Scream 4 (Wes Craven, 2011) is the forth film in its slasher series. Because the franchise does not need to introduce itself, the teaser trailer first focuses on introducing the stars. The first 15 seconds of the trailer is simply fast cuts of each character's face. There are plenty of black fadeouts to leave one character's close up to go to the next. This fast-paced editing along with an eerie voiceover both introduces the stars and indicates that they are all going to be affected by the scream figure as he talks to them. This small montage of close-ups ends with an echoed scream by the last characters introduced, and this is where the trailer shows some words: "One movie, redefined fear". This indicates that this particular installment in the franchise is a bit different to the rest, almost as if the franchise has been revamped. The use of red here could represent fear, or blood/death. The words are accompanied with a high-pitched syllable-type sound which is eerie and jumpy - exactly the way slasher films are meant to be.
After this, the style of the trailer appears to change, from a less mysterious and eerie atmosphere to a scene of teenagers in school, with natural lighting and colourful mise-en-scene. This also brings most of the character's previously introduced into one setting so we can see how they interwine within the plot. A cut to the trailer's first killing, a girl is shown falling onto a van via a birds-eye-shot, which, accompanied with screaming, is the first bit of the trailer which is blatantly shocking rather than mysterious and eerie. This raises questions about the narrative: how will the characters deal with this and escape from the killer? What other deaths will there be? "From the master of suspense: Wes Craven" promotes both the directer and the franchise for people that recognise his name.
The beat changes to something more steady whilst the cuts flick between classroom scenes to scenes of attempts to film the killer to scenes of killings. The trailer keeps killing footage limited, the audience never sees the full killing to make sure the suspense and mystery is still kept throughout. Red lighting is used in an intense moment, a connotation of death and blood. There is also a handhold shot whilst a character is setting the camera up before she gets killed.
The music changes to a fast paced, dramatic tune whilst there are lots of fact paced cuts of people running, people being attacked and lots of screaming takes place - all expectations within the slasher genre, and particularly within the Scream franchise. This is the part of the trailer which really promotes the genre and horror scenes. An abrupt end to this montage, the screen fades black and then to a scene of two girls. There is no music, only dialogue which is shortly interrupted by a fantastic shot of the scream-killer running towards the camera with a high pitched, unexpected scream accompanying.
"SCRE4M" appears on the screen in it's recognisable font, then the last shot of two girls on the phone (an important part of mise-en-scene for this film) pops up, followed by the date of release for the film. The fact that this film is part of a franchise means that the audience already has a high level of understanding of narrative style, especially as the slasher genre is particularly repetitive anyway. The audience for this film is a young-adult/teen audience which is reflected in the ages of the stars, and school setting. Although the narrative will be fairly predictable to audiences who have seen the previous films, the trailer promotes it as something slightly different - "redefined fear". It also uses stars (shown at the beginning) as a unique selling point.
In regards to our teaser trailer, the editing style of this trailer is very inspiring. The fast cuts and fade outs are all elements we are likely to use to portray our slasher killings. The way the trailer cuts between calm scenes and horror scenes is also likely to be adapted for our trailer. The shot of the killer running with the loud scream is also a great shot to consider as it is a very dramatic and summarising image.
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