Trailer analysis

Analysing a trailer:

Finding Dory

The trailer of Finding Dory starts with two fishes, presumably a couple, one of them hears something and they both try to figure out where the sound is coming from. This builds suspense as the dark scene sets itself to make the audience feel worried about this lost child as this is no place for a child to be. Then the context of family is brought up, this would put the audience in awe as most of us have a family and can empathise with the main character as she lost her family. The iconic finding Nemo music is played in the background immediately immersing the audience in nostalgia. It shows a progression of Dory growing up and asking for help: This suggests she’s on her own and that she must have been separated from her parents at a very young age.


The trailer shows Todorov’s narrative theory: After that we see a top down view of Marlin, Equilibrium is shown when we see Nemo and Dory swimming through the reef. There is a Disruption of the equilibrium as Dory gets taken away and Marlin and Nemo start looking for her, this is an attempt to fix the situation and come back to the balance shown in the beginning. The trailers scenery changes, as does the music. It’s more upbeat and shows the whole adventure of Dory looking for her parents.


Now we can tell this movie is an action/adventure as it has conventions of those two genres. Firstly it has a mission waiting to be completed which is to find Dory’s parents and upbeat nerve wracking music helps to elevate that. We know it’s an adventure as there are changes of scenery shown: Dory is moving from tank to tank starting with her being taken from the sea. In the trailer we see glass bottles and plastic floating in the water, perhaps Pixar is trying to send a message about pollution. Finally it ends with the title of the film, this is shown to let the audience know what to look out for.