Trailer Analysis: Batman Begins: The Dark Knight

It is clear from the film trailer and film poster that this is a very dark film of the action genre. The ‘Bat’ symbol is present throughout the trailer, this is because and fans and even non-fans recognise this symbol as a signifier or the ‘superhero’ Batman. The trailer starts off with Batman stood on top of a building alone, there is a blue tint over the scene, this colour connotes sadness and misery perhaps foreshadowing what is to come.

There is then a shot of Batman looking over Gotham again as if he is “watching over Gotham” reinforcing the expected hero persona. There are then many explosions again with a blue tint, the explosions are obviously a symbol of destruction, they all show the companies that has invested in the film such as Warner Bros and Legendary pictures which are well known companies and have brought out many good films. There is also DC Comics which is well known for creating The Incredible Hulk, Superman and Spiderman. These have all been massive successes and therefore make DC Comics a reliable company.

The Joker then says “Where do we begin?” and shows a birds eye view of Gotham which sets the scene. He then speaks about “Cops and Lawyers” and shows a clip of Gordon, a police officer and Harvey Dent, a lawyer. This shows that these two people are obviously main characters and are probably going to be targeted by the Joker.

The Joker then says “What happened?” and there is a flash of Bruce Wayne, both as Himself and Batman. This gives the impression that it is Batman who is preventing the criminals from committing crime which would be correct, but the Joker wants to change this.

There are then many explosions and a scene of the Joker laughing; this is then broken up by a clip of Harvey Dent saying “Rachel’s told me everything about you” to Bruce Wayne which is followed by “I certainly hope not”. This offers comic relief for the audience which breaks up the seriousness and darkness of the trailer. It’s also dramatic irony because the audience knows that he is Batman but the other characters don’t.

There is then more explosions and destruction, which again is broken up by a scene with medium close up shots of Bruce and Rachel in which Bruce says “When you said we’d be together did you mean it”, this shows the audience that there will be a bit of romance in the film which makes it a little more interesting and more appealing to a female audience.

There is another comedy line in which Harvey asks Albert the butler “Any psychotic boyfriends I should know about?” to which the audience knows that Batman is the answer. This is then confirmed by a shot of Batman jumping on top of a car. The diegetic sound of the glass is very sharp and stands out; this is obviously enhanced by sound effects.

There is then a long blackout in which the Joker’s voice can be heard. The Joker is the main focus of the trailer, and is used as a narrator throughout to comment on the action and what happens, i.e. “Gotham needs a better class of criminal and I’m going to give it to them”.

The line “The night is darkest before the dawn, but I promise, the dawn is coming” spoken by Harvey Dent is a signature line in the trailer. Not only does it refer to The Dark Knight but it also says that Batman will, perhaps, be at his lowest point in this movie but he will get through it because “the dawn is coming”.

There is a small clip of the police force smashing the Batman projector light giving the impression that they have lost all hope.

The Title is capital which stands out to the audience with a black background and the faint outline of the Batman symbol. This is what is left in the heads of the viewer. There is then the words ‘coming soon’ and the website if the viewer wishes to get further information.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UBP2nXtRRo- Trailer
http://thedarkknight.warnerbros.com/dvdsite/- Official Website

Trailer Analysis: Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging

This movie is well known chick flick and is very popular with a huge female fan base. The movie was taken from a very popular book series by Louise Rennison so there was already a lot of fans before the film came; this was probably why the directors had so much faith in it because they knew it would do well.

The trailer starts off with the song ‘She’s so lovely’ by Scouting for girls, which shows Georgia Nicholson’s personality perfectly. Its very up beat and the use of non-diegetic sound lightens the mood and makes the trailer memorable.

There is then an establishing shot of Eastbourne which sets the scene. Georgia then explains that she is “the new Georgia”, this is something that all teenage girls strive for which shows that teenage girls are the target audience.

The logos for Paramount pictures and Nickelodeon then come up; these are both well known companies which makes the movie reliable and bound to be a success. Nickelodeon is also well known for its children’s programmes and films so it is mostly like going to and out to young people.

On the quotation “When you’re 15 years old” there are then clips of Georgia with her friends and having fun, these are moments that all girls can relate too. She also mentions that she is now a ‘woman’ because she is wearing a bra; this is something that a lot of teenage girls looking forward to as it means that they’ve finally grown up. These are all things that attract a young female audience.

There are many photo snapshots of Georgia and her friends, these have badges or stickers round them such as smiley faces and polka dots. There are a lot of clips in the trailer that young people can relate to such as an annoying sibling, i.e. Lily, and beauty related disasters, such as, shaving her eyebrow off. These events show that not only is it is a chick flick it’s also a Rom-com. This is confirmed when comedic moments are mixed with romantic moments.

Georgia then says “I’m very ugly and need to go into an ugly home”, although this is a comedic line it also shows underlying self consciousness which is what all teenagers feel at some point or another. When she is sat in the dark, its shows that there will be sadness in the movie. As shadows are dark and connotes misery.

The trailer then “from the makers of Bride and Prejudice and Bend-it-like-Beckham”, if you’ve enjoyed the film then you will surely enjoy this one as it’s from the same directors. It also shows reliability because the movie has come from successful directors. The title is a sans-serif, pink font on a white background; this is a classic style for a chick-flick. There is also a pair of pink lips which is an ideal symbol for the film.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fpuZYQqFzg - Trailer
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0963743/ - IMDB Website

Genre, Audience and Marketing

Our trailer will in the genre of comedy, as it is spoof of various vampire films. We have taken the idea for our trailer due to the mass amount of vampire films that are currently being released, due to the popularity of films such as "Twilight" and programmes such as "True Blood" and "The Vampire Diaries". In our trailer, we will be parody various events taken from both the films and the tv shows, as well as the various romance elements in the programmes and films.

Our aim and key point of our trailer is to entertain the viewers and make them wish to see our film, parodying the films and they will either love or hate, with the people who love the genre going to see our film due to their love for vampire movies and wanting to be entertained, whilst the others going to see vampire movies having fun poked at them extensively.

We are hoping to market our film based on the themes and the comedy of the film trailer and film, and with the rising success of films in the parody genres, such as the Scary Movie franchise, we would be able to market our film with the idea of a long term franchise from our film.

Our film would be shown in major multiplexes, and marketed to a target audience of teenagers to young adults who enjoy comedy films. The reasoning for this is that due to this being a huge audience, in that the film and the trailer crosses over multiple genres, it is primarily aimed at a mass audience who consume popular culture.

Trailer Conventions and Purpose

Film trailers are extremely important for a film’s success, there is normally two trailers, one being the teaser trailer which is aired about 1 year before the release for the film just to spark interest and so people know that the film will be coming out soon. The other type of trailer ids the theatrical trailer which is the main trailer and shows a lot more about the film including, scenes and actors who star in it.

Generally in one of these trailer the tell us the title, perhaps a website where we can find more information, a release date or something to do with the release such as “coming soon” or “coming next summer” and then the companies and actors involved.

This is an example of the upcoming Batman film's website: http://www.thedarkknightrises.com/

The companies are important because if they are a big company such as “Warner Bros” or “21^st Century Fox” will might know previous films that they’ve done, this also suggest that this I perhaps a big budget film is a famous company has taken their time to shoot it.

The actors may also attract a bigger audience because if they are huge stars like “Brad Pitt” or “Tom Cruise” then fans of the actor will definitely want to see the film, so the huge star’s names tend to be made quite big on the trailer and posters, etc. This is so they stand out more and we remember the film, sometimes their name can even be as big if not bigger than the actual title of the film.

The trailer tends to include important clips from the film, for example, if it is a big action films then it might show big explosions and high speed car chases on the trailer to grab the audience’s attention. It also tends to have a voice over whether that is a narrator or dialogue from the film. There is almost always music too on a trailer; there are very few trailers that don’t include either music or a voice over.

The film trailer has been around for nearly a century and is an important component in marketing in the film industry, as well as a key feature to the movie going experience. The purpose of a film trailer is basically to make you want to see the movie, and there are a number of techniques that are employed in order to tantalize the viewer. They have to be executed within two and a half minutes, which is the limit imposed by cinemas.

Each genre of film has different conventions, this will alter the trailer, for example a horror will have a dark trailer and a comedy might have pop music in the background.

Horror films tend to have darker music, and the film is always dark and shadowy lighting. They have a lot of shadows to create fear of the unknown. Deformities such as rain deforming the outside picture or steam fogging up glass so you can’t see through it are a classic for horrors. The shots tend to be quick and disfigure the villain, they never give a clean shot of whoever is doing the killing, this again creates fear of the unknown because we have no idea what the villain looks like and we don’t know what to expect. Horror films are designed to frighten and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films feature a wide range of styles, from the earliest silent Nosferatu classic, to today's CGI monsters and deranged humans. They are often combined with science fiction when the menace or monster is related to a corruption of technology, or when Earth is threatened by aliens. The fantasy and supernatural film genres are not usually synonymous with the horror genre. There are many sub-genres of horror: slasher, teen terror, serial killers, satanic, Dracula, Frankenstein, etc.

This is the trailer for the horror film "The Last House on the Left":

http//www.universalstudiosentertainment.com/last-house-on-the-left/

Comedies are very different they tend to be sunny, happy weather with light and upbeat music. The whole point of a comedy is that it puts you in a good mood therefore everything must be upbeat. The comedy genre humorously exaggerates the situation, the language, action, and characters. Comedies observe the deficiencies, foibles, and frustrations of life, providing merriment and a momentary escape from day-to-day life. They usually have happy endings, although the humour may have a serious or pessimistic side. Comedies are light-hearted plots consistently and deliberately designed to amuse and provoke laughter (with one-liners, jokes, etc.) by exaggerating the situation, the language, action, relationships and characters. This section describes various forms of comedy through cinematic history, including slapstick, screwball, spoofs and parodies, romantic comedies, black comedy (dark satirical comedy), and more.

This is the film trailer for the comedy film "Forgetting Sarah Marshall":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xuMfKxXnDk

Action films usually include high energy, big-budget physical stunts and chases, possibly with rescues, battles, fights, escapes, destructive crises (floods, explosions, natural disasters, fires, etc.), non-stop motion, spectacular rhythm and pacing, and adventurous, often two-dimensional 'good-guy' heroes (or recently, heroines) battling 'bad guys' - all designed for pure audience escapism. Includes the James Bond 'fantasy' spy/espionage series, martial arts films, and so-called 'Blaxploitation' films. A major sub-genre is the disaster film.

This is the film trailer for the Action movie "Die Hard":

Sci-fi films are often quasi-scientific, visionary and imaginative - complete with heroes, aliens, distant planets, impossible quests, improbable settings, fantastic places, great dark and shadowy villains, futuristic technology, unknown and unknowable forces, and extraordinary monsters ('things or creatures from space'), either created by mad scientists or by nuclear havoc. They are sometimes an offshoot of fantasy films, or they share some similarities with action/adventure films. Science fiction often expresses the potential of technology to destroy humankind and easily overlaps with horror films, particularly when technology or alien life forms become malevolent, as in the "Atomic Age" of sci-fi films in the 1950s.

This is the film trailer for the Sci-Fi film "Star Trek":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rROvwAoqLZc

For films, trailers give a huge amount of publicity as they can be distributed in cinemas to an audience that obviously already like going to the cinema and then in television. Airing the trailers on television is the most effective because it’s clear in today’s society that everyone has a television, very few households don’t so this seems to be the best way to get through to an audience. Another way of airing the trailers is on the internet, whether it’s in a pop-up or on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Also Youtube has started being paid to put trailers at the beginning of their videos; this is really effective because it means that anyone that uses Youtube will be exposed to the film.

These days’ media organisations also incorporate horizontal integration when considering their film releases. For example, with the Harry Potter films, along with a trailer they also released video games, more books and toys. This created a colossal fan base and reached even more people because of its wide age range. Some film companies also bring out official soundtracks to the film to create more profit. This was true for the “Twilight Saga” in which a lot of the money was made through soundtracks, books, posters, etc.

There are so many ways to publicise a film whether it’s an advert on the radio, posters or adverts on the internet. But I think it’s safe to say that a good old fashioned trailer will always grab the most attention and it has the most important purpose.

Character Ideas

As it is a spoof film, we need to take bits from all aspects of the vampire phenomenon such as other popular TV shows or books, etc. The whole point is that the audience recognises when we are taking the mick out of something, thats what makes spoofs funny.

We are also hoping to take inspiration from other Vampire films and TV series such as the CBS series 'Moonlight' which although popular at first, was cancelled after a year. It still however offers some good ideas because the vampires in the story are very open about their desire for blood and where Jason Dohring’s performance was concerned this was almost comical.

A relatively new series that has started recently is the extremely popular Vampire Diaries series on E4. Going into their fourth season, there is a lot to take inspiration from. One of the main characters 'Damon Salvatore' played by Ian Somerhalder brings the comedy in the series much like Jason Dohring from 'Moonlight'.

Our main aim is to make the spoof comical; we need to show this comedy in the trailer by including about 8 scenes from the proposed film. We need to show comical moments in the film without giving too much away resulting in the audience feeling no need to go see the film. We also need to take into account the humour of the audience that were aiming at. Young adults tend to have a pretty crude sense of humour and are easily amused by the weird and wonderful. This is something that we would like to incorporate into out film.

We also want to look at exploring our main characters sexuality in order to create humour. We thought that our main character can be straight but "in touch with his feminine side" i.e. he could have his hair gelled back with black eyeliner. We feel that is it important that the other characters in the film need to be really ordinary and much like the audience members so they have someone to relate too. This is important because it will help the audience feel like they are involved.

Initial Ideas

For our group’s initial ideas, we put various ideas together for what our trailer was going to be, such as what genre the film would be. We put together a group of ideas we had come up with, and ended up with three ideas which we thought we could do the best: a Crime Thriller, a Romantic Comedy and a Vampire Parody. We eventually settled upon the idea of a Vampire Parody after voting upon which idea we wanted to do, as we all had particularly strong feeling towards the recent spur of vampire films and television shows coming out in recent times, and it was an area which had plenty of material to be parodied.

We have taken inspiration from various different vampire programmes and films, but one in particular we have taken both inspirations and ideas from the Twilight saga and its films. With the series gaining huge success over recent years, with the story following the romance between a vampire and a human girl, we felt that we could parody many things in the films, such as the romance of a vampire and a human, as well as the character of Edward Cullen in the film, who is played by teenage heart-throb Robert Pattinson (pictured).

We also looked at the music video “Vlad the Impaler” by the British band Kasabian, which is about a vampire character. The video is a comedic parody of vampire movies as well as B-movies, showing the vampire to prey on vulnerable women, whilst also fighting off nuns who are using holy crosses on the vampire, using various ideas taken from both novels and films about vampires. The vampire in the video is played by Noel Fielding, known for roles in comedy shows such as The Mighty Boosh, and so his take on his vampire character was comedic, both in the appearance the vampire and the actions of the vampire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM5YDI7ttME – music video for Vlad the Impaler.

We then discussed ideas of where we could for scenes to put into our trailer. We put forward various ideas, such as at a nearby stately home/hall called “Towneley Hall” and another called “Gawthorpe Hall”, as the houses have been around since Victorian times, and would contribute to the overall theme and feeling of the film trailer, using shots of the exteriors to use as possible settings for the vampires home, inspired by and parodying the settings from films such as “Dracula” and “Nosferatu”.

Introduction

My name is Antonia Murray and my Candidate Number is 5102. For our film opening, we are hoping to make a spoof based on the film saga Twilight. Twilight amongst other vampire based stories, has been a huge phenomenon in many countries with books and posters, etc leading to a massive profit. A spoof would be really popular for ages 16-25 as their is already a big fan base for all things vampire themed. The genre will be comedy mixed with a rom-com as this is a popular genre for today's industry.