Theorists

Vladimir Propp
 Vladimir Propp was a Russian theorist who read and analysed a wide number of folk tales and discovered that many types of characters appeared in most of the stories a number of times. He then turned this into one of his most famous theories. The characters include;
 The hero
 The villain
 The princess
 The father
 The false hero
 The dispatcher
 The donor
 The helper
 The hero is usually the main character and the one who we support throughout the narrative. The villain is the opposite of the hero and usually intentionally tries to hurt the hero. The princess is the sought after character by the hero and usually the resolution involves the hero getting the princess. The father is most commonly the father of the princess and the hero needs to gain his approval. The false hero is at first thought to be “good” however in the disruption or sometimes the resolution reveals themselves not to be. The dispatcher sends the hero on their journey and the donor provides them with the tools needed. The helper usually accompanies the hero and helps them along the way. Sometimes these characters overlap, so the donor may also be the help and the dispatcher may also be the father, for example. We can still see these character types in modern media, for example in The Amazing Spiderman
 The Hero – Peter Parker

The Princess – Gwen Stacy

The Father – Captain Stacy

The False Hero/Villain – Dr Curt Connors

The Dispatcher – Uncle Ben

The Donor – Richard Parker

The Helper – Gwen Stacy

The hero and the villain are the most common to appear in trailers. This is because the majority of the narrative will be about the binary opposition of villain vs. hero, with the exception of romance films, where the two characters to mainly appear are the hero and the princess. Sometimes, we see the villain in the trailer, however not their face as this creates enigma. This is common in horror and thriller trailers. In the trailer for Taken, we clearly see the hero (who is also the father), the princess (who is his daughter), the villains and possibly a helper briefly.
 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0936501/?ref_=sr_2
 Tvzetan Todorov
 Another Russian theorist, Todorov proposed that all narratives have the same three-part structure. This goes as en equilibrium, a disruption and a resolution. The equilibrium is the start of the story, where all is well and normal in the world of the media. This usually helps to set location and to introduce main characters. The disruption wherein something happens that stops the equilibrium and needs to be stopped. Then the resolution, in which equilibrium is restored. This structure applies to most narratives, from short stories to feature length films. An example is Toy Story 3, where the equilibrium is all the toys living happily at Andy’s house, then the disruption, in which all the toys are sent to a day-care centre ruled by an evil teddy-bear, and the resolution, where they find a new happy home at a little girl’s house. However, in trailers, only the equilibrium and some of the disruption are shown, as this entices an audience to go and see the film to discover the resolution and how that is found. If the resolution was also shown in a trailer, there would be no point to seeing the film. An example of this is in the trailer for the film The Prestige, where we clearly see an equilibrium of two friends who are magicians doing well in their business, we then see a disruption, of the friendship becoming a rivalry, which is even shown to the audience on a title plate. We also see that this rivalry becomes deadly, and this is why we do not see the resolution, as the audience will now be keen to see if it they become friends again or one gets killed or any other possible outcomes.
 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/?ref_=sr_1
 Claude-Levi Strauss
 Claude-Levi Strauss’s theory is binary oppositions. This theory claims that we understand words by the difference of the word and its opposite and not the actual meaning of the word. This theory stemmed from a belief that words are merely symbols for society’s ideas. Binary oppositions are seen in all films and trailers. Common ones include - Love and hate - Light and dark - Good and bad - Past and future - Female and male - Space and earth Love and hate is common in action films as the hero will often have a love interest in the princess and hatred for the villain. Light and dark are commonly seen in horrors as it is usually light in the resolution and equilibrium and darkness when the main horrors are occurring. Good and bad are seen in most genres as the hero being good and the villain being bad. Past and future can also occur in most films as the equilibrium is seen as the past and its opposite being the disruption of the present. Female and male is more common in thrillers as females are often connoted as weak and innocent and males as tough and violent. Space and earth is most common in Sci-fi.
John Fiske
John Fiske states that there is a difference in narrative and plot. The plot is the overall story that is not entirely shown to the audience but may be hinted at through text and speech which usually provides context. The narrative is the aspects of the story that are clearly shown to the audience through a media. This is seen in all media from newspaper articles to marquee films, and is also shown in trailers. This allows the author to control the audiences feeling and attitudes towards the story and the characters, if the hero does something that would normally make an audience dislike them, then the author will make this part of the plot but not the narrative, and so the audience don’t actually see it and so have less negative feelings towards it. In trailers, the narrative is often not shown in chronological order and a lot of the plot has to be referred to. This is due to the short length of trailers which usually last 1-2 minutes long. An example of this is the trailer for The Green Mile, where the narrative clearly shows us that the film is set in a prison and that there is a “good” prison inmate. It also shows that this prisoner is capable of miracles. However we do not see why he is in prison or what the miracle he can perform is. This also helps with the overall purpose of a film, to persuade the audience to go and watch it.
 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120689/?ref_=sr_3
 Roland Barthes
 Roland Barthes was a French theorist who claimed that media texts are capitalist, in that they are used to take money from the working class and push ideas from the higher class to the working class. Barthes claims that all texts have no one meaning, they can all be interpreted in different ways and that different people can find different meaning in the same text. However, he also claims that there are two different types of text, some have no obvious meaning and so the audience can apply their own giving the audience more power, this is known as an open text. This means that a closed text is one that has a very obvious meaning that the writers want to convey to the audience. Barthes also has a theory of codes, enigma codes, action codes, symbolic codes, semic codes and referential codes. An enigma codes are usually a mystery to the audience within the text and so gets them to think and question what is happening. An action code is something that is shown to the audience and is very simple for them to understand. Symbolic codes are structures of a text that bring forward the meaning. Semic codes are things which connote different meanings, for example books connote intelligence. A referential code is when the texts looks at the audiences morality and ideology. Film trailers usually show all of these codes. This can be seen in the trailer for Shutter Island. We see a man struggling and reaching for a gun, this is a semic code as it suggests that there will be violence. We see enigma as we question what Shutter Island is and why this man is there. We see action as someone tries to attack Leonardo Di Caprio, we see symbolic, as he is in a white suit connoting that he is good, while others are in dark clothes connoting they are bad, so that is good vs. bad, and we see referential, as we question if what is happening on Shutter Island is right or wrong.
 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130884/?ref_=tt_rec_tt