Another film I am going to analyse is Vantage Point. Vantage point is an action/thriller film, it is about the assassination of a U.S.A president.

Director: Pete Travis
Produced by: Neal H.Moritz
Main Characters: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker and Sigourney Weaver
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Budget: $40 million.

The start of this trailer begins with a countdown, a women’s voice counting from 5 to 1. As each number is said a quick clip appears then the screen goes black. The first impression you get from this trailer is that something important is happening. You can gather this by the codes and conventions used in the first 5 seconds. Each security guard is at a high angle, signifying power, with a rifle in his hand, overlooking a loads of black cars with a limousine in the middle. This means that someone important is visiting. With this countdown affect I feel it is a very easy way to put across the situation of something, in such a short space of time the viewer has a rough idea of what is going on. It also lets the audience know that something exciting is going to happen after a countdown.

After the countdown it seems like a news readers voice, female again, starts to talk about the president and what plans he has for the future, she says that they are in Spain. Even though a new voice is speaking now, the countdown in clips (with the black screen) is still going on. I feel this is to show that the main event in this trailer is yet to happen, and the countdown of clips won’t stop until something has happened. As he walks towards the stage, it is being filmed from a hidden angle, as if it is someone in the crowd’s perspective. When she finishes speaking, President Ashdown say’s ‘Today we make history’, as he says that the camera pans across the security guards shoulders, giving the audience a moving over the shoulder shot, showing the whole situation. Then a man’s voice starts to talk about the film (advertising voice), which I feel we should include in our teaser trailer. He talks about 8 strangers seeing this situation from a ‘vantage point’, but each stranger is linked together from each shot e.g. a man filming the crowd, turns around and is filming the previous stranger that the advertising voice was talking about. Whilst this is going on a mysterious style music is playing in the background, sometimes each character is linked together by a fade out then a fade in special effect, it does make the trailer look better, and shortens the time on the teaser trailer.

As the music end’s the president then get’s shot, the news reader then continues to speak as if she is on live T.V, this is a very effective was to let the audience know what is going on, even though she is not actually talking to them. Even though the main event has happened, the countdown, in clips (going from a clip to black screen etc), is still going on. This maybe because they want the audience to keep interested in the rest of the trailer and let them know that this is only the beginning.

The next stage of this trailer, is taking parts from the film, (exciting parts), where the explosions are happening, car crashes, tense music and gun shots all which identify the genre action/thriller. I also noticed during the clips taken from the film, the editing is cut really fine together. I feel it does make the trailer link better together when each clip is short with a load of different action packed clips. A lot of questions are being said during the action packed clip part, obviously wanting the audience to watch this when the film comes out. When a trailer is so fast a lot of pan camera movements have to be made, following each of the 8 ‘vantage point’ characters. These camera movements have to be made to keep up with the characters and it is a very effective way of showing a person’s situation. At the end of the trailer the characters are being introduced, with a mini clip of each main character, the introduction of the characters at the end of the trailer is a very good idea as it gives the audience an introduction to the film before it is in the cinema’s.

Joe O'Grady