Analysis of Inception: Trailer

The marketing campaign for Inception was huge, with numerous trailers (mostly being teaser trailers) being released. The trailer I have selected to analyse particularly struck myself with its editing and the use of sounds compiled with the backing track.

For a new film, trailers are essentially the main piece of media which can gain hype in the early stages (and late stages) of the marketing period. For Warner Bros Pictures, the marketing had to be just right - and with the set of teaser trailers mixed with the full trailers, they successfully generated a great stream of hype for Inception.

The first thing about this trailer which hits the viewer is a discrete backing track, which builds up throughout the 2 minutes changing in tempo and pitch - generating an impressive experience when viewing the trailer. It's no surprise that the soundtracks used in the film Inception are of this quality - with the director Christopher Nolan (also director of Batman: The Dark Knight) using Hans Zimmer (German film score composer and music producer) to once again create the music for his films. Hans Zimmer is well known for his work on numerous films such as Gladiator, the Dark Knight and the Lion King.

Music aside, the trailer itself is extremely well edited and put together. The trailer is based around the sounds, with the voices used in perfect positions to build up emotions as the trailer continues. The clips shown show just enough of the movie to get a brief understanding of what is happening, but what it does well - is leave the viewer wanting to see more, to understand what is going on in the film.

Overall, I believe that this is a perfect example of how a trailer should be done; it has everything you would expect to see in a perfect trailer.

Main Pro's of trailer:

Use of backing music/sound
Building emotion throughout
Not revealing too much about the plot/story

Analysis of Inception: Magazine Covers

Another part of major film marketing which is carried out, is linking up with various film magazines such as Total Film - and producing articles and front page covers to promote the film (usually these are carried out in Exclusives).

For the analysis of the Inception marketing, I have looked at two of the biggest film magazines: Total Film and Empire.

Click the above images to view them in full scale

In each of the magazines, the front cover is dominated by the headline actor in Inception: Leonardo Dicaprio (who fills the roll of the main character within the film).

Empire: In the Empire edition of Inception, the main image is a high quality picture of Leonardo with a striking caption at the top of the page, "The Dark Knight Returns" - which was obviously a very successful film directed by Christopher Nolan (who also directed Inception). This will instantly attract fans of the Dark Knight to Inception, with a link being placed between the two. The directors name is clearly visible in the center of the portrait with the title being stretched across the width of the cover. I believe that the main feature of this cover is the image of Leonardo Dicaprio - a recognisable world-known actor who instantly draws attention to the film Inception.


Total Film: In the Total Film edition of Inception, the main attraction to the page is the redesigned total film logo - which doesn't change much - thus signifying the importance of this film and how highly they rate it - and this is just from looking at the logo. As well as this, across the middle of the page is a shining logo for inception - which instantly makes the film title stand out. Behind the title is an image of the main character in the film, Leonardo Dicaprio.

In comparison, I believe that the each cover is good for different reasons - with the Empire magazine playing off the image of Dicaprio where Total Film is highlighting the film a lot more, especially with the change in image for the title of the magazine.

Analysis of Inception: Film Posters

For the film Inception, three main posters were produced. Each of the three posters have strong similarities, not revealing too much but creating an image that can intrigue a viewer to want to know what is happening. 

          

Press the above images to view in full scale.

First look: Similarities


On the first look of each of the three posters similarities are instantly visible. All three posters show a city of some sort, but in different ways. In each poster, the way in which the city appears is considered wrong in a normal expectation. In the first poster, the city is flooded - it appears that the sea is coming in on the city. In the second, the buildings appear to be bending around the characters, like the city is collapsing in on them. Finally, in the third poster, the hole city itself appears to be folding in half. This creates an understanding that something is different, that something is happening to the city itself. The use of these manipulations create a confusion for the viewer, wanting to understand exactly what is happening and why it is happening. 


Other similarities in the poster are the people within - it is clear from the posters who is the main character within the film, as the same person is at the center of each (this being Leonardo Dicaprio). The way in which the characters within are particularly informing about what is happening. In the first of the three posters, the main character is standing in what appears to be a sea in the middle of a sea - but he looks calm, and is just watching. This suggests that he knows why it is happening, and the gun which can be seen in his hand suggests that there is some sort of fight/war ongoing. 


Warner Bros Film Posters


For Warner Bros films, the marketing is very similar - in particular for film posters. Throughout different marketing projects, a lot of Intertextuality is used on the film posters which are created.


In relation to the Inception posters, there are a couple of film posters created by Warner Bros which can be strongly compared with those created for Inception.

 

Above are a poster from three movies: Inception, The Dark Knight and The Matrix.


From simple looking at the three, it can be easily seen that there is a lot of intertextuality occuring - with large buildings being placed around a character located in the middle of the portrait. In each of the three posters, it gives a sense that the characters are small - with massive things (buildings) surrounding them. 

Analysis: Inception

To gain knowledge of film marketing and how trailers should look, I have chosen to analyse the recent film: Inception.

Inception is a film directed by Christopher Nolan, producer of films such as The Dark Knight. As well as having 'one of the best' directors, it includes film mega-stars such as Leonardo Dicaprio and is a big budget film.

Choice of Genre

For the task set by L31 Products, myself and my team have been thinking about the film genre which will be used for the portfolio of marketing products.

Firstly, we conducted research on the mainstream genres, of which I have listed below.

Action, Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Documentary, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Horror, Musical,  Mystery,  Romance, Science Fiction, Sport, Suspense, Thriller, War, Western.

We then decided the mese en scene which will be used, the props and the actors - and which genre(s) we could create the best marketing for - with the above factors included. The genre which we singled out was Action, this would be suitable for our products as the skills which we have would enable us to create this successfully - with skills using softwares such as Adobe Aftereffects, allowing for action styled details such as explosions and sharp effects.

A good example of a film for the action genre is James Bond - Casino Royale.

We settled on having the Genre as Action, combining the skills of the group and what would best motivate the members.

Introduction to task

I have recently been informed of the task set for me and my group by L31 Productions and this is my first in a series of blog posts of which I will complete, keeping a log of the work which I complete and the order of which I complete the work.

L31 Productions have asked that my group aid the marketing of a new film to be released in November 2010. The marketing products should include:

A)

• Two 60 second trailers in length

or )

• One trailer which lasts 120 seconds in length

With the selected choice from above, the trailer(s) will have to be combined with a Film magazine and a poster. Each aspect of the marketing should be linked creating media synergy of the product. Each aspect created should be of a high quality, keeping in mind the mise-en-scene, actors displayed and involved, the props used and most importantly the editing used.

L31 Productions have requested that all decisions taken are logged on this blog to keep themselves up to date - the blog will also be tracked by the production team to ensure that the portfolio of work, including the marketing products, are completed on time.