Toy Story 3 - Analysis

The toy story 3 teaser trailer is a much more conventional film trailer when compared to that of the dark night. Although the characters are all well recognised, we are still introduced to them individually in order to make the audience remember all of them. During the trailer character interactions are explained and we are comfortably lead to understand the genre of the film and what it is likely to be like. The camera shots and editing throughout the film is kept very simple and each aspect develops a deeper meaning. For example, the fade to black near the end is used to show a change in scene or time in the trailer. The deeper meanings of shots and framing are discussed below.

The link to the trailer can be found below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f-MYl-HzNw

A screen shot of the opening shot of the trailer can be found above. The most obvious thing to talk about here is the depiction of the sky and the ground on the wall and the floor. This shows how for the purpose of the film, or for the toys anyway, this room is like the world. As well as that, it evokes the imaginative nature of the film, if the toys can come alive then the walls and the floor must be the ground/sky.

Throughout the trailer it is made evident that the character 'Woody' is in  charge. In the shot above we can see how woody is the most important thing character in the frame. Not only is her far bigger than the others, but he is closer to the camera as well, which exposes his important nature. In addition to all this all of the army men are looking up at him as if he is in charge.

The screen shot again shows woody to be in charge, he is telling everyone what to do and he is the only one that stays in the camera shot, rather than just walking straight through it like the other characters. The colours are bright and the light is also bright which helps to achieve the children's and comedy genres of the film.

The character in charge changes later on when we are introduced to 'buzz'. As you can see from the above screen shot the titles that buzz made are better than that of woody, and as a result they are made bigger and brighter to show this. Throughout the film this is the first time we see why all of the characters have been walking to the right hand side of the screen, this keeps the audience watching so they see what happens next.

The camera remains stationary for the duration of the trailer and it is always in the same standard poisition, this is done to emphasise the fact that everyone is walking the same way to the same place, but also to keep the audiences attention on the characters and dialogue. The trailer uses continuity editing throughout.

The screen shot above depicts buzz's titles to light up, which could expose buzz as a symbol of hope within the film, this is much the same with woody and everyone looking up to him. However, buzz seems to do everything better than woody and perhaps the way in which everything woody does, buzz does better, foreshadows the plot of the film and buzz being the eventual figure of hope, symbolised by the light in the screen shot above.

The competition between woody and buzz perhaps foreshadows eventual competition or disagreement during the film, which offers the audience a sneak peak into the film.

The trailer is under a minute long, much like the trailer to the dark night, this is something i will need to look into for my own production.