mediamonkey: September 2010

Resident evil trailer analysis

Sound

The trailer beings with the non digetic sound of atmospheric music; there is then a sound bridge of a voice over from the main characters point of view describing the story. The rain is falling and there has been an added sound effect which sounds like thin pieces of glass smashing onto the ground gently, this emphasis’s the rain drops. The main non digetic sound is the atmospheric soundtrack which has been edited to the trailer; it is of rock genre which is parallel to this films theme.

There are lots of dark and dull colours, this is in parallel with the film’s atmosphere and genre. There are very high tech settings that look very futuristic and scientific. The settings are quite dull and depressing due to the fact that there is very little life left on earth .

Editing

There are lots of straight jump cuts between scenes, this is because the film is a fast action paced one and needs this effect to give the audience the real action feel. There a slow mow scene during the beginning when the girl is standing in the rain and the camera focuses on her as the pedestrians walk by with a slow motion effect, this gives a spooky atmosphere, there is then a flashing effect added to the shot when the girl suddenly is seen to be attacking one the victims to make the scene and action really jump out at the audience. There are black fade transitions between shots that are parallel with the tempo of the music which creates a good effect.

Camera Movement

The trailer begins with a birds eye shot looking down on people walking in the pouring rain with all the umbrellas, and you cant really see the people, this shot is cleverly thought out as the main company that released the Zombie virus are called “Umbrella”, but people who are new to the resident evil trilogy will not realise but those who have already seen the previous films will instantly see the connection. There are a few wide Long shots to show the locations in the film, this is very important as these shots also show the deserted unpopulated areas do to the virus killing people, and the audience will instantly be intrigued by the abandoned locations and wonder where everybody is and what could have happened to them. There aren’t many used of angles in this trailer but a low angle is evident when the main character Alice is jumping from the building and the zombies fall after her, the camera is angled low beneath her this is so we can see the zombies behind her and we feel like she is falling towards us. There is s a similar shot like this but it is the other way around where two Alice clones are falling backwards off a building as they still shoot at their target but the camera is at a high pointthis is so we can see the depth of the fall.