This is a presentation where I have analysed The Shining, in terms of genre, representation, narrative, audience, and media language.

1. The Shining trailer
analysis

2. Genre
• This trailer is an 18 certificate, meaning there is no restrictions.
• First thing we see is a shot of an isolated area, stereotypical horror
represents horror as Steve Neal said genre is shown through
repetition, I have seen similar shots before.
• Slow editing in the trailer creating an eerie feel, puts the viewer on
edge.
• Throughout the trailer we see weapons such as knives and axes that
are often used to portray death or fighting.
• The trailer ends showing the movie title in red and black distorting,
stereotypical colour and style for the genre.

3. Representation
• Rather stereotypical, portrays the mother as a protective female,
when she holds the child whilst screaming at the male villain.
• Male is portrayed as the psycho villain as expected from a horror.
• Close up shots used to represent the emotions and expressions of
characters.
• Creates the question of is the child affected when we see him
holding a knife? Children are often seen as vulnerable.

4. Narrative
• Todorovs theory suggests that in all films we start with an original
equilibrium that is calm and settled then disturbed and goes up
and down with peaks throughout the film.
• This idea is shown similarly in this trailer, wee see an ordinary
family and the father is then affected and goes mad, going to
attack his family.
• However it is not like the usual horror trailer as we don’t see
many of the peaks in the narrative, in fact we see quite a lot of
low points including a lot of speaking.
• However from the trailer I can see the idea of the film, the
mother protects her child from a mental father suggested
through him attacking the door with an axe.

5. Audience
• 18 certificate means that no one under that age can watch,
making the audience much smaller than that of an action that
would be 12 – 15.
• 18 also means that there are no restrictions on what can be
said / shown, meaning that it could offend people.
• The trailer suggests that there will be a lot of violence and
possibly someone getting killed with an axe? So it would be
targeting a very small audience into bloody films.

6. Media Language
• Cinematography: Lots of close up shots to show fear and emotions
but also long shots portraying isolation.
• Editing: Rather slow editing, like a montage showing various scenes
including some peaks in the narrative
• Sound: unlike other trailers where we would usually just hear a high
pitch / screeching score we also heard a voice over talking you
through, including words such as “isolation” suggesting these people
aren’t like normal society?
• Mis-en-scene: rather stereotypical, see murder weapons and its set
away from the rest of society.