Analysis of a Fantasy Trailer

The film trailer i am going to analyse is Harry Potter and the philosophers stone. This film is about a boy who finds out he's a wizard and goes to Hogwarts, which is a school that teaches the witches and wizards about magic. They use many spells and there are a lot of mythical creatures which link to the fantasy genre i am researching about.

At the beginning of the trailer we see owls, which link into the fantasy genre and we know that they will be featured in the film. It starts off with seeing Harry locked in a cupboard and someone saying "there's no such thing as magic". This will make the audience think that magic will be involved in this film and the audience might feel a bit confused as to why he is locked in a cupboard. Then it shows Goblins and this definitely links into the fantasy genre because they are mythical creatures and can be quite scary in some ways. The music begins quite quiet at the trailer but slowly builds up and gets louder as the trailer progresses. It has a magical feel to it and the sounds are quite unique to give that fantasy effect, telling the audience that this will be a fantasy film.

This is the part of trailer where we see Harry holding the wand for the first time. The audience will be able to tell that there will be a lot of magic involved and all the characters will be using wands. There is a lot of dimmed lighting in this picture, it gives a leery effect behind him as he is standing there holding the wand. This part of the trailer still doesn't show everything that is happening, so the audience will still be asking questions about why he has a wand and where he is going.

This is the main setting where the film is set, the castle. A lot of fantasy films have castles so this is an typical setting for this type of film. The lighting is very dark and this could make the audience feel quite scared in a way because they see this huge castle surrounded by water, hills and a full moon which is the only source of light. In some ways it's quite a magical scene as well with the students in small boats on their way to the castle. The castle could make them feel quite vulnerable because they are in these small boats and they are looking up at the castle which is high above them and it looks overpowering.


After this part of the trailer, the music starts to build up more and its gets louder so the audience will know that its going to get more fast paced and realise that something is going to happen. It also gets more intense as things start going wrong in the film and when the characters are in trouble.

This is quite a dark part of the trailer. First there is a creepy forest which is another typical setting in a fantasy film. This has very dark lighting in and this would make the audience feel scared and will wonder what the hooded figure is. The mist on the floor adds to the creepiness of this scene because its behind the figure and it makes it look more scary. We also see Harry standing to the side and he looks vulnerable and he is alone so we can tell that he is scared of this figure coming towards him. This could also be a contrast from the start of the film when it was happy and magical, but now we see this scary scene and we can tell that this person could be a threat to Harry and we will want to find out more about it.

This is one of the mythical creatures in the film, the troll. They made him look much bigger, so he would look scarier to the audience. This angle of the troll is a low angle shot because we are looking up at him. This makes him look intimidating and we feel vulnerable against the troll. There is low key lighting behind him makes this scene more scary because it has a creepy effect.


In this trailer there is a lot of low key lighting, especially when the creepy scenes are shown, this will make the audience feel scared. Also this trailer has typical fantasy settings such as a castle and a forest. Both are used with low key lighting because it is set at night and might look quite creepy in some ways.