Trailer Analysis - Suicide squad

Institutional information 

Name : Suicide Squad

Year: 2016

Age Certificate : To be specified

production : DC Entertainment 

Director : John Ayer

Other details regarding budget and income are yet to be released, this is still only a teaser trailer.

Target audience

Suicide squad is based on the DC comics series and therefore is part of a franchise with an already established fan base, and this trailer has some references to the comic series that an existing fan would find very appealing and would create hype throughout the fan base and these existing fans would go to help make this trailer viral.

This trailer features a number of conventions that would appeal to an action film fan, such as armed swat style costumes and slow motion fight scenes along with dark thriller environments such as the prison or the streets and there are numerous weapon props from bats to assault rifles all of which indicate to the viewer that this is going to be action packed intense film.

The film has its unique selling point that the Villains take the role of the main protagonists and they try to show this as a theme throughout the trailer, such as the almost constant low key lighting that suggests the dark nature of the characters and the rather creepy sound vocal in the background all signify to the audience that the characters wont be your conventional "goodies". 

Cast wise I think it would be fair to say that the characters Mis En Scene would stereotypically appeal to a more masculine audience.

Setting

A variety of locations are shown throughout the trailer, all of which are in low key lighting and are all locations that contain conventions of a criminal theme, for example the first part is set in a candle lit restaurant with the outside set dark and rainy, this reminds me of a godfather style Mafia meeting.

   

  

The next important setting shown in the sequence is the prison, now this is important to imply to the audience that the characters are criminals despite being the protagonists. The prison looks considerably more concreted and built up then your usual prison and there is a troop of guards taking point, this clearly implies that whoever is in this prison is dangerous.

The rest of the settings presented in brief snippets are a combination of urban environments and close quarter scenes all portrayed in low level lighting so the audience is sure to see that this areas are affiliated with negative actions.

Character Mise En Scene

The costumes worn by the characters in the trailer are based upon the characters in the Suicide Squad comic book, although there has been negative feedback from the fan base in regards to how well the film actors and costumes correspond with the comic, Will Smith especially:

    

The female character "Harley Quinn" is represented in a sexualised "psycho-fem" style, this means she is presented with some feminine attributes such as her use of weapons and threatening behavior, whilst also being presented as promiscuous and sexualised. This sort of style of feminine Mise-En-Scene is typical for what you'd find for female protagonists in these type of films.

All the main protagonists in this film are all villains, this undermines Vladimir Propp's film theory about the character roles. All characters are presented in comic based costumes. These costumes all have connotations of wrong doing and evil, such as dark colours, tattoos, vicious weaponry props and rugged clothes.

  Camera

This extreme long shot/establishing shot is used in the trailed to highlight the threat posed by the figure shown in the distance. The establishing shot shows the cage the character is held in as very isolated from the rest of the jail, this implies that the character held within is of special significance and danger. This is also shown by the culmination of tactically dressed men approaching the cage with caution.

This mid shot of the top of the character's head presents her as looking very menacing. The shot shows her as very isolated and troubled. Firstly this can be very obviously seen by the fact she's bathing in a pool of blood. It is also shown by the derelict look of the environment she's shown in. All this presents the character as a troubled individual and hints to her involvement in the narrative.

This long shot summaries the Mise-En-Scene of the film. Within it you can see the main character's in the film and their unique costume designs, and to really emphasise their evil persona you can see the dark, urban and rugged setting.