Codes and Conventions of Trailers

As I have been browsing and watching trailers, I have analysed three trailers in terms of their codes and conventions and the meaning they represent for its audience.

1. An Education:

This is a typical Hollywood/British film trailer. It begins with telling us that the film is about a young girl Jenny who is very smart and wants to go to Oxford. Shen then meets an older man and her life and her goals change.
As the trailer advances the situation of the trailer changes and that is realised by the audience through the change in music thus in this trailer the background music speaks/narrates. In the very beginning the background music is piano and it is played in a such a way that it gives the idea of happiness and also the type of music tells that what time/age the film is shot in e.g. 1900s or 2011.
The text and its colour(s) in between the scenes used reflects youth, and gives the feel that it might not be a serious film but as the trailer is played the music changes and some seriousness is shown.
So basically this is a very cliché trailer, begins with happy music, happy actors and ends with hard and serious emotions and music that saddens the atmosphere. It clearly tells the audience what genre the film is going to be (Romantic/Drama) and the only enigma left is that what will happen to Jenny in the end and only the people who will the trailer and the genre will watch the film.

2. In The Loop:

This trailer is completely different from the trailer above. the trailer begins with a dialogue and the film seems serious. But as the trailer is played along with fast music and fast paced editing and short dialogues and texts the audience realises that it is a comedy film and the fast paced editing creates enigma and the audience is confused that what exactly the story of the film is. Thus a large number of audience will want to watch the film. In this trailer the music is there only to make it more interesting and energetic and the fast editing is the core aspect that speaks to the audience and tells them what the film is about or what genre it is i.e. Comedy.

3. Dhobi Ghat:

This trailer is a Bollywood film's trailer with no dialogues and only moving images, still images and music. The only information given to the audience is through texts and images which is not very common at all. In this particular trailer not only the music but the editing, the pictures, the text everything speaks to the audience, they all carry a message and they all create enigma especially the music used. The trailer only introduces the main characters of the film and gives a very little idea of the story i.e. that they all are linked and their is a love chain. this trailer has bassically broken the common codes of the trailers in terms of
a) Music - the same tune is repeated thrice which is not a convention in trailers.
b) Editing - still images are used along with moving but with no dialogues or spoken narration.
The text has been used in a very interesting way, each character is introduced with their names and professions and rest of the information disappears quickly and the last word of each set of texts is "Mumbai" which tells the viewers that the film is set in Mumbai.


So these are the three trailers absolutely different from each other and I thought that analysing the different techniques that have been used in these trailers would be a challenge and a good way to start with the project.