Comparing Film Trailers and Film Openings

Trailers and Film Openings

Film trailers advertise the film to potential audiences and encourages them to watch it. Film trailers tend to be a 

maximum of 2-3 minutes long, showing short clips of the best parts from the film to engage the audience, though

these clips are not always in chronological order. For example the longer trailer for Transformers 3 starts in 

chronological order to introduce the storyline and then becomes fast paced, showing many clips to create a 

montage of the action in the film. Whilst the film trailer for Super 8 only shows one short scene from the film

and is in chronological order, this technique builds up huge amount of suspence, this trailer ends right before

we find out what is in the train, which creates a huge cliffhanger and makes the audience want to watch the 

film. Trailers usualy contain a few close ups to establish the main characters, these can also be used to inform 

the audience of any actors who may be staring in the film, which can also attract a wider range of audience as

they may be fans of the actor. As well as having close ups, there are usually some establishing shots in a film

trailer to set the scene of the film and introduce some locations. Film trailers usually have dramatic music and

sound affects, but this depends on the film genre, the trailer for Super 8 didnt have any music, but the silence 

emphasised the dramatic sound effects, whilst transformers 3 had very dramatic sound affects and music

throughout the montage of clips. But in comparison to these action films, the trailer for the film 'prom' which is a 

romantic comedy, has two songs throughout the trailer which are both quite upbeat and happy songs which relate

to the target audience of teenagers. So film trailers will use music to reach out to their target audience and interest
them. Throughout some trailers a narrator or voice over is used to give away some of the plot of the film, whilst 
overs may use clips from the film and just use text onscreen to give information. These are also used to give
information about the production team and the date of the films release, onscreen will be logo's from the film
companys.

Film openings are used to set the scene of a film and therefore will contain many establishing shots and may also

include some close ups to introduce the main characters. As well as setting the scene, the opening scene of a

film will show the genre of the film clearly, this is shown by many aspects such as the music and sound effects.

For example a thriller will have dramatic music which will build up to build suspence and a horror film, for

example 'saw' has dramatic sound effects, emphasised by some faint spooky music, whilst a comedy would be 

more likely to have more upbeat, happy music. Other features, such as lighting and camera angles will also show

the genre, horror films tend to be very dark and may show many close ups of objects, for example the begining of

'saw' includes many close ups of objects like knives and clocks which creates a sense and mystery and builds

suspence. But a romance will usually be very light and has many closeups of people, to introduce the characters

and show their emotion clearly. The opening scene of an action film, usually starts with some sort of action, so the
camera is more likely to be moving and panning constantly, there would also be quite a few wide angle and 
establishing shots, to show the action in different perspectives to emphasise it. For example, the opening scene
of 'Fast and Furious 5' features a car chase scene where the camera is constantly moving around the cars, then 
switching from low angles of the cars, which make them look more powerful and impressive, to high angle extreme
long shots which shows the whole action and the surroundings. A film opening is created to engage the audience 
right from the start and make them want to watch the rest of the film.

Film Trailers and Film openings have quite a few simularites, for example they both include close ups of the main

characters to introduce them and usually use establishing shots to set the scene. They both use music to grab

the target audiences attention and are usually quite fast paced the engage the audience. Both a film trailer and

film opening will clearly show the genre of the film, using many aspects such as music, lighting, sound effects,

mis-en-scene and camera angles and movement. Though whilst some film trailers are not in chronological order,

most film openings are, because it is the start of a storyline and if it was in a random order  it could make the film

very confusing. With all of this in mind, Film trailers and Film openings use the same techinques to engage and

inform the audience.