Storage 24
Storage 24 is a 2012 Sci-Fi-Horror film. The UK is in chaos
when a mid-air disaster, occurred on board a military plane causing it to fall
& crash in central London. Details of the cause of crash are sketchy as the
plane released materials considered to be ‘highly classified’ over the city. Oblivious
to the fact that the city is under total lockdown, 4 people find themselves
trapped inside a giant storage unit centre called Storage 24.
Storage 24’s trailer begins with a voice over from a news
report, immediately establishing the setting of the film with ‘’Britain is
under high alert after…..’’ which then overlaps with other news reports,
creating an atmosphere of confusion and anxiety and this immediately grasps the
viewer’s attention as we’re unsure of what’s going on. This is followed by a series of shots from realistic
news reports which are only shown for a split second, accompanied by zapping sound
effects, augmenting on the already well-established confusion. The lighting,
accompanied with the eerie silence (no music) builds even more tension as the
setting (storage 24) is very dark, it’s almost impossible to see anything.
The producers of the trailer didn’t waste any time as they got
straight into the drama & action, with brief 1-2 second shots of the crash
site and contents that were on board the plane. There wasn’t even an
establishing shot to establish the location of the place. However, the
protagonists (humans) are immediately shown after shots of the wreckage. Only
snippets of the antagonist (alien creature) are shown and we don’t get a full
concept of how it actually looks until the end of the trailer.
The editing is quick & snappy because the standard
length allowed for a trailer is 2mins 30 seconds, with the trailer being 1 min,
49 seconds there is so much information being passed on in that time frame. That’s
why there are so many jump cuts because even though there is a narrative,
details are quite sketchy as to where the antagonists (alien) originated from within
the deigesis. However it does give us an
indication that it was released from the military aircraft because there were
shots of the creature’s cell for the crash site.
The trailer gives us these preconceived ideas and that’s
what all Sci-Fi trailers tend to do. Like this one, it immediately identifies
that something is about to happen, something already happen which caused
something else to happen (cause+effect) but the only thing that isn’t shown is
the resolution as we are still not sure what happens to the people in storage
24, whether they got out alive and destroyed the alien or not. We have
preconceived ideas but it still lacks clarity.
War of the Worlds (2005)
War of the worlds (2005) is an American epic Sci-Fi disaster
film. Inspired by the novel ‘The war of the worlds’ by director Steven Spielberg
it appears that the world is under attack by visitors (aliens) from outside of
our world that strategised a plan to invade earth from many years ago.
At first everything appeared to be pretty normal- a man (Tom
Cruise) is seen as a family man, spending time socializing with his children
& spouse but things don’t seem to be 100% normal as he seems to be a bit alienated
from them. Things quickly start to change as what appears to be a freak
lightning storm hit the city, causing power outages, traffic jams from vehicle
failures (as shown from the shots). At this very same moment the editing pace
changes from slow fades to really snappy fades, dips & cutaways, showing
snippets of disasters to come.
At this point it is still pretty unclear what’s caused this
and why- this all goes well with the music as the tempo increases, building
tension and is further reinforced by the shots being shown revealing further
catastrophe, confusion & terror. Keeping us in suspense and eager to know
what’s going to happen next the film trailer ends, not revealing how the problem
is solved, leaving us with just preconceived ideas. What’s interesting about
this film trailer is that rather than it using text to convey the information
to us, it uses video & sound to give us a general idea of what the film is
about.
Stranded
Stranded is a 2013 Sci-Fi-Horror film directed by Roger
Christian. Four isolated astronauts who are stationed in a mining base on the
moon experience a foreign intercession after a meteor storm struck one of the
bays causing paranoia, fear and death.
The first shot immediately establishes the location of the
diegesis, showing an extreme long, telescopic-like shot of the moon over the
earth’s atmosphere. The establishment is proceeded by a shot on the moon
itself, revealing the mining base which indicates the viewer that this is
indeed a Sci-Fi. Like most trailers normally would, this one goes straight into
the action showing several different shots with a lifespan of approximately 1
second. It appears that these people are in serious trouble-there is frequent
radio communication; the astronauts can be seen analysing sensitive scientific
equipment, its chaos. The loud, bassy music helps to reinforce the already well-established
disturbance, with the number of cuts per minute increasing. Considering the
fact that they are in space, the mise-en-scene is generally dark for most of
the shots which contrasts with their computers & other scientific
equipment. This reinforces man’s reliability to machine & technology in
Sci-Fi, not just when they’re away from earth but in general.
Halfway through the trailer things go quiet for a bit and
the shot per-minute slows down, it’s kind of a way of letting the viewer absorb
what has already been presented to them and let it sink in. The pace quickly
picks back up again and this time things are even worse than before- we knew
that there was a meteor strike; we knew there was some form of trouble but we
didn’t know what was coming next. Now it is apparent that these individuals are
experiencing a series of physical & psychological disturbances. We can see
this as the astronauts are seen losing their composure after finding out that a
poisonous substance that was released during the meteor strike is causing
hallucinations, paranoia and illness (sores) amongst them.
Judging by what is seen in the trailer it shows that yes man
may be intelligent, we may have created extraordinary equipment but there’s a
limiting factor that we can never get rid of that is ‘we’re only human.’ As
supreme and dominant as we might seem, we’re still vulnerable to attack, interference
that we’re not accustomed to. It also shows how we react when we’re exposed to
certain situations, revealing our true characters in life-threatening
situations. However, one thing that isn’t shown is what happens to the
characters; did some of them escape? Did they all die? Is there any aliens?
None of that was shown so we’re left with these preconceived ideas of what may
have happened.
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