Who Is Salt?

RA: Film trailer (Salt)

October 9, 2010

Word Count: 343

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/salt/

1.     1. Argument: Watching the movie Salt, will let you solve a case and figure out who Salt really is.

2.     2. Audience: Young adults and adults who enjoy action movies.

3.     3. Goal: To get the audience to come see the movie Salt.

4.     4. How:

a.     Ethos: By having good actors in this film, including Angelina Jolie and Live Schreiber, the trailer demands attention from the audience.  People are more likely to go see movies with high status actors than movies without them. 

b.     Pathos: This trailer appeals to curiosity of the human mind.  By using the question, “Who is Salt?” the advertiser is pulling at our curiosity and desire to solve problems.  It is a very effective “teaser” that convinces the audience to see the movie, just to figure out the answer.

c.      Sufficient:  The trailer gives just enough evidence to heighten our curiosity, but not enough to deter us from seeing the actual movie.  I think they do an excellent job of showing the action and representing Angeline Jolie as a mysterious “mole” type character.  The sequences of actions and the order in which they were arranged were both thrilling and mysterious, very fitting for this movie.

d.     Typical: While there was sufficient evidence to convince us to go see the movie, some of the film clips were not representative of the film itself.  There were two “risqué” film clips of Angelia in the trailer, but there weren’t any sex scenes in the movie itself.  This may have been just to draw a bigger crowd, but was clearly misrepresentation.  The other clips were pretty representative of the movie.  The trailer, in the choice of film clips, set the audience up for an enemy for the US, rather than a loyal US CIA agent who was framed.  While it was misrepresentation, it heightens the twist in the actually movie itself.

5.     5. Effectiveness: I thought this ad campaign was very effective.  Asking the audience a question about the character drives the audience to find the truth for themselves.  AND I really enjoyed the movie J