A2 Media Studies: Film Trailers: Similarities and Differences

Suicide Squad 2016 (Trailer 1)

Unreleased, no specific release date as of yet, only general release date: August 2016.
Teaser trailers have been released very early to entice and excite people for the movie.
3.06 mins, title at 3 minutes.
Black fade in’s and out and cross fades (1.14mins).
Shot changes to the beat of the music, actions within the shot also match the beat of the music (2.04mins).
Dialogue from one shots acts as a voice over/narrative for other shots.
Slight slow motion to fast paced action scenes to slow them down within the trailer.
Shows the most popular character last: The Joker.
Production Studios: Warner Bros in collaboration with DC Comics.
Social Media: Twitter #SUICIDE SQAUD.

Point Break 2015

Text fades in and out.
2.33mins, no title is shown within trailer.
Main characters are described by other characters dialogue in trailer: ‘Perps with a very peculiar skill set’, ‘extreme athletes’.
Dialogue from one shots acts as a voice over/narrative for other shots.
Production Studios: Warner Bros and Alcon Entertainment.
Release: ‘THIS CHRISTMAS’.
Social Media: #POINTBREAK, ‘Follow us on…’ Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube app symbols were shown.

Forest Gump 1994

3.46 mins, title shown at 3.40mins.
Productions Studio: Paramount.
Social Media: None, as it is an older movie.
Central Protagonist introduced at very beginning: Forest. Described as ‘village idiot’ and ‘as stupid as stupid does’. This is juxtaposed against the amazing things he is shown to do.
Voice over/ Narrative: ‘Paramount pictures presents Tom Hanks. The narrative isn’t a voice from a character within the movies, unlike most voiceovers from recent movie trailers.
Orchestral music fits with genre.

Nightcrawler 2014 (Trailer 1)

2.28 mins, title is shown at 2.20 mins.
Main character introduced immediately.
Shot changes to the beat of the music.
Music cuts in and out throughout the trailer, allowing focus on action and dialogue.
Production Companies: Open Road and Bold Films.
Very little voice over/narrative, most dialogue is contained within the shots they’re in.
Editing = quick fade outs.
‘FROM THE CREATORS OF BOURNE LEGACY’.
Continuous music at the end of trailer, even throughout dialogue.
No age certificate shown on trailer.

Two Night Stand 2014

R rated.
2.30 mins, title at 2.26 mins.
Title slides onto the screen.
Production Company: E One Entertainment.
A lot of text is shown on screen, addressing the audience.
Upbeat, light-hearted music.
Split screen showing characters and their actors.
Social Media: haveatwonightstand.com, Facebook: /twonightstandmovie, Twitter: /twonightstand

Similarities

Title shown at the end of trailer.
Age certificates aren’t often shown.
Social Media is used as a huge marketing strategy for recent movies.
Shot changes to the beat of the non-diegetic music.
Trailers are of similar length: 2.5-3 mins.
There’s often more than one trailer for a movie (‘Nightcrawler’ and ‘Suicide Squad’).
Main characters are made immediately obvious but not too much is revealed about them.
Narrative/ Voice Overs are almost always used, the voices often being those featured in the film.

Differences

Music varies from trailer to trailer dependent on genre/theme.
‘Forest Gump’ uses both a voice over of Forest (Tom Hanks) and another man that is not a character within the film.
Sometimes the main characters aren’t clear, like in ‘Point Break’, are the ‘perps’ the main characters or the ‘extreme athlete’?
Sometimes the main characters aren’t shown immediately, ‘Suicide Squad’ shows the Joker last, when the Joker is arguably the most popular and famous villain out of them all.

A2 Media Studies