TRAILER ANALYSIS: BIRTH OF A NATION

 The trailer of a Birth of a Nation immediately sets the scene with a panning overview show of a cotton field, and it cuts to a scene of an African American man picking cotton out of the field. This immediately sets to think this film will be about slavery in the 19th century, and gives the audience an instant idea of the film. We gather this film is about the troubles of racism and slavery when a littel boy goes to pick out and read a book and a woman says ‘These books are for white people. Your kind would not understand’. It then cuts to a balck screen with the text ‘based on a true story’ which would hook certain audiences as it gave them a grasp of what racism was like and slavery, back in the 1800s.

FILM ANALYSIS - AMERICAN SNIPER

The media extract starts with the Warner Bros production company logo. Film logos are primarily created so that audiences can easily see them. The genre is indicated quickly through the use of non diegetic sound of a gun being set up and shot. The sound of a gunshot signifies to the audience that it is likely be a thriller trailer, as that is the type of film guns are in. It proceeds to cut to the main character, Bradley Cooper, who is easy to recognise as the main character as he is introduced with a close up shot, showing him as the center of attention and the one with all the focus on him. For action films, having a recognisable actor as the main character gives the film a much higher chance of having better publicity and more people being hyped around the film. A stat shows that 70% of action film with a lesser known actor are a lot less likely to go to cinema then action films with a more well known actor. This is because more well known actors are more likely to take up better and more expensive jobs with higher budgets, meaning that any film with a well known actor in it is likely to be a higher quality film. The audience are teased with a sense of action when Cooper is shown a POV shot of his sniper, zoomed in on a pedestrian. He is hesitant as first, but then is told he has the green light to take the shot, as the person may be reporting where he is. His wingman is introduced as a different type of character, and someone who seems to be a lot less careful and serious about their job then he is.

TRAILER ANALYSIS - GRAVITY

The trailer starts with a black screen fading into white text saying ‘at 372 miles above earth’. The darkness represents a show of nothingness, and that in space you are almost hopeless, and do not have anywhere to go. It then says ‘there is nothing to carry sound’ this is representative of the silence when the text is playing. The ‘no oxygen’, ‘no pressure’, if followed to prove that space is very dangerous. After saying ‘life in space is impossible’ it does a hard cut to the drama and intensity that faces in an accident in space, with Sandra Bullock hopelessly spinning around in space, which gives a display of how dangerous it actually can be. Then she chucks herself off of the stick; the silence is further displayed when the only sound we have is the breathing and her speaking, which builds up tension as she is stuck in the middle of nowhere, and the audience is waiting to see how she gets out and what happens next. George Clooney’s voice is then introduced, with him trying to comfort Sandra by talking to her about her family, which will result in her calming down and talking about her daughter, so she can give directions and say where she is. Also, with the actors Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, they as a result have star power. This is where the audience is more likely to watch a certain film as it has certain actors, and Clooney and Bullock fans will want to watch this film as they are in it, boosting their publicity and sales.