The trailer starts with a famous American monument indicating where the plot of the story is set, with non diagetic military music being played over the top of the scene to reinforce what the audience already presume about who is speaking.
This is followed by the voice of a strong talking American man reinforcing the same plot, we then see that the men speaking are government (military) officials, which we presume because of the patriotic army music, military uniform and the patriotic monument. The most senior of the men is shown clearly by his higher posture which shows his dominance over the men.
They say they received a signal and describe its size to the person we see as in charge, as they describe the size the object there is a (slow zoom) close up of an image of it with sinister non-diagetic music being played over the top of it to tell the audience that it is something bad without factually telling the audience that, giving a lot of freedom for the audiences minds to wonder what exactly it is and make them want to keep watching the trailer too find out.
The higher ranking officer then asks if it could be a meteor to which the other men tell him ‘definitely not’ and that they know that because its slowing down, the men giving this evidence are portrayed to be experts in their field by the way they are dressed and how they speak, to which we are shown a confused and shocked expression on the generals face.
As the officer tells him its slowing down aerie non diagetic music starts to play over the top of the clip again and the ‘20th Century Fox’ logo comes up, this tells the target audience that the movie is being made by a well respected company renowned for making big budget well made movies and helps to draw in a wider target audience. The date of the movie release is the same day that the actual independence day is on, this and the name of the movie may have been used to make the American people want to watch it as it makes it sound like the film has something to do with their history.
The camera then cuts to the statue of liberty, another famous American monument and it being shadowed by something we presume is the object that the government officials were talking about, we don’t directly see what it is because it is a teaser trailer and they want the audience to want to see the film so they can see what it is. The same shadowing of New York City, the White House and The Lincoln Monument is shown to give the audience an idea about the colossal size of the object.
There is a simple 2 second frame put in to give the audience slightly more information, telling them that the mass is carrying living things. confirming out audiences assumptions on what this thing could be.
A close up of the faces of horrified and shocked civilians are shown to make the audience want to see what they are looking at. Many people are panicking and running away screaming showing chaos in the streets through using the collision of a truck into a police van, the police are meant to be the ones preventing chaos but the police officer is just as horrified as the rest of the civilians. This tells the audience that whatever is coming should be feared and is very dangerous, this may portray the film as being scary in places.
The lighting changes from day to night and a sci-fi alien glow is shown on the people below, indicating that the ship is doing something but we cannot see what that is making the audience want to find out.
The audience are then shown the destruction that the aliens can cause as we see a colossal explosion happening throughout the city, this particular scene is very effective at giving us empathy for the civilians as we are shown a man in his car in utter shock and fear and are then almost given a point of view of what he is seeing as the wave of fire gets closer and closer. This shot is used to show just how helpless the civilians are. The explosion is throwing cars left right and centre which tells us that he is not safe in his car making us feel sorry for him and the other civilians that are about to die, this very short scene is used to make us empathise with the audience and make us want to see some sort of comeuppance for the aliens.
The audience are then shown a clip of the white house being destroyed by the alien ship; this is a very powerful clip as it represents the aliens striking at the heart of America, its president. We are then told the name of the film which is‘Independence Day’ and another flash effect is used to change the scene
I think that this was a very effective teaser trailer for its time, the film is relatively old as it was made in 1996 but made its teaser trailers work very effectively, making their desired target audience interested in wanting to watch the film. Independence day was a huge success raising $817,400,000 in its first year of release, these figures help to back up the importance of advertising a movie properly and as effectively as possible with the use of trailers and teaser trailers. The trailer uses many enigma codes to make its audience ask questions therefore making them more active in their viewing of the trailer as well as making them more interested in it. This trailer is a good example of how teaser trailers work to make their target audience interested in watching this movie.
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