Trailer Analysis : Harry Brown

Does this trailer fit the usual conventions of a revenge thriller? if so how? (or if not then what is new?)

The trailer to Harry Brown is a very good example of a revenge thriller trailer. The trailer is clever in the way that it genuinely does make you want to watch the movie. The Trailer begins with the problem, violent youths on a council estate being watched by Michael Caine as Harry Brown. Yes, it sets up a victim, Harry's friend Leonard at the beginning of the trailer. As well as this it sets up the situation where the main character makes a decision that he must attempt to right, like when he fails to think properly about protecting his friend and then exacts his vengeance on the youths. However it diverts from the usual plot of a revenge movie in the way that the Police are, by the looks of it, not condemning Harry for his vigilanteism, most revenge films choose to view revenge as more

Which trailer conventions does this trailer use well?
(voice over? / dramatic sound? /is it structured into 3 parts? /does it establish the genre ? how? /what audience do you think it is aiming at? )

Most of the trailer is dominated by sound-bites and voiceover that really give us the structure of the narrative, Michael Caine's voice is very well known and so this gives us a sense of familiarity to him and as well as this, he manages to convince me that his vengeance is justified. The sound used, includes violent noises and the trailer itself ends on the sound of a gunshot, this prepares us for a violent, modern urban film. I would say that the trailer is structured into probably 2 or 3 sections, the first being his friend feeling threatened and being killed, then the impression on Harry and him pondering whether he can just let his friend's killer go un-punished, and the final section (by the look of it much longer than the first two) him exacting his revenge. I believe that this trailer knows it has a huge audience, Michael Caine personally draws a large audience as one of the most respected British film-actors, this will appeal to older fans who know Caine, the idea of rowdy youth as well would suggest an older viewpoint of young society. As well as this it could be seen as a film for a younger audience as it is filled with action and violence and has a soundtrack of young urban music and the British rapper, Plan B, is a co-star in the film.

3) What are three moments or images or edits that you think are particularly effective in this trailer?

The images of the youth rioting in this street from an above angle in the dark makes it seem really ominous, this shot encapsulated the fear that Leonard felt before he died, the second image that really makes an impact is Michael Caine crying due to the fact that primarily he is a good actor and we can see how much this means to the character, Caine is also famous for playing tough characters and thus it is a strange image to see. The other is the finishing image of the trailer, where he points the gun at the screen and says ''You failed to maintain your weapon, Son.' which is the image that we are meant to be left with, thinking that he is fixed on revenge and nothing is going to prevent.


4) look at the studio idents - (what can you learn about idents and their style from these?)

The Lionsgate is the text LIONSGATE in block capitals it is black on a background of clouds in a sepia sky of clouds. They are quite interesting

Trailer Analysis : Oldboy Trailer

The Oldboy trailer is a good example of a trailer that trys to appeal to a foreign audience. As a whole I don't think that it is a great trailer, but the movie was a huge international success. The first shot of the trailer remains unexplained adding mystery to the film. Then a selling point quickly pops up, "Winner of Grand Prix Festival of Cannes 2004", for many foreign films, it is quite difficult to sell them without the authenticity added by an award at a festival. We are then given some text with a distinctive font and a patterned background. Does not just tell the plot, shows it on screen. There is also a selective use of well-framed shots that show us the character as well as his surroundings. The trailer then changes to show our character having suffered, then action and revenge constitutes a change in the music. The trailer very much concentrates on our character 오대수 and I think it is quite clear that we are meant to view him as frustrated and obsessive by his behaviour and appearance. As it gets nearer the ending of the trailer,whilst flashing quotes from reviews to reinforce that it is infact a great movie, we get more of the impression of a tragic ending with the shots of the woman crying and our main character being beaten up. In this way, the trailer presents us with an outline of a story. Then the title comes up in a distinctive style of title.

Teaser Trailer Work : What is a Teaser Trailer?

What is a Teaser Trailer?

6 Months before Trailer, they are between 30-90secs .
They aim to tease the audience.
They show the name, the date, the stars.
Best bits of the film, good framing, ACTION, PLOT etc.

Dragon Tattoo

Closeup Image, the date comes second.
More graphics.
Characters, Text.
Faster pace, few soundbites, not much explanation.
Establishing single-shot characters.
Location.
Series of shots that seemed to link a crime.
Violence shown, the punch.

Played with Fire

US Version, the titles are very good
Uses visual effects, ripples the titles, multiple colours and capitalisation ‘they FRAMED HER for MURDER’ emphasis

Hornet Nest
Focus on a character.
A little shot between titles, and the music
Actor’s names
Only a bit of action, not actually needed…
Visual impression,

Analysis : Trailers : Winter's Bone

The Trailer

Camera
There are several establishing long shots showing nothing substantial on camera, this conveys that this is not a heavily populated area.
A majority of the shots shown are mid-shots showing conversation between characters.
Shots tend to be quite stationary at the start, movement increases later in the trailer, again highlighting the increase in intensity shown on screen.

Editing

The opening shots of the trailer fade to black and back from black to set the scene and at the same time. Then a lot of quicker transitions to convey the build up to a finale. It is clear that the film will have a large ‘reveal’ at the end and they show this in the trailer by cutting the shots quicker and quicker.

Sound - Non-diegetic

Build-up as if suggesting progression towards a finale
The singing man at the beginning is contrapuntal to what is shown on screen, the lack of backing music, similar to the typical use of singing minus backing instrumental in the horror genre to build tension.
The mood of the music changes from mellow to speedy and wild, highlighting the fact that what originally appears to be a simple mystery is far more complicated than expected.

Sound - Diegetic

The accents suggest the rurality of the area of America in which it is set.
‘You were warned and you didn’t listen’ suggests a strong conclusion
There is a clear link between each instance of speech shown in the trailer, each one highlights the fact that they don’t know where her father is, or maybe they do adding more and more to the mystery

Mise-en-scene

Grey sky, dull landscape
The yard with the dead dog and the charred furniture gives the sense of a lack of real community, alienation from real society.
There is realism in this world, we are made to believe in this community and the places in which they are taking place, there is nothing, at least in the trailer, to hint at the supernatural.
The titles fit with the filters and colours shown on screen, this allows a certain mood to be set, also assisted by the silent stationary text, which looks more sophisticated. Silent text is generally used in thrillers and dramas.

Analysis : Trailers : Inception, SALT and Heartbreakers

1) What cinematic techniques are used to establish mood and tone?

Visual Special effects show that this is largely an effects-driven film. Voiceover tells us a vague, maybe too vague idea of the concept of the film. Music is building, showing the progression in the plot and an increase in the tension throughout the film.


2)How does the trailer establish the themes and narrative?

Establishes plot using narration by Leonardo DiCaprio
They make sure that what he is saying and what is being shown on screen correlate, ‘A single idea can build cities’
We are intrigued to know what this idea is, and why he is stealing it

3) How does the trailer establish genre?
The effects and chase sequences suggest an action movie or a thriller. The idea of the idea being all-powerful suggests science fiction. I think I would describe as a

4) Who is the target audience and how is this audience targeted in this trailer?
The main target audience I would say is 15-35 year olds,it is also appealing to the audiences of other movies, it looks similar in many ways to ‘The Matrix’, what with the city being controlled by the mind being similar to that of the collective imagination in ‘The Matrix‘.

5) What is the reason/ effect for using the director's name and previous work?

The trailer states clearly that it has the same director as ‘The Dark Knight’ which was insanely popular. Christopher Nolan has a reputation for making great films and being a real upcoming film maker and so the audience will be great.


1) How does this trailer promote and focus on the big star? (look at camera work, editing, sound...etc..)

A vast amount of the shots clearly show Angelina Jolie’s face. As well as this, she has the largest amount of dialogue and all the other dialogue is used as voiceover to almost describe what she is doing on screen.

2) Action films are thought to appeal to a predominately male audience. How does this trailer target both a female and male audience separately?

The film is targeted at a female audience by having a woman as the protagonist, however this also appeals to the male audience because she is Angelina Jolie, who has been considered to be one of the World’s most beautiful women

3) How does this trailer use editing to create atmosphere?

It shows what I presume to be the most action-packed moments of the film. As well as that, there are fades to black in the establishing shots and they get faster. The trailer also attempts to make us excited by spending the entire first half of the trailer slowly setting out the plot and revealing the twist, which is the USP of the film.

The Heartbreakers trailer displays many cultural differences between France and the UK. The UK distributors know that they will sell less if they show that it is a foreign language film, so they include the only English dialogue in the movie, on the other hand, they do not show any of the real substance from the movie, the voiceover is unable to really demonstrate the tone of the movie. The British trailer portrays it as a romance film with comedy, the french trailer seems to portray it as a film that is mainly comedy with a romantic plot, the trailers show the film as two completely different films.

Practice Exam Qs - Doctor Who.

This extract represents Gender in a few certain ways. The immediate contrast in gender presented in the extract is that of Martha, the doctor's sidekick and the Master, a villain. The master appears smug and dominant over Martha as if asserting his superiority. The way that he makes her kneel shows that maybe he wants to make sure that she feels weak in his presence, you could view his way of making sure that she is embarrassed and humiliated as quite misogynistic and sadistic. He is also clearly asserting his dominance over the women in the room by having them stand around and watch him humiliate her, the woman in red to his right, stands on the spot wearing a rather lavish red dress and as soon as he begins to lose, she prays for the Doctor. As a whole he seems to be, possibly quite sexist and he likes to see others suffer. Rather stereotypically for a man, he is very confident and also very over-confident, he chooses to be a little arrogant with his countdown timer and he chooses amusement over practicality.

On the other hand, Martha as a character is a great heroine in this episode because she is strong, she does not fit with the sort of damsel-in-distress stereotype of a woman, she is wearing quite militaristic and usually masculine clothing. She is young and confident. In this extract we get the impression that she is the main protagonist, the cuts to the flashbacks of her traveling the continents are quite vivid and filtered in strong colours of blueish and orange tones tones, they also in the one of her crossing the cold wastelands, the camera appears to shiver with her.

What this extract seems to quite clearly show is a 'battle of the sexes', with the master judging Martha before he knows what her plans are. The level at which the shot is taken really affects the shot in question, the shots showing the master gloating over her are all shot from below, as if to suggest that he is the victor. She is shot entirely from above. However what I think is quite interesting is the way that the two characters are centered on the screen, whilst Martha gives her speech she is the total focus of the camera, unwaveringly looking directly into the camera, whilst the Master appears to be uncomfortable in the way that he strolls around the shot.

At the eventual arrival of the Doctor later in the extract, he dominates all the shots and everything is reversed so the Master is shot entirely from above, to show the doctor literally hovering over him. Interestingly, in my opinion it is quite odd that despite the fact that Martha and the human race are meant to be the stars of the Extract but they appear to be useless without the assistance of the doctor. I believe that essentially this extract if anything, gives the impression that men are over-confident and that women are the real heroes.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I have learnt many new skills and techniques since doing the preliminary task. We learnt how to use lighting more effectively, for example different colours and playing with shadows/silhouettes. For example, in the first shot, we positioned the light outside the house, so we could get some nice shadows on the wall. My preliminary task was very dark, so you couldn’t see much, so we tried to retain a sense of the same level of darkness, but to also allow the viewer to see precisely what we needed them to. Contrasting to the preliminary tasks which were rushed and not considered fully, we tried to focus on making this film quite serious and real, rather than comedic. We thought about the script for a long time, editing and polishing it, until we were completely happy. As apposed to our preliminary tasks, we also tried to focus on every tiny detail; the actress’s costume was that of a stylish businesswoman’s, as well as remaining reserved – because of her being a mother. Props, there were pictures surrounding the house, of her, her husband, children. Dialogue, we tried to make it as real as possible and took inspiration from our own homes. These were all considered in order to get the right Mise en scene. We asked the actress to bring in photos of her, which would suit her role in the film. Because we couldn’t find the dolly, we had to create our own using a skateboard and two planks of wood, so we have learnt how to replicate certain equipment in order to get the right effect. We have also learnt how to use music and sound effects more effectively, concentrating on the build up of sound to create tension and melodic music to accompany the action on screen. We made some sound effects by slowing down various violin sounds to 10% of their original speed. We also did this with various horns and pipes. We also decided to reverse the dramatic Beethoven music, because it sounded more sinister and disconcerting and wasn’t as obvious or overly dramatic as the original, in the end however, we didn’t use it, and instead used a fuzzy noise that sounded like the end of a tape of film, to go with the main title.

Editing the piece was probably the lengthiest part of the project. This is because we found it difficult to fit the film into two minutes. It was most difficult with the end, and after many different drafts we decided that the end didn’t work, (originally screams from the actress than a shot of the door closing.) It seemed too melodramatic and possibly almost comedic, and we didn’t want that at all. So instead we cut for the title as soon as the actress turns the light on. This left the audience on a cliff-hanger and it was very eerie with distant screams from the actress in the background, we tried to leave the audience wanting to know what would happen next.