Trailer Analysis

The typical codes and convections of film trailers are; key moments from the film (not to much as to give the whole film away), the title and date of release are generally shown at the end of the trailer, the names of the main stars are put on the screen earlier in order to allow the audience to  know who to expect to see in the film, sometimes the names of the director or producer are included this helps the audience make comparisons on whether the directors last film was successful, many mainstreams films use a powerful voice-over that draws the audience’s attention to the key points of the film, it may include on screen text that gives important information about the film (including stars, director/produces, tagline, title and release date) and music which is essential in trailers as it can suggest the genre, style and plot of the film.

The target audience for this trailer are varied from young to children to fantasy loving and parents. The unique selling points that this film that this film uses is the harry potter books. As the books themselves are well known books which draw people to watch the films. This trailer uses persuasive techniques such as; celebrity endorsement, it has famous actors/actresses to make people want to watch the film; emotional appeal, it makes the viewers feel certain emotions to grasp their attention; a little bit of humour, to make the viewers laugh and show them it isn’t all serious; slogan, a catchy phrase that sums up the movie without giving away too much; cliff-hanger, this means that the trailer shows enough information to make the audience want to know more without giving away too much; and loaded words, using words with strong connotations. The trailer gives away a few clues about the narrative and the main stars are visible in the trailer. The information about the release date is placed at the end of the trailer but there is no voice-over with it.

The genre of the film has been represented through the characters, as they are school children, the setting of the trailer includes a school and a graveyard, the lighting and colour includes a range of colours from bright scenes to dark scenes, the music on the trailer is dramatic to show that there is a lot of drama, and the camera shots, movements, angles and editing show that the film is dramatic and mystical. All of the above show that the films genre has something to do with drama, magic, school children and a big change.               

You get a better idea of what the film is about from the trailer than from the poster as there are clips from the movie in a sequence that enables the audience to understand what the film is about without actually giving away the whole film, this makes the film more desirable to watch because it leaves the audience at a cliff-hanger, which makes them want to find out what happens, this is a very good persuasive technique.

The advantages of using an internet trailer to promote a film over using a poster campaign are that the internet is global and most of the population have access to it, which will enable the film to do well internationally. Also, it presents visual context in which the dialogue takes place, action accompanying speech, and they show gestures, facial expression, and other body language appropriate to the dialogue, they are short with very concise, catchy dialogue, having highlights of the entire movie, and its free, readily available from the Internet.