Analysis of The American trailer

Here are some notes I made on a trailer for a film by George Clooney, called The American:

Here is a link to the trailer:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ywmoXZwkA0)

In this essay, I will be talking about the trailer for the George Clooney film The American and explaining why and how the trailer is effective. In this instance, I understand the word 'effective' to mean how the trailer manages to sell the film to its target audience.

The film in itself is a thriller. It was released in 2010, directed by Anton Corbijn and starred George Clooney and Paolo Bonacelli. It has generally received positive reviews from critics.

The trailer shows the audience immediately that it is advertising a thriller. Without knowing the main plot in its entirety, the audience can tell that the bare bones of the story involve someone in military intelligence (probably a contract killer) is trying to resign, but is forced to perform one final task. It is not made immediately clear what this task is, but of course the whole point of the trailer is not to reveal everything, to make people go to see the film.

The film was mostly shot in Italy and Sweden. Location shots are used very effectively in this trailer, particularly at the start. I am thinking in particular of three shots: A bird's eye view of a car driving along a road, a shot of some rooftops and a shot of a man driving a car with some mountains in the background. I don't know if these places are meant to be anywhere in particular, but I think it is likely that they are there to promote a particular location, and even if they're not, it's a nice touch and has a good effect on a viewer in a cinema.

I think that the target audience for this film is probably young men. I think this because the main themes about the contract killer stereotypically apply to men. Also, the majority of the cast is male, and the three main women in it are all in their thirties, extremely attractive and playing wives and girlfriends of the main characters, and having them typically involved in love and sex scenes in the trailer is another element that typically appeals to men.

The music for most of the trailer is slow and sweet, but also powerful. This is particularly useful for a thriller such as this, because it adds suspense to the constant drama and keeps the audience alert. At the start of the trailer (when the sign for 'FOCUS FEATURES' comes up) there is a sound like a projector starting up, which could illustrate the start of something exciting, because projectors start up before a film begins. There are also sounds like flashes between scenes, to show that the film and trailer are fast-paced and that there is little or no time between scenes.

There is no voiceover for this trailer, but there is a lot of dialogue from the film. I have not seen the film, but it seems to me that some of the most powerful lines are there. The ones I find the most memorable are when an attractive girl says to George Clooney's character, 'You're a good man, but you have a secret', and later when an elderly man says to him 'A man can be reached if he has God in his heart', and Clooney replies 'I don't think God's very interested in me, Father.' This latter is right at the end of the trailer, so it will stick in the audience's minds. This is effective because such an exciting line will make the whole film memorable, so will attract a large audience.