Deconstruction as to why Film Trailers are made.

Why is the film trailer made?

I'm going to start with looking at the titles of different films and using the titles to see if I am able to determine the content/genre of the film before I have watched the trailer. This is because it will help to give me an insight into the impact of a trailer, even from the title. This will enable me to understand the importance of the title in a movie but also help me to begin to understand why film trailers are made.

First of all, I am going to look at 3 different film trailers; 

·         Identity Theft

·         Oz the Great and Powerful

·         Robot and Frank

For Identity Theft I am guessing that it would be an action/thriller/crime film, something that would include some type of secret agent and a gang who is using another persons identity that has been stolen, it makes me think that this person who had their identity stolen someone important's or rich or has something that someone wants. It would be a film trailer that makes you tense but excited and make you want to see more. It would typically have such things as documents, computering systems/software and weapons shown within it, with some fighting.

When I then watched the trailer I realised I was completely wrong and it was actually a comedy. I did recognize that it was something to do with crime from the simple words within the title; "Theft". This is a combination that doesn't get mixed very often, but from the trailer it seems very fitting to this as it is quite unrealistic in some sense, but seems to work for what they seem to be trying to achieve with this.

For Oz the Great and the Powerful I gathered instantly that it was something that was to do with The Wizard of Oz due to the word Oz and that he is supposedly great and powerful, I also have been to see a production on the West End called 'Wicked', which is about the story of the witches from The Wizard of Oz, so it looks as though it is another spin off from the famous fairy tale which shows another side to the tale, and this time it seems as though it will be focused around Oz. Knowing this, it is easy to quickly diminish most genres from your mind when you hear the title and instantly expect it to be a Disney film with a lot of affects and be aimed at families as it would be a fantasy film.

From looking at the actual trailer, I understand that I was right when I thought it was a within the genre of fantasy and loosely based around the story of Oz, in fact it was the ‘other side’ of the story. It was a family film and it did use a lot of affects such as animation within it, which is typical of Disney family films.

The title, Robot and Frank, instantly screams to me a Science-Fiction film, I instantly expect it to have high production value and that there will be a lot of use of special affects and CGI. The idea that its called the robot and Frank makes me feel as though maybe Frank is a young boy who creates a partnership with this robot and they become friends, this is simply through the use of the word 'and', it also makes me think that within their friendship, the robot is actually the leader and the one who looks after Frank, this is because the robot comes before Frank, but this also could simply show that they're equal to one another, as you would usually expect the word robot to come after Frank as he isn't a human being.

From watching the trailer, I was very surprised by the idea that this is actually a Comedy film, the story is based around an old man who gets a robot to help him out around the house as he's getting old, he hates him at first but they grow as friends and end up planning a robbery. This is not what I had expected at all, but it is sometimes that in a film which helps to break a niche and expand to different audiences. It's rare that they do this, but it's a good way to draw in as many people as possible. I felt that my story line was quite similar in some aspects as to what actually happened which shows that although the title was meant to not give much away, it was clear that there would be a steady build of an unusual relationship.

From doing this and analyzing the titles the way I did before actually seeing the trailer helped me to understand that it is very important that the title is right and gives out the right messages and signals to your chosen target audience, luring them in to watch it. However, from the Robot and Frank title, I can also see it is good to use your title in a manipulative way, drawing in as many people to your film as you can. This is something that I will have to think intensely about and use a lot of audience research to determine what they would expect from a film title, ensuring that my title complemented what was going to happen in my film.

From this I was able to understand that the idea of a trailer is designed to raise the interest of a film that is soon to be released or is already out, this is to ensure it gets the biggest and widest audience possible. Trailers, like the title of the film, give you a taste of the film, what it is about and what is to come.