Spider-Man Teaser Trailer

This teaser was originally pulled from being publicly shown due to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. The World Trade Centre is featured towards the end of the teaser trailer.

The audience is not told whether the footage in the trailer is from the film or not. It is not from the film but this doesn’t matter; the purpose of the trailer is to make the audience aware of the fact that a film adaptation of one of the most loved comic book heroes is coming to the silver screen.

The trailer’s early editing style puts more emphasis on continuity compared to some teaser trailers (for example, compared to The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Teaser Trailer). Continuity of the robbery is kept by the abridging the scene to show viewers key events. The establishing shot and digetic sounds of a busy city tells the audience the time and place (Day, New York) of the events that are about to follow.

The series of tightly edited shots set a certain pace to the trailer reflecting the non-diegetic rock music. Excitement and thrills are ultimately achieved which will undoubtedly help the anticipation for the film.

At the end of the abridged scene it is revealed what the film being advertised is based upon: Spider-man. This is achieved by showing the iconic image of an oversized spider's web. This wholly relies on audience's prior knowledge and shows the importance and effectiveness of iconic imagery. This is also demonstrated in the The Amityville Horror trailer which was earlier analyzed.

The final stage of the teaser leaves the continuity which was used earlier in the trailer behind. After the excitement and thrills provided earlier in the trailer the teaser now tries to sustain the excitement whilst transmitting important information. For example: when it is coming out, slogans attached to the film and (most importantly) the title of the film. This is all achieved by titles (opposed to the use of a voice-over) which are cut with footage of Spider-man swinging through New York City. The title's animations is befitting with the pace set by the song being played 'Leave you far behind' by Lunatic Calm. The futuristic text style is kept all the way through the trailer constantly reusing a flash to introduce a text whilst tracking closer in. This helps to build a text style which can be used in print advertisement as well as digital advertisement.

This is a very effective trailer and achieves exactly what some claim a teaser should achieve:

• It creates excitement and anticipation
• It divulges little information about the plot: it is only clear that the film will be based upon a crime fighting superhero
• It builds a style (through texts and iconography) which can be replicated in future advertisements whether it be a digital or print advertisement
• And most importantly, it achieves it in a small time frame (1:46)

The Spider-man teaser trailer illustrates that by using an abridged scene with a tight editing style can be effective when trying to create anticipation for a film. It also highlights how important a teaser trailer can be in the advertising process for a film: Columbia Pictures built a whole new scene with a high production value just to create anticipation. Another trailer that has been seen to adopt this type of editing style includes the teaser for Cloverfield where an abridged scene from the film itself is shown. Our group will definitely consider the use of an abridged scene when producing our teaser trailer.

This analysis was written by Joshua Reeves