Specific Promotional Package Research (Horror/Thriller) - American Beauty

I chose to look at American Beauty as it is a film that passes it self off as very simple and about a family, when really it goes much deeper and only shows this towards the end, much like how I'd like the story of the trailer we are making to do, lul the audience in to a fake state of security and then reveal, which i feel makes the best reactions for helping to build tension. So i am going to look at how they have made the posters and trailers to fit alongside this idea.


- This poster is very simple, this image is also taken from a scene within the film, something audiences will realise after the film, overall this poster gives off a different impression of the film. but in away that is what the film does until towards the end, you think it's just a messed up family and at the very end the movie starts to show it's true colours, because the poster is simple like this you don't really get what it's going to be about and so it wouldn't really attract an audience on looks of the film, but you may attract them on them wanting to know what it is about and also the actors who are in it. As the film poster is so simple, it ties in well with the films tag line and the whole premise of the film "Look Closer", it's what is underneath all of this, don't take on face value, that some people may when looking at this poster, or the may not get it, but that is what the film is trying to achieve, with everything being revealed at the end.
- I like the simplicity of it, sometimes the more simple ideas can come across the scariest or the better, as you don't want to over complicate things for an audience. This poster is also eye catching as it is a nude picture of a woman's belly, something you don't see everyday on posters and on top of that you don't know who's it is and so people wouldn't be attracted to the poster because of a famous face, that means they have to make an impact another way to gain peoples attention and this works well, as it's a very easy simple thing to do.
- The lettering used on this poster is also very simple and compliments the arrangement of the poster, it isn't over powering as they use white for the less important information, which matches the skin tone and then of course black for the title of the film to make it stand out and because everything else is in nude or light colours it really stands out, this tells me I'm going to have use a good arrangement and a well thought up colour scheme.

this trailer -

starts off with a really nice setting, nice and sweet, making the audience think it will be a lovely movie, i like htis idea, putting the audience in to a false sense of hope that it will be a nice movie, so that when it changes it will really scare or effect them as they wont be expecting it. But the tag lines separating most shots helps to reveal a little more, to the movie, like a good tag line should, keeping it interesting.

the music at the start is really eerie i feel, which juxtaposes what you are seeing on the screen, another indicator of bad things happening.

The shots at the start a short, so you don't the full picture, usually the short takes start closer to the end, but in this film people are hiding behind there normal life and that is the mysteries.

The music then builds in to almost a romantic soundtrack to a film, fitting with what is going on and revealing that it isn't all bad that there is some love

It quickly changes to long takes meaning we get more information on the movie and what happens, it reveal alot about the movie, which i wouldn't want to do as i'd like to keep more mystery.

The music keeps in time with the shots, something as the sound track writer i'd really like to do, to help build tension within our horror trailer.