Existing Movie Trailers

A film trailer is a short representation of an upcoming feature film. Trailers are conventionally formed from a variety of segments throughout the film showing significant and appealing scenes throughout the film. A trailer should be very fast paced with a dramatic soundtrack to make the product look climactic and appealing to a mass audience. The purpose of a trailer is to promote the film in such a way that the audience desire and anticipate viewing the film.

A trailer should, make the film seem exciting, interesting and very appealing, it should raise the expectations of the audiences in order to engage with the audience, as well as promoting the stars and the genre of the film whilst showing the basic plot and structure of the film in order for the audience to categorise the film to a specific genre and more importantly to the audience that are appealed to that genre. The final major objective of a movie trailer is to showcase the unique selling point and originality of the film plus highlighting  any cast and production that the audience may recognise.                

After looking at numerous music videos and identifying what makes a good product I then began looking at film trailers as they relate more to my chosen brief as well as giving me a reference to a successful movie trailer.


The first movie trailer that I have chosen is Guardians of the galaxy a recent  summer blockbuster that is renowned for its film score especially within the movie trailer.

The trailer for this film was very appealing to a mass audience because it was a very bankable concept with a very popular franchise that has a very large fan base. The factors of this been a bankable concept is because it is based on a comic book and has aspects of a large variety of genres, it has lots of science fiction elements and like most modern Marvel Superhero films it has an appealing comedy aspect. It also obviously an action/adventure and finally comic book/superhero which has a very avid fan base within itself as Marvel fans. What I like about this trailer is how it display all aspects of the genres just mentioned in under 3 minutes. It also has a very unconventional soundtrack by using familiar and popular songs that are familiar to their target audience.


The next trailer that I chose was The Lord Of The Rings: The fellowship of the ring.

What I found appealing about this trailer is the epic shots that are featured, the opening shot shows the camera gliding above a large forest area with beautiful scenery. Also it features a voice over, however the voice over isn't the conventional protagonist instead it is Gandalf, although he plays an important role he isn't the protagonist that would be generally featured. The voiceover narrates the trailer as it features a montage of shots relating to the subject mentioned. An interesting feature of this trailer is how it ranges from climax to climax with slower scenes throughout.


The final trailer that I am looking at is for the movie Cloverfield:

I find that this trailer represents Tzveten Todorov's theory of equilibrium really well as the beginning sequence represents his friends and current happy lifestyle, followed by the disruption . By using just these two factors within the trailer it really appeals and intrigues the audience as tho what happens next. Another way that this trailer appeals to me is how it is all portrayed through the characters within the filmas it is all handheld and diegetic.