Equilibrium Teaser Trailer Deconstruction

Link to the trailer on IMDB

The trailer begins with the anchorage from the company who made it - Dimension Home Video. They are well known, but not as famous as companies such as Warner Bros or Universal, so it is an idication that this will be more of a "cult" film, with a selective following, rather than a big box-office hit.

The trailer begins with a synthesized humming and a sound like the clash of metal as the anchorage wipes onto the screen, on a black background. Already, this gives a futuristic sense to the trailer. An overhead shot of Cleric Preston appears; he is in a martial-arts pose, dressed entirely in black and under a spotlight. This turns into a fast tilt shot, slows, and finishes as a low angle shot, a close up on Christian Bale’s face before he looks up. There is non-diegetic violin music behind a voiceover talking about the Cleric as “the final line of defence”, coinciding with Bale lifting his head, indicating that he is a member of the Cleric and introducing him as the protagonist.

There is a close up on his gloved hands and his black military style coat, as he removes his guns from his holsters, which then zooms out and tracks him sideways as he runs along a corridor between two lines of helmeted men into a pitch black room. For a split second there is the iconic image of him standing in an A-frame stance, guns at his sides, silhouetted by the light behind him from the corridor. These clips set the protagonist up to be highly physically competent and a trained combatant, the peaking violin music highlighting how dangerous he is.

 There is a non-diegetic synthesized beat over several fast-cut clips, including a long shot of rows of black-clad men practising martial arts in a temple, a window being smashed and a mid-shot of people in grey walking past a child stood on a pedestal. The shots are cut with white flashes between them and in time to the synthesized beat. These images suggest the idea of control by force and fear, and a lack of individuality, are key to this futuristic civilisation. The shot with the martial arts is particularly effective because the men all move exactly in time, which makes them look like like cogs, or a clock, all turning in a windmill motion in time with the non-diegetic music.

The long shot of the rows of grey-clad men and women all sitting on benches works really well, because it implies great numbers, all similar, without actually showing many people. It also continues to cement the previously introduced idea of individuality and creative thought being destroyed. The shot before shows that they are watching a video of Father giving a speech, which is an idea that we are using in our own teaser trailer. 

The climax of the trailer is a sequence of fast-cut action shots, which show the protagonist demonstrating his prowess with both guns and a katana. Left: a mid shot of the protagonist sweeping his katana from its hilt is made incredibly effective by the introduction of sinister choral music, which he moves in time with, and this gives the shot greater power by emphasizing how dangerous the protagonist is. Right: an extreme close up of the protagonist shooting his gun, and the camera follows the empty clip as it falls. This is preceeded by multiple fast-cut action shots of the protagonist flipping through the air and firing in different directions, which gives the clip greater emphasis, as it is a relatively slow cut in comparison, and an extreme close up, compared to the previous mid-shots.

The trailer features many close-up shots of the protagonist's face, because emotion is such an integral part of the plot, and because Christian Bale is a very famous and easily recognisable actor, so they act as a draw. This close up works really well because, like the gun shot before, it is preceeded by lots of fast-cut shots of the protagonist performing impressive physical feats in mid-shots and long-shots. The shot lasts for a fraction of a second, but is very effective because of the protagonist's completely composed face, which shows the extent of his capabilities, as he has fought off all of the foes shown, but has not even changed his facial expression.

The final cut has the title appear in the same futuristic font as the poster in white, with a black background, again suggesting the ideas of good versus evil, and the cold emotionless nature of the dystopian future. Behind the title, "Equilibrium" scrolls across the background in giant grey font, reinstating the futuristic quality of the film.