Alice in Wonderland Trailer Analysis

"There is a place... Like no place on Earth, some say, to survive it, you need to be as mad as hatter, which luckily... I am" Cue the close up scene, taken from where alice arrives at the mad hatters table. This is the introduction, six short scenes lasting no more than 3 seconds which gives the slightest of insights into what occurs in these scenes.

This is interesting because I was taught in the sales job I did over the summer that on average people only have an attention span of 2-3 seconds, if it's not of interest they switch of, going into autopilot mode.

By switching to a different scene this quickly the attention span problem is actually being utilised rather than seen as problem, this is evident in this trailer as contrasting scenes are carefully selected to appeal to a wider audience.

Obviously an entire two minutes of 2-3 second cuts would become rather monotonous, so once the interest has been sparked, it is now time to explain the entire film in less just around two minutes.

Once the narrator has introduced the film in less than a quarter of minute it is up to the film to sell itself. The next 15 seconds or so is taken up by the first focal point of the film, the return of alice, this visually represented by 15 cuts to different camera angles to keep the audiences interest, the audio is dialogue from the scene support by mood enhancing music.

After a quick scene which announces the director comes the second focal point, the red queen has taken over wonderland. Essentially this part edited in a similar way, visually anyway, these fast cuts from scene to scene keeping the viewer interested. In this part of the trailer the red queens agenda is revealed as she seeks to remove alice from wonderland. These shots tend to show the red queen looking angry and alice looking scared, this makes the audience aware that the red queen is the antagonist and alice is the protagonist. The momentum of the music has also increased making the footage seem more frantic than earlier.

This next scene announces when the film is released before showing of the most important scenes, what I am guessing to be is the final battle. The rest of the trailer is taken up by short exciting clips from the most entertaining scenes, accompanied by fast dramatic music to emphasise the quick cut shots.