Film Trailer Analysis

In order to create a film trailer, I think it would be very wise to research and discover the conventions of a film trailer.

Firstly, I am to look at a recent trailer that is not horror/zombie. Hopefully this will tell me what all trailers contain and their conventions, and not just those suited to my genre.

Trailer ONE

The Tourist (2:21 minutes/Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)


The tourist is a film yet to be released and a drama thriller film.
From the trailer I can clearly identify two main stars Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. This of course is one of the purposes of the trailer; the recognisable stars are to bring in your attention and make you want to see the film based upon your like for that star. For those who do not recognise the stars, the trailer shows us with the aid of diegetic text which is of the same colour theme and font of the film title, tying the names in with the film. The whole focus of the trailer is on these two stars and shows little of anything else.
The layout of the trailer appears to be in two main parts. The first part appears to have a narrative and begins to tell a tale about how a man and woman meet on a train. It’s classic love-story beginning ‘boy meets girl‘ with the voice-over (from Johnny Depp) even telling us ‘it all started when I met a woman on a train‘. Little is revealed as they talk about the possibility of two people watching them, and then more diegetic text - again with the same colour theme - displaying ‘this December’ which of course tells the audience when the film will be released.
We now see an establishing shot of Venice, and our female character (Angelina Jolie) mysteriously ‘bumping into’ our protagonist (Johnny Depp) and this leads to them kissing on the balcony. However, someone takes their picture and a man is seen giving the order ‘get him’.
The second part of the trailer consists of fast paced editing in the more action based part of the film. It is accompanied by a rock song Map of the Problematique by Muse and the editing is also in time to the beat. This fast paced editing creates a climax which is followed by the name of the film, The Tourist, and a few more short sequences no more than a few seconds long to get the audience excited.
The credits of the film are then displayed and the official website. There isn’t a rating, but where there should be one reads ‘This is film is not yet rated’ and advises to visit www.filmratings.com if you can’t possibly wait for another trailer to be released in order to find the rating.
As with most trailers, information such as the directors name and the production company aren’t visible to the end when the audience find a large amount of text, which includes information about who created the music and who was responsible for the casting displayed. This is shown for only a few seconds which is not long enough for it all to be absorbed. Obviously this is for official purposes and displayed for so little time so that it doesn’t overload the audience.
The trailer in all gives little away. In order to give the audience some understanding of the plot, certain sequences have no music and a longer length so valuable information can be clearly absorbed. Take one bit where Johnny Depp is on the phone asking for help because ‘people are trying to break down the door’. This sequence is cut later but the dialogue can still be heard over the other edits because of it’s value. There is no voice-over which are common in trailers but Johnny Depp’s voice can be heard a few times throughout the trailer to help the audience understand the narrative better.
The trailer doesn’t rely on awards it’s won (most likely because it’s won none yet) and neither does it rely on the fame of it’s director or producer. It seems that it heavily relies on it’s stars, a catchy song and a powerful fast-paced trailer to grab audiences attention and get them to attend ,what appears in my opinion, a dull-sounding film.