Compare the
impact and effectiveness of 30 days of night
Both the trailer and the poster were designed to attract more
people to watch the film. The company has used synergy so the poster and the
trailer relate to each other. They both refer to the website to encourage more
people to learn more about the film. Both of them use narrative possibilities.
On the poster it says that empire, a popular movie magazine has
rated it 4 stars. The poster has the words, “they’re coming” underneath a group
of people which makes it seem like the two people in front of them are being
hunted. The man is represented braver than the woman because he is armed with
an axe and looks like he’s protecting her.
The people in the background make it look like the people in
the front are looking in different direction. Near the bottom of the poster
there is black writing on a red background making it look like spilled blood.
The two people are both holding weapons looking like they are ready for a
fight. The blood and the weapons indicate that the movie is going to be very
violent.
The website at the bottom of the poster shows people where to
go for more information about the movie and so they can watch the trailer. It
says that the movie previews at Halloween so more people will watch it to see
how scary it is. The movie is in the Arctic Circle so they will be in darkness
for 30 days which will make it harder for them to see if they are being
followed. At the bottom right corner of the poster there is a face shouting and
looking up at the two people.
The storm clouds at the top of the poster indicate that
trouble is coming. The man is shown to be a police man so it looks like he is
going to be the hero. The people in the front are looking to the right making
it seem like they are being surrounded.
The trailer is non chronological and starts with an
equilibrium, but It is dark and snowing outside and makes you think that
something is going to come through the window. The camera cuts to a man sitting
in the living room and looking intense. Then it cuts back to the kitchen and
something comes flying through the window and shocks the audience. It cuts back
to a medium shot of the man to show his reaction. The woman gets dragged
through the window and then under the house. She gets dragged away from her
point of view and we see her frightened husband.
It fades to black and shows a studio title card which doesn’t
use warm colours. There is no red because the blood has been drained which ties
in to the fact that this is a vampire film. The cards are used to fill in the
story. The camera fades to black after each shot and the shots are at a high
angle. The lights are off in the village so everyone there is in complete
darkness. The fades to black are used to unnerve the audience. There is a long
high angled shot of the village and the clouds are low and heavy so they look
menacing. Some title cards explain the background of the film. A high angled
shot of two people in dark coats looking down at the village shows that the
people are in danger.
A man on his own is
shown in an extreme long shot. Then there is a close up with someone behind the
man blurred. There is a montage of shots which are fast paced and quickly
edited to build up excitement. The camera cuts to a police man and has a shot
of him looking at a man in a prison cell. The bars make us think: is the man in
jail trapped or is the police man? The only way to find out the answer is to
watch the film. The man in jail says, “Board the windows. Try to hide. They’re
coming” and each shot gets closer to the man in prison to scare us. There is a Cut
to a different man in the police station with someone behind him through the blinds.
The man behind breathes heavily and we know that they are in danger.
There is a montage of shots and the lights go out in the
village. A sequence of shots separated with quick fades to black and fade up.
There is a non-diegetic beating sound and a little kid is shown alone in the
street and a woman starts screaming for help. There is a close up shot of a
mouth with vampire teeth, and a woman says to someone that vampires don’t
exist, but the audience knows that she is wrong.
The film was produced
by Sam Raimi someone who is well known for producing horror films. The letter I
spills blood in “Sam Raimi” to link it to the vampire theme. There is an edit to
a shot of a face with blood dripping from its mouth and then shows long vampire
nails covered in blood so we can see how vicious the vampire is. There is a Quick
fade to black and fade up of blood running down a hill after the man in prison
says it isn’t the weather its death approaching. Montage of shots of people
being dragged under houses.
A title card says how
can they be stopped and the only way to find out is to watch the film. The cop
says that we can last a month and then there is a sequence of shots of the
village getting destroyed. The beat of the music gets faster and the lengths of
the shots get shorter to excite the people watching. There is a build up to the
final scare of a woman screaming and a vampire going to bite her. The title is
shown in red and it fades away and shows the billing block and then the website.
The website is shown so people watching know where to go for more information.
The trailer is more effective than the poster because they
are sounds and moving images for impact. For example the beating during the
montage of shots. The poster and the trailer link together by the mise-en-scene,
the website and the same iconographic imagery.
