Marauders: Film Trailer

Analysis

Marauders is a 2016 action film starring Christopher Meloni, Bruce Willis and Dave Bautista. The film revolves around a mysterious group of professional bank robbers who are chased by an FBI agent who uncovers a conspiracy behind the robbery-homicides.

The trailer starts off by showing the logos of the companies involved in the making of the film. This is different from the Skyfall trailer which showed the studio logos 30 seconds into the trailer. Following on from this, the trailer opens with an establishing shot of a city to set the scene. Non-diegetic sound of heavy bass is played during this scene and the next few scenes transition to one another using fading. There is also diegetic sound of Bruce Willis’ character who is a bank owner giving a brief speech, a sound bridge is used and the next few scenes are aerial shots of the city originally shown in the establishing shot. There is also a close up of Bruce Willis who is wearing a black suit which suggests he is a powerful figure in the film and is likely very wealthy.

This next shot shows one of the bank robbers wearing a mask and holding a shotgun. This shot gives a sense of fear and intimidation especially given that the camera is positioned so that the shotgun is facing it. The shotgun is fired towards the camera during this scene also which gives the audience a sense of immersion like they are actually there. The rain also gives a creepy feeling to the shot and could be seen as a use of pathetic fallacy. When the shotgun is fired a cutaway shot is then used which shows a man being blasted back through a glass window. The following scenes then show a bank robbery in progress and features non-diegetic sound of electronic synthesisers.

This long shot creates a mysterious atmosphere and continues to build intrigue and intensity which seems to be a common practice for action film trailers, the silhouette in the doorway also adds to the mystery also. This relates to the Skyfall trailer which also used silhouettes to add mystery to the trailer. By this point in the trailer the non-diegetic sound being used it that of fast paced drums and more cuts are used to show a number of different “high-octane” scenes. One of which shows a helicopter flying through the city and some others which show the bank robbers and the FBI engaged in gunfights. The drums get faster and faster until they reach a climax which is when the title of the film is revealed. This trailer has a slow build up and eventually turns into a fast paced action sequence which conforms to the conventions many action trailers follow.