District 9 - Teaser Trailer

Analysis
The non-diegetic sound of deep base starts the teaser on a serious note. On the screen
we are met by an ominous looking sunset with highly contrasting and deep colours…
blood red, pitch black, and hot yellow, suggestive of a new era of a bleak and frightening
concept
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 The teaser then
cuts to a black title
screen “THEY ARE
NOT” in white sans-
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As soon as it had
appeared it is joined
by a fourth word
“WELCOME” at which
point the previous part
of the titles fades into
a bloody red before
the whole titles fades
to black
“they’re spending so much money just
to keep them here when they could be
spending it on other things, at least
they’re keeping them separate from us”
we see one woman saying as it fades to
a shot of a dusty and desolate place
with guards on the ground guarding an
area sectioned off by barbed wire and
fencing.

This immediately
raises questions
about what it is
that’s being
contained. The
high involvement
of the military
shown suggests
a great amount
of danger about
what is being
contained.
 The same title shot
process is repeated
again, only this time
the word
‘WELCOME’ has
been replaced by
‘ACCEPTED’

Creating further
tension as the
viewer is being kept
in the dark as to
what is being
resented by the
many people
talking in the trailer
Next we are shown a person
answering into the microphone
of a reporter of some sort
saying that “A lot of bad things
are starting to happen”… this
continues the suggestion
whatever ever it is that
throughout the teaser is being
referred to as “they” are
becoming a big problem

As soon as we fade from the previous shot and statement we are put into a
position of worry as the diegetic sound of sirens and sight burning buildings
billowing black smoke create a feel for chaos. This is then followed by more of the
same… riots and army vehicles driving along roads engulfed by smoke.
“They must just
go!”
 “we’re at the breaking point…

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All of a sudden things

become very active as
army men are seen
jumping out of a helicopter
and rushing about into
formations looking almost
as if they were preparing to
engage an enemy.
…people are living in fear”. As soon as
this is said the non-diegetic sound of
synth instruments builds up rapidly
increasing to a higher volume and pitch
before be drowned by the sudden bass
which arrives with the fourth word…

In the last of the

‘THEY ARE NOT’
titles we are
exposed to what
was being kept
from us since the
teaser started.
The word that is
added this time is
‘HUMAN’
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There is then a close up of

the aliens face as it is
talking
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