Archive for July 2014
The naked woman covered in gold symbolises sex, death, wealth and the link between the three. these themes are often addressed in Bond films and as a result are now considered to be a standard of the genre. The franchise's 007 logo is tactically placed between Sean Connery's name and the film's title showing that even at this early stage they were keen to establish the franchise's branding.
If I stay comes out in summer 2014 and is an adaption of a book. It starts with an establishing shot of a theatre which presents our main character to us on centre stage. We then hear the cello music she's playing which creates a sound bridge for roughly half the trailer. The equilibrium is set by showing us the romance between the main character and Adam, at this stage it sticks to romance conventions with the narrative of the Chloe Grace Moretz's character explaining her feelings for him alongside a montage of romantic moments. As the cello music gets quicker so does the pacing and the line "Why do I get this feeling I'm about to mess up my entire life?" acts as foreshadowing, these combined elements ramp up the tension. The music shifts again as the characters kiss, marking the moment as is common in the romance genre. The music builds to crescendo and then we see her and her family in the car about to collide with another one on a snowy road for a brief moment before the screen goes black and the music suddenly cuts out and switches to a much more slow paced, somber tune. we establish she is having an outer body experience while in a coma and the following shot of her in the hospital explains the key point of the film, that whether or not she wakes up is her choice. After this the simple white text on a black background tells us it's based on a novel, her situation is further complicated when we find out both her parents died and her conflict about what to choose becomes more clear. Following this we see many flashbacks sandwiched between statements beginning with "If". In conjunction with the music there are several quick flashes of shots leading up to Chloe Grace Moretz's name and a shot of her walking down a corridor with her back to us towards a window, presumably symbolically. After this we have a final shot of Adam begging her to stay followed by the title of the film which is in a much softer title than the previous title cards, showing the delicate nature of the film's content, and a coming soon card.
The female protagonist and romance element will greatly appeal to female viewers and the perspective of a teenager will apply to younger viewers, however the strong family theme showed with the various flashbacks with her parents will appeal to almost anybody but especially those with children themselves.
That the trailer suddenly shifts in tone halfway through is effective as it makes it stand out and anybody who would have tuned out watching it in the cinema because of the romance genre will have been prompted to take notice of it. The change in music also helps with this as it breaks it up and keeps the audience's attention.
The trailer makes a point of making Chloe Grace Moretz's name very clear as she is a well known actress with a wide fan base, which can act as a pulling point for the film. Also there are no title cards in the first half of the trailer allowing the audience to relax into the trailer and come to grips with the relationships they're seeing, this makes the change far more poignant than it would otherwise be.