Case Study Film4: About a Boy Film Trailer

I am going to analyse a theatrical trailer for About a Boy. I have established that it is a theatrical trailer because it contains lots of selling points and is quite detailed, in contrast to a teaser trailer. 

It starts by giving us an insight to the life and personality of Will (Hugh Grant). This is done by showing a series of clips of medium close-ups(to show there facial expressions as well to emphasize their opinions) of woman expressing there opinions on him, all of which are negative from angry, hurt women. The last shot is a medium close up of his face, to show his expression which is pretty careless. My first impression of him from this isn't a good one, these women's opinions suggest he is a selfish, pathetic "loser". Next, he gives us his own opinion of himself and we see a range of shots showing his everyday life. They're all medium to long shots and appear to be intruding and watching in on his life, which gives us pretty much the same idea as we got from the women despite him seeing himself differently to how they do. So far, we have basically just been introduced to 'the life of Will'. Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) makes his first appearance next, knocking at his door and immediately from the start, Will is attempting to keep him out of his house which could represent a bigger meaning of shutting him out of his life. This leads to an insight into Marcus' life and personality which starts, again, with someone else's opinion, "everyone thinks your weird". The following clips of his everyday life backs this up. The non-diegetic sound slows down to a sad, depressing song in the background, this brings down the mood and atmosphere. Clearly neither of them appear to fit in. A shot i like, is when Will is walking through a crowd of people in the opposite direction to everyone else which implies he is on his own and different to the rest. As expected, Will and Marcus are end up being different and on their own, together. They appear to have a laugh, look out for each other and finally be happy. By this point, the background music has picked up and is much more lively as shots of them both surrounded by friends and family, giving a clear impression that they are no longer alone. This sums up the story line but still leaves plenty more to see which is important in order to get viewers to actually want to see the film instead of being satisfied with just the trailer. Another way the trailer does this is by focusing on Hugh Grant, like the poster, because he is a well-known, award-winning actor who has starred in many more rom-coms which have been very successful.

Case Study Film4: About a Boy Film Posters

This has the features of a:

• Main Poster - Quite basic, containing information such as the stars, distributors, production personal and a picture relevant to the film
• Character Poster - Features pictures of both the main characters and the name of the best known actors starring in the film.

The title, ‘About a boy’, is central and bright red on a plain white background, so our attention is drawn to it.

As I said in my previous blog 'Case Study Film4: About a Boy', Hugh Grant is a well known, award-winning actor who has starred in many successful films, so having his name in big, bold writing at the top will attract a large audience. 

Another selling point on the poster is the mentioning of other popular films made by the same makers and producers, such as 'Bridget Jones Diary' and 'Meet the Parents'.

The plain black, white and red colours make the poster look quite simple and ordinary, implying the film could be the same. Based on everyday life, which suggests the audience could quite possibly relate to it. Also, the characters shown on the front look fairly normal. The boy is looking up to the man, which suggests quite a lot about the film, because the film goes into this with a much deeper meaning, and the boy does in fact look up to him throughout. You could say 'and vice versa' after watching the film, but this was also indicated through a quote I saw on a different poster, which reads 'Growing up has nothing to do with age'. http://www.impawards.com/2002/about_a_boy_ver2.html

The imperfect hair, wooly hat, and hopeless expression makes the boy look innocent and a bit helpless, whereas the man behind him (Hugh Grant), has a smile, smart clothes, and styled hair, which suggests they are quite contrasted characters.

Also, in my previous blog, I mentioned it features some elements of romance which could be why the main colour, other than black and white, is red, because this is associated with love and romance.