Film Trailer Analysis: The Impossible

At the beginning of the trailer we are instantly shown the familiar logo of Summit Entertainment which automatically relates other successful movies made by the company to this film and so people already would consider watching it. This is accompanied directly by a soft melodic song helping to suggest innocence in a way whilst we are shown an establishing shot of a tropical islands getaway. We are later introduced to the characters whom appear to be a family helping to add onto the idea of innocence. The families relationship is highlighted in the opening of the trailer to help relate them more to the audience and the use of a closeup of one character in particular helps suggest that he is the main character of the film.

The trailer shows the family in the pool which may act as a foreshadowing of what is going to happen, as we suspect something will due to the rise in wind, signifying something wrong. The music abruptly stops when we are introduced to an overlay stating that "tragedy struck southeast Asia", this helps emphasise the danger the family may be about to endure and allows us to sympathise with their characters more as a result. The trailer quickly becomes more intense as we see a shot of the sky as birds fly over, which many people understand means some sort of danger is present, this is shown whilst the camera shakes slightly to add effect onto what is about to happen and immerses the audience into the trailer. As the scene develops we see that gradually the trees are falling down towards the character highlighting this supposed danger to the family and this is shown through the zooming shot of the family as they recognise something is wrong. It helps infer that the danger is heading towards them which is shown directly afterwards as a wave of water is shown  through a birds eye view to help emphasise what the movie is going to be about. This is introduced with the diagetic sound of the water to help add realism to the scene and allows us to be immersed into what is happening.

We are introduced to another caption allowing us to understand the role of the family in the movie and what the movie is about. As the scene fades to black we are reintroduced to the piano melody to help contrast the horrors of the water and allows us to directly empathise with the characters. The relationship of the family is also heavily shown in the trailer as we see the care the father has for his kids through his voiceover about finding them. The voiceover helps suggest to us of the seperation of the family and the ultimate plot of the movie and the two shot of the mother and her son being just out of reach of one another may represent the family and what they have to do to get back together.

The location is further explored through the use of a panning shot to help showcase the destruction the country faced and further shows the problems the family face, the type of music used helps highlight this tragedy and how families like this were affected afterwards. We are shown a high angle shot of the mother as she is rescued helping to emphasise her vulnerability and weakness after the wave and allows us as the audience to relate more to her character, whilst also showing that she has a serious injury. The trailer also highlights the miracle of human cooperation as we can see families all over helping eachother to get through the disaster whilst also portraying the difficulty in finding those whom you lost amongst the thousand others.

The trailer helps showcase this togetherness as it states that "nothing is more powerful.......then the human spirit", this is shown alongside various shots of families being reunited to allow the audience to stay enticed into watching the movie. The trailer then portrays the actors involved in the movie including Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor to help appeal to a wider audience as they were both involved in many successful films and son people would naturally expect this to be similar in that aspect. This is futher highlighted as the trailer fades into the title sequence whereas the message of the film would remain fresh on the audiences minds.