World War Z Trailer Analysis

World War Z Trailer Analysis

At the start of the trailer, it starts off very peaceful with a family laughing with each other in the car while in a lot of traffic. However, the trailer takes a massive turn when people start running and an explosion happens in the distance. As soon as the man gets back into his car, a policeman comes to the window and tells him to "Remain in your vehicle", and then suddenly gets run over by a dumpster truck, that then flips over a few meters in front of it. This is a typical convention of an action genre where it goes from a positive beginning to apocalyptic in a few seconds, adding to the impact of the action to come. It comes unexpected and so the majority of the audience watching the trailer would be convinced to go watch the movie as people are attracted to movies that take unexpected twists.

The shots start to get quicker between each other, adding to the fast paced scene where they need to figure out what's going on and how they can get to safety. The trailer at this point shows a lot of establishing shots of different places in the world, from cities to army bases, showing the audience that the zombie apocalypse is a worldwide problem, dramatising the whole event even more, and this is a common cliche of an action genre where whatever happens is on a worldwide scale that effects everyone, and in this one especially, the population of Earth is going down drastically, which is shown with a population scale going down fast in the trailer, showing the audience that the protagonist has a short amount of time before the human race becomes extinct.

One key moment of the trailer that the audience would remember after watching the trailer is the long shot of zombies turning over a bus, over the shoulder of a couple of soldiers shooting at them. This can show the raw power the zombies have when they are in high numbers, and even though zombies are getting shot at, more and more keep coming, which really shows the strength they have and how hard it is going to be for the protagonist to fight them and win. This is also shown with the second to last shot of the trailer which pans around hundreds of zombies climbing on top of each other to get over a gigantic wall.

The final shot is a close-up shot of Brad Pitt, the main protagonist, with a concerned and worried facial expression, which reflects to the audience that what he is about to do will change his life, and might even have to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his family and the world.