Drama Trailers

I have been researching various trailers and focusing on trailer conventions for the genre drama.

First of all, the American Beauty trailer was fairly bad. It was neither informative nor clear: what is the movie about? Who does it center around? The trailer throws in every possible character that appears and every side storyline that it actually makes the film look less interesting and appealing.

Despite 12 Years a Slave being a historical drama film, the trailer is representative of the storyline and characters. The trailer moves chronologically and utilizes a voiceover of the main character, Solomon, explaining what had happened to him. The trailer also adds music to fit the tempo of the events being portrayed: this heavily contributes to the emotional aspect of the film. One can predict that the film centers around emotionally intensive events with an especially powerful song that is sung collectively by the slaves and a quick shot focusing on Solomon singing it with a painfully hurt face. The trailer builds up to a climax that reveals the purpose of the film: that Solomon will not surrender. This is shown with climatic music and faster cuts of shots shown. 

This trailer is the best out of all three. It starts with establishing the setting and the main character's (Stephen Hawking) personal life: cementing the romantic love from the beginning. Then, the trailer moves on to the bigger challenges and achievements done by Stephen: his excellence as a scientist and his crippling disorder. The middle of the trailer introduces the main conflict: Stephen's disorder, while the second half of the trailer shows Stephen's life battling the disorder. This chronological, organized pacing gives a satisfying feel of the film and makes it look extremely appealing. The beginning of the trailer is progressed by the narration of Stephen's lines that he says throughout the movie (not a voiceover). As the trailer moves onto bigger ideas, other characters' lines are added, as well as a black screen offering short explanations. The trailer sticks to the actual film and represents it fairly: it's a good model!

Today I did well on my research and broadened my understanding of the conventions of the drama film. I'm looking forward to more!!