How successful are the trailers for: AI and Crazy Beautiful in attracting viewers to watch the film

Crazy Beautiful is a teenage romance, which seems like a film that girls would want to see. The leading roles are played by Kirsten Dunst and Jay Hernandez, who play the couple that the film is based on. Crazy Beautiful is produced by Touchstone pictures. AI is a science fiction film and in the trailer you don’t find out who the leading roles are played by. AI is produced by Dreamworks and, as the boy in the trailer is 11 years old, I feel it would probably attract an audience of 12 year olds and above.

The trailers are similar in that they’re both trying to attract an audience to go and watch the films. Both trailers are emotional, but in very different ways. In the trailer for Crazy Beautiful it is obvious from the beginning that the story is based around a couple, as there are two shots of Jay Hernandez and Kirsten Dunst together. There is a close-up of them kissing, which tells the viewer that it is definitely a romantic movie. There are long shots to show the settings, there are many different settings shown in the trailer and there are shots of a car and an aeroplane.

This shows that the characters, or at least one of the two, do a lot of travelling. Purely from the shots of the characters and the scenery the audience can tell this is a romance film. The age of the characters indicates to the audience that it is a teen-romance, because there are many shots of the young couple. The music used in the trailer for Crazy Beautiful is very effective. To begin with the music in the trailer isn’t very significant but as it progresses and Kirsten Dunst’s character’s life becomes more exciting ‘Bohemium Like You’ by the Dandy Warhols starts playing.

This song is very lively so corresponds to the happenings in the trailer. The voice over is meaningful as it addresses the audience using the personal pronoun ‘your’ – ‘when it’s real, when it’s right, don’t let anything stand in your way’. The voice over is almost giving the audience personal advice, this could give the impression that if you go and watch this film you will learn a moral that could actually help you in life. The voice over also mentions the names of the leading actors ‘Kirsten Dunst’ and ‘Jay Hernandez’ which would attract fans of the pair.

In the Crazy Beautiful trailer there isn’t very much on-screen text as there is so much on-screen action the audience is preoccupied and text wouldn’t be needed. The names of the actors and the film come on-screen and at the very end there is a screen full of on-screen text but it is obviously not intended to be read by general viewers as it is in small, unclear print and is only shown for a very short length of time. This is there for people who need to watch the film for copyright reasons and have the authority to stop it and read it more closely.

The lighting that is used in Crazy Beautiful changes quite frequently. Red lighting sets a romantic tone in a scene where the couple are seen kissing, while moving lights create a sense of action in a club in which the couple are shown dancing. These changes in lighting outline changes in location. Also when the characters are in a car, Kirsten Dunst seems happy to be moving away from her crazy lifestyle, and the sunny, bright lighting matches the character’s mood. Although the trailer has all the elements expected I don’t think that overall it is very successful.

The trailer hasn’t really got much about it that would make it stand out from others. Because it is such a typical trailer it wouldn’t really stick in peoples’ minds. A lot of detail about the story is given away in this film trailer and as the format seems typical of any teen romance people would probably realise that by the end of the film the characters would ‘live happily ever after’. This isn’t particularly effective as the whole point of any trailer is to attract an audience and people aren’t often attracted to a film if they think they already know how it will end.

However, the trailer could be quite successful in the way that people who enjoy watching the main actors in the film would definitely be attracted as these characters are in almost every scene in the trailer, so obviously the film itself will focus largely on them. Also people may go to watch the film if they believe it actually does contain a morale which might have an impact in real life. In the trailer for AI it is very unclear from the beginning what the genre of the film is or even really what the film is based around at all.

This is unlike the trailer for Crazy Beautiful, in which the viewer can almost immediately identify the genre as a romance. The trailer for AI is very simple and calm, there is also a great element of mystery. This couldn’t be much more unlike Crazy Beautiful which is exciting, with fast moving scenes and a complex plot where much of the film is given away. The music used in AI is very simplistic and doesn’t change until nearer to the end of the trailer when there is not really much music at all. The music sounds quite eerie and haunting, making it feel as if it should be a trailer for a ghost story rather than for a science fiction film.

This contrasts with the changing party music in the Crazy Beautiful trailer which fits the genre of that film perfectly. There are no characters in the AI trailer displayed to the audience. There is only a shadowy figure belonging to someone, who or what this someone might be is unclear, but the audience are likely to feel that it is significant to the main plot. The camera shots are quite relevant in this trailer as they move in closer to this figure, the audience may expect the identity to be revealed though this doesn’t happen, so the use of camera shots adds to the element of mystery.

Therefore there is a similarity in the trailers where the use of camera shots and angles are used, especially for zooming in on characters. Later in the trailer for AI the camera zooms into the character’s “fingerprint” which is then seen as something computerised. The camera zooming into the fingerprint tells the audience how this is a big clue to the secret the boy ‘David’ is keeping – and gives them the idea of science-fiction or a type of robotic theme. This is of great importance as it helps the audience to learn more about the what the name of the film, Artificial Intelligence, actually means.

It also distinguishes the fact that this is a science fiction film, which is important as it is useful to be aware of the genre of a film before you go and view it. There is also a slight similarity in that by the end of each trailer the audience should be aware of the genre of each film. This is the on-screen text that is included in the trailer for AI: “David is 11 years old. He weighs 60 lb, He is 4 feet 6 inches, He has brown hair, His love is real, He is not. ”

Each separate description above appears on screen in it’s own box as the camera is zooming towards the shadowy figure. The on-screen text is the main feature in the AI trailer as it is the only clue to the plot that the audience get. This is completely different to the Crazy Beautiful trailer as in this there is so much happening on screen there isn’t any need for text to help explain things about the film to the audience. The text in the AI trailer gives the impression that the shadowy figure is actually David but from the information the audience is given you couldn’t be sure.

The lighting used in the background of the AI trailer is extremely bright white, it gives the impression that the shadowy figure is in some kind of laboratory especially when a fingerprint is given. The lighting in both trailers helps the audience work out settings, but there is much more use of lighting for effect in the Crazy Beautiful trailer. I think that the overall success of the trailer for AI could go both ways. Some people may watch this trailer and be intrigued by the mystery and would be left with many questions, therefore would be desperate to watch the film and find out the answers.

Though the trailer for AI focuses on one character from the film and doesn’t tell any of the plot so viewers could decide that it would be ridiculous to go and watch a film which they have next-to-no knowledge about. The fact that the on-screen text also tells the audience that AI is a ‘Steven Spielberg Movie’ could attract fans who have enjoyed his previous work. The trailer which I think overall would attract the biggest audience would be AI. I think that Crazy Beautiful seems, from the trailer, too much of a typical romance where the characters face a problem, tackle the problem, a moral is learnt and everyone lives happily ever after.

AI seems like a film which will have mysterious and original issues and will not be a typical science fiction film. I think people would get the impression that AI would be a new type of science fiction film as in the trailer the word ‘love’ is mentioned. I also think the trailer for AI would appeal to both sexes and that the age of the audience could be anybody who is 12 or older. On the other hand the trailer for Crazy Beautiful would probably appeal more to teenage girls and women from 13 t0 30 years of age and not really to many others outside these boundaries.

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