Trailer Analysis - The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises

2012

Director - Christopher Nolan

Institution – Warner Brothers

The Dark Knight Rises is the final film of the Batman film trilogy and the sequel to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight Rises is set eight years after the events of The Dark Knight find Gotham at a peaceful time. This is due to fact Batman has now taken over the fall for Harvey Dent's murder. However, a new evil villain named Bane has arrived in Gotham and aims to take over the city and expose the truth behind who Harvey Dent really was. Meanwhile Wayne Manor has gone under complete refurbishment so Bruce Wayne rarely ever leaves the estate.  Bane taking over the city by force, forces Batman to come out of retirement. But his allies are few and far apart. This straight away appeals to the target audience as it leaves them to the ultimate decision on whose side they are really on. From the trailer, I believe the target audience for this film are both males and females from the age of twelve upwards of any ethnicity and occupation. However, I think the majority of the target audience are from English speaking countries and are mainly British and American due to the fact that Batman is an American franchise. The primary target audience are people who follow the Batman franchise and have previously watched all the films before. The secondary target audience being people who follow the celebrities featured in the film such as; Christian Bale, Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway who are all successful movie stars.

The establishing shot denotes a long shot followed by a close up of a young innocent boy standing in the middle of an American football stadium singing for his national team and the audience can hear diegetic sound of the boy singing whilst the crowd surrounding him are all cheering him. The lighting is all natural day light showing the audience currently a happy atmosphere. However the trailer then goes to show the villain character. When the villain character appears on screen through the use of a long shot, his face is covered and there is majority dark lighting which represents him to the audience as a villainous character. Despite the fact this is the first time the villain is seen by the audience in the trailer there is a soundtrack of the young boy still singing in the background which connotes that the villain is in disguise. These particular moments appeal to the audience as they feel sympathy towards the young boy and the crowds as the villain is about to attack them all without them knowing.

The trailer then goes on to show the iconic Wayne Manor estate with dialogue in the background of people having a conversation and a two shot of the two characters, from this it appeals to the audience as they are able to see the relationship between both characters who are clearly trying to stop the villain from doing any bad to Gotham yet it makes the audience question will they be successful and stop him? There is then extreme long shots of Gotham; the location in which the film is set as well as iconic buildings. This appeals to the target audience as it makes them believe that this is real life and that they are people of Gotham as well. The men shown at this particular moment are of an older age and are all formally dressed in suits which are ideologies of a perfect man. The men are represented to all be fighting one another which conforms the conventions of an action film as it is all fast faced with spectacular fights as well as heroes and villains. A women is then shown in a two shot, the representation of the women is that she is beautiful, with dark hair, red lipstick and wearing a tight dress which again conforms the ideologies of the iconic women. She is seen to be manipulating the man she is currently dancing with which represents women as manipulative. This appeals to the target audience as it conforms the representation of males and females as males always want to be the one with authority and protect other people and where they come from. However females always try to be the one in charge and manipulate men, therefore this appeals to the target audience as they want to see how the women try and control the men but the men still take over.

Throughout the trailer there is a majority of dark lighting as the villain character Bane is mostly visible throughout the trailer as he is the villainous character. In addition to this, there are numerous extreme long shot and long shots showing spectacular fights, stunts, special effects and heroes vs villains battles. The trailer conforms the conventions of an action film in numerous of ways such as the trailer is fast paced with sound FX such as gunshots, car crashes as well as a sound theme tracks of a drum which represents a heart peace. Therefore these particular sounds represent the anxiety and rapid pace within the film. This appeals to the target audience as they have seen Batman from start to end and now this is the final film so the heartbeat sound is slowly coming to an end.