Trailer Research Trailer Research Crime / Dystopia

by Munya

What makes a What makes a good Trailer good Trailer

Key Conventions – Short key clips/moments/action from the film, teasing the audience without giving away crucial details.Genre – genre is clearly established to entice the target audience.Narrative – reveals hints of the plot and main characters. Often in a 3 act structure: Part 1 establishes the storyline, Part 2 shows the dramatic developments and Part 3 hints at the climax.

Voice-over – anchors the key points of the film. Often using a powerful, dramatic tone.

Music – sets the mood and may compliment the soundtrack.

Cast – prominent stars usually feature early in the trailer helping the audience decide how appealing it is.

Director/studio – usually mentioned if considered an ‘auteur’ or successful. ‘From the makers of..’ helps promotion followed by logo.

Title/onscreen text – Title usually appears at the end to stick in the memory. Text anchors key meanings (on the beat).

What makes a What makes a good Trailer good Trailer

Typical characters of a typical Typical characters of a typical postmodern Dystopia trailerpostmodern Dystopia trailer

Post-Modern Cowboy’ - loner, pushed into action, constant threat and violence for him (survives against the odds).

Human survivor group - small group from the pre-apocalyptic modern world, struggling to survive in the savage new world. Hero helps them & they remind him of the past modern world and its humanity (and offer hope for the future)

The Helper – Often from the alien/infected race who assists the hero in his quest for resolution.

Groups/tribes (animal like) who seek to profit from violent anarchy. Hero encounters these tribes who want to destroy him. He confronts them on their terms (savage, anarchic responses)

28 Days Later 28 Days Later

About

Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary.

Director :Danny Boyle

Genre•Dystopia•Sci fi•Thriller

Dystopia Dystopia 28days later (Structure)28days later (Structure)

Part 1 – Dystopic Equilibrium (Hyper-real world )(Silent London) Set/ storyline / Protagonist

Part 2- Disruption of the equilibrium , this is when the realisation of the infection comes and the protagonist realises he needs to survive.

Part 3- Fast pace developing action/enigmas , development of character role. The protagonist turns from being you average person into a postmodern cowboy/hero.

Dystopia Dystopia 28days later 28days later

Animal activists invade a laboratory with the intention of releasing chimpanzees that are undergoing experimentation, infected by a virus -a virus that causes rage. The naive activists ignore the pleas of a scientist to keep the cages locked, with disastrous results. Twenty-eight days later, our protagonist, Jim, wakes up from a coma, alone, in an abandoned hospital. He begins to seek out anyone else to find London is deserted, apparently without a living soul. After finding a church, which had become inhabited by zombie like humans intent on his demise, he runs for his life. Selena and Mark rescue him from the horde and bring him up to date on the mass carnage and horror as all of London tore itself apart. This is a tale of survival and ultimately, heroics, with nice subtext about mankind's savage nature.

Camera shots/ angles Camera shots/ angles

This is the first shot you see of the camera zooming closer to this mans face close up from a birds eye view angle. This gives a sense of something attacking him.

A few wide shot are used to help the audience catch the concept of the film. They use these shots to show the emotions of the main character. This shot especially shows the marginalization of the character and shows the viewer how his isolated.

This is on of the last shot and it shows what has been attacking them, it shows what the infection has done. Also the colour grading in this film gives and old ancient feel to the film.

Not only did the director decide to have this long/wide angled shot , it’s the where he decided to take the shot that’s add more substance to the shot. Here we see a car parked in a section of the road where your not allowed to park your car suggesting something is wrong or something has happened and the main character being inside this box shows how his trapped and has nowhere to go. The fact that its on an intersection shows confusion in the character as he is isolated from the world. The expression being at the wrong place at the wrong time comes to mind as I look at this shot.

Sound/ Setting Sound/ Setting

This film is set in Manchester and they manages to get the place empty and it makes the main actor marginalised as his in this town on his own. They portray the dystopia genre well by the use of sound. From the start of the trailer they have some eerie creaky sounds complimenting the soundtrack. They use a lot of diegetic sound however their edited into places they shouldn’t be making it non diegetic.

Characters Characters

Main Actor Jim. Jim is your average Joe set out to fight for his life in order to survive. The director portrays him as someone who is quite scared and doesn't have a clue what's going on. However he adapts the survival instincts and he has to fight against all odds.

The helpers Selena and Mark advise him on what's going on and what he should and shouldn’t do. This is basically a battle between the scientist and the activists the activist release the monkeys that where being tested on , not knowing they where infected.

Selena Played by

Naomie Harris

Mark Played by

Noah Huntley

Jim Played by Cillian Murphy

Titles in the trailer Titles in the trailer

These are the titles used in the trailer and they have bits of footage to elaborate the concept of what the titles say in-between each of the Titles. Notice how the trailer doesn’t tell you what happens after the 20th day , when the devastation starts. This could suggest the next 8 days are the days where all of the action starts. I also noticed the way in which the titles get more rigid around the edges as the days go by and by the 20th day the title looks distorted.

At the end the 28 days later title in red , slowly zooms in and they keep the same idea of cutting between some action scenes as it zooms in. I think this is a very effective technique because draws you in and leaves the audience wanting to know more about it.

ColombianaColombiana

About A young woman, after witnessing her parents' murder as a child in Bogota, grows up to be a stone-cold assassin.

Director :Olivier Megaton

Genre•Action •Crime •Drama

CRIMECRIMEColombianaColombiana(Characterization)(Characterization)

Femme Fatale seeking revenge. The film trailer starts with the equilibrium calm two officers getting lunch. Seconds into it the disruption comes as Cataleya (Protagonist) Crushes the car into the police car. This is very interesting as the protagonists are usually trying to be peaceful and resolve situations she does the exact opposite as she's drunk and in a state. This is shown by the iconography of the bottle that drops out of the car when she opens the door.

The characterization in this goes from the Girls being a typical party girl into this serious stone cold killer. This is very postmodern because previous femme fatales used to be cheeky and smart this has just been remade in a different context.

Crime Crime ColombianaColombiana(Costume & props )(Costume & props )

Here on this image on the left is the scene where she’s taken in to prison custody for drink driving and smashing into a police car. Her dressing sets the scene very well as we’re left to think of her as a irresponsible teenage drunk. However as she gets inside closer to her enemy she gets changed into a black suit , this iconography is also seen in cat woman , it showed a sense of power as if she’s on a mission.

Camera Shots Camera Shots

Low angle blurred shot to show her drunken state. This really helps get the point across.

Mid Close-up of Cataleya and her dad. This shot tells a story, instead of her dad standing up telling her what he has to say he gets down to the same eye level showing a sense of mutual power in the shot. This shows the young girl is just as important as her dad despite the age difference.

Looking at her from this angle allows the audience to connect with the character through her emotional state. Placing you subject directly in the middle

of the shot gives the subject a sense of power and rises the levels of seriousness.

Sound Sound

There are a lot of diegetic sound used, for instance the very first scene you hear the police radio in the background , then you hear the car sound rapidly getting louder until she crushes into the police car. You also hear the bottle dropping from her car and they enhanced her speech as a voice over when she shouts “No Sir !” some of her laugh where edited in to make her seem a bit sinister. There is other non diegetic sounds added like the flat line heart monitor sound. This conveys the sense of trouble or death which is what this Femme Fatale is seeking.

Voice overs are used a lot in this trailer, they provide some substance to the trailer and the one line her dad said to her “never forget where you came from” is repeated quite a lot in this trailer. The is also the mission impossible type of up beat music switching into the theatrical orchestra piece of music played at the end building up the suspense and action.

CrimeCrimeColombianaColombiana

(Charachters)(Charachters)

Jordi Mollà – plays ‘Marco’

Antagonist

Lennie James- plays Special Agent James

Ross  False Hero

Cliff Curtis-plays Emilio Restrepo

The Uncle/helper

Zoe Saldana - plays Cataleya

Protagonist

Crime Crime Sin City Sin City

Directors : Frank Miller Robert RodriguezQuentin Tarantino (special guest director)

About: A film that explores the dark and miserable town, Basin City, and tells the story of three different people, all caught up in violent corruption.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401792/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Genre:•Crime •Thriller •Action

Hybrid Genre Hybrid Genre

Action

Romance

Martial arts

Thriller

Crime

Femme Fatales

Camera Shots/AnglesCamera Shots/Angles

Low angle shots

These shot show a sense of power and a intimidation on the left you have Bruce Willis Wearing a black coat holding a gun showing that he is about to engage in a gun fight and on the right you have the girl jumping with two samurai swords ready to kill, these shots are important when establishing the power within characters.

Close up’s

Birds eye view This shot is the opposite to the one above it show vulnerability and less power the fact that the character is laying curled up in a bowl and caged up conveys the sense of helplessness.

Close ups can be used in several ways the common reason is to show emotion, in this shot this close up is telling you about this character's personality.

Enticing the audienceEnticing the audience

The used a variety of well known actors in one film. This makes it appeal to the audience a lot more another film that can relate to it is the Expendables. In this they carefully chose the best action/martial arts film stars and made one film. The narrative structure of this makes it harder for you to follow who is who and what is going on which is a postmodern idea of mixing around the narrative conventions.

Sin City (Characters)Sin City (Characters)

Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Clive Owen play the three main characters in Sin City. The film takes you through each of these characters point of view. These screen shots are taken from the film trailer and as you can see they have adapted film noir conventions and made their characters freeze frame in an anime setting. This is similar to Tarantino’s in kill Bill , Django etc. The fonts used in this Trailer make is seem like a comic which is basically what the film is based on. Through out the film the producers have shown comic iconographies from the characterization to the production of it. They have created a surreal world and you almost wonder if it’s a film of a kids comic documentary. This is done with the voice overs of the characters as they take you through their journey.

Sin CitySin CitySetting/ iconography/ costume Setting/ iconography/ costume

The knife and the fact that this character is wearing this costume which has been colour selected out of the black and white shows that there is something significant about this character. It shows that this character is an antagonist. However in Sin City the protagonists are also bad themselves therefore the directors really played around the fact that the protagonists sometimes act as antagonists. In this image at the bottom they used iconography to play around this idea making the audience think deeper as this antagonist looks like Harry Potter and through out the film this character looks as if he’s happy even when he gets killed he is still smiling.