The trailer summarizes the plot of Paranormal Activity 3, which follows two young girls who have been haunted by a demon from a young age. The film is set 18 years prior to the first two films. The trailer shows happy scenes of the girls at home that become increasingly tense and scary. It establishes that the film is found footage style, with cameras placed around the house by the parents to capture paranormal activity. The trailer effectively builds tension and intrigue without revealing too much of the story to attract audiences to the film.

1. Synopsis- Paranormal Activity 3 is a American
supernatural horror film released in October 2011 .It
is the third in the paranormal activity series the films
are set in a backwards order so this film is set 18
years prior to the first two. The plot is of two young
girls who have been haunted by a demon from a
young age and them and there parents try to capture
the paranormal goings on through placing cameras
around the house.
Stars- Chloe Csengery. Jessica Tyler Brown,
Christopher Nicholas Smith.
Genre- Thriller/ Horror
Directors- Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman

2. The style of the Film is found footage, in this particular advert some of it is done in a
documentary style because the advert is only 1 minute 37 seconds long, enough of
the film needs to be given away to make people interested to come and see it, so it is
done in the style of the parents talking over the background to there girls and in
other parts we hear bits of information given away from older versions of
themselves. Such as something happened when they were younger and that it has
thrived on fear letting first time viewers of the film to get an understanding.
There are constant cuts between horror and happiness making the tension build from
the beginning starting with the girls on the trampoline, ghostly scenes become more
constant towards the end and the happy scenes run out. Drawing the audience into
becoming more interested in finding out the story.

3. As this is a found footage/ documentary style film the sounds throughout the trailer
are mostly diegetic the main sound you hear in this trailer is the sound of the video
camera glitching as this is the way the scenes cut between each other which , the
glitching is natural of video camera’s but because we are expecting scary things from
the trailer it is a good sound effect to use the make the audience jump. Other sound
effects in this trailer are screams from the actors, children laughing which is
stereotypical of other horror films, and banging from the demon. The two girls do a
bloody Mary chant right at the end which is creates a slightly musical theme.

4. The editing of this trailer fits in well Handheld
with the genre and style of the film the
main technique's used are cross-
cutting and jump cutting from scene to
scene, even in this trailer we can see
that the film is filmed through a
variation of different low budget
cameras in the trailer there is editing CCTV
between handheld camera’s, cctv
cameras and the camera on the tripod
which the girls use. The glitching of the
camera and the sound effects are
edited in to target the audience at the
right points.

5. Graphics
The graphics of the film title suit the
film because they look typed which
suits the film as it is in the style of being
‘home made’. The obvious colors of red
and white being used which fit the
connotations of blood and ghosts and
the faded shadow in the background
gives the ghostly image. The use of this graphic throughout
is a constant reminder to the
audience that they are watching a
documentary style movie and that
it is filmed on a regular camera
such as one the audience
themselves could own. This all
helps to add to the horror and
realism.

6. Trailer Analysis
Overall I think this trailer Is very successful in making itself a ‘must see’ film. One
particular strong point of the way these trailers are made , is that they are able to
appeal to an audience who haven't seen the first 2 films just because it doesn't’t really
give away any aspects of the story, just portrays an obvious strong theme of
paranormal goings on and horror.
I think that the trailer is strong in the way that children are such a large part of it.
Although it is becoming more this Is not such an obvious stereotype and tends to
appeal to audiences who like to be scared because everyone spends time around
children. The ‘found footage’ element is shown strongly in the trailer, which is
something that we are interested in for our own movie.

7. How can Elements of
Paranormal activity 3 be
used in creating our own
trailer?

8. Theme
We can take the theme of not seeing the cause of the paranormal activity
and put that in our trailer because with found footage films that seems to be
the most realistic option. The theme of an average middle class family being
haunted for no reason. And them filming themselves trying to find the
paranormal activity themselves.

9. Characters
I like the way that the paranormal activity trailer
uses one of the characters to talk to the camera
at certain times and make it more clear what is
going on, so we will definitely consider doing
this as something that we could perhaps
interpret in our own way and add into our
trailer. The actors in this film are not largely
famous for anything, which is going to be the
way with our trailer anyway.

10. Shots and Sound
The camera shots in the trailer are very effective as they are varied and shot from
lots of different angles, for example there is the cctv style camera which Is hanging
from the ceiling giving a birds eye view of the action. I think that the use of different
shots is really effective as it creates much more tension and overall makes the trailer
more interesting and attractive, so this is an element of the trailer that we will
definitely look into when creating ours, especially as we are doing found footage
using the same shot all the time could become repetitive.
I think it could make our trailer interesting if we took the sound of the camera glitching
especially as ours will be in the forest so having a diagetic sound will build the tension
but just in a different way, also if ours is filmed in the daylight in the forest we are going
to need an effect sound to create a fear of normality and the pretty forest being
threatened.

11. Mise-en-scene
The overall mise-en-scene of our trailer will be
fairly different from that of paranormal activity,
because we are filming it in a completely
different location. But elements such as the
costumes being basic and just everyday outfits,
the ghost being unseen, and lighting ours will be
similar and not overly edited we are going to try
and work with the daylight as it appears they
have in the paranormal trailer.

12. How is the narrative portrayed
in the trailers, how could you use
them in your trailers?

13. The narrative is portrayed in this trailer mainly through cross cuts telling
different parts of the story, the trailer starts of innocently with the children
playing on the trampoline and in their hula hoops showing all normal things you
would expect for two little girls, with toys all around them and dressed in girly
clothes and smiling, as the trailer continues tension begins to build and cross
cuts become more frequent showing much smaller previews of different scenes,
getting scarier as they continue and allowing more to be revealed as the trailer
goes on although the narrative isn’t given away to much, but enough is given
away to make it obvious to the audience that there is an interesting story
behind it, this is so that people have an interest in going to watch the film when
it is released.

14. Who is the target audience
and how does this trailer
appeal to them?

15. From looking at surveys and research online I have been able to conclude
that the main target audience for paranormal activity is from age 16-30,
although this is a very large and varied age group the main target audience is
of course fans of horror movies. I think that the main gender would be males
as they seem to be the most interested in horror movies. But overall
paranormal activity can appeal to a large audience because of its genre.
People who don’t even enjoy horror movies still watch them for the thrill of it
with friends. The trailer appeals to its target audience because it shows how
terrifying the film is, and it is very jumpy which people who enjoy horror
movies like. You can also tell that there is a chilling story behind the film
which may be what makes the film appeal to an older age group.
I think that we will be able to direct our film into the same target group as
paranormal activity, because ours will be similar in the fact that it will be
found footage and the evil will be something that you never actually see
which is how paranormal activity managed to appeal to there target
audience, we would be able to make ours appeal to the same group by taking
ideas, which lots of films tend to do with films with a large fan base.

16. Who does this trailer
represent?

17. The Paranormal activity 3 trailer represents a middle class
american family, a stereotypical traditional white american
family of two little girls and a husband and wife, other members
of the family make appearances through out the film to help tell
the story. They live in an average american neighbourhood and
house and live a normal life up until this point. A lot of other
families will be able to relate to them which is what makes the
film so haunting because it is relevant in peoples life’s. The
family have never done anything wrong to deserve what
happens to them which puts this fear into people watching and
makes it realistic.