Research and Planning: Analysis of trailers - 'About time'

Genre

This movie trailer is mostly based on romance; with some parts of comedy and science fiction. The trailer conforms to Steve Neal's hypothesis he said that 'Genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variations'. In this trailer, the repetition is the  love between the two main characters. The pattern of variation is the time travel, I noticed that the main comedy aspects of the trailer appear more around the time travel than the romance. The trailer also conforms to Andrew Sarris' hypothesis that 'genre is the idea that it has a recognisable style that draws on an existing audience' because from watching the trailer we can straight away recognise that it is a romance so it must conform to the certain 'style' that makes us think romance.

Representation

Laura Mulvey had a theory in which she called 'the male gaze' meaning that films and trailers are seen from the males point of view. I noticed that in this film trailer as the character we saw the most of during the trailer was a male and we also saw a lot of the dad in this trailer this is representing age he comes across as of course a fatherly figure as well as a 'wise older man' because in the clip you can see him giving advice to his son (Tim) but he doesn't seem to be taking on what his dad is saying and uses his gift to find love.

Narrative

Todorov's hypothesis is that 'equilibrium, disruption and equilibrium restored' which I think the 'About Time' trailer conforms to because the equilibrium is when the main character Tim is having a nice, calm conversation with his father; then there is a distruption; he is told that he has time-traveling powers. The equilibrium is resolved when Tim has finally got things right with the woman. The protagonist in this film is the male time travelling character, I think he plays the role of an anti hero as well because he ends up fixing and making everything work out in the end but he isn't dressed as your stereotypical hero.

Audience

I think the trailer uses Uses and Gratifications because the audience can 'take from it what they need' and the audience can be passive for this film because, it is a Romance film which often follow the same kind of structure - 2 people in love, then they encounter a problem, then they're back together in the end so the film is very easy to follow. I would say the target audience for this film trailer would be 17 - 30's because it has the romance element which would appeal to the the whole audience but I think the science fiction element would attract an older audience as well.

Media Language
I notice that it is mostly medium shots used in this trailer I think this makes it look realistic and in a way it seems like we are on the same level as the characters. For the parts of the trailer that show the time travel elements of the film jump cuts are used which makes the clips run quickly. This connotes time moving quickly which could be making a link to the time travel. I also notice that for the comedic parts of the trailer the background music is quietened, to make sure that the audience here it properly and will find it funny.