Winter's Bone Trailer

The music in the opening sequence seems out of kilter with scene before us. We realise immediately that we are looking at an environment which has a bleakness about it. The scene also suggests poverty, this from the look of the house and it's surroundings. The relationship between then main girl and the two younger children is not immediately clear.

The light is low and this gives the viewer a sense that the film is likely to be bleak and unrelenting. The camerawork is relatively simple in the selection of shots, but mixes between black and white and a series of very 'washed out' colours. There are no vibrant colours at all. This enhances the sense of struggle that the main character - the older girl - is likely to endure. The camerawork juxtaposes the apparent innocence of the children through long shots of them on trampolines and among bales of hay with close-ups of more sinister characters encountered by the girl as she seeks her father.

The structure of the trailer, in a way, tells the story though, in common with many other trailers, there is little detail. The trailer starts with unusual music which almost contradicts the clips we are seeing. This opening sequence is simply setting the scene and introducing us to the lifestyle of the family. Then the change in music could suggest a change in their life, as the cop turns up. The music becomes serious and much more tense and this begins to build up tension. As the sequence continues the music becomes more upbeat as we find out that little bit more. These end clips start to bring the story together, however the extract ends with the viewer understanding enough to what is going on, but still leaving a series of unanswered questions.

The end whisper by the woman not only certifies the specific genre of the film, and shows the tense atmosphere, it also suggests that there is a very dramatic ending, as this is the last memory of the film that we are left with.

The grammar of the trailer makes clear that this is a tense and scary film. The editing is tight and 'choppy'. The second shot, of the girl quite innocently chopping wood immediately adds to the sense of something sinister. The trailer - and therefore the film, we presume - builds to a climax, leaving open the central question of whether the girl finds her father. The shot editing gains speed towards the end of the trailer, building up suspense in layers. It is likely to be of special interest to 16-25-yr-olds. So the key selling point is the thrill and tension and the audience desire to answer the question: what happened next?