The trailer terminates with very loud fast music showing many different scenes, and then finally shows the name of the film, “THE LORD OF THE RINGS- THE RETURN OF THE KING” then the release date is shown, “December 17th” along with the website underneath it.
The second which trailer I had to review and analyse was, “The Gladiator”. This film seems as if it is all about power, determination, victory and success. Most of this trailer is all to do with battles, victory and revenge. There are many clips and scenes from fights and battles in this trailer, but there are also calm gentle scenes, for example soft affectionate kisses.
The first clip seen in this trailer is the logo of the dream works universal, followed by a quote saying: “The general”. Whilst the clips I have mentioned were being shown, the music was rather loud and fuming and the sky was very grey, fumed with thunder and lightening whilst the dream works universal logo was being shown. After the quote, an image of a big masculine male who seemed to be the chief of the army was shown walking through an army of soldiers on either side. The army he walked through were dressed like a Roman army and also, the chief himself; looked as if he was a warrior and looked either arrogant or as if he wanted to achieve something. After the clip I mentioned was shown, another quote appeared saying: “who became a slave”. By this, I assume that the masculine male was an emperor who became a slave. After this clip passed, another scene consisting many strong looking men, all standing in a line out in a hard labour field, a place where prisoners are sent for hard labour; such as rock breaking etc… was shown. The camera started shooting from the top end of the queue, then slowly comes down and stopped at the same masculine man, who was once an emperor. After this a quote appeared saying, “the salve”, and then a rather malicious, spiteful looking man with a very weird hairstyle was shown; whilst holding a sword in his hand. Following this, a unique camera effect was used, and then the whole screen was covered by a bright light; as if someone had opened the door into the next scene. The music then got louder and tenser and a fairly large ground was shown which was surrounded by an audience. Many masculine men were charging into the large ground with swords and shields in their hands. After the men had entered the ground, all dressed in a Roman armour, another quote appeared saying ‘who became a gladiator’ then a shot was taken showing the men from the front and a further quote appeared saying ‘the gladiator’. After this the gladiator was shown in another scene one his own, dressed in a normal roman outfit.
A fairly daring and audacious fight was then seen in the battle field and another quote appeared saying ‘who defined an empire’, throughout all of these scenes the music gradually got louder, anxious and tenser. The music then settle down and the leader spoke and asked ‘who is he’ the music started again but even louder and the gladiator began to say many phrases of fury and rage, for example ‘father to a murdered son’ husband to a murdered wife’, ‘and I will have my vengeance’. After this there were several different scenes revealed, for example an exceptionally large roman building, followed by more scenes from a fight and the king or emperor seemed impressed, than an audience was shown applauding. Following this there were many different scenes shown from battles and also scenes of an applauding audience.
A male with a very bitter looking face was shown; I presuppose that he was an enemy. This was then followed by another special effect; a giant fire ball was shown flying over a rainforest and landed in the next scene. Then an honorary statue of homage was shown of another important Roman person. The gladiator was then shown in prison and whilst the scene was still on the statue a small boy, aged about seven or eight spoke and said ‘they said you were a giant’, ‘I shall cheer for you’. Throughout these scenes the music was very loud and angry, whilst the music carried on like this the name of the director was shown; Ridley Scott. Then an even more furious scene was shown of men charging for a battle. Next the music started to quieten down and the gladiator was shown kissing a woman, after this the music returned back to normal, loud and angry. Subsequently scenes were shown of fury, anger, rage, violence, revenge and defeat. Then the music calmed down and a quote appeared saying ‘Russell Crow’, the gladiator was then shown with roses being showered over him. After this a rather surprising scene was shown of a man on a horse charging through an enormous fire in a forest. A final quote was then shown saying ‘gladiator’ in capital letters. The release date was shown; May 5, 2000 A.D. Another screen was then shown consisting information about the film the directors, make up artist and characters etc… The trailer then concluded by showing the website of the film and some logos underneath it.
All films come from a variety of genres, the ‘Lord of the Rings III’ trailer comes from an adventurous genre, which has aimed to capture the viewers attention into believing that prehistoric myths; such as dragons, battles containing magic and wizards etc… are true.
In the ‘Lord of the Rings III’ there are quiet a lot of special effects because of it being a magical adventuress film. Some examples of the special effects would be, at the beginning of the trailer in the first scene there was a bright light entering the sky; causing it to glow with luminosity. Another example would be the scenery in the back and also the effects such as: various different clips being shown rapidly, one after the other. There were also other camera effects, like slow shots, distant shots and also bird’s eye view shots etc… Some of the camera effects were high angle shots, for instance when the dragons were diving in towards some sort of castle or giant building. There were also zoom shots, back lighting and crane shots used in this trailer such as, at the beginning of the trailer there was a zoom shot of two men up who were standing and the shot was taken up to their shoulders. An example of the back lighting shot would be when the old man with a long white beard was shown standing beside a rock with quite a serious facial expression, the lighting was very luminous and was being given from behind the character. A crane shot was taken when the man was climbing a sort of cliff; he was shown directly from the back as a close up.
There were other different effects as well, besides the ones I have mentioned like voice-overs and musical sound effects which added to the build up of the tension and excitement towards the next scene.
In ‘The gladiator’ trailer, there are also special effects however, there are not as many as the trailer of the ‘Lord of the Rings III’. ‘The Gladiator’ film comes from an ancient genre and most of the scenes were all to do with battles and victory. The Gladiator trailer had quite loud music throughout most of the trailer.
Both of the trailers differ from each other very much. In “The lord of there rings” there were many voice-overs and a lot of special effects, whereas in ‘The Gladiator’ trailer there was not a single voice over and very few special effects. Also, the characters in both the films were dressed very differently too. In the ‘Lord of the Rings III’ trailer the characters were made dress as if they were living in a wizardry, legendry sort of time and there faces all looked natural with not much makeup on the women. However, in the ‘The Gladiator’ trailer the characters were all dressed as if they were living in the Romans period. Also, the women were dressed quite nicely with a lot of makeup on them. The characters from both films had totally different costumes and the skin makeup was also very different in both the trailers. In this trailer there were camera effects but not many effective attention grabbing effects. There was a zoom shot taken several times throughout the trailer and there were also distant and paused shots, which emphasise the specific point in the scene. There were only two attention grabbing effects, for instance when a giant fire ball was shown flying over a rainforest in slow motion. The other was when the Gladiator was shown on a horse charging through an enormous stick in hi hand, through a wide open field. Whilst he charged on a horse back, the area and land around him was glowing with a bright light.
The difference between the two trailers is mainly the genre, which has also caused a difference in the set out of the movie. In ‘The Lord of the Rings’, the clips and camera shots are similar, but are used in totally in different angles and perspectives from those in ‘The Gladiator’. This is because in ‘The Gladiator’, the slow motional camera effects are used to create greater emotional feelings and make the viewers feel sorry for the actors in the scene. Whereas, in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ the slow motional camera effects are used to craft a sense of suspense and anxiousness for the viewers.
Something more which differs, the two trailers from each other, other than the camera effects; is the make up, clothing, positioning of the characters, facial expressions and setting of the scene. The way these factors make the trailers different is that, in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ the characters are dressed very differently with the sort of clothing that would be worn by people when they are going to camp out in the mountains. The make up of the actors was also very limited, compared to the trailer of ‘The Gladiator’. In ‘The Gladiator’ there has been a lot of make-up applied on the female actors and the clothing of the main actors is also very posh and sophisticated, according to the era in which the movie has been set in. However, although there are characters with decent clothing, there are also characters with very down classed clothing in the trailer of ‘The Gladiator’; but, in the trailer of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ there is hardly any sophisticated clothing. The only decent clothing which the characters were made to wear in the trailer of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ was mythological.
The ‘Lord of the Rings III’, is a non-fiction movie, while ‘The Gladiator’ is based on a true story; which makes it fiction.
The facial expressions on the characters faces in both the movies were also fairly different. In the ‘Lord of the Rings III’ the characters had quite serious facial expressions; however, they were not serious as in angry facial expressions. This trailer also had cunning, devious facial expressions. The characters in the other trailer, ‘The Gladiator’, had different expressions, they were also serious but they looked more as if they were angry, revengeful and spiteful facial expressions. This trailer also had a lot of emotion and sentiment come in to it. The emotional and sentimental part came into the trailer as in most clips there was a lot of battle and people dying. In a battle there are obviously deaths and only one victory, so at times death was shown and at other times victory and defeat was shown; both come under emotion. The sentimental element came in, as there was also romance within the trailer, there was a clip shown were the chief of the army was kissing another women who seemed like a princess of some sort. The ‘Lord of the Rings III’ trailer didn’t have any emotional scenes init but more like apprehensiveness and scenes with fearfulness in them.
On the whole, I think the ‘Lord of the rings III’ movie would have a better impact on the box office. I have come to terminate my essay with this conclusion because, although there was no age rating given, it is quite clear that this trailer had no foul language, nudity or violence in it; which made it a family movie. The trailer did have some very rare violence in it but none of the sort that could be tried at home. Also this movie will attract more viewers as it has a bigger range in age for the audience and it is a follow-on movie. People will become eager to watch the next sequel and so the movie will create an even larger audience than last time, as now much more people would have heard of the film. Also this movie trailer had a lot of voice-overs in it; these create tension and enthusiasm; making the viewers keen on the film and hence, will go and watch it.
‘The Gladiator’ didn’t have any voice-overs and a few special effects, therefore as this trailer didn’t have much of the attention grabbing material in it will not have much of an effect on the box office.
Overall I think the ‘Lord of the Rings III’ will have a better effect on the box office and will be a much more successful movie.