the house.

At one point, there is a shot of a young female who is dressed in what appears to be an old wedding dress, covered by a long, white veil. She turns towards the camera as if she had been caught red handed, which - in my opinion - suggests that she may be an intruder.

There is also a shot of the two children, going out into the night. The scene looks gloomy and misty, and the fact that we can see the mist, leads us to believe that the small amount of light may be coming from the moon. The children are holding hands, which connotes unity, although in their predicament, could be a connotation of fear and uncertainty.

I think that the main purpose of the teaser trailer is to show all of the unusual things that are happening in the house and the characters' reactions to them. For instance, one shot finds the main character, Grace, sitting bolt upright in an arm chair, looking up suspiciously at the chandelier that is rattling on the ceiling. This suggests that there is someone upstairs, and who are - judging by her expression - not her children. The shot is high angled, connoting that she is a victim and is essentially powerless to stop whatever is happening.

The pacing teaser trailer coincides with the tempo of the music, which is quite haunting. The tempo increases along with the pace, which builds up tension towards the climax. A blood-curdling scream.

At the end of the trailer, the screen goes black, and the name of the main actress appears. The words are white with a bluish tint, and are in capital letters, connoting that viewing this film is very important and that the opportunity is not to be missed. The words also look as if they are being stretched across the screen. This happens for all of the captions which appear, reveal the name of the director, the title of the film, and last but not least, the release date.