An Analysis of the ‘Fish Tank’ trailer

By Georgia Grant

http://alevel-media.blogspot.com/

The use of inter-titles are heavily relied upon when constructing trailers for films that fall within the Social Realism/Drama genre. A lot of trailers for these kind of films include film awards and prizes that the film has been nominated for, as well as positive reviews the film has received. Due to films of this type not using special effects found in Hollywood films within their trailers, they use these type of inter-titles as a selling point for the film.

These are two screen shots of some of the footage featured within the trailer for Fish Tank. There are two reasons why I chose them; the colours and the composition.The colours within both are extremely nuetral, which is almost a constant theme. As the film focus’ on serious issues within today’s society, and one girl’s journey through it, the colour scheme seems to fit with this.Also, the composition, particularly the top screen shot, has been well thought through by the director. Within social realism, the composition is important, as it adds an artistic flair to the footage.

I took screenshots of these two parts of the trailer due to the great use of natural lighting in them both, and the focus in them both. I like the use of lighting in both as it creates a dramatic, moody effect. These effects create some artistly, thought through, footage which is typical of films of this genre. Featuring these kind of shots rather than heavily edited footage.

This particular screenshot is of part of the trailer where several bits of footage have been over-layed to create this montage. A lot of editing within a trailer of the genre is rarely seen, but this type of editing is quite frequent as it continues the artistic flair seen within some of the shots.

These screenshots are of the inter-titles used in the trailer in order to establish the story line. Some times in the trailers for films like this, it is a created with lots of different bits of footage that don’t necessarily run in order. Therefore, inter-titles are extremely important so that the viewers are able to establish some sort of storyline/plot, which will then hopefully go on to create an interest within the viewer.