When it comes to making films, the trailer is very much the main method of promotion and because of this it is vital that it is used effectively as producers want to create as much demand as possible an therefore maximize profits. Trailers tell the story of a movie in a highly condensed fashion. Since the purpose of the trailer is to attract an audience to the film, the clips shown in the trailers are usually drawn from the most exciting, funny, or otherwise noteworthy parts of the film but without revealing spoilers. Also these scenes are not necessarily in the order in which they appear in the film. All of this has to be achieved within the time slot of 2 minutes and 30 seconds as this is the maximum length allowed by theaters.
With all this knowledge in hand am going to analyze the trailer of the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. To perhaps provide me with foundations for my personal trailer to be built on and also give me ideas for camera angles, storylines, lighting, settings and props that can be used.


Most trailers have three phase structure similar to a feature-length film. They start with a beginning that usually contains an equilibrium (everying is fine) and lays out the premise of the story. When looking at the Dawn of the Dead trailer this very much applies. Everyone is happy and smiling and the mood generated by the clips and non-digetic sound is very calm. This happy aura can also be shown by the image i took from the trailer on the left which shows a bright setting and a child playing.



When it gets to the one minute point (middle point) of the trailer the disequilibrium starts to kick in as the audience gets an insight to the genre and nature of the film. The happy child seen earlier is infected and attacks her father in a gory clip. Many fast paced exciting scenes are put together in quick succession for a more interesting and gripping trailer. This follows with an establishing, panning shot of the now turmoil engulfed town which is shown by the fire and people being attacked by 'zombies.' Also after this the clip fades to a black screen and text fades in up saying 'when there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth' which is also the line used as the tagline for the film. This pops up in a eerie white text, and due to the lack of a voice-over this gives the audience a real direction to what the film is about an where its going.



This last part of the trailer consists of a visual montage of powerful and emotional moments of the film and also once again ups the tempo. Some trailers contain a cast run if there are noteworthy stars that could help sell the movie however this particular one doesn't. It is in many ways a summary of the vital parts of the film and is important as the end of the trailer is the part that is deemed with the responsibility of leaving an imprint in the audiences mind. Many trailers do this with a cliffhanger and uses a very 'to be continued' approach. If you look at the image i extracted from the dawn of the dead trailer (on the left,) it focuses much more on the protagonists being in danger and running from the infected. The music used is much more fast-paced and epic which correlates with the acting at the same time.

As the trailer is of the same horror sub-genre as what i want my own trailer to be it has been very easy to develop ideas from the piece I analyzed. These include remote eerie settings, a diversified cast, a lot of gore, rapid action scenes and much more. I will use these ideas and develop them into my own form to give my trailer a unique selling point and and a more original storyline.

Charlie :)