I chose to look at ‘Atonement’ because it is situated with the drama genre as well as includes a reference towards the war which is something that I was considering to apply to my piece. ‘Atonement’ is also a film which includes romance and because of this it is a film which is considered to have the majority of females for its target audience. Things which promote this film more towards females are things like having an attractive male main character as well as having a plot which looks at the emotional issues with social class, love and war. It also carries a slight mystery with it making you guess what’s happening to keep you gripped with the story. This piece may lean towards a female audience as well as towards more of the older generation, for they can relate to the having let the ones they loved leave and risk their lives in the war. However it may bring in an older male audience as well because they are also able to relate towards the war and the sacrifices they made, as well as attracting a young adult male audience from the attraction of war and the respect and courage they admire to.
The ‘Atonement’ trailer starts with referencing to the social circles the two main characters are in, telling us that we know they should not fall in love because it is look down upon for ‘He’ is working class and ‘She’ is upper middle class. However it pushes the idea into our heads that we know by the end of the film they will fall in love even though others may not approve. However it then leads into a scene where the woman emerges from the fountain soaking wet and she and the main male character share a look that implies their relationship and pokes you in the correct direction.
The forbidden love is then over seen by the woman’s younger sister, Briony, who mistakes their love for one another as an act of rape and him taking her vulnerability for granted resulting in the male character, Robbie, being arrested for accusation of rape. For the imagination of Briony’s childish mind made everything spin in the wrong direction, making her accuse an innocent man. The attraction of all of this dramatic action makes a person want to look into the real truth behind the story and to understand what happens from the false accusation.
The trailer carries on to reveal Robbie heading into war with thousands of other troops, for he took his choice to be in the war than rot in a jail cell doing nothing. This makes the piece an emotional reverting trailer drawing your attention to the attraction of our past and the war. It also shows the growing love Robbie and Cecilia have for one another even though they were ripped apart by the actions of Brinoy.
Briony then, in her later years during the war and working as a nurse, writes a novel on her life story, as though she is trying to relieve herself of the guilt she has for her past actions and wishes to change it.
It then ends with a type of slow paced collage of shots which seem to sum up the heart wrenching moments in less detail than the film gives. This tells us that this is a film which holds a lot of emotion beneath it portrayed through the dialogue and the music.
All of this helps to bring in its target audience because it includes a huge amount of information which can be overpowering in the 2 minutes 31, therefore leading its audience to want to watch the film to really understand what all of the action is for.
The music is one that provokes emotion from the beginning, for it starts with a piece of calm light-hearted music with the main instrument being a piano. It then leads in to a piece which seems more daring and lustful, ending in a dramatic stop to the music to hear Robbie shout “Briony!”. Turning into a more fast paced upbeat piece implying intensity and a moment of being scared and frightened, yet it is controlled as though there is a sense of arrogance which ends again with a sudden stopping beat and changes into a soft, loving, and sincere score of music, implying his innocence. It then leads on to a more heroic piece of music while the war is referenced, with beating drums and violins as though already we are respecting the dead and all those who sacrificed their lives for our future. It builds to a crescendo ending in a piece which holds the emotion from the characters and the action that lies within the trailer.
As part of the sound included throughout the trailer there are things such as the dialogue, giving us the information about the plot of the story. It also has things like the sound of the type writer included intermittently through the beginning implicating the whole story is just that a story; it is also used for a beat in one of the pieces of music. There is also a voice over included at the end of the trailer telling us the actors involved in the film to promote it further as well as telling us the name of the film.
The unique selling points of this trailer are the actors involved who include: Keira Knightly and James McAvoy, both of which are famous actors who’ve appeared in many well known feature films such as Keira Knightly has appeared in the world famous Disney film Pirates of the Caribbean and James McAvoy has featured in X-Men first class and the series Band of Brothers. The war is also considered as a unique selling point because everyone is interested in the war, wanting to know what it’s like and the connection to our wars we’ve experienced as a country up to this date.
