The Theory of Everything Trailer

The Theory of Everything is a 2014 dramatic film, telling the truth life story of Sir Stephen Hawking. I decided to analyse this trailer because I think it fits its genre well and I can learn a lot from it.

It features the common narrative conventions. The fact that they chose to base it on a true story, when dramas are usually about realistic situations anyway mean it conforms more than well to the conventions. The intense journey the character, Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne), goes through in the short amount of time we see on the trailer, allows the audience to see how riveting and emotions the film really is. The audience are able to experience an extremely serious series of events that take place, and many of these events will provoke a reaction of strong emotions such as sadness and shock.

The trailer features a mixture of close-up shots of the characters faces, in dramas this is a particularly important shot type as it emphasizes the emotion and reaction that the character is feeling. The particular scene in the trailer where they show Stephen fall switches the a close-up  where the camera is level with the ground. The effect this has is it shows Stephens head hit the floor with a hard impact which they want the audience to see as it's an important part of the story and it shows how serious and intense the situation really is.

Moreover, the sound has an upbeat feel  whilst having a classical sound to fit with the prestigious Cambridge setting. It shows the calm equilibrium against this music before it comes to a climax when the he hits his head. After this, this is when the serious and saddening parts of the film start to be shown - this a good technique to use in the trailer because it shows how much everything has changed. The next piece of music is a dramatic piece with a lot of percussion instruments. It reaches several climaxes which matches the strong scenes being shown.

Furthermore, aside from the genre and narrative specific conventions it also follows basic trailer form conventions. It opens on the audience certification green screen which I am planning to use in mine. It also features clips of texts with dramatic lines such as 'Life is everything' and 'Love is everything' - these strong words put emphasis on the message that they are trying to put across in the film and it adds more emotion to the trailer. The text that is shown is plain and white as they put the focus on the text background which they have set as a galaxy/space design, this conforms with the science side of the film. It also has this background when the reveal the name of the film at the end of the trailer and followed by the conventional credits.