Sixth Sense Trailer

 

The Sixth Sense is a 1999 film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film follows the story of Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) a psychologist who receives an award and on the same night is visited by an un-satisfied ex-patient. A year after this encounter Crowe is assigned to a young boy called Cole who seems to be suffering from the same problem as his former ex-patient. Much to the dismay of his wife Crowe begins to spend a lot of time with Cole to try and understand his condition, it soon becomes apparent that Crowe might be Cole's only hope, but what is unrealised is that Cole is also Crowe's only hope.

The Sixth Sense trailer begins with a state of equilibrium, as we get the idea of normal busy city life was an unfortunate incident of a car accident has taken place. This is made clear by an establishing shot of the road zooming out; with diegetic speech from the character Cole talking to his mum explaining what has happened. However once Cole says "Standing next to my window" all  diegetic music stops and the trailer takes a more sinister turn with an eerie soundtrack, which builds tension making the audience drawn in.

The next scene is of a red balloon rising up towards a light. This certain clip is open to ambiguous interpretations. The red balloon can be seen as a lead for Cole towards something from another world. However the balloon can also be a representation of a spirit going up towards the light of heaven. The fact that the clip cuts before the balloon has reached the light gives the idea that these spirits have not yet entered the next world but trapped in this.

There are also a lot of shadows throughout the trailer. This represents the connection between Cole and his mother. Throughout the trailer there are clues given that Cole has an isolated relationship, he remains in the shadows to not draw attention to his mother: "because she doesn’t look at me the way everybody else does and i don't want her to know."

The trailer uses a lot of short clips and cut shots to add to the excitement and fear of the trailer. The clips are connected by very quick fade in fade out shots of black - this help relates to a heart beating fast. Cole is introduced by a lot of high angle shots. This gives the audience the idea that Cole is vulnerable in this movie and fraught with danger. The idea of a child being in danger is typical of a horror film and in particular a Psychological horror. There is also a lot of quick zooms in and zooming out of camera angles, not only to add to the fast pace of the trailer but to also emphasize the idea of "falling down really fast".

There is hardly any text used in the trailer but the basic story is told by Cole to audience as clips of audio from the film are being used as a voice over. The only text used in the film is the name of the main actor "Bruce Willis" and the name of the actual film "Sixth Sense". It is clear from the trailer that this film is a psychological horror; however it is typical of psychological horror to have a twist to the story. The fact that we are told in the trailer that Cole is the boy who possesses the sixth sense and can see dead people, tells the audience that there is another more surprising eerie twist to come.

The colour red is very important in this trailer. Red is usually linked with danger therefore Shyamalan intentionally absents this colour from most of the film; instead the colour is used in isolated shots. As you can see in the trailer the colour red is used for the colour of the balloon, carpet, Cole's sweater, the tent and Cole's mother's hair and sweater. The majority of the colours in the film seemed to be washed out and dim to represent the darkness and evilness of the film.