film trailers analysis of conventions

Hollywood Film Trailers Analysis of Conventions

Typical Conventions Of Film Action/SciFi

• Title (Production Company, Distributor, Actors Etc)• Soundtrack to Reflect the genre. (Action = Dramatic ,

Children's Film = playful)• Cliffhanger at the end, to convince people to see • Close up of the main character (named perhaps)• Montage of short cuts

Hot Fuzz

• Genre: Action - Comedy• Begins with production companies. • Shows Nicholas Angel, in a close up to introduce

him.• Dramatic high tension music, to show the action.• Special effects such as the gun fights.• Shows that action can be done on a budget

which is useful for my film trailer due to minuet budget I will be using.

• http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi177209625/

Back To The Future

• Genre: Sci Fi - Fantasy

• Shows a close up of the De-lorean

• Pans around and shows each of the details of the car as if it’s a model.

• Pans up to a close up of Marty Mc’ Fly wearing sunglasses to show hes cool.

• A sultry female voice is heard then the trademark 88mph to show how cool the car is.

• Marty Mc Fly doesn’t actually speak until the last section which gives an air of mystery to the character.

• Ironically for a Spielberg film, the film was a lower budget for him, which was where the idea for the trademark Delorean came from as it was Bob Gales old car he was selling for scrap. Now DMS Delorean’s are an iconic piece of pop culture.

• Considering originally the car was scrap, it shows that iconic pieces can be created on a lower budget.


Star Wars Episode III

• Genre: Sci Fi - Action• The trailer is strange since most of the viewing audience would

know the plot before it is shown. • The trailer rarely leaves one peace of footage on for more than 3

seconds which is conventions for action films. • The film also is stereotyped as a sci-fi film showing aliens, droids

and the famous light-sabres. • The background music is typically John William’s score, so highly

dramatic and suits the scenes perfectly.• Star Wars is hugely popular and many spoofs have been done of

the saga, some good such as Fan-boys others not so good such as Robot Chicken.

• Star Wars is easily incorporated into anything, Youtube houses many videos all parodying or recreating Star Wars, such as Star Wars Kid, Pink 5 and Jedi A Holes.


The Matrix• Genre: Action – Sci-Fi • An incredibly well crafted film trailer, while I admit the

effects are not doable with my film. • The clever aspect is the words spoken are generally not

spoken with the respective actors on screen which is clever, and I would consider doing on mine.

• The Matrix similar to Star Wars is replicated in many forms, particularly the “Bullet Time” slow motion sequence of dodging bullets in many types of media. In computer gaming, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, recreated the entire break in assault scene, except with Squirrel's.


http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1032782617/

Dogma• Sci Fi – Comedy• One of my personal favourite films, by my favourite director Kevin

Smith. Smith is known for making films on a tight budget, non of his first seven films were made with over a million dollars. This was his fifth film and the fourth film in the Jay and Silent Bob Saga, (Essentially an idea taken from Star Wars)

• The trailer being very short, breaks conventions: doesn’t tells the audience about the main characters, but tells the audience about the plot, which most film trailers (Hot Fuzz, The Matrix) do not. This is probably to do with being an indie film and needing to attract an audience as quickly as possible.


film trailers analysis of conventions

Entertainment & Humor