The Happening

This trailer shows typical thriller conventions throughout. They use rapid and abrupt editing (quick cuts) to build tension and suspense. The quick cuts also get the adrenaline flowing in the audience which builds more tension and excitement. In this trailer they use 'two shot's and 'shot-revese-shot's to show people in conversations, they do this so you can clearly see facial expressions and the panic and alarm in their faces as they learn more of the situation. There is also the use of close-up shots to show the emotions of the characters, like fear and panic.

 

In the trailer they also use non-digetic sound to build tension and suspense,for example they use a heartbeat in the background then it abruptly stops, this could be to show the outcome of death and this builds fear and shock for the audience. They also use a kind of bell drone or a war siren, this for warning people, which shows that there will definately be danger ahead of them.

 

The trailer shows a sort of montage of the bad things that are happening, they do this to show the audience how far spread this epidemic is, and how it is effecting everybody. They also show a series of people watching news programmes reporting this epidemic this helps the audience to infer that it is global. The repition of the word "attack" could make the audience infer that somebody or something is doing this to people on purpose.

 

This trailer shows many conventional themes, one of which could be the 'helpless blonde' this is often a character used in this kind of genre, it represents women as the 'Damsels in distress' and men as the ones who are calm and hold control. Although the trailer its quite conventional for this genre they also use unconventional ideas, for example the worms eye view of men jumping/falling of the roof of a tall building, this is unconventional because it is not something you'd expect to see, its showing the audience something they have never seen before, the low angle also makes this scene much more dramatic then it would from a high or mid level angle.