EVALUATION EIGHT: How do you establish the narrative in your trailer? How do they work together to sell your product?

The narrative is the way different elements in a story are organised to make a meaningful story. The narrative shows the story, what happens and refers to actions, events and characters. "Chain of events in a cause effect relationship occurring in time." Argued by Bordwell & Thompson. We see our trailer through multiple viewpoints which adds suspense and as we are privy to information in which others aren't. This is known as omniscient narration. Another horror film trailer which uses this type of narration is the 1990 Stephen King inspired IT. We get to see the clown through different perceptions and individuals who interpret the clown differently. We understand that the clown appears less frightening to children at first as he lures them in with his balloon and typical stereotypes of entertaining and exciting. Adults see the clown as much more mysterious and suspicious as his costume (mise en scene) and haunting presence aren't quite right. As an audience we get to see the clown first, recognising that he is a evil clown. We become aware to information that characters in the film aren't at the beginning of the trailer.

The structure of a narrative can be linear/chronological, non-linear, cyclical or have single/multiple viewpoints. Our trailer is non linear as we didn't want it to be in a particular order. We wanted to create a state of equilibrium from the start when introducing our clown as it helps keep viewers interested and engaged. By doing this, audiences will hopefully feel connected to our trailer and want to see the fill movie in cinemas. This supports Todorov's theory of narration. I feel this challenges our audience as the non linear order introduces different parts of the film at different stages. By doing this more questions are asked including why is the clown targeting those particular girls? What significance does the record player have? Who is under the clown mask?. This reflects Roland Bathes Enigma Codes  as it teaches and engages the audience through cliff hangers and unanswered questions. 

In our trailer 'Jokes On You' we see Claude Levi Strauss Binary Oppositions represented through the characters of the teenagers and the clown as they are presented as 'good' compared to the 'evil' clown. He states the world is arranged in terms of oppositional forces and values. Trailers in general support this view as they typically show either Good and Evil, Hero v Heroine and Love v Hate. Our trailer demonstrates Good and Evil due to it being from the genre horror and including characters such as a victim and villain (protagonist & antagonist). Information is passed onto audiences through the mise en scene as we understand that the clown is evil due to the dark clothing and exaggerated mask it wears. By filming at night, the lighting became dark, eerie and mysterious. This then creates a tense atmosphere for the viewers and audiences. I feel the effect of the costume helps audiences understand our narrative as the harsh black clothing connotes death, scare and mystery. This then leads audiences to see our character as evil and frightening. The mask is also very successful when explaining the narrative as it has a haunting presence. Straight away you are able to see it's not a normal entertaining mask, the teeth are sharp and the tones in the wrinkles create uneasy shadows and textures.