Analysed trailer breakdown of “Attack the Block”
Trailer is 1 minute long
00:00- 00:20: Starts with a scary soundtrack that gives an intense feeling to the audience. Then shows the company’s name that was in charge of advertising the film. After that, several quick shots are used showing a London block at night time with powerful lights shining from them. This adds to the intensity of the trailer.
Words then come up in the trailer saying “The deadliest species in the galaxy” this immediately draws the crowd into interest because they are wondering what the deadliest species in the galaxy is. After the words fade away you hear kids/ teenagers making noise and the camera shows a bunch of kids leaving the block on a moped and bikes. The audience then get the feeling that these kids are being linked with “the deadliest species in the galaxy”.
After this there is a brief shot of a kid with a baseball cap on with a hoodie over the top and a scarf around his mouth. This makes the audience immediately stereotypes the kids as chavs or gangsters. Screen goes black again and words appear saying “Is about to encounter” this causes curiosity and suspense with the audience as to what is about to happen next.
The next shot shows two younger kids around 11 -12 years old dressed in hoodies and one is holding a water gun who both have shocked faces and are staring at something that is out of the camera shot. This makes the audience curious about what is making the two kids so shocked.
The next shot is from the same scene but an over shoulder shot showing a bright light falling out of the sky towards where the kids are, there is also a roaring sound which progressively gets louder as the light gets closer to impact with earth. This makes the audience curious about what the light is, the roaring noise that is getting louder also builds up more suspense with the audience.
The next shot is very quick and shows a middle aged woman also looking towards where supposedly the light is coming from because she also has a shocked face, the roaring sound is also still increasingly getting louder, this just continues to add suspense and curiosity to the audience.
The next shot shoes kids running away from a car just before it explodes because the light impacts with it. The roaring sound by this point is extremely loud and then changes to an explosion when it impacts with the car. This causes a lot of drama with the audience because of the explosion withy the car which makes them even more curious as to what the light was.
Screen goes blank again and words appear “The ultimate enemy”. The audience straight away want to know what the enemy (that came from the light) is and how the kids are going to beat it.
In the next shot the scary music has stopped and is replaced with sound of the car alarm going off from the wrecked car. One of the kids moves towards the car and then leans in when suddenly there is this scary alien like noise that immediately builds up tension with the audience. There is allot of suspense because the audience know they are about to find out what the enemy is and are suddenly taken by surprised when the guy screams from inside the car.
The next shot quickly shows two kids running towards the camera supposedly to help their friend who is under attack in the car. There is more screaming in this scene too. This all builds up the tension even more to the audience because they are starting to get desperate to know what is inside the car wreck.
The next shot shows a kid on the floor trying to hold off someone/ something that is on top of him trying to kill him. The shot then changes to an over the shoulder shot of the kid on the floor showing him holding off some ugly mutated creature that could only be describes as an alien. This then has the biggest Impact on the audience because the suspense has reached its maximum now because they know that the kids enemy is an alien.
00:20- 00:40: The next shot then shows the kids huddled in a group asking what the creature then one of the kids says that it’s an alien. The kid then says that its landed in the wrong place which means that the kids intend to find this alien and teach it a lesson. The kids all laugh with him in agreement. This has an impact with the audience because the audience have now heard the kid confirm that it’s an alien and they also know that the kids intend to fight the alien so there will be a lot of action in this film most likely.
The screen goes blank again and shows the words “From the producers of Shaun of the dead”. This has a huge impact on the audience because a large majority of people in the UK have at least heard if not seen the movie “Shaun of the dead” which is a great movie so this will give the audience the impression that if this film is made by the same people that made “Shaun of the dead” then this film will be great too.
The next scene shows nick frost playing as a role in the film, he says to the kids who are laughing and sitting down on sofas “well down guys, you found an alien and you kicked its head in”. This also has a massive impact on the audience because you see and hear the first bit of comedy in the trailer that gives the impression to the audience that this film is a black comedy. Another major impact to the audience is that a well-known actor is playing a role in the film (Nick frost that also performed in Shaun of the dead and many other comedies)
The next scene shows the kids looking out of the window with shocked faces, the camera then changes to showing what is happening outside the window which shows hundreds more of the lights all landing nearby to the block. This builds up a new suspense with the audience because they now realise that there are way more aliens landing than they had originally suspected.
00:40- 01:00: The next scene shows the kids saying that they want to kill them and they all shout and laugh in agreement, after that it shows brief glimpse shots of all the kids tooling up with weapons ranging from baseball bats to a samurai sword. This impact the audience with excitement and tension because the audience know that there is going to be allot of fighting and violence because they now know that the kids want to fight the aliens out there and that they are armed with harmful weapons.
The next scene shows the kids gathered around on of the dead aliens, the camera shows brief glimpses of the alien, this alien is much bigger and much bigger than the first alien though. This is when the kids realise that they are into their necks with trouble. You can tell because of the shocked expressions on their faces, one of them mentions wishing he had stayed at home locked the door and played fifa instead. This scenes impact with the audience is huge because the audience now also know that the aliens are much more dangerous and scary than the original alien they saw, so the audience can see the movie gradually turning into more of a horror movie than an action movie.
The last shot shows the aliens face biting towards the camera. This immediately scares the audience if it their first time watching the trailer and is a good way to conclude the impact of the trailer. After that the screen goes black and words come up saying “Invading soon” and then after that “Attack the block.
