Research Movie Trailers: Daybreakers

The next few updates are going to be evidence of my research phase of my project, which alongside the trailers and research into magazine front covers done by Sean will combine to evidence our entire work in this phase of the project.

Daybreakers is a Sci-Fi Horror film where the majority of the population of the earth are now vampires, feeding off the small pockets of humanity which are quickly running out. One of these vampire scientists begins work on a cure for the vampirism and one of the small pockets of human resistence kidnap him so he can complete his work and free humanity. The film has a distinctly modern dystopian setting (one film critic suggested that the word “blood” could easily be replaced with the word “oil”) which is portrayed during this trailer, as well as highlighting some of the larger action sequences of the film and explaining enough of the story for the audience to understand the idea without spoiling the entire plot.

After the “Approved by MPAA” message the trailer begins with a stormy background and the “Lionhead Studios” title, showing which film studio created the film and follows on with this dark image with an establishing shot of a futuristic skyscraper complex, before fading to black to a text wipe (The “Fade to Black” transistion is used throughout the trailer, usually followed by text like the conventions used by the “Death Note” trailer, as if you don’t want to break the silence or the tension caused by backing music or a scene with a narrator this is an effective way of getting a message across.) This text is followed by two quick shots edited together with a black & white effect as well as a video effect to make it seem like the technology is either breaking or being affected by some other force (a technique which is used in other mainstream horror trailers in order to quickly shock or catch the attention of the viewer) which in this case is used to show that vampires play an important part in this film.

After another text wipe and establishing shot of a crowded street where every human is a vampire we hear the first diagetic audio from the film, which is a line said by the main antagonist to a vampire soldier. The straight edits between the five mid-to-close shots (three from the crowded street, two from the scene where the quote is coming from) are very quick and done to draw specific attention to how these people aren’t human, which fits in with the quotation. The non-diagetic music also picks up at the end of this line slightly as well, to help to fill in the gap before the next line (there is also a sound effect played during the text wipes that distinguishes them from the music.) These quick edits which keep rapidly showing various scenes of how vampires rule this world and what remains of humanity is oppressed by them are broken up by text wipes. This is used to make sure that what is said in the text wipes is clearly understood and shown to the viewer so they know what the relevance is of the next/previous shots. The white flashes and black fade transistions used here are another method used by the filmmakers in order to keep the viewer intriuged and attentive, making them focus purely on the trailer alone. The music running through here is just as face paced with a large focus on the thumping percussion beat which keeps the action moving quickly, with the strings coming in later to add to the suspense.

As the music is abruptly cut off by the “Cut-to-Black,” the protagonist turns on a lightswitch (a quite clever way of editing back from a “Cut-to-Black”) and one of the humans is holding a crossbow at him during a two-shot. Here the music has changed as it is a turning point within the trailer and the film, with the music now changed to a ticking noise (an obvious link to time, or that lack of it giving the sense of urgency with protecting humanity. ) The “Cut-to-Black” transition is used repeatedly for this next section, almost like an eye or camera lens clicking, showing snapshots of different scenes and locations in the film so as to symbolise what the characters are saying over the narration.  The scene before last is also one of the very few moments we have of a character actually out in the sunlight, something which is of course a rarity as the majority of characters before this would die in the sunlight.

After the line “We’re the folks with the crossbows” the speed of which the shots change increases rapidly, with the text shots still frequent but also with an effect that makes it look like it has been slashed during the white flash, again another eye-grabbing technique used by the filmmaker so that the audience isn’t tempted to stop watching the trailer until the end.  The music also stays now on the same music until the end of the trailer, which unlike the rest of the music is an actual published song called “Running Up That Hill” by Placebo, a long running alternative rock band whose music style would probably appeal to a similar target audience of this film as well as the song itself being a dramatical change of pacing so that the music doesn’t seem to be made for this trailer, adding to the sense of suspence caused by the action sequences shown and the fast “blink and you’ll miss it” style of throwing shot after shot through fade/cut to black transitions and straight edits, making it known that this is the sort of film for people who enjoy action and suspence as much as horror or science fiction.

In all I quite like the idea of portraying the story through this style of teasing out some of the main story points without explicitly saying too much as well as the constant “Fade-to-black” transitions and text wipes as they both add to the feeling of something dark and mysterious, an effect that would work well within our own production, and the way that it is clearly distinctive who a vampire is and who a human is through their teeth and eyes is another small trait that will be useful to show the change between James and Upire (his vampiric split personality). However I also feel like it shows too many different shots, literally bombarding the viewer with too much information so that they can’t take it all in, meaning that the information which is given in the trailer will be lost through the over-the-top ending of flashing action shots and explosions, something which in a more suspense driven horror film I would judge poorly but given the context it works only for this very specific style of film.