The Day After Tomorrow Analysis

The Day After Tomorrow (Doomsday film, similar in that sense to my own)

The trailer opens with the sound of a dog barking. Dogs barking generally means that there is something wrong, or there is something unusual that the animal doesn’t like. So, the audience interpret this a sign that something isn’t quite right.
There is a dramatic ‘boom’ sound often heard in scary or frightening trailers. The trailer then dissolves to a man looking upwards. The dog barking continues, and we then have an eyeline match to what the man is looking at: Hundreds of birds flying in unison away from the city. Such as sight is sinister and the audience knows this, yet, they do not know why and will perhaps wish to know more. The purpose of the trailer is to get the audience wanting more, so that they will see the film. The sky is also dark, storm-like and grey. We can also make out tall, city-like buildings which establishes the location of a city and perhaps to those who recognise it - New York.
The ‘boom’ is heard again providing a dramatic transition between each short sequence. The trailer now dissolves to a close-up of a man and a woman who look puzzled and dissolves back to the birds, which includes a pan of New York establishing the setting for those who weren’t sure on the location before. Eerie, sinister music begins to play to reinforce the idea that something isn’t right. The looks on the characters faces also suggests this.
The last clip of birds then turns ‘negative’ much like a sudden bolt of lightning with a fade to black. Now the scene changes to some bears in a cage and to some coyotes who howl and bark just the like the dog in the first scene, which now turns the non-diegetic sound diegetic. Again, another bolt of lightning appears to streak across the screen accompanied by the creepy angelic music. It’s known that animals always react strangely before a disaster happens, so the audience may realise that something terrible is about to occur because of the animals acting strange. Plus, the music gives this away too.
Now, bolts of lightning are seen on the screen followed by the well-known 20th Century Fox animation. Another fade to black and to a scene of an office. We cannot see anyone but we can hear them, and because the character is not visible, this makes us listen more intently to what they are saying. This is because the dialogue is important to the narrative, and provides the audience with a clue to as what the film is about. The scene ends with ‘I think it’s happening’ and the audience are left to wonder: what is happening? The creators of the trailer are giving little away to make you want to know more.
Then we see the same man from before on a plane. The lightning flashes inside the aircraft and makes it appear creepier, and the plane begins to shake. The trailer cuts to the signs of ‘please wear your seatbelts’ which is not a good thing to see on a plane, because it can be a sign of something going wrong or turbulence. Either way, it’s not a good omen and the creators are trying to get the audience to see something is wrong.
Now the editing becomes quicker, with only a few seconds of footage between each edit. However, dialogue from a man can be heard over all of these clips to provide a sense of narrative and to help the audience understand what is happening. The music becomes louder and eventually ends dramatically as seen in many trailers with a loud ‘ Mr President, if you don’t act now it’ll be too late.”
This is then followed by a man saying ‘save as many as you can’ and the audiences desire increases to find out what is going to cause this destruction and how possibly anyone can survive.
What is obvious in this trailer is that there is a lack of dialogue which has been replaced by non-diegetic music. This is so the trailer becomes more exciting and doesn’t bore the audience. Similar to The Tourist, only the important narrative information is kept in.
In all, this trailer is quite effective. It’s exciting and the audience are left constantly wondering ‘what’s going on?’, ‘will they survive?’ and this will make them want to see the film. There is a the right balance of narrative information and film information like the date of release and website, so the audience can find out more.

Film Website Analysis 1

The SAW 3D website (2010)

The website can be found here: http://saw3dmovie.com/

The official site of SAW 3D is dynamic. This means that the site is more interactive than a normal ‘HTML’ site. For example, when you rollover a particular part of the site, you may cause an animation to start running or sound to begin playing. Dynamic sites are usually referred to as Flash sites because you require Adobe Flash player to run them. Websites that are Flash and dynamic generally look better, and look more expensive (mainly due to the fact that a Flash site is more expensive to create). In the SAW 3D site, if click on the spiral button in the middle it causes the rest of the website to shatter and fly towards the screen. This then reveals the trailer, which is definitely more entertaining than finding it embedded on a boring web-page. The menu does not have to take up a large amount of the homepage either because the Flash allows you to scroll along the bottom part of the website to ‘reveal’ the content. When you hover over the ‘video’ link it changes to ‘watch now’ as does the ‘photo’ section changing to ‘view gallery’. This is then providing additional information without having to display it all on the homepage – only when you require it. The users of the SAW3D site will find the interactive parts of the website fun and hopefully therefore memorable. The creators of the site want you to remember the site to then remember the film.
The website relies on iconographic SAW images like the red and white spiral usually seen on the Jigsaw Puppet’s cheeks. The whole website is based around a big, extended bear trap that looks incredibly cool but also scary. SAW is renown for it’s inventive traps of human torture, so having a trap on the website ties the website in with the film. The black and silver give the website a dark and creepy look and the little amount of red connotates danger and blood. Black and red are typically used in horror websites, so the Saw website is no exception.
A typical official website will have a single main image and the rest of the site worked around it. In the case of the SAW 3D website, the main image is of a huge bear trap. The spikes and cogs around the edge of the trap are very intimidating and frightening, so this works well with the film being a horror.
The main idea behind a film website is of course to advertise the film, just like with the film trailer. So, the website offers information such as when the film is to be released (in the case of the Saw site, the film is currently in the cinema and the website displays ‘The Final Chapter Now Playing’), or when it’s available on DVD once it has been released.
Film websites go ‘hand in hand’ with the trailer. The trailer offers only the best bits of the film, while the website can offer additional material, information and a place to actually see the trailer. The Saw website has an ‘about’ page which of course will give an in depth synopsis of the film and sometimes film websites offer additional character biography (The Spirit website did this). Saw 3D also offers a page on ‘videos’ which usually includes trailers, teaser trailers and interviews, a page on ‘photos’ which commonly include stills, film posters and photos of the filming process.
Offering bonus material is something that official websites often do. This can be anything from screensavers to desktop background. Fans particularly enjoy bonus material because they can customise things with the film they love. Plus, the desktop backgrounds often display the release date of the film which the user can then see every time they visit their desktop. On the Saw 3D website, they offer ‘downloads’ which is a similar thing; you can download bonus material.
The Saw website is linked with Facebook, a huge social networking site, to attract more people to the site. When you ‘like’ the site, your friends can see this and therefore may wish to also ‘like’ and follow the site. As you can see, this creates a chain that can attract many people. Many other websites are adopting this idea because of it’s good ability to attract people to their websites.
Overall, the SAW website is cool, modern and expensive looking. The extra material (which there is a lot of) makes the user want to see the film a lot more. What I particularly like is the comment section which allows the audience to post pre-release excitement comments. The SAW 3D website is trying to get many people involved to help spread the word about the release.

Screenplay

The script is in pdf format here:

For those who cannot view the PDF. The images are below. Each image is a page of the script. They are JPEG's and can be enlarged.

Film Poster Analysis 2 & 3

Identity Poster

The identity poster looks, on first glance, to be a poster with a main image of a hand. But it isn’t; the hand is actually had up of five silhouettes and a face. These silhouettes make up the fingers and have no distinctive features and you cannot make out their gender or age. The poster has done this because the film is about hidden identity and has provided us with no real identities. This fits in brilliantly with the tagline ‘ Identity is a secret. Identity is a mystery. Identity is a killer’ much like the silhouettes, we known nothing about them, not to mention they are distorted and ‘grainy’ to help cover their identities. The only real features we can see is the face with makes up the palm of the hand. But yet again, we cannot identify the face and we cannot even see it clearly.
When you look at the main image as a hand, it signifies the uniqueness of a human because our hands provide the finger prints that make us exclusive. While the silhouettes provide no identity, the hand symbolises individuality.
From the poster I make out that this film is a thriller and mystery film. The colours red and black do usually connotate horror, however, the picture is mysterious and a very clever image which would you usually find on mystery film posters. Plus, the tagline does contain the word mystery, which is a big giveaway. The hand is mainly black maybe because the hand appears to have dipped in ink for stamping, like you would if someone wanted to record your identity. Or alternatively, it’s black to symbolise that something is hidden, as things are hidden better in darkness. The red could connotate danger, especially because the tagline contains the word killer-which would be fitting. The hand also begins out as black, but turns to red in the right of the image. This could mean that the secret which is black slowly becomes blood red, the danger. This would fit in with the tagline too because it begins with ‘Identity is a secret’ and finishes with ‘identity is a killer’. The title of the film follows the same ‘colour gradient’ as the hand, moving from black to red to tie it in with the main image.
The tagline is very good. It uses repetition to drill in it’s message and the constant use of ‘identity’ makes it difficult to forget. Plus, it provides some of the films narrative; there is a mystery, there is a secret to be found out and there is a killer.
Like with many posters, the names of the actors and actresses are displayed. This is to attract the fans of the actors, and when a film has a big star, generally people make the assumption that the film will be better because they are present. In this film you have Jon Cusack, who is relatively famous.
The poster also has a second tagline. This one says ‘the secret lies within’ which fits in perfectly with the image of the hand as the silhouettes are hidden in the hand. Plus, the audience are then left to wonder: what is this secret? The audience often want to figure out the mystery in a mystery film too, so this enticing for them.





Harry Potter: And the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2 poster.

This poster is so simple but yet so effective.
The main image is of a burning castle. The many Harry Potter fans will instantly identify the castle as Hogwarts from previous films and the books. The castle is loved by fans and the characters in the film, so when we see it destroyed, we find it upsetting and a little devastating. The purpose of the image is to evoke that reaction within us so that we one, stop and look at the poster and two, wonder what on Earth has happened. The castle is also reflected in the water, which could symbolise two sides. One fainter than other could signify that one is weaker than the other.
The sky is stormy, much like in the Angels and Demons poster. Perhaps this could also signify a clash is to come just like in the other poster. It’s also dark and set in the evening which connotates evil and makes the poster that little bit scarier. Combined with the stormy clouds and dark colours, the sky appears to signify that ‘darkness’ or Evil is coming and that trouble lies ahead.
Which is fitting with the tagline: It all ends here. The tagline, as they should be, is simple, memorable yet effective because it leaves us wanting to know more. Does Harry die? Does good prevail? For those who are little confused with which book is which, this tagline also tells them that this one is the last one. It’s also in the famous Harry Potter font which ties it in perfectly and also makes the poster even more identifiable.
The title is simpler than the other posters before it, only displaying a H, P and a 7. Harry Potter is so well known that this is possible. Plus, for those who have read the books, which happens to be a large majority of the country, we can identify the film from the famous 3D lightning font. Quite often people ask me what film is which book, whether it’s the fourth or the third. This title isn’t like the others with the long name, it’s easy to understand and you can tell which book the film belongs too.
The last book is actually split into two films, so the poster has displayed this by putting ‘Part 1 2010’ and ‘Part 2 2011’ with the lightning of the ‘p’ from the HP7 splitting them. This could connotate the divide again between two sides.
At the bottom are no credits which is unconventional. The creators just wanted to solely focus on the main image to draw you in. There is however the logos of the companies faintly at the bottom and a small website.
This poster doesn’t really ‘give out’ much information. You would expect to see a more defined date, credits, perhaps actors and actresses in the film but this poster doesn’t do that. It doesn’t need to; the Harry Potter franchise is so big and popular that you don’t need to know the actors in it, especially because most already know. The purpose of the film poster is to make you aware that the films are coming out and around what time. As a fan myself, this poster doesn’t tell me much at all, but creates a hype and just seems to tell the world that Harry Potter is coming, get excited.