History of Trailors

The films that make film makers open to different choices in my opinion are ‘Flags of our Fathers’, ‘City of God’ and ‘Sleepy Hollow’, which are three completely different styles of films.

Within ‘Flags of our Fathers’ the analeptic opening is of a dream sequence or a memory, which is then interrupted by the awakening of an old man. The dream consists of a one man in battle, with nothing around him apart from smoke and the earth. When the man is running; trying to find his way out (as if he is lost) we hear muffled voices, which connotes that the man cannot get out of were he is – he is lost forever. This film has many choices to use, such as the dream sequence. The opening creates tension, as the audience are unaware of what is happening until we come across the old man, which then makes us think that he’s had something on his mind ever since that day.

Next is ‘City of God’ where we see a merge of cuts between the chicken, the death of other chickens and the dancing and music of the people. This creates that aura of suspension for the chicken, as we think he will be chopped up like the others. But when it comes to the time of his death, there is that sigh of relief because the chicken manages to set himself free, yet as he is running off we again are on the edge of our seats due to the fact that the people run after it. We then come to a boy, who is a main part as he is in the title sequence, and is asked to try and catch the chicken with out scaring it. As the camera circles around him, we go to an immediate analeptic jump, as it reminds the main character of his childhood trauma of letting down his friends, which is ironic due to the fact that he cannot let the people down with this chicken or he might get shot. ‘City of God’ has a weird opening in my eyes as I had know idea what was going to happen next.

‘Sleepy Hollow’, unlike ‘Flags of our Fathers’ and ‘City of God’, creates that sort of horror atmosphere. The title sequence at first helps that, as the names/ titles are surrounded by fog and has mysterious non-diagetic music. To help create that horror and tension, the director has a series of close ups and extreme close ups to make us question what is happening, for example, drops of red liquid make an audience think it is blood, but as we get into the film, we notice it is candle wax for a seal. Then we come to the tense part, as it links to the title sequence as there is fog surrounding a carriage. Throughout ‘Sleepy Hollow’ we never get a moments piece, because of the atmosphere.

All these openings of have different influences on the mind, all being good in their own way, but they also have influences for directors as every good director looks at different openings to take piece’s and ideas and that is what we will do as media students too.