Research: Comedy analysis; The Hangover

 

The Hangover trailer

The beginning of the trailer establishes the different characters and their personalities, this way the audience get to know the characters a bit, this gives the audience a personal connection making them more likely to go and see the film. Medium shots and slow pace editing allows this, this represents the equilibrium.

Feel good music kicks in to make the audience excited including them in the experience, represents the start of the mayhem. The disruption of the equilibrium the lighting darkens and the shots become faster pace building up to the climax of the trailer. The setting being Vegas already gives the film a feel of disruption. The next fast pace flashes implies to the audience that the characters are drunk and makes the audience feel a bit disorientated almost as if they are drunk. The screen then goes blank this could symbolise the anti-climax, where all the problems start to submerge. The next shot is very effective as a close up of floor level fades in revealing glasses and rubbish scattered all over the floor as well as one of the characters pained expressions. In this shot the mise-en-scene and body language of the character tell the audience that the characters troubles are about to begin. Next a close up of a characters face follows him as he looks around the room, giving of the effect of how you see things when you have a hangover. This establishes the characters feelings after the previous shot establishes their situation. This shot together are extremely effective in making the audience feel a part of the film.The music changes to rock implying the lack of clarity of the situation. The titles are made up of LED lightings to fit in with the theme of Vegas, the lights in the titles flicker again referring back to the anti-climax of the plot. The music stops during the gags to cause more of the effect on the audience, it draws more attention to the comedy elements.

When the film name comes up it is again along the LED theme but much bigger so that it stands out, it is presented against a black background which makes it stick in the audiences mind. This is then followed by clips that feature a famous boxer playing himself, this straight away makes the film look more realistic and genuine, as if it happened in real life.

You can see that comedy films don't tend to follow narrative theories this may make it harder for us to structure a film of our own, however less complicated editing and special effects are necessary to create something that is very effective. This may play to our strengths however this type of trailer would require more acting which is one of our weaknesses.