The document discusses various elements of film language used in the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It describes how the trailer uses different camera angles, lighting, sound techniques, and editing to convey information and create mood. Specifically, it notes the trailer features close-up shots of characters, action scenes from various angles, natural lighting with some dark scenes in space, diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, and fades between scenes to transition the narrative.
2. WHAT IS FILM LANGUAGE?
Film language consists of:
• Camera
• Editing
• Sound
• Lighting and colour
• Technology
• Mise-en-scene
3. CAMERA
• Throughout the trailer of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it is filmed from many
different angles, heights, distances and movements.
• At the beginning of the trailer, it starts off from a low horizontal height, and then
switches to a high height with an overhead angle, far from the subject.
• Many of the shots of the characters in the trailer are filmed as close-mid shots, and
their faces are frequently zoomed in, in order to show the audience who the main
characters are.
• Because there are so many action shots of the spaceships, the trailer is filmed from so
many different angles, as it shows the explosions and movement of the spaceships.
• The more action portrayed in the trailer, the more variety of different angles of shots
taken in order to create more of an effect.
• There is also a lot of panning and tilting to create more of a dramatic effect on the
action taking place
4. LIGHTING AND COLOUR
• The lighting and colour of a film is very important as it is used to
create mood and atmosphere. The positioning of the lighting
creates different effects.
• Most of the trailer is filmed in natural lighting, as it is in the
daytime in most of the shots. However it is also filmed in dark
lighting as there are shots of space.
5. SOUND
• When we watch a film, the sound we hear can be diegetic or non-diegetic.
• Diegetic sound is sound that that is part of the film world.
• Non-diegetic sound is sound that is not recognised as part of the film world,
e.g. voiceover, background music
• The sound in a film is important as it is informing us about the time in which
a film is set or the kind of action we can expect. The elements of sound also
reveal key aspects of genre to an audience.
• Voice overs allow us to see things from a particular character’s point of view.
6. EDITING
• Editing tells us about how it changes the pace of the narrative,
and the editing narrative used tells us about where the narrative
is.
• Most of the techniques consist of: straight cuts, fades, dissolves,
wipes, jump cuts, etc.
• In the trailer, there is a lot of fading included in order for it to
move onto the next key scene rather than straight cutting through
it.
