Discuss Russell Crowes' Gladiator.

Gladiator

The epic film, Gladiator, is shown to many people worldwide. The target audience of this film is people aged 15 and over, probably more men would prefer to watch it, because of all the fighting/action. The trailer promotes this by showing different clips of battles that take place, also the poster shows the Gladiator ready to go into battle, with the arena behind him, which shows us there will be fighting.

Use of camera

On the poster, Russell Crowe is suggested as the main, most important character of the film. He is shown bigger in perspective to how he would actually look, because the crowd fade away into the background, and also the Coliseum is made to look smaller (which is the biggest and most famous building in Rome) which is showing Russell Crowe must be more important/powerful than anyone else. Whilst in the trailer, the camera creates the same effect of Russell Crowe being larger/more important than everything/everyone else. The camera shot when he walks into the arena is low; this makes him appear to be more powerful than he actually is. Another shot is when Russell Crowe is having petals being thrown over him, which gives the effect that he must be important, and also, more heroic.

Logo

The company logo on the film ‘Gladiator’ is shown on the poster in the bottom left, it doesn’t stand out very much, but on the trailer ‘Universal’ and ‘DreamWorks’ are shown straight away, although the music doesn’t make them stand out, it’s the same tempo and loudness as the rest that plays.

Visual images

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Logo

Visual images

On the trailer, the visual images displayed throughout the clips consist of, the crowd/arena, not zoomed in so they don’t come across as more important than Russell Crowe. There are also close-ups of himself, which makes everyone aware that he is the main character in this film. In the montage section (the middle of the trailer) there are 15 clips, shared in only 11 seconds, making each one stand out, but only as a flash, this creates impact, also no effects are used on these clips, just non-stop action.

Music

At the start of the trailer, drums use sound to direct the viewer’s eyes to the text that appears on-screen. Heroic-type music plays, which is fast, loud and jumpy, therefore this shows that the film is an action film. Battle-type music is also played (trumpets/horns) in an old-style way, showing that the film is set a long time ago. All of this is setting the mood for the film. When the montage is played, the music is played at a faster tempo because the clips are shown quickly. Silent parts interrupt the music, this builds up the tension, and the trailer ends which a high note. Diegetic sound is used throughout the trailer for effect.

Spoken

Throughout the trailer, there is no voice over to go with the text shown, or in the background (this is because it would create a modern-day effect). All sounds used, are from actual parts in the film, which consist of: crowd noises (cheering), Gladiator speaking (main character). The noises are focused on when Gladiator is walking into the arena (they cheer and shout his name).

Text

The trailer includes lots of on screen text, which is a small narrative of the story. One piece of text shown is ‘2000AD), which fits in with the historical theme that Gladiator tries to show. At the beginning of the trailer, all the text that appears is placed onto a black background, this makes it stand out. Also to fit in with the Roman setting, the font used it ‘New Times Roman’. There is a balanced proportion of the text and images shown because the text is shown first, explaining what the picture will show, then the picture is shown, and they fit in well together (Visual supporting text). No punctuation is used throughout the trailer. ‘The’ is used when referring to the Gladiator, which makes him sound very important (Definite article). The text fades away and uses ‘freeze frames’. On the poster, the word ‘Gladiator’ is in the same colour which is used on the background, also very centred and in historical-like font, to fit in with the historical film, a sepia tone is created, also showing this.