My favorite movie trailer to watch that makes me want to
watch the movie every time I see it is the trailer for Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows. Just watching it for this blog gave me chills. I think this
trailer really appeals to the pathos and ethos of the audience.
Many
things happen at the beginning of the trailer to make it emotionally charged.
First, the music is very dramatic but quiet.
Second, the trailer opens with a scene between Voldemort and Harry. It’s
one of the most dramatic scenes in the movie and attracts the audience right
away. As the scene unfolds the music continues to build. When the scene reaches
its climax so does the music and it switches to a bunch of different scenes
from the movie. One reason I think this approach worked so well is because it
really appeals to the emotion or pathos of the audience. In the book, Everything’s an Argument by Andrea Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz,
it states: “emotion can add real muscle to arguments” (103). This really applies to this trailer because it
goes straight for the audience’s emotions. The scene used is when Harry goes to
meet Voldemort in the dark forest and leaves us right when Voldemort performs
the killing curse on Harry. It leaves audience wondering what’s going to happen
and also worried for the hero, is he going to live or die? The rest of the
scenes shown in the trailer are action scenes; showing the main characters in
danger. Fear is a strong emotion and this trailer really plays on that.
This trailer also uses the strong recognition of its characters. The Deathly Hallows is the 7th installment of the Harry Potter series that has been going on for 10 years; the characters are very recognizable by now. They don’t have to announce the names; just showing their faces brings about the memory. Like I said earlier, it shows all the characters in perilous situations and because they are all household names by now, the audience is already on their side and wants to see them prevail. The trailer doesn’t show the outcome to any of these situations in hopes it will entice the audience to go see the movie.
This trailer also uses the strong recognition of its characters. The Deathly Hallows is the 7th installment of the Harry Potter series that has been going on for 10 years; the characters are very recognizable by now. They don’t have to announce the names; just showing their faces brings about the memory. Like I said earlier, it shows all the characters in perilous situations and because they are all household names by now, the audience is already on their side and wants to see them prevail. The trailer doesn’t show the outcome to any of these situations in hopes it will entice the audience to go see the movie.
This
trailer appeals to a lot of the senses. The use of color and music and fonts
and words all make the trailer very convincing. In terms of color, all the
scenes are very dark and dismal indicating that the mood of this movie is very
serious and not a light-hearted comedy.
The only colors used that really stand out are oranges and reds to emphasize
fire and wand duels. In Understanding Movies by Louis
Giannetti, he states that “color tends to be a subconscious element in
film. It’s strongly emotional in its appeal, expressive and atmospheric rather
than intellectual” (22). He later states that “since earliest times, visual
artists have used color for symbolic purposes…warm colors (red, yellow, orange)
suggest aggressiveness, violence, and stimulation” (Giannetti, 22). This explains why the makers of this trailer
chose to just emphasize the red and orange to indicate the danger and violence
present in this movie in addition to using the dark setting of the scenes.
The
part of the trailer that really speaks to me or convinces me the most is when
the words “The Motion Picture Event of a Generation” appear larger than life in
that signature Harry Potter font. Wow,
it gives me chills every time I see it. This appeals to emotions mostly because
it’s like saying to me “hey, this is your generation! Don’t miss out!” It just
really hits home with me because I've read all the books so I already knew how
epic the movie was going to be without seeing the trailer, but those words just
reiterate what I already knew. It also
speaks to the people that haven’t read the books. That’s a pretty heavy claim
so it makes people curious, is this really the motion picture event of my
generation? It appeals to the logos of the audience by saying it’s totally reasonable
to see this movie, you would be silly to miss out on this. This trailer shows a
lot of action and thriller scenes indicating it’s a drama/thriller/action movie.
But it also shows glimpses of love scenes appealing to a wider audience than
just those interested in the action.
Rating:
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