The first trailer I watched was for 12 Years a Slave. (dir Steve Mcqueen, 2013) This film is based on a true story and chronicles the life of Solomon Northrup, who is sold into slavery in the pre Civil War US. Intertitles are used in this trailer to reveal the director of the film, the production companies as well as the cast. They also draw attention to the fact that the film is based on a true story. This provides a unique selling point for the film as it is a story relatively untold before that will give the audience a new insight into the events of the slave trade in the US.
Intertitles are primarily used for providing a sense of structure to the film and also assist in highlighting key elements of the trailer, be they the plot of a film or who is involved in it. The intertitles of 12 Years a Slave use a font reminiscent of handwriting in order to convey the time in which the film as set as well as its basis on a written memoir by Solomon Northrup (the protagonist of the film)
I used the inspiration of researching how intertitles are used to script my own intertitles, myself and Matt wrote down what our intertitles are and added these through transitions in our film. The intertitles we used include: "Virtual Walrus Productions presents", "From the critically acclaimed director of Home", "On 28th May", "Tom Richards", "Eoin Fahey" and "how can you fight what you can't understand?". These intertitles include the film's production company, its release date and the key people that star in the film in order to generate hype with the audience.
