I will start with setting. At the start of the trailer we see David and his wife happy with their child Billy outside of their medium size peaceful looking house. We also see when the car is driving past that the setting must generally be a village or small town due to the luscious number of trees and grassy areas. The trailer then cuts to the supermarket where the majority of the trailer takes place. This setting then changes from a casual supermarket to a isolated safe haven from the creatures of the mist. The mist consumes the supermarket and we assume that Brent's attempt to go outside got him killed. For the rest of the trailer we only see action take place in the supermarket and rightfully so as it is where the majority of the film takes place.
Next up is technical codes. These technical codes are camera, mise en scène, sound and editing. I will note an example in the trailer for each of these and explain how it relates to the horror genre. At 1:34 in the trailer we get an over the shoulder shot of the man taping up the windows. From the angle we get the full impact when the bug flies right onto the window in front of him. It makes for a jump moment which is common within the horror genre. From 1:34 onwards we also see that night time comes and it is also dark within the store with no electricity, this is also where the action and conflict starts to escalate being conventional to the horror film tradition of the night time being less safe. Throughout the trailer music is playing, this quiets down a certain points to hear the characters however it is still there and changes throughout the trailer. At the start of the trailer, the music is nice, high tone and cheery. A siren then leads to some suspense music at 0:34 which quietens down and stops for a bit so we concentrate on the particular scene. At 1:25 a different piece of music comes back that continues with a tension building atmosphere and then unleashes when the monsters start attacking and everything becomes out of control. Finally for editing. Similar to how the sound is throughout the trailer we see at the start that there are lots of long shots which give us an indication that it is peaceful and fine. As the tension starts to build up the shots get smaller and cut to the next shots more rapidly. This keeps the audience attention on the trailer and near the end where the tension is high they are very rapid cuts and screen flashes. These have been added during the editing process and add to the impact of the trailer.
The iconography for the trailer is a small peaceful town that is consumed by to which we assume is a supernatural force. For the rest of the trailer we see that everyone is trapped in the store. The iconography of a store in a small town turns into everyone's only safe-haven. The mist houses the unknown and is dangerous to go out in to.
In The Mist, the narrative is explained pretty well in the trailer without spoiling the end for obvious reasons. The trailer goes through the narrative of the movie without allowing the audience to piece too much of the story together. We know the movie starts all nice and happy, the mist comes over and disrupts the equilibrium. To not spoil the movie we do not see the resolution and if the equilibrium is restored or not.
The main character we can assume is David Drayton due to him getting the most screen time compared to any other character throughout the trailer. At the start of the trailer we following him to the supermarket, the trailer clearly wants us to pay attention to him. We also see that the religious lady Mrs. Carmody causes much of the conflict in the trailer where she gets slapped and tries to take David's son as a sacrifice. Being in charge of two of the major scenes in the trailer we can assume that she is an important character.
There are many themes that we can see throughout the trailer, some being more obvious then others. There is the more obvious themes like danger, supernatural forces and fear. There is also some more obscure ones that the trailer doesn't obviously show like religion, willpower and sacrifice. There are more then these 6 themes but they are obvious to find.
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