The trailer begins with an establishing shot of a city in America, the camera is tilted downwards and is from an aerial view, it follows to a shot in a run down area of America, which is then follows by the sound of police sirens. These components work together to produce to the audience a dangerous and unpleasant environment. Further on it cuts to a scene indoors, in the house maybe in the second shot, of an woman suggesting to her daughter that she is a prostitute and thats ‘how she is making her money out there’. The shot then cuts to a crane shot over the bed, to which she falls and ays vertically on. This shot then fades, into the the blonde daughter persuading her sister to move away from their irresponsible mother.
The trailer begins to play slow pianist music, which keeps the pace low, as at the moment the shots are relatively long, which builds the tension up for the following scenes. The music then silences when the shot ends, with the blonde daughter saying she’s never coming back. Similar to Burlesque, the producers and distributers logos are shown after some footage, maybe to attract the audience first without boring them with logos, as shown to the right. The music then begins again, with a dirty unpleasant man, who’s narrating the trailer suggesting to steal £300 thousand pounds. A shot is seen of the blonde girl thinking, the fact she is seen thinking suggests she knowing that maybe this isn’t such a good idea as it sounds, and foreshadows bad events. The music then continues how it is, whilst the characters go to the location of the crime, again the blonde girl is seen unsure of the events, foreshadowing more bad events to come.
Soon after, the lighting darkens to night fall, and affects such as broken glass and breathing are used to show the suspense of the situation. The backing music has now turned to a constant low pitched sound, where the blonde main character whispers ‘Shhhh’ to the other characters. A montage of shots are shown fading between each one, continuing with the same music, of the characters moving in and out of the rooms their about to steal from. Then the main character suggests an area where the money is hidden, which is a lot louder than the characters have previously been in the film. This may also increase the suspense for the audience. One of the three burglars then shoot the look, which has been edited in silence. The owner of the house than appears round the corner, when the same man who shot the lock attempts to pull the door open. A high pitched piano sound has been edited in to make the audience alert and scare them slightly, as they’ve been used to a slow and low beat throughout the trailer originally.
The blind owner begins to walk towards this man who demands ‘stay right there’,so which the blind man shots him and begins dragging his body away. The other thieves make a small crack in the floor boards, to which the blind man drops the body and holds the gun out in front of him. It turns to silence, to which a phone begins to vibrate, and then he shoots. This here is very dramatic and important as it shows the owner is very willing to use the gun, and will protect his house.
After the low sound from the beginning comes back much harsher then previously, to which ‘FROM THE CREATORS OF EVIL DEAD’ is shown in block writing, as you can see to the right. The scenes are now picking up the pace, compared to the very slow start of people only walking and attempting to be as quiet as possible. The owner is seen almost running through the corridor, whilst you can distinctly hear breathing sounds from the characters, this is continued throughout a montage of very odd images and short clips. The burglars are attempting to escape the owner, who is intent on finding them. Many scenes he collides with them whilst they fight back, the music is very loud at dramatic at these encountering, but when alone, quiet, this technique I believe is do dramatise the sequence and have the suspense building up. Soon after this montage, more writing appears, as you can see to the right, advertising when the film is released.
The film ends with the two characters who haven’t shown to be dead trying to find their way out of a dark cellar, to when the owner catches one of them by the neck. Lastly the title scene is shown as seen here.
Jess Stevens' A Level Media blog 