Trailer Analysis - Fast and Furious 6

Fast & Furious 6

2013

Director – Justin Lin

Institution – Universal Pictures

Fast and Furious 6 is the sixth film in The Fast and Furious franchise. The film stars successful film starts such as Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Dwayne Johnson. Fast and Furious 6 is about the team following a professional criminal gang led my Dominic Toretto who is played by Vin Diesel himself who retired following their successful team work in Fast and Furious 5 but they are remain wanted to catch the criminal gang. So they are offered by Luke Hobbs played by Dwayne Johnson to clear the group’s criminal record who also allows them to return home in exchange for helping him to take down the criminal gang. All of this is first seen in the establishing shot of the trailer. 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 this Fast and Furious is an American franchise.

The establishing shot shows the luxurious location in which the film is initially set with natural summer season lighting and the audience can tell the it is a hot location by the costume the characters are wearing. This particular moment is the initial moment where Luke Hobbs confronts Dominic Toretto about his proposal of bringing him and his team back into action. This straight away appeals to the target audience straight away as it is set in a lavish location where the audience think straight away that they wish they were there. Dominic Toretto is a tanned, muscly man wearing a white vest top and Luke Hobbs is a large built, mix raced man, with muscles wearing a black tight top making their bodies viewable to the audience. This appeals to the secondary target audience who are mainly females who follow these celebrities and this film is one they would predominantly enjoy as the males bodies are on clear view. In addition to this, this particular moment in the trailer appeals to the primary target audience who have previously watched all the Fast and Furious films that the team could potentially be getting back together.

The trailer then shows a two shot between the two characters with dialogue in the background being spoken by the two main characters currently being seen. A high angle shot is then shown of a motorway with large vehicles travelling forward which shows that the two protagonist characters have come to an agreement and Toretto will help Hobbs solve his problem. This appeals to the target audience as it is now been revealed to them that a mission is about to be completed and Hobbs goes into more detail about the team they need to capture. The audience are then able to see a point of view shot followed by a black and white close up image of the victim Hobbs and Toretto are after, these appeals to the audience as they feel they are on a journey with Hobbs, Toretto and the rest of the team to capture this member in the crime gang. 

Long shots of the locations the team will be travelling to are then shown of an aeroplane flying to London where Toretto’s team is based followed by close ups of each member of Toretto’s team. All members of the team are mainly males with one female which conforms the representation of males and females as well as follows the ideologies of that men are strong characters and the audience can see this by the tight clothing they are wearing so their muscles are visible. In addition to this, the woman is a tanned, beautiful female which follows the ideologies of a beautiful woman as well as the fact she enjoys fighting people and has two personalities which most women do. This appeals to the target audience as they are able to see the team all in action completing tasks in what they do best which encourages them to see the film more as they want to see what each team member has to bring to the team.

Overall different scenes from the start and middle of the film are shown from extreme long shots of locations and action events occurring to medium close up shots of character’s reactions to what has just taken place. The editing in this trailer is jump cuts from scene to scene and the representation is that everyone is in teams against each other fighting. The trailer is generally fast paced following the conventions of an action film with loud FX sound effects of cars blowing up, cars crashing and gun shots being fired all the time. In addition to this, there is a soundtrack in the background of “life in the fast lane” which links to the film as the film is all at a rapid face with non-stop action. The film follows the narrative theory of Tvzetan Todorov, Claude Levi Strauss and Vladmir Propp with many characters being represented as both good and evil characters in different aspects. The trailer for Fast and Furious 6, I believe altogether appeals to the target audience as they are people who enjoy action films or admire the characters who are featured in the film.