Analyse and review two contrasting film trailers, commenting on the techniques used to make each one effective.
Analyse and review two contrasting film trailers, commenting on the techniques used to make each one effective.
Film trailers are made to advertise films to an audience in a cinema, an audience watching television programmes, videos and DVD's. Their purpose is to interest the viewers in seeing the film by showing enticing clips from the film in a very clever technique so that the whole story line is not given away. The two trailers that I am discussing are Jaws and Gladiator.
Jaws is a 70's horror film which is base on a shark attack in a happy tranquil setting in America where raw physical violence is the last thing on ones mind. At first the little town of peacefulness is all well until there are several cases of shark attacks discovered on the beach so the local detective and an expert fisherman go out to sea to try and capture the "eating machine". Stephen Spielberg directs this thrilling film.
The tension in the trailer of jaws is almost immense as it is created by Horror orchestra music, which gradually gets louder and faster as something bed is about to happen, this is done to create more suspense. The tension also increases, as the camera is underwater looking up at the teenage girl swimming to make the audience think that they are seeing everything from the shark's eyes. Slowly, as the piercing music is played, the camera zooms up and swims towards the girl to make it look like a shark attack is about to happen. This shows the audience a wide range of different camera shot techniques.
I think this is done in such a professional way to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. The editing of Jaws is done in a very unique because at the beginning there is only two fairly short shots underwater, then as it gets towards the middle of the trailer, the shots become longer so the audience can get a better idea of what the film is about without having given the whole plot away. The editing is not at the same pace at all, it is all varied to the flow of different images so ...
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I think this is done in such a professional way to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. The editing of Jaws is done in a very unique because at the beginning there is only two fairly short shots underwater, then as it gets towards the middle of the trailer, the shots become longer so the audience can get a better idea of what the film is about without having given the whole plot away. The editing is not at the same pace at all, it is all varied to the flow of different images so that it is not boring and dull. The film title and directors name are only shown at the end so that they don't spoil the flow of the imagery and so the audience will remember the title more easily.
Trailer two, which is Gladiator, is a Roman Epic film staring Russell Crowe. To start with, it is about a General, whose wife and child were murdered. So eventually he left home on what seemed to be a long tiresome journey and from the General, he became a slave, and finally from a slave he became the Gladiator. This Roman Epic film is very action packed and is directed by Ridley Scott.
The colour is used in the Gladiator trailer to interesting effect because often in the trailer, it shows how in different scenes the colour changes. For example, in one of the shots of the General, the colour is a dark blue, to make the audience feel a sense of coldness, where as in the shot of the Gladiator as a slave, the colours are warm like red, orange and yellow to indicate peacefulness and sadness towards the audience. I personally think it is great to express the mood of the scenes through colour. The colours also show the audience that they have a variety of ways to express the scenes.
As the film is violent and thrilling, the trailer has a lot of heavy music in the soundtrack, which is mainly produced by an orchestra like jaws' music. The music adds more anxiety and suspense to the trailer shots for the audience.
The shots are fairly fast and well coloured to suit the shots that have been taking to make the trailer, however when there is dialogue in a shot, the shot is longer so not all of the editing is done at the same speed. As in trailer one (Jaws), the film title is not mentioned until the end of the trailer, but it is said quite often during the trailer by the use dialogue.
The two trailers are both very interesting to watch and give a lot of details about the two films. I very much prefer the way the stars who acted in Jaws are shown at the end of the trailer, however they are not well known at all, as where in Gladiator, some actors are very well known such as Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix, but only Russell Crowe's name is shown, which comes during the middle of the trailer.
In Jaws a voice-over is used to draw more tension towards the audience, as well as telling the brief outline of the plot. On the other hand, in Gladiator the basic plot is carefully shown to the audience by the interesting, well-chosen shots, which it shows in a sequence without having to use the voice-over. Both trailers are very effective but I prefer the voice-over in Jaws because it creates more suspense and the deep voice is really effective for making you scared because he speaks in slowly and his tone is very husky and rough.
Gladiator is the first Roman Epic film since thirty years ago or so. It was really expensive to make and the director Ridley Scott is one of the best directors, however Jaws' USP was earned in a different way. The book "Jaws" was a best selling novel, so therefore the film should be just as good as the book so the book was mentioned in the trailer.
The closing shot to both trailers are drastically done in a different way but want to target the same thing, which is to make the audience wonder what happens next. This ensures that the audience get curious as to what happens and they go to see the film. The closing shot in Jaws is a clip of lots of people running away from the water because a shark is about to attack. However, it does not show the shark attack, therefore giving the audience all the more reason to want to see it. However, in Gladiator, the closing shot is of a man jumping through a huge fire on a horse. For the audience this was memorable because it was so impressive to see such an outstanding clip.
Jaws is extremely effective. The genre is unusual and different to most films. I enjoyed listening to the voice-over because it told me more about the plot without me being puzzled over how to work it out if it had no voice-over I thought it was a good idea hw they mentioned the best selling novel of Jaws because that would most certainly make people want to see it.
The soundtrack was acute and effective. However, I was not very impressed with the closing shot because I thought that if the closing shot didn't end there, then it would just be another shark attack that was going to happen. It was good they didn't use the voice over in Gladiator because it would have spoilt the whole trailer and it was done in such a unique way that you get all the brief details you need about the film without being clueless.
Over all both trailers were very unique in their own way but I definitely preferred Gladiator because a never knew what was going to happen next after the closing shot. Where as in Jaws, after the closing shot it was quite obvious how the film might end.