Once Upon a Few Minutes
A Narrative Study of the Contemporary
High-Fantasy Adventure Trailer
Daphne Datema
Author Daphne Datema Supervisor Erik Laeven Second Reader Abraham Geil
Programme Master Film Studies Department Media Studies
University University of Amsterdam
Abstract
Five high fantasy adventure trailers, produced by marketing agency The
Trailer Park, are analysed through a narrative approach in order to find out
what archetypal stories they suggest.
Table of contents
1. Introduction 4
1.1 Problem Indication and Relevance 4
1.2 Orientation on the subject 5
1.3 Scope 7
1.4 Research Questions and Hypotheses 9
1.5 Research Method in Brief 9
1.6 Thesis Outline 9
2. The Trailer 11
2.1 History 11
2.2 The Trailer Today 14
2.3 Different Types of Trailers 18
3. Theoretical Framework 21
3.1 Narratology 21
3.2 The trailer’s narrative 27
3.3 Research Method 30
4. Case Study 36
4.1 The Hobbit 36
4.2 Frozen 40
4.3 The Dark Knight Rises 43
4.4 Alice in Wonderland 46
4.5 Brave 49
4.6 The Monomyth & Trailers 52
5. Conclusion 55
Appendices 63
Introduction
1.1 Problem Indication and Relevance
“No matter where a film is made -Hollywood, Paris, Hong Kong – if it’s of archetypal quality, it triggers a global and perpetual chain reaction of pleasure that carries it from cinema to cinema, generation to generation” (McKee 1999, 3). Nowadays trailers could be considered the most important and effective way of marketing a new film (Hamel 2012, 268). Could the theatrical trailer contain the same archetypal quality in order to give pleasure to the audience right before another movie begins?
As a film student I always want to give rational meaning to a film. What’s being presented to me? Why do or don’t I like it? What structure is used in order for me to remain focused? Film theorists never want filmic texts to wash over ourselves. We want to grasp and understand it. With the theatrical trailer, a product is sold to us while at the same time, a story is being told. However, the presentation of the story in the trailer is never the exact story it promotes. The urge to understand this complicated film text became bigger when I considered how many trailers convinced me to go see a certain movie. The impression a trailer uses to excite and entertain the audience can’t be overlooked.
A situation we might all recognize is the moment before the movie begins in the cinema. While we’re settling down in our movie seats, taking a last glimpse at our phones and exchanging our final thoughts with our friends, commercials for several products and services play on the screen. Right after these commercials, the curtains, that covered part of the screen, open a little more to music that becomes louder and more intense. This is the moment when our real movie experience starts; most of us are no longer distracted at this point and we become absorbed by the experience of the cinema. But this is still not the moment when the movie begins. At this point certain ‘theatrical trailers’ are presented to us. These
trailers consist of shots selected strategically from the new film it promotes. They are structured in order to sell us a product: in this case the feature film that will be in cinemas soon. In order to achieve the goal to bring as many people to the cinema, film trailers set out to “persuade, entertain and inform their spectators” (Maier 2009, 161). Trailers are everywhere these days and the audience rarely visits a movie without knowing anything about the
content of the movie they are about to watch. A trailer gives us some information about the film so that by the time we arrive at the cinema, we already have some expectations of the story we are about to see: this could be because of the actors, director, genre, famous story or other elements that might appeal to us. Now, with the emergence of web 2.0, which first became readily available in 2005, we can watch a trailer at any time we want, mainly to then decide whether or not we want to see the film. This filtering process is influenced by the fast Western culture we live in and by the lack of time we have and the abundance of offers with which we are inundated. Western culture is all about living fast and not wasting this precious time. Therefore we need to properly schedule our time. The many films that are offered to us compared to the small amounts of time we have, has an influence on our movie culture. The main promotional model of a movie of recent years has been the trailer. Thus, trailers allow us to schedule our media consumption patterns (Gray 2010, 52). As a consequence, film trailers are sometimes being watched over and over on the Internet as a mini-movie, which leads to the disappearance of the meaning of the original text. Jonathan Gray argues that there is a significant difference between the film’s story and the trailer’s story. “With each viewing, the director’s text potentially dissolves yet a little more, with the marketing team’s text replacing it” (2010, 72). Not only this is interesting when thinking of the availability of the trailer, but also when it comes to its content.
The fact that a trailer gets many views nowadays, suggests that a
trailer is often being watched as story on its own; many people will never end up seeing the entire film, but only the trailer. As a trailer therefore becomes a story in its own right, the current position of a trailer’s narrative structure needs to be taken into consideration. Watching and creating a trailer is time consuming, therefore it is best if we enjoy it, appreciate it and treat it as an
art form. The stakes are high for the advertiser when it comes to gathering the rights and marketing to a large audience for an upcoming movie. It can’t just promote the movie, it also has to entertain an audience. The trailer does this by both giving an impression of the movie being promoted, but by also telling a story in itself. It is important to analyse just how important a role these filmic texts play in popular culture and that the meaning of the trailer itself might have the same importance as the film itself.
1.2 Orientation on the Subject
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead” (Greene 1979, 7). This argument Graham Greene makes about the arbitrary identity of a story is very interesting when it comes to the understanding of the story of a trailer. Nowadays, much attention is devoted to a narrative structure that comprises a clear beginning and ending. The great teachers of creative writing also stress the importance of good structure. Authors have been influenced from everything from Aristotle’s Poetics, to Robert McKee’s Story, meaning that structural foundations consisting of a clear beginning middle and an ending are incorporated in the author’s writing skills. Greene’s premise, however, focuses more on the notion of events that occur even before the beginning and after the end of the story, suggesting that our
imagination and cultural psyche might fill in the moments that might have or will occur before or after the story that is being told. The theatrical trailer relates a lot to this perception of a story. This medium, which plays a huge role in popular culture, doesn’t contain the structured beginning or ending we are used to in a standard tale. Might it be possible to suggest that even without a clear beginning and ending the trailer might be regarded as a medium that tells its own structured story? A suggestion can be made that the trailer should also be narratively analysed with the same attention that has been done towards feature films, where scholars have exercised many analytical narrative methods to analyse a feature’s storytelling elements. A mythical approach could be helpful to understand how we process the
Writer’s Journey. He applied Campbell’s theory to blockbusters to find out
whether archetypes and structural elements are also present in films.
According to Joseph Campbell’s theory of The Monomyth, an adventure story consists storytelling paradigms that can be called ‘The Hero’s Journey’. He stresses that the adventure that will be told in the new story has already been told before. Mythology is “everywhere the same beneath its varieties of costume” (2008, 2). “We have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path” (18). Vogler’s mythical
approach to better understand a story’s structure could also be helpful in analysing the narrative structure of a trailer. Vogler found a success formula within the narrative of the blockbuster. It might also help this research to find a formula within the narrative structure of the trailer. The relevance of this approach towards the trailer could be interesting for filmmakers,
advertisers and audience. When analysing what
mythical story is told through the narrative structure of a trailer, some research challenges might occur. The analysed structures are based on the elements of the narrative that are explicitly shown: the plot. But the story of the film that the trailer refers to has mostly been regarded as the entire story. If trailers are just summoned core narrative points of the original story, what story can we retrieve within the narrative structure of a trailer? Does it reveal too much, too little, or does it reveal something entirely different than the story of the movie even though it’s story will always be attached to it? This thesis will make an attempt to analyze whether within the narrative of the trailer, the gaps between and the plot we see, disclose elements of the Monomyth that make us indirectly understand the story better.
It is important to also be aware of the promotional and
entertaining purposes that are at the heart of the story of the trailer, and these purposes do need to be taken into careful consideration when
analysing a trailer in the simple terms of a mini-movie with its own story. For instance, a close-up of an actor together with a non-diegetic voiceover of his name, does not fall into the narrative context of the film and the story we are watching; it is more likely a promotional intention when the name of the actor is being called (Maier 2009, 163). Because of this ‘interruption’ of
promotional aspects, we cannot easily think that the story we see is just a summary of the film it refers to. On the other hand, the trailer constantly refers to the movie; it just wants to suggest that it is a summary.
1.3 Scope
The scope of this research will be limited to five high fantasy adventure trailers, all created by the entertainment marketing agency The Trailer Park.
Contemporary Trailers
The maturation of the position of trailer in the media landscape can be
substantiated by three factors. First, larger amounts of money are now being assigned to the making of film trailers. Second, editing strategies and special effects, which play a big part in the characterization of the trailer, have gone through enormous development. Finally, fan homepages and awards that are exclusively dedicated towards trailers attract a bigger audience (Maier 2009, 160). A trailer is no longer just a side medium to promote the movie – today, trailers have a great autonomous identity. All these factors have been fuelled by the changing media landscape, in particular medium such as YouTube. That is the reason why this thesis will focus on trailers that were created after the emergence of YouTube in 2005.
Author
The trailers examined here have not been selected by director, as this analysis might end up focusing too heavily on the feature film whereas we actually want to analyze the story that the trailer tells. For this reason the trailers have been selected based on their creators. This thesis will analyze trailers created by one production company - the Trailer Park, winners of multiple Golden Trailer Awards for content. Trailers of highly valued
Hollywood productions are often the winners of these awards which could suggest that the Trailer Park has an effective formula to tell a story which appeals to a large audience.
Genre
adventurous blockbusters will be used in this research, but this time on the trailer. The context of the adventure genre might be most effective. However, in this analysis it will be important not to assume a mythical structure within the trailer because it may not really be there. Therefore a critical
examination is necessary to carefully interpret what the trailer shows and emits before making loose assumptions because we know this structure might be more apparent in this genre. The adventure genre is often combined with other genres. This thesis uses the combination of the adventure/high fantasy genre as a case study. A fantasy film incorporates imaginative and fantastic themes, involving magic, supernatural events and fantasy worlds. Usually, an ordinary hero finds himself in an extraordinary situation. High fantasy is a subgenre of the fantasy themes. In these films a developed fantasy world is emphasized and is a bit more complex than the world of the regular fantasy films. The high fantasy element of the genre is particularly interesting in terms of trailers, because a trailer must introduce not only a new story, but also a Special World and characters we’re not familiar with.
Narrative Approach
This thesis will adopt a mythical research methodology, that of the
Monomyth. Using a narrative approach will help to analyze the meaning of the story. Besides this approach, other influential factors of the narrative, like, for instance, sound and visual elements will be taken in consideration of the analysis because they may affect our comprehension of the archetypal story.
Research Object
A detailed and integrated narrative and mythical investigation of the high fantasy adventure trailer will be held to five theatrical trailers created by the
Trailer Park: Frozen (2014), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Brave (2012).
1.4 Research Questions and Hypotheses
important hypothesis in this thesis is that a trailer contains a slightly different story than a feature film due to its different narrative structure, which is influenced by its entertaining and promotional purpose. Another hypothesis is that Monomythical aspects such as archetypes and parts of different stages of the Monomyth are hidden within the structure of the adventure trailer and indirectly create opportunities to (re)create a story.
1.5 Research Method in Brief
This thesis proposes to examine what story can be found when it comes to the high fantasy adventure trailer. By focusing on the mythical conventions in the trailer’s story, this analysis will be done in order to find out what story can be found within the narrative of the trailer. The visual and sound
elements will first be examined in order to be able to find mythical structures from which we can understand how a meaning-making process might occur while watching the images that are presented to the viewer. The elements that we see and hear might not be chronologically structured as in the feature film. The disruption of the chronology might change the narrative structures we know, because of this, other mythical elements can be found in the trailer. Cognition, emotional branding, narration and genre conventions are sometimes a part of the persuasion techniques the advertisers use. However, this thesis will regard these persuasion techniques as a secondary factor in this research. The narrative of the trailers lies in the centre of this study.
1.6 Thesis Outline
The second chapter of this Thesis will elaborate on the trailer’s identity. In this chapter an historical overview will be given of the important moments in the history of the trailer when it comes to its purpose and narrative. This historical overview will give a better understanding of the goal of a trailer and what elements are most important to this medium. Major issues and controversies that have impact on this study will be put into perspective. A trailer’s functions and features will also be explained in the second chapter.
There are some conventions when it comes to the trailer as a marketing tool that we cannot circumvent. Some theoretical perspectives regarding the trailers will inform this research. A better understanding of this medium will be presented in this part. This might give a better insight in the
understanding of this medium and how to approach it when trying to find archetypal structures within its body.
The third chapter will be a methodological framework that will give an exposition on the earlier research that has been done towards this media object. It will review relevant insights of what has already been written in the field on the topic. It is important to know what thoughts and ideas already are circulating when it comes to the trailer and what and how this research can add something to this discourse. Second, an exposition of narratology will be given in this chapter in order to explain what methods will be used to analyze the narrative structure of the trailer.
In the fourth chapter, five different analyses of high fantasy adventure trailers will be presented. Even though they are the same genre, they also contain significant differences. A narrative tendency that appears in all the trailers will try to be found. The conclusion will reveal whether the hypotheses stated before were true and options for further research will be given.
2. The Trailer
This chapter will present a clear overview of the identity of a trailer. First it will clarify historical events that occurred which led to the modification of the trailer’s purpose and therefore also its narrative. In the second part the current position of the trailer will be construed.
2.1 History
Soon after the first film exhibition, awards shows were held for the best film in different categories. The first Academy Awards were presented at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel on May 16, 1929. Films were immediately accepted and approached as highly valued media art forms. Around 1912, approximately seventeen years before the first Academy Award show, the first trailer made its first appearance. However the first award show for trailers, the Golden Trailer Awards, was held 87 years later in 1999 (Fear, 2014). It is safe to say that the trailer had a less highly valued status than the feature film. Also, the first academic research into the role of the trailers was in 1968, but this did not lead to much in the way of subsequent research.
Over time, the trailer has undergone a large transformation. To give a clear explanation of the historical development of the narrative of the trailer, it is necessary to examine and apply the research of Keith Hamel on the development of the trailer. Even though the exact date is not known, the innovation that became known as the trailer began around 1915-1916. Hamel states that the period between 1913 and 1923 “showed the widest expansion in advertising both in quantity and quality” (2012, 271). The purpose and meaning of its early versions differed from the current ones. It wasn’t really clear under what heading they belonged: advertising, publicity, exploitation or all of these
(269). The term Trailer is a holdover from the time when trailers were shown after the ending of the movie in cinemas, just like tangible trailers follow a car. Early advertisers considered a synopsis of a story as the main
advertising tool. The exhibitors, on the other hand, targeted the public through the use of lighted marquees and facades. They didn’t focus on the tangibility that the films offered, but they sold the general notion of pleasure and entertainment; an emotion or an experience (268). Nowadays, a trailer consists of a combination of storyline and experience. Both the advertisers and exhibitors have had influence on how the trailer has evolved into the
medium it is today. In 1919 The National Screen
Service (NSS), a trailer production and distribution company that would dominate the studio era for a long period of time was founded (270). At the same time as the NSS was founded, the trailer was also moved from the tail-end to the opening of the film. This move was primarily because people would leave the cinema as soon as the film had finished and would miss the trailer that followed. Jack Atlas was the advertiser for MGM and Columbia between the 1950’s and 1970’s. He claims that the purpose of the trailer was “to get people bored enough to leave the theater and make room for someone else” (270). The fact that the advertisers moved the trailer to the moment before the beginning of the movie is already an indication that the trailer was regarded as an important marketing tool for promoting a movie. Because even though the trailer was regarded as a boring advertisement, it didn’t stop the advertisers from trying to ensure that trailers were seen. Despite engineering a more marketable juxtaposition of the trailer, the change of the trailer’s content didn’t come until sometime later. The first evidence of the trailer’s change of content was with the emergence of sound: the trailer matured into something slightly more than just an advertisement tool, its first entertainment aspects became apparent. On August 17, 1928. People started clapping enthusiastically after seeing a trailer (273). This suggests that some narrative element triggered the emotions of the
audience. When trailers were appreciated more by the audience (272), its entertainment purpose also grew. However, the emergence of sound was not enough to immediately change the entire identity of the trailer. After the emergence of sound it still took quite a while before the trailer could be seen
as something else than a promotional flash-forward to an upcoming film. The trailers produced by the NSS were focusing on story, actors and filmmakers. There was no narrative structure that led to a climax and because of the monopoly of the NSS almost all trailers took on a rather uniform design. The NSS only knew three kinds of trailers: The first form were the ‘talkers’, they consisted of film scenes and text with titles. The second type were the ‘stills’ of the actors that were shown together with animation effects. Third there were the ‘short fifty- foot reels’ containing only titles, sometimes
accompanied with music. To counter the monotone character of the trailer, the Advertising Advisory Council, which was a division of the Hays office, adopted the Advertising Code in 1930. This code wasn’t as specific as the Production Code of films, it rather was a “general call for good taste and the honest representations of films” (275). During the days of the early cinema, the narrative structure was just as the feature movie - dependent on the technical boundaries. Editors couldn’t easily cut in the film because if they did, they would have had to duplicate the next shot and this took a lot of time. In other words, they couldn’t just ‘try out’ what narration technique worked best. As a result the trailer’s structure remained elementary. The development of the trailer’s narrative began its change, but this was a gradual process. The 1934 trailer The Thin Man, created by MGM, was one of the first advertising film texts that masked the trailer’s advertising
function (273). During the 1940’s the NSS reinforced its headhold on the production of the trailer. New narrative innovations were introduced. For instance the use of a third person narrator made its debut and intertitles appeared and disappeared from the frame to give the audience information about the story. These examples of narrative customs remained apparent in contemporary trailers up until now. In the ‘classical era’ that lasted from the 1920’s until the 1940’s a consensus about the trailer assured that not much of the story of the film was being told. This was because the producers of the trailer believed that it was better for the audience to leave them with many questions regarding the film. Together with the emergence of the
blockbuster in the late seventies, the NSS lost much of their business
because they had to battle many monopoly lawsuits. The studios took care of their own trailers again. At the beginning, the form of those trailers remained
the same as during the monopoly of the NSS. Over time, however, more of a trailer’s content was shown. Trailers began to show money shots; sequences of the movie with high production costs. As a result, audiences from the late 1970s onwards felt as if they already had seen the film after having watched the trailer (Ason and Palmer). On the other hand, the trailer still left room for the spectator’s own interpretation; its purpose was to introduce as many different aspects of the film as to make it impossible for the audience to create an impression of what the film’s story was about. The audience was presented a trailer that contained appealing elements for everyone. So the film industry sought a balance between holding back and giving away core elements of the narrative. The style and the promotional strategies the trailer slowly began to adopt can be compared to the style and of a circus or
vaudeville show. The disconnected parts in a trailer are driven by a desire to provide the audience with a unique cinematic experience. The audience creates an imaginary film out of the fragments that are shown. “A desire not for the real film but the film we want to see” (Kernan 2004, 13). The implicit act of viewing plays an important role. The trailer houses, the companies that produce trailers in the order of the production companies, have taken notice of this fact and responded enormously to the audiences’ behavior towards trailers. A trailer’s fragmentary identity can also be regarded as a form of cinema of coming attractions. The period of the cinema of attractions was the time when the event of cinema was more important than the story that was being told. When comparing the vaudeville and circus traditions to the movie trailers, they both are made to appeal to everyone. The vaudeville tradition is “participating in the rhetoric of generalization and inclusiveness and thus incorporating a given film’s attractions within the broader context of promoting the film narrative as a whole” (18). “The circus mode directly encourages or invites audience participation and emerges from a rhetoric of hyperbole, usually singling out the film’s attractions ads the phenomenon or event that will draw audiences to the theater” (18). This comparison Kernan makes can nowadays still be found within the trailer. If it is true that the trailer presents a ‘narrative as a whole’, some cohesion should exist within the fragmentary shots of the trailer. The balancing act between not giving too much away and yet showing every important shot remains a challenge
until up to now. Nowadays people often feel as if trailers still consist of many spoilers. On the other hand, the story of the trailer shouldn’t be too vague because a target group needed to be persuaded to go see this film. The debate about the difference of selling and telling the story continues.
2.2 The Trailer Today
When trying to understand what archetypal story the trailer contains, it is important to know how the trailer has developed over time to find out why and how it tries to pursue its goal: selling a movie. As already mentioned before, the understanding of the narrative of a trailer is not that simple, first because of its fragmentary nature, but second because of the needs to fulfil both its promotional and entertainment purposes. This part will elaborate on the current position that the trailer occupies in the media landscape and its purpose.
Promotional aspects
The large sums of money put into the creation and advertising space of trailers today still don’t cover its marketing intentions. Academic research towards the trailer always kept in mind the semiotic modes that are
combined within media text to eventually attain this promotional purpose. “The main purpose of film trailers is to arouse viewers’ curiosity and expectations so that they will be persuaded to go and see the film” (Maier 2009, 159). Its aim is to provide a unique form of narrative film exhibition, wherein promotional discourse as well as narrative pleasure is conjoined. (Finsterwalder, Kuppelwieser and Villiers 2012, 590). The conjunction of narrative elements and promotion is a complex relation. Within the narrative structure, not only the story is presented, but also the marketing aspect, which might complicate the filmic analysis.
Even though the trailer’s promotional elements will be regarded as a secondary factor, it is an element of the narrative that will be analyzed. Therefore a short explanation of important advertising goals might contribute to give a better insight of the trailer’s purpose.
Padgett and Douglas Allen focuses on the way in which the concept of
‘narrative’ contributes to service brand images. Their object of research, the service brand image, both differs and equals with the theatrical trailer.
Padgett and Allen’s approach could give a better insight of the trailer’s promotional purpose. First they set out some general advertisement goals:
Adjudicating between various claims as to what should be the focal goal of advertising depends greatly on one’s basic assumptions about how advertising works. The hierarchy of effects model suggests that the consumer’s progress through a series of stages such as attention, interest, desire, and action. Hence, if one adopts the hierarchy of
effects model, awareness, fostering memory and knowledge of product benefits, and creating positive brand attitude are all defensible and reasonable advertising goals. (2007, 49)
Both in product commercials and ‘film commercials’, these stages are apparent. They give the subject the feeling that he needs to have the commodity being sold. The advertising elements of these shorts are all aiming to first get your attention. Getting a subject’s attention in cinemas with the light off is less challenging than when the trailer is shown through another medium. When a trailer is shown outside of the cinemas, it could be considered as equal to other commercials; they both have to get the viewer’s attention. However, this, in itself, is not that hard. The second stage is to retain the viewer’s interest. Both advertisements show the best parts of the product, service or story. When this is done correctly, mostly with the use of emotional branding, a form of desire is shaped. The next step is the
consumer to go and get, or in the case of the movie ‘see’ it.
In Padgett and Allen’s framework, the ad is classified as a narrative. This is interesting when trying to compare their advertisement definitions on the trailer. They suggest that the foundation, which includes story versus argument, is more important than the presentation format. This presentation format includes drama, narrative, argument and etcetera. (60). When
adapting their definition to the trailer, one could suggest that the
presentation format is more important than the foundation. Its presentation format contains the object advertised, the foundation, as well. The
foundational argument of the trailer is that one should go to the movies, this message entangled between the drama and narrative more than in the ad. When analyzing the narrative of a trailer, it is therefore important that the advertising goal is not only the foundation of the trailer, but also entangled through the narrative. Also, the object advertised is a narrative text itself, therefore it is hard to compare the service brand image to the trailer, but it gives a clearer view of the presentation of its advertisement purpose.
As a paradox, the trailer is also an ad with a reversed significance. Andrew Kuehn, a successful creator of trailers in the 20th century explains the following: “Previously, trailers had only one function: to get people to the cinema. Today they also are intended to keep away from the theatre those for whom the film is not made, those who may not be able to enjoy the film.” One could therefore say that a story is being told in the trailer, which is clear enough to allow the audience to like or dislike the story. The storyline, which includes the advertising aspect, is an important influencer of a consumer’s expectation because of two reasons. First a proportionate amount of content needs to be exposed within the trailer itself, otherwise the subject would not understand what is being sold to him. Second, the overexposure of storyline can result in a lack of intrigue (Finsterwalder, Kuppelwieser and Villiers 2012, 593).
New Media
Nowadays, the Internet has influence on a trailer’s narrative content as well. Hollywood spends a lot of money on the production of several trailers at different production companies that will eventually compete with each other to create the best trailer. The money spent by Hollywood is also invested to circulate these trailers through the new media, for instance as an ad before a YouTube video. The audience can easily replay a trailer on YouTube over and over again. This changes the perspective of the audience because they see the trailer more often and the story of the original film fades away, because the narrative of the trailer takes over. The power of the advertiser’s
influencing our perception of the story is enormous.
We are all familiar with the vernacular imperative to not “judge a book by its cover.” But we all do so nonetheless. Our world is heavily
populated by promos and surrounding textuality, and these form the substance of first impressions. Today’s version of “Don’t judge a book by its cover” is “Don’t believe the hype,” but hype and surrounding texts do more than just ask us to believe them or not; rather, they establish frames and filters through which we look at, listen to, and interpret the texts that they hype (Gray 2010, 4).
This hype has influence on how we our interpretation of the text. We think that we have already seen the movie after watching the trailer. Due to the circulation of trailers on the social network, trending trailers are discussed but their content can also changed. The changing of content is mostly done by the fan culture that interferes with the trailer’s narrative. By creating Re-cut trailers, versions of trailers are edited into one’s own version. The
dialogue is sometimes changed or shots are placed in a different order. These fan-made paratext might scare away audiences because they contain
information we might not want to know. Also these ‘fan texts’, sometimes scare away people because they can be considered as a ‘geek factor’. Sometimes, copyright laws make it difficult to distribute a re-cut trailer. Songs and film parts are not allowed to be uploaded without a license. They can easily be deleted from mainstream media platforms. Because of those reasons, re-cut trailers are removed mainstream trailers. A mainstream trailer’s niche contains a much wider audience: fans, non-fans and anti-fans (Gray 2010, 17). Because of this, the media sphere still is significantly more populated with official trailers than re-cut trailers, meaning that the
marketing agency is still in a strong position when telling and selling the story of the film advertised.
Authorship
When thinking about the power of the marketing agency, a discussion of the trailer’s authorship is inevitable. Does the director of the original movie remain the author or is it the production company that creates the trailer? It is important to pay attention to this distinction because the message of every author’s story is different. If the message changes, the archetypal story
might also slightly change. In this thesis’ framework the notion of authorship lies more in the hands of the marketing staff and editors than the film
director and its editors. This is because the advertisers are the narrative agency who pick out the shots that are being edited in a short trailer to gain their advertisement goal. However, if we consider the trailer as a series of visuals, the film director could be better regarded as the author. The focus of the analysis is therefore important when it comes to whom you can designate
as author. An important
element to advertisers is the interpretative framework of a film. Often
trailers are created while the film itself still is in production. On the one hand advertisers have a lot to say about the suggested narrative, on the other hand they do not have a carte blanche. They are dependent on the footage that they receive. (Gray 2010, 70). However, in saying that, from the nineties, dramatic shots have been filmed especially for the trailer. In this case, the trailer influences the story of the film. If these shots weren’t required, some elements would not be filmed, changing the story’s narrative. This reveals that the trailer does not always consist of clippings from the original movie but is moving towards the position of a more independent medium.
2.3 Different Types of Trailers
As explained earlier a significant difference prevails between the mainstream trailer and the fan made trailer. However, within the mainstream trailers, several stylistic and narrative distinctions can still be made. The theatrical trailer is one of these distinctions. This part will highlight what position the theatrical trailer partakes between its varieties and why exactly the
theatrical trailer was chosen as an object of research.
Stylistic Distinction
A stylistic distinction can be made between three types of trailers: the ‘creative trailer’, the ‘clip trailer’ and the ‘standard trailer’. The creative trailer is the most original version; they are mashups or trailers with an artistic purpose. The clip trailer shows only a segment of a movie; it is literally a clip of the film, which is not a relevant research object for this analysis, because it’s a literal part of a bigger narration. The standard trailer, of which the theatrical trailer and the teaser trailer are subtypes, might be
more interesting to analyse because of their fragmented nature.
Trailers Divided on Release Date
Apart from a stylistic distinction, trailers can also be characterized by when they are released. The main trailers are usually released in the following chronological order: ‘tweaser’, ‘teaser’, ‘theatrical trailer’ and the ‘television trailer’ and with every new release, more of the film’s narrative content is
introduced. The tweaser is a new way for
studios to use social media to promote movies. This short clip is only six seconds long, which enables itself to be put on Twitter and Vine. It is too short to tell an alternative story but it rather gives away a glimpse of what we might expect (Rothman). A teaser trailer is released long in advance of the full trailer. The events shown in the teaser trailer are mostly vague events of sequences from the original film and usually contain no dialogue. The purpose of the teaser trailer is intended to inform the audience that the film is in production instead of revealing its content. The teaser trailer is literally teasing the audience and tries to trigger curiosity. The television trailer is a shorter version of the theatrical trailer and could be put in
between the teaser and theatrical trailer. It is the length of the teaser but the content is more like the theatrical trailer (Ason and Palmer).
The above trailers are only glimpses of the original movie, giving away a feeling rather than content. Mark Woolen, a successful director and editor in Hollywood, notes that the theatrical trailer is based on a summary of the story and gives away most information (with some exceptions of the fan made trailer). “The real trailer, which is based on a summary of the story will be shown only six to eight weeks before the movie starts. A new studio feature often enjoys a lead time of approximately one year, from the time that audiences become aware of it to the time it opens theatrically” (Ason and Palmer). The theatrical trailer is released as the last before the premiere of the film, and reveals, instead of the teaser, an idea of certain events. The theatrical trailer tends not to spoil the promoted movie. However, Tony Gibley states in the New Statesman Magazines that the trend of the trailer has turned us into an operation of filleting a movie, we all know the scenes because we’ve seen them during the preceding
months of promos. He points back to the time where trailers still contained their mystery and magic. He notes that Hitchcock understood that a trailer must be a work of seduction and suspense. “It should whet the viewer’s appetite, but never sate it” (Gibley 2006, 2). The sophisticated tease versus the compendium of spotted highlights is what he calls it. Eventually Gibley notes that the trailer pushes sensibility. In his opinion it “will not be coming to a cinema near you any time soon” (3). His, and many others’ negative opinions towards current theatrical trailers reveal that they might give away too much information. If this is the case, the story the trailer tells should be (almost) the same as the story the film tells. On the other hand, if the
content of the trailer doesn’t end up in the cinemas at all, one could say that this is a different story than the movie itself.
The shorter the time period before the release of a movie, the more we already know about the movie because with every new version of the trailer, the advertisers reveal a little more about the story. In other words,
throughout the time period promotional purpose gives way for more
narrative elements. Because the theatrical trailer is last in line of the trailers produced by the marketing agency, this type reveals most elements of the story of the movie. This ‘final version’ of the different trailers is therefore the research object on the theatrical trailer.
The contemporary trailer finds itself in a contrary position. The main
attitudes of the audience towards trailers refer to the expectations of the film promoted, meaning that when people think of a trailer, they think of the film promoted. This is done by the advertising elements that have a goal to sell the product; the film. The paradox in this case is that the trailer itself has gained a lot of autonomy through history. Awards are handed out to the best trailers since 1999, trailers that are highly available on the Internet,
sequences which are shot especially for the trailers together with all the money spend by Hollywood on trailers have influenced the narrative of the contemporary trailer and how it should be regarded. It forces us to regard this short film text as something more than an advertisement but less than a mini-movie.
3. Theoretical Framework
Various theories presented by various academics form the framework of this thesis. Before presenting a clear overview of the current state of research into the trailer, different ways of understanding narrativity will be elaborated
methodological framework that will elaborate on how the specific mythical approaches will be applied to a narrative research in this thesis.
3.1 Narratology
From Aristotle to McKee
Aristotle is the first person known who devised a dramatic theory with his
Poetics in 335 BC. Nowadays his findings still have a great influence on the
narrative structures used in contemporary mainstream film. His criteria became fundamental for the understanding of the narrative. He describes the totality of events taking place and narrated plot as mythos. In his opinion, this plot was driven by a cause and effect of events. Characters ethos were as secondary factor within his theory. In his theory the choices are made within a story because of a functional approach to fictional protagonists and their actions (Meister). The neoformalistic method of cause and effect comes from the theories of Aristotle as well and is a crucial element when it comes to narrative thinking. Over time, the influcence of characters regarding the plot have been taken consideration and has found its place in the
contemporary definition of plot. Robert
McKee, a famous storytelling expert references three storytelling devices. The classical design of a story is what McKee calls the archplot: “a story built around an active protagonist who struggles against primarily external forces of antagonism to pursue his or her desire, through continuous time, within a consistent and causally connected fictional reality, to a closed ending of absolute, irreversible change” The archplot consists out of (1999, 45).
Vogler’s narrative structure adapted form the Monomyth can be regarded as an in-depht approach to this structure. Besides the archplot, McKee notes two other storytelling devices. The second device he names contain all the stories with minimalist variations; the miniplot. These stories strive for simplicity and economy but still satisfy the audience in terms of liking the story. The third device McKee describes is the antiplot; it contradicts traditional forms to exploit other idea of formal principles. It tends to be revolutionary (46). The corresponding movies of the trailers that will be examined later, all contain the archplot. However, the trailer itself could
contain a mini- or an antiplot. To examine how and why stories are structured as they are, an elaboration of narratological elements will be presented in the further part of this chapter.
Origins of Narratology The definition of ‘narratology’ widely differs from ‘narrative’. It is a humanities discipline dedicated to the study of the logic, principles, and practices of narrative representation. Tzvetan Todorov introduced the term ‘narratologie’ in 1969. His view was that there had to be something else other than only the focus on the surface level of text-based narrative, which was a discussion of the form of letters and sentences. He argued for a shift towards focus on the general logical land structural properties of narrative as a theory of narrative representation, or as he called it a univers de
représentations (Meister). From the mid-1960s to the
early 1980s, narratology was dominated by structuralist approaches. During this period of time the French structuralists wanted the formation of
narratology to become a coherent methodology, a structure-oriented variant of narrative theory. Narratology was identified as having a central role in exploring and modelling our ability to produce and process narratives in different forms. Also narratology was identified as a way of defining narrative universes (Meister). In film studies narrative theories of cinema were
modelled on literature. This has put the film out of the position of an
independent art form, not worth analysing as a new form of narrative. Film studies were mainly focused on technical matters, like for instance what type of shots and angles were used. Next, in 1960, film theorist Christian Metz argued that film is a complex system of successive encoded signs. He derived his argument from the semiotic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure. Finally film was narratologically regarded as an autonomous medium. The general notion of narratology developed over time into a variety of theories, concepts and analytic procedures.
Narratology and Film
Scholar Peter Verstraten pays attention to the fundamental difference in the identities of literary narration and filmic narration. Besides the different
cetera. Images and sounds can both tell their own stories. Both the auditory and the visual canal can consist out of intern and extern elements. The filmic narrator has the task to coordinate the interaction of the two (Verstraten 2008, 17). The narrating agency within filmic texts is invisible, but it’s alignment of visuals and audio is what we consider as the narration.
Narrativity is the process of narrating a story. A narrative form could also be described as the organizing framework of how and when to present information. The Analepsis (flashback) and Prolepsis (flashforward) are re-ordering a given story of the narratives discourse. Pramaggiore and Wallis describe it as “An account of a string of events occurring in space and time. Not merely a cluster of random elements, a narrative presents an ordered series of events connected by the logic of cause and effect” (2008, 62). The influence of editing is very important in the case of the narrative of a trailer. The chronological events of the full-length film are often jumbled up.
Montage might shock or confuse the spectator. In the trailer, this confusion of story is intended by the marketing agency. It rather presents an emotion than a complete story. The distinction between form and content, or stylistic procedés, has an influence on the narrative. Form refers to the decoration of the content and it answers the question of “how and with what means
content is transmitted” (Verstraten 2008, 29). It is the systematic use of film techniques, they include the use of image transitions, the interaction of
sound and images et cetera. (Verstraten, 29) An explanation of some important tools that have influence on the trailer’s narrative form will be addressed in this section.
Intertitles
In early films, intertitles were employed to ‘eliminate and abbreviate action’. In the trailer they appear for the same reason. Intertitles of both trailers and early films display information in order to gain a sense of continuity and coherence. Their earliest function was to anchor time and space and explain narrative causality. However, intertitles do not play the same role in trailers, because here intertitles are more concerned with the promotion instead of the explanation of causality, which will become clear while watching the film itself. If we approach them as a media object of entertainment, they might be
part of the story. When we approach the trailer as a promotional tool, we can regard the intertitles more as non-diegetic. Therefore this study wants to join the thought of Maier, who states that the intertitles are both diegetic as non-diegetic (Maier 2009, 166).
Narrator
Even though the real narrating agency within a trailer is the marketing
agency that coordinates the interaction between visuals and audio, one often believes the voice-over to be the narrator of the story. This third-person narrator mostly contains an omniscient perspective on the story. He jumps between spaces and times and will also discursively re-order the
chronological events of the story. Of course, the omniscient narrator does not tell the reader or spectator everything, at least not until the moment where a revelation would have its greatest effect.
Sometimes this narrator switches from a non-diegetic position into a diegetic position, this is when the voice-over actually is a diegetic character. The diegetic context includes visual and auditory information about the events, characters and sounds that belong to the world of the film’s story. The non-diegetic context relates to the world outside the story. Where in film this is not apparent that often, in trailers, these intern and extern elements are extremely coherent. The interactions of diegetics and non-diegetics have influence on a film text’s style. The non-diegetic elements include visual and auditory information concerning the title of the film, the director, film
companies, actors, date of release, production information et cetera (Maier 2009, 161). Within the trailer, these elements are often presented as a part of the story.
As an addition to the notion of diegesis, the notion of ‘paratext’ comes into play. A paratext is a collective term for the thresholds that surround the text and the way they influence its reception. Gerard Genette introduced this notion. He discusses how texts learn from past texts by introducing the
notion of paratexts as “any dependent or semi-dependent textual items that surround a text: When it comes to prefaces of books, they help us acclimatize to the text. The meaning making therefore begins at the text’s perimeter” (qtd. in: Gray 2010, 25). Genette reduces the paratext to one formula:
Peritext + Epitext = Paratext. By peritext, Genette means the part of a paratext that is found inside the text, within the space occupied by the volume itself, and sometimes inserted into the spaces between the lines of the text. In cinema the peritexts are the titles, prefaces and subtitles. The epitext cannot be found within the individual work. Some examples are autonomous publishing house strategies, PR decisions or other media. In cinema the epitextual placement of film posters, stills but also trailers are an epitext of a full-length film (qtd. in: Stanitzek 2005, 31). When we regard the trailer as a short movie, and not as an epitext of the original movie, we might suggest that the trailer consists of its own Peritexts. The trailer’s peritexts are for instance the subtitles and the Title. The peritexts are entangled way more than in the narrative of a full-length film. Information that is given about the producers is often presented in the trailer as a part of the story. This feeling of entanglement also has to do a lot with the promotional
purpose of the trailer that hides within the narrative of the trailer. A trailer’s epitexts are not entangled within the narrative. When it comes to the trailers in this case study, the website of the Trailer Park can be considered as an epitext of the trailer. An epitext of a trailer is moreover the PR decision of when and where it is shown. This is why the epitext of a movie isn’t always the epitext of a trailer.
Suspense & Surprise
Trsilers make good use of suspense and surprise. Roland Barthes came up with two different terms of creating suspense in narrative. The hermeneutic code is the suspense of the unanswered questions or why certain events happen. The proairetic code is about the anticipation of an action’s resolution and creates an amount of suspense without being too mysterious. The
proairetic code includes plot events that lead to other actions. These two forces drive the narrative and keep the viewer watching. The trailer operates primarily by the hermeneutic code. Almost every plot event brings up
questions we cannot answer directly.
Surprise follows the suspense. Those are moments we haven’t expected and create this emotional response to the viewer. (Felluga, 2014) However, surprising elements of the movie are not revealed often because
this would create spoilers, therefore this thesis argues that the suspense is
more apparent than surprise within the trailer. The
structure of the suspense is foremost an ascending to the story’s ending. During his lecture at the New York Film Academy on narrative film
structures, Randall Dottin showed that the ending of a story is very important. In fact, it’s the element the audience will weigh most heavily when judging the outcome of the story. The ending needs to be so right that it seems as if it could happen no other way; the events presented in the end are inevitable. However an ending is only inevitable after it has been shown because it still has to be surprising. The unexpectedness of the ending is the true payoff. These contradictions of surprise and inevitability of the ending create difficulty in the understanding of the trailer’s ending. A surprising ending will not be easy in all probability not be apparent within this medium. This is because narratively it doesn’t reveal an exact ending we are used to. That is, not the specific ending of the full-length film. When thinking about the trailer’s own ending, is it surprising or inevitable? What is important is that the ending is the Reward for watching the film. It would be interesting to know what reward the spectator receives when watching a trailer. When it comes to the narrative of a trailer and its ending several problems occur. Tzvetlan Todorov, states: “Narratives involve the disruption of a stable
situation, which makes restoration of equilibrium an important goal” (qtd. in: Pramaggiore and Wallis 2008, 63). In this case, an issue occurs with the ending of a trailer, which clearly doesn’t restore equilibrium. (Field, 2005, 26). The trailer plays with an open-ended suspense as a communication
strategy, meaning that the spectator’s only way to obtain a complete meaning or a narrative closure is by seeing the film in its entirety (Jensen 2014, 113). This study approaches the trailer as a story on it’s own which includes the promotional elements into the narrative. Therefore, its literal ending consists of the final intertitle containing information about the film’s production. The set- up of the trailer is important for it’s ending. The case study will
investigate how the trailer might present it’s ending out earlier planted elements.
When trying to understand the narrative of a trailer, the genre has quite some influence on the understanding and expectations of the story. Gray divides the promotional purpose and the story of the trailer by stating that “trailers are ads, but also a taste test of films to come, offering some of a film’s first pleasures, meanings, and ideas” (Gray 2010, 50). He extends his definition of the trailer by adding the importance of genre and star system that circulate the trailer even more than a feature film. Genres rely as much on variation as they do on repetition. “The film genre is the grammatical and underlying ‘contract’ between the film(industry) and the public when it
comes to social norms and structures of meaning” (Pisters 2007, 77). Genre patterns are well known to the audience and can reveal information about the storyline. For example, when we think of a romantic comedy, we already expect that the protagonist has to conquer ludicrous obstacles to get closer to its goal that will usually be love. Also, we expect a happy ending. These expectations are based on the genre conventions we know. It may be true that “many of us need only a few seconds, if that, to determine a text’s genre, as many subtle and overt clues—film stock, mode of acting, use of colour, rhythm of dialogue, and so on—immediately make sense to us based on our past viewing” (Gray 2010, 32).
The expectations we have of a film can also come from the notion of ‘stardom’, which can be seen as its own generic signifier. “Casting and the hiring of production personnel is a deeply intertextual act, as producers bring together a whole host of intertexts through the stars’ personae and histories. Many of us create images of a film and its potential based solely on our knowledge of its cast and their former roles” (Gray 2010, 132-133). For instance when we think of a movie with Julia Roberts, we already think of a genre that matches with her, in this case the romantic comedy. Famous actors can therefore offer interpretive strategies and expectations.
3.2 The Trailer’s narrative
Even though only a relatively small research has been conducted into the narrative structure of the trailer, some important academics have contributed
to the narrative understanding of this multimodal text. A dense theoretical framework of the trailer’s narrative structure and will be presented in this part.
Alternative Narrative
Stern states that the trailer can be seen as a unique form of narrative that differs from classical drama. They [trailers] lack the traditional linearity or coherence of a story (qtd. in: Chung, Hang and Oh 2014, 82). However this nonlinearity is a postmodern form of narrative most people are already familiar with. The trailer, as a reconfigured version of a film narrative is designed to get the attention of the viewers. Kernan states that the trailer contains little stories or brief film texts; they are carefully selected cinematic images in an edited structure (qtd. in: Chung Hang and Oh, 83). The trailer is mostly still regarded as a representative of other media content such as the full-length film. Jensen finds a common structural tendency within the
trailer’s narrative. “They start in a slow tempo, establishing a causal context or frame for the last hyper intensive part, the pace between the scenes
increases at this point containing a number of isolated reaction shots’. […] They frame the emotions to make the viewer understand why the fictive is funny, sad, or frightening” (2014, 121). Thereafter they gradually increase the pace between the scenes (116/117). Finsterwalder, Kuppelweiser and Villiers introduce a distinction of three sections within its structure. First, the trailer introduces the characters and environment. Second, it suggests the tension or change in the storyline. Third, it escalates the pace of the trailer and alludes to a potential resolution (2012, 590).
Jensen stresses that a purely formal analysis of the narrative structure doesn’t accommodate the emotional importance of the experience. The
trailer can be observed as an alternative narrative, even with its use of a non-chronological order. (2014, 115) However, the emotive registers are less hidden than in other media forms because they influence the story. (Jensen 2014, 107) When performing a narrative analysis on the trailer, we should keep in mind that this use of one emotive register becomes an influential factor to the story of the trailer. A narrative analysis in itself will not describe the trailer’s strong appeal and power of fascination. (Jensen 2014, 110) She
notes that the viewer’s rational cognitive mechanisms and genre conventions always influence the trailer’s instinctive power to appeal. “The constellation of the trailer (as a genre) relates to how the viewer’s emotions interplay with the genre of the film is important for the experience” (Jensen 2014, 110). The genre of the film is important for the narrative of a trailer. The basic
emotional tone of this genre is the primary dissemination project and it exists at the expense of the narrative chronology and the enlarging nuances. In short, because of the genre’s emotional conventions, the narrative is afforded second place. As a result, the trailer becomes a monomaniac edition of the film it promotes; only the main emotion from the film is reflected. (Jensen 2014, 119) This changes and reduces the narrative complexity of the film. It only focuses on the prototypical emotive register. Storylines that don’t fit with the main emotion are excluded because the genre and the main emotion would not be steady anymore.
The point is that the trailer can be seen as an alternative narrative in relation to its reference, and the essential reason is due to the way it organizes the manifestation of the emotional atmosphere in the film relative to the narration. The trailer is characterized by a strong
narrative, which is motivated, dynamic, and manages to make a kind of finality. It provides us with so many cues that we as viewers with our knowledge of genres are also capable to make a more general,
although hypothetic, narrative pointing into the future. (Kernan 15) The interaction between cognition, narration, emotion and genres are key parameters when it comes to the analysis of a trailer (Jensen 2014, 122). This analysis will take into consideration cognition, emotion and genre as
influential factors in the trailer’s narration. The producers try to optimize the aesthetic value of the product. They fill it up with as much information as possible to make it seem more inviting. The spectator must understand what is shown, they have to empathise with the trailer and find it meaningful. This is also called intentionality; an embedded structure of questions and answers within the narrative with a clear directionality.(Jensen 2014, 115)
Scholar Jon Dornaletetxe helps us to understand the expectation of a subject towards a movie after seeing the trailer. His framework focuses more on the reception instead of the media object itself but reveals some interesting facts regarding the audience’s perception of its narrative. The advertisers have to take the trailer’s reception into consideration when creating it. Therefore the narrative structure is dependent on what the advertiser thinks is important for the audience. By focussing on the comprehension level of the subject, Dornaletetxe attempts to answer the following hypothesis: “Movie trailers activate the same mechanisms involved in narrative thinking in the viewers as fiction movies do” (2009, 400). This hypothesis raises the differences between a filmic narrative structure and that of the trailer. He suggests that the trailers that reveal most of the plot/structure are perceived better. The fabula (story) and syuzhet (plot) are structured with gaps. The fabula is the narrative as the spectator constructs it, progressively and retrospectively. It is the chronological action of cause-and-effect that occurs within the given duration and spatial field. The syuzhet is the formal system of representation employed in a film. An audience gives meaning to the trailer’s story by
identifying the characters of the story, their object of desire, their
motivations and the causal relation between events (400). Whether this attempt to understand the meaning of the trailer’s story is positive or
negative, it has to do with the comprehension level of the subject. “Subjects that show a higher comprehension level perceive a movie trailer with more core narrative elements of the story positively, meanwhile subjects showing a lower level of comprehension do not perceive it positively” (402). In short, the audience wants to see and know more of the narrative when they
understand what they have seen in the trailer. This statement suggests that important narrative elements in the trailer have an influence on the way the film is perceived.
Gap Filling
Trailers provoke intrigue by showing elements to structure the plot (the ‘what’), and by creating gaps (the ‘how’) (Dornaletetxe 2009, 404). The notion of ‘gap filling’ comes into play when trying to answer this ‘how’. Whenever the “flow is interrupted and we are led off in unexpected
directions, the opportunity is given to us to bring into play our own faculty for establishing connections –or filling in the gaps left by the text itself” (Iser 1974, 280). The spectator’s activity in constructing a narrative happens when we look for causal or spatial or temporal links. It is created through
assumptions and inferences. Bordwell describes this as the developing result of picking up narrative cues, applying schema, framing and testing
hypotheses. The fabula is never materially present (1985, 78). This process of gap filling is different with each individual reading. When someone makes a decision as to how a gap is filled, other various possibilities are excluded. “The viewer will strive to justify the presence of the gap by appeal to principles of compositional, realistic, transtextual, and artistic motivation. Gaps are created by choosing to present certain pieces of fabula (story) information and to hold back others” (Bordwell 2004, 13). This decision-making is called the ‘dynamics of reading’. This process used to be more unconscious, but in modern texts these gaps are created on purpose. Even more, they are often fragmentary on such a high note that one’s attention is exclusively occupied with the search of connections between fragments. (Iser, 280) The trailer contains many gaps between the story elements that are shown as well. However it is able to present an experience. Iser
emphasizes this by stating that gap filling will “always be the process of anticipation and retrospection that leads to the formation of the virtual dimension, which in turn transforms the text into an experience for the
reader” (281). This is why a trailer also deliberately is created this way. This creation can be linked towards a mythical reading when it comes to the meaning-making process of the trailer’s “manner in which the reader
experiences the text will reflect his own disposition” (281) for which reason the text “acts as a kind of mirror” (281). When analysing the narrative of a trailer, careful consideration should be given to the fact that these moments are filled in due to the researcher’s experiences instead of the visual and auditory elements that are presented to them.
Quote Quilts
Anat Zanger identified ‘quote-quilts’ within the trailer (qtd. in: Osborne 2002, 233). The quote-quilt presents quotations without their contexts. When this
element is being used, it intensifies the viewer’s frustration because he becomes conscious of the voyeuristic experience involved in spectatorship. He knows that he doesn’t understand the link between what he hears and sees. Zanger notes something very important after concluding this negative statement. “Grounded upon a very shaky stratum of identification, a rich connotative level is constructed. This is the hour of cultural signification, archetypal meaning and stereotypes” (qtd. in: Osborne 2002, 335-236). Zanger stresses that these connotative levels are present to a great extent within the trailer. These levels might even be more important for the story of the trailer than to the story of a feature film because they are the factors that make sure this short story is being understood. This makes sense because the trailer remains a medium that structurally doesn’t contain a mainstream beginning, middle and end.
3.3 Research Method
Trailers fundamentally challenge much received knowledge on textuality and the viewing or reading process. This thesis will therefore try to attribute to the viewing process. By narratively analysing the high fantasy trailer many facets need to be taken into consideration because trailers can never be approached the same way as a full-length movie. This medium remains a blur between promotional discourse and narrative form. It is entertaining while it’s promoting. Because of this, the promotional purpose will be considered as a part of the story as well.
To answer the research question - What archetypal story does the mainstream high fantasy adventure trailer contain? – A close reading will be held on the presented visual and auditory elements. The focus will be held on the underlying narrative structures and conventions that give away the parts of the story that are not shown. The use of the Monomyth as a methodology can be helpful to substantiate a better understanding of the discursive way of storytelling in the trailer. Vogler’s narrative structure of the Writer’s Journey will be applied to the trailer in order to learn how archetypal characters and events contribute to its story.
