Trailer Analysis - The Amazing Spiderman

July 22, 2016 Unknown 0 Comments

The very first shot of the trailer is an establishing shot of New York City at night, and this is evident because of the iconic Empire State Building in the shot. This shot instantly shows the audience where The Amazing Spiderman is going to be set in, and gives them a small insight in what to expect. The establishing shot is followed by a long shot the Spiderman, as he swings from building to building, and a bird’s-eye-view of New York. All these shots are high up in the sky and this may play with the audience’s feelings because it makes them uneasy as some may have a fear of heights. Using mise-en-scène, we can see The Spiderman is wearing is usual red and blue Spiderman costume.

The opening shots are followed by a medium shot of a teenage girl in the foreground and then a teenage boy in the background who had just jumped onto the balcony. From the view of the window, it seems as if her room in high up in the building. The audience may be able to predict that this is The Spiderman because be he jumps onto a balcony ‘20 stories’ high. The editing technique shot reverse shot is used as the two characters’ exchange dialogue, as well as the 180° rule because the camera never extends beyond the imaginary 180° line. The audience can guess that the female character is the heroine or the love interest in the film. This tries to make the film more appealing to females who prefer romance within films. After the first sequence of shots in the trailer, this is followed by the institution for the film, Columbia Pictures.

A long shot of dinner table with people sitting and eating is used with a voice over with someone saying ‘tell us a little bit about yourself Parker’. Then this shot is suddenly followed by a high angle shot of The Spiderman sitting down and staring at his mask. We then hear a Peter Parkers voice saying ‘not much to tell really’. This is a clear indication that The Spiderman is this characters, and that he is trying to keep his Spiderman identity low-key and hidden. We hear a voice over of a young boy saying ‘did you catch the spider guy yet’, with an older adult replying with ‘no, but we will’. This indicates to the audience what The Spiderman is being hunted by the police for things that he may have done.

The next scene shows a medium shot of a man stealing a car in the darkness of night, when suddenly The Spiderman appears in the back seat of the car, spooking the thief. The use of low-key lighting in these shots makes for a mysterious looking scene, and the darkness also connoted danger and horror. This is then followed by The Spiderman shooting webs from his wrist to stop the thief. We then are shown a close-up shot of The Spiderman indicating to the audience that he is the main character. From the beginning till this point, it is still unclear whether The Spiderman is the protagonist or the antagonist because he is wanted by the police however he’s also shown stopping a car thief. In this case, he could be a vigilante due to him working alone and away from any other protagonist and antagonist groups.

We see a medium/close up shot of a small boy with what looks like his mum and dad moving away from him. This and the next shot uses a black and white effect to indicate that it is a memory of an event from the past. From this shot, we see that his mum seems sad and almost about to cry indicating that something terrible may happen or will be happening. The next shot is then an over the shoulder shot of the young boy as he looks at his own reflection in the window. The editing in the trailer then uses a dissolves effect to transition from the over the shot of the young boy to an over the shot of an older teenager, Peter Parker, showing the audience that the young boy was Peter Parker as a young boy. During the dissolve transition, we hear the voice over saying ‘I know it’s been rough for you Peter’. Suddenly as the voice over finishes, a medium shot shots Peter being hit in the head with a basketball and then a medium shot of three teenage boys laughing at him.

In this shot we see a long shot of Peter walking down the street with his hoodie up and looking at the ground. This shot makes him look mysterious and suspicious at the same time. A voice bridge of an older male adult is used to transition from these two shots to a long shot of peter in a room with his uncle and aunt. In this long shot we see Peter looking at an old brief case as uncle ben says ‘it was your dads’. Eye line match is used as he pulls an object out of his bag, then we are shown a close up shot an ID cars, presumably his fathers. The following sequence of shots shows Peter meeting up with Dr Connors and other close up and medium shots of devices with a voice over in the background. During these shots we see someone inject themselves with device then a few shots later we see Dr Connors reacting like he had just injected himself. As this happens, a voice over of Dr Connors is used saying ‘there’s a rumour of a new species in New York’. This is instantly followed by a shot of an green clawed hand tearing through a hole and then an extreme close up shot of its eye. This shows that Dr Connors injected himself with a chemical that has transformed him to a lizard like creature. This green lizard-like-creature is now shown tearing through a car roof and then grabbing a passenger inside through the use of a medium shot. Low key lighting is used to make the scene scarier for the audience. The abnormal creature is a strong indicator for a science-fiction film as its not usual to have half human and half lizard character.

The next 45 seconds increases the pace of the trailer by including more action shots and by using pace editing. This suggests to the audience that the film will contain a lot of action and fight scenes. Some shots medium and long shots included weapons such as guns which also are prevalent in action films. During this section, the sound track music also increases in pace as it utilises much louder and faster paced drums than before. The use of a choir can also be heard with their quick bursts of vocals during fast and energetic scenes. This is usually a reoccurring theme within other sci-fi and action films, and indicates the type of genre for the film.