Research and Planning - Super 8 Trailer analysis

The trailer has no obvious target audience as not a lot is shown. However, as the names Steven Speilberg and JJ Abrams are mentioned this suggests that the audince being targeted is a worldwide audience trying to target as many people as possible. Depending on the rating of the film this will change the size of the target audience. Nevertheless the rating or plot to the film have not yet been released, therefore no specific audience can be selected.

This type of trailer is a good example viral marketing. It will start off word of mouth creating hype about a film which hasn't even been completed yet.

The trailer starts with the sound of crickets. This is quite an unsettling sound as it is like a croaking.

A black screen with the text "in 1979 the US Air Force closed a section of Area 51". This immediately connotes that aliens etc may be involved.

Then the unsettling sound of a train crossing gate. With flashing red lights. The colour red connotes danger or death.

Then you see a train carrying lots of cargo loads.

Cut to a car driving down the road that jumps up on the tracks and heads straight toward the train. This identifies either a planned attack on the train or a coincidence that someone wanted to kill themselves in front of this particular train.

Cut to black screen and then the words “From Director J.J. Abrams”, this allows anyone familiar to J.J. Abrams and the other films he has directed to relate and illustrate a suitable genre.

Back to the train and car colliding into each other, the train derails, the camera slowly zooms in on one of the tipped over cargo carts of the derailed train, then something is punching on the walls inside the train cart trying to escape, this allows the audiences imagination to go wild, wondering what is inside, drawing in the audience to the film, wanting to know more. 

The use of special effects in this clip of the trailer represents the funding put into the film. Then it cuts to black screen and then the title ”Super 8“flashes. "Next Summer. It Arrives.... Super 8"

Sources have identified near the end of the trailer, a super 8 camera lens can be seen. Inside the lens, several letters can be seen moving past in a movie reel fashion. By analyzing each frame, the letters S C A R I E S T T H I N G I E V E R S A W can be seen