Research: Primary (Lord of the Rings Analysis)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Teaser Trailer

In the opening sequence the audience is instantly drawn to the teaser trailer because the non-diegetic voiceover at the very beginning of the teaser trailer by saying: “It has been voted the moat popular book of the twentieth century”. This attracts the audience’s attention who has read the Lord of the Rings books because they will know the exact story line. There will also be anticipation to see whether or not the film can be as good as the book. As the non-diegetic voiceover finishes speaking there is non-diegetic music, which is of a fast tempo and grabs the audience’s attention. The teaser trailer is then divided up between pieces of diegetic documentary and non-diegetic music over film clips. The non-diegetic music is very tense and mysterious. The voiceovers interest the audience with the lines that he says: “It introduced us to the world of fantasy”, “But it wasn’t until now that the legend can finally come to life”, “One ring to rule them all”, “One ring to find them”, “One ring to bring them all”, “And in the darkness bind them” and “J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings”. These lines would have been selected carefully to highlight points in the book that the audience who have read the book will recognise. It also helps to set interest people who haven’t read the book into making them want to watch the film as well as read the book. The non-diegetic music at the end of the teaser trailer is spooky, which make create a sense of curiosity to the audience.
The cutting rhythm that this teaser trailer uses is irregular. This is because when the voiceover is speaking the shot remains for seven seconds, but then when the film footage is being shown these shots change to another shot ever one or two seconds. This is so that when the voiceover is speaking the audience concentrate on what he is saying, but when the non-diegetic music is playing they can concentrate on the film footage.
The mise-en-scene used in the teaser trailer has real locations, such as forests and mountains. The trailer also uses costumes which are of an old period and props such as horse to ride on and swords during scenes. It also show technology such as cameras and computers where behind-the-scenes clips are shown.
It uses a variety of camera angles in a short space of time. These are: high angle, tracking, close ups, low angle, forty five degree angle, mid shot and establishing shot. They are used to interest the audience and excite them by showing lots of action in a variety of shots very quickly.
The characters and locations can be seen through the film footage shown in a variety of clips. There is no need for the characters to be properly introduced because as the voiceover says at the beginning of the clip: “It has been voted the moat popular book of the twentieth century”. Therefore most people probably already know the story, hence the reason for the documentary style teaser trailer.
The teaser trailer ends by introducing dates for the second and third films. This would interest the audience as they know that ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ isn’t just a one-off film from ‘The Lord of the Rings’ series, there will actually be a second and third film, just like there is the books.

Magazine

The main image on the front cover is a high angle close up shot of the main character’s face. Production work may have been done on the image to add extra lighting to the right hand side of the image to make it appear brighter and more glowing. This makes the left hand side of the image appear to be more shadowed and gives a spooky impression of the cover as the audience will think that the image is from either a dark place or in the night which are usually associated with spookiness. It gives it a film noir type of style. It is also a clip from the movie, which has been used to allow people to recognise it as being from the film.
The main text on the magazine cover is the title of the film, which in this case is also the title of the film. This is because I could not find a film magazine cover image from this film, but I could find this magazine cover. The title used is in the same font style as the film, this is so that it is easily recognisable by the audience.
The colours that the magazine uses are dark reds and browns and contrasts them with brighter golds and yellows. These colours are all very warm and inviting. Its overall style is very plain as its only image is that of the main character. This is so that the audience recognise the main character straight away and the sight is not drawn to another part of the magazine that would be less important.

Poster

The main characters have been introduced in this poster and have been placed in the top half of the image. There is also a smaller image of men riding horses below. These images would have been chosen so that the audience recognises then when they are introduced in the film, possible because a) there are a lot of characters or b) to see how they are recognised by the people from the book.
The whole of poster contains the image and is in a green/yellow colour. This colour was probably used to make the poster appear old. The old effect is also present through the costume in which the characters are dressed and the use of the image showing the people riding around on horses.The main title is shown towards the bottom of the poster. Its font is clear, easy to read and in a gold colouring. The style of the font makes the title look quite grand and important. There are then the credits below it and the date which the film was to come out is highlighted in bold and larger than the rest of the credits. There isn’t a tag-line or slogan on the poster, but this is probably because the poster does not need to be introduced or explained because people would have read the book therefore already know the story.

Representation

In the teaser trailer, magazine and poster mainly male characters are represented. In the teaser trailer they mainly show male characters. The male characters are always the ones who are battling and fighting. It shows the males as strong and powerful. On the magazine front cover only the male main character is shown and is represented as strong because of the emotion in the face, he is not worried or scared. The poster shows many of the main characters, mostly male. The male characters are all looking directly forwards; this would get the attention of the audience as they would feel like the character are glaring at them. The female characters on the poster are in the background and are not part of the main focus of the poster. This shows that the female character is not seen as as important as the male characters. The mise-en-scene that links all of the texts together is the costume. This represents the film as a whole as being old fashioned because the characters are wearing old robes and dresses of an olden style.

Collective Identity
The English are represented as old fashioned (from the costumes and props) and fighters from the use of sword battles and fighting scenes.

Audience
Rating: PG-13 in America, PG in United Kingdom
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Rated: 8.8/10 by 362,001 people

Overall
The overall link between the teaser trailer, the magazine front cover and the poster for this film is the use of the main characters. This film does not have any fears of hiding the plot as many people have read the book, so part of the plot, characters and locations are revealed through the teaser trailer. The magazine cover then shows the main character in the centre of the frame. The poster uses a large selection of characters with a grainy texture, illustrating age and a different time period. This is useful as it helps the audience to become familiar with the characters and would interest people into seeing the film to see if it is as good as the book.