Research Part 3 - Conventions - Zombieland

Zombieland is a horror- comedy movie, its is about a group of people surviving an attack by zombies. They decide to take a road trip across America in an attempt to escape the zombies. Eventually they end up in an amusement park. It was originally written in 2005 for a television pilot. It was then developed by the director into a script for a film.

The trailer is conventional of some horror comedy movie trailers. At the start of the trailer it gives you information about what is happening as it tells you the worlds population and how it is being threatened. This is also done in the Shaun of the Dead trailer as there is a newsreader saying what is happening. This shows a continuity between horror comedy movies as the same things are used in two trailers.

In some trailers of this genre they use onscreen writing that is edited in. This is used in Zombieland to give information about what the zombies are invading. Although it doesnt look like the writing is edited in, when you watch the trailer it moves. The writing is short so you have time to read what it says as the trailer has to fit in as much information and scenes as possible so this makes it very effective. By having the two people beside it, one being a zombie and the other being an ordinary person it shows that they are effecting the people that live on their land which ties in with the writing. The use of the drink flying out of her hand makes it very effective which shows how scared sh is. As it is pink it fits in with what a typical image of a girl would be as you usually associate pink with girls and pink also conntes love which in this case isnt true as she isnt in love she is running away.

There is quite a lot of fast paced editing used and cutting from scene to scene as the audience is shown as much as what they need to grab the audiences attention to watch the actual film when it is released. A lot of film trailers make sure they have a lot of scenes from the film but this can then ruin a film as the audience may feel that they have been shown all of the most important things in the film so they don't need to see the film.

In most trailers the main shots are of the main characters or there is a mid shot or close up of them singularly so you can see who the main characters are. This establishes who the actors are that play them as well so if the audience are interested in these actors then they may watch the film just to see them in it. This is conventional as most trailers show who the main characters and actors are. The four images below show this and they are consecutive so the audience can see who the main characters are.

 In this shot you can see that his clothes are very ordinary so you can see that he is just a normal person and not a zombie. In the background you can see lots of crashed cars so it may make you want to watch the film to know what is going on and why there are so many crashed cars.

In this shot there is low key lighting used which gives an atmosphere to what is going on. From the emotion given from his face something may be about to happen as he looks scared. He also has a weapon in his hand and because of he lighting it shows that he may be going there for a purpose.

The look on the girls faces are as if they are suspcious or scared of what may happen in the film this suggests that the film is of a horror convention but they are contrasted with the face of the older man (top left) and the young boy (top right) as the young boys faces shows a scared but comic look which gives the comedy element to the trailer.

This shot is a medium close up as you can see her face very clearly but the rest of her body apart from her shoulders aren't in the shot. This portrays the emotion she wants you to feel better than if they took a long shot because you wouldn't be able to see her face clearly enough for the viewers to recognise what she was feeling.