Men In Black 3 Teaser Trailer Analysis

By Kiyan Patel

The trailer starts with the green banner indicating that it is suitable to be watched by the MPAA.

The Trailer begins with a pan shot over New York City. This indicates to the audience that the film is going to be set in New York city.

The music starts with a big bang which leads into this shot which grabs the attention of the audience.

With the use of fast cutting, the clip of a black suited man is quickly shown with the voice over of ‘Who are we?’ This rhetorical question is easily answered by those who have watched the first 2 films hence why it is said at the begging of the teaser trailer to indicate to the viewers which film trailer they are about to watch.

The opening to the teaser trailer continues to quickly fast cut from the pan of New York City to short clips of the Men in Black as shown by the bottom image which is a close up of a member of the Men in Black quickly picking up the gun shown.This just emphasises that the teaser trailer is for the Men in Black as the fast cuts in between the pan of New York City just helps the audience understand the trailer a bit more.When the guns are shown, loud whooshing sounds are made to capture the audiences attention.

The opening of the trailer then leads to the production company logo ‘Columbia’. This cuts to the bottom frame with the voice-over of ‘We are no one’. This is in reference to the first voice-over in the opening of the teaser trailer. The slide shows a high angle shot of agent J which ma indicates to the audience that there maybe a problem. This again hints towards a security society which is what the Men in Black is. To those audiences that have already watched previous Men in Black films , the voice over makes sense for them but for those audiences that have not watched the previous men in black films will not understand the phrase.

After the voice over phrase, there is fast editing from this slide on the left to the slide below. The slide on the left shows an relaxed agent J who sits in front of the secret room in a wall which creates suspense and tension as the wall rises for the audience. The shot is a long-shot which allows the audience to see everything in the room.

The quick shot after the slide above shows agent J picking up a big gun which the audience can only assume is from behind the rising wall. As he picks up the gun he is shown by a low angle making him seem superior, the audience will understand that the Men in Black are about to go do what they do as when they choose guns from the previous films, it always leads to them fighting.

From the previous slide, the trailer leads to a fade to black between these two villains. The two evil creatures are shown in mid shots so the frames don’t give much away. The audience may think that these are the monsters in the film. They may not be, but as they are in the trailer, the audience may understand that they will be in the film or it wouldn’t be in the teaser trailer.

The next sequence starts with a random man to graffiti on the wall. Dialogue from agent J follows with ‘Marco, you know your not supposed to be on canal street’. The man doing the graffiti replies with ‘Who’s Marco?’. The ghost then moves and tell him he’s Marco. For the audiences who have watched previous Men in Black films will understand why it is weird for the man graffiti to see a image on the wall move. But those who aren’t familiar with the film now understand that it isn’t an ordinary film. The sequence contains a consistent shot length which is mid-shots.

The next slide shows agent J getting ready to use the nueraliser. It is a Mid shot of his upper body which emphasises on the nueraliser. Again, for those of the audience who have seen the other films will understand why Will Smith’s character must use the nueraliser. It is because the Men in Black is a secret organisation and so if anyone finds out about it, there memory must be removed of the incident that makes them know about the Men in Black.

The next slide below shows the mid-shot of agent J, but this time he has used the nueriliser on the graffiti man. This to the audience is a common thing for them to see as the nueriliser is used a lot in the Men in Black films. Whilst he is using the nueriliser he says ‘Is it a bit weird a grown man talking to a wall of mess’ and finishes with ‘Don’t worry about it’.

The next slide is a black screen with the production company name on it.

The following slide shows a long shot of a new headquarters for the Men in Black. This shot shows a new headquarters which can only be recognised by audiences that have watched the other films. This shot however doesn’t show a lot with the plot of the film.

The next shot is of agent J at a mid shot at eye level. This allows the audience to see agents J reaction to the next shot below which is a point of view shot of what agent J is looking at. This tells the audience that agent J is unhappy with the result of his search and his facial expressions indicate that he is surprised of the result shown on the screen below.The music used at this stage is a deep heart beep sound which indicates tension of the result on the screen.

The next shot shows a cell being opened by the man on the right in the shot. This is a long shot as we can see nearly everything in the shot. The yellow figure is centred in the frame and so the audience is drawn to the figure which creates a hype around the figure for the audience.

This is the next shot which follows. In this shot, agent K is shown at a eye level angle and mid shot which could mean for the audience and also by his action in the shot, the audience gets the idea that agent K is a bit distort with the weapon in his hand.As this image fades to black a voice over from agent j is heard which states ‘That's not the lie you told me before’This indicates to the audience that there are more secrets and lies within the Men in Black agency.

The next images are of a trunk of a car which is shown in an almost close-up. The trunk then swiftly opens to show all the weapons in the trunk. This again indicates to the audience that the men in black are going to fight again.The sound at this stage is the diegetic sound of the trunk opening.

This is a following frame from the trailer. This frame shows an explosion from a long shot at eye level. This allows the audience to see and grasp how big the explosion is. At this point, the audience can only tell that there is an explosion but don’t know what is exploding.

These stills occur very quickly after a voice over on the phone which say ‘well what other secrets are there’. This voice over is coming from the phone in agent K’s hand. This leads to a series of images which leads to a black still.

This is the black slide which followed the swift collection of the images. This slide just lets the audience understand that the film is going to be released in the summer of this year.

The following frame shows agent J storming into the MIB base from a high angle shot which shows he is distressed or vulnerable at this point.Agent J is only looking for K and the frame after this which is shown below shows the new leader of MIB in a sort of close up at eye level letting agent J know K is dead. Due to the shot angle, the audience knows she is telling the truth.

This black slide follows making the audience question what needs to be answered and causes suspense.

The next clip is a close up as agent J comes out of the square as shown. This shows the audience that not only is agent J quite high up. But he is also scared. Then a birds eye view shot of the empire state building is shown which shows the audience that agent J is at the top of the empire state building so it is a establishing shot.The black out slide at the top right just indicates to the audience this is something he has to do to achieve what he wants to achieve.

The next frames are close ups of the weird watch type machine held by a gentlemen who gives it to agent J which when he clicks, puts a date as shown by the left side image.The music has lifted from the background at this point and the audience would feel as if something big is about to happen.

Agent J is then told to jump by the gentlemen to ‘time jump’. Which leads to the frame to the right which shows a point of view shot of agent J falling. This creates suspense which then leads to the street blacking out and the title of the film appears.The sound is still up beat to try to make the audience more hyped as the title of the film is shown. As the title is shown, the theme song for the MIB is played.

Two close ups of agent J are shown. One from a high angle making him seem weak and as if he didn’t know what had just happened . The second seems to be from a point of view shot as if someone were looking at him. This creates suspense for the audience as they arw wondering who is the person looking at him. Agent J then says K which leads on to the next frame.

As agent J says K, there is a swift cut to a close up of this man on the left which is agent K when he was younger. He responds with ‘How do you know who I am’. This then leads to the end of the teaser trailer which is a black slide which says memorial day and as this slide is shown, the music is the theme tune for the MIB.

Overview The teaser trailer is 1min and 55seconds Has 54 stills 23 scenes