1. PROJECT
A multimodal text analysis of
Avatar first trailer.

2.  A trailer can be considered a specific kind of multimodal
text and, at the same time, an already established genre.
 Texts are meaning-making events whose functions are
defined by their use in particular social contexts. (Halliday)
 Videos are both multimodal and dynamic texts: as they
unfold in time, they display different and constantly varying
constellations of sound, image, gesture, text and language.
(Baldry and Thibault)
 Finally, video texts are organised on a number of different
scalar levels such as visual transitivity frames, shots, phases
and macrophases.

3.  What is the main purpose of a trailer?
 Apart from being a mere presentation of a film, a trailer is a
commercial item: indeed, its main target is to sell a product.
 Thus, a trailer is a particular kind of advertisement and it
presents a specific set of features, such as:
 selection of meaningful impact images.
 use of a language which is never neutral but it is always
object of commercial manipulation by the mass media.
 high degree of thematic compression : the meaning
compression principle (it refers to the effect of the interaction
of smaller scalar semiotic resources on higher scale levels,
where meaning is observed and interpreted).

4.  In addition to this, in our trailer we can find an interesting
example of advertisement strategy.
In fact, the only time we hear a character speaking is when
the protagonist exclaims: “This is great”.
 In our opinion, the choice of this particular statement might be
a subtle way to promote the film as a commercial product.
 Indeed, the appreciation may refer both to the context of the
story and to the film itself. For these reasons, the statement
can be considered “defictionalised”.
 However, we have to consider that trailers are a kind of
advertising texts typical of our Western culture, following
Malinowski’s idea of “context of culture”.

5.  As we said before, a trailer is a multimodal text.
 Multimodal texts are composite products of the combined
effects of all the resources used to create and interpret them.
 As regards the trailer structure, its basic units are:
 Phase: “ Phases are text analytical units in terms of
which the text as a whole can be segmented and analysed.
They are the basic strategic meaning-making units in a film
text.” (Gregory)
 Transitions between phases are not always clear cut.
Anyway, they generally coincide with a change or a break in
music, speech, body movement or cutting between shots.
 Shots: A shot is defined as a filmed visual sequence in
which there is no spatial displacement of the camera.
 A “textual hyper-Theme” is an introductory shot whose
function is to predict a particular pattern of thematic
development in successive shots.

6.  According to the resource integration principle, “multimodal
texts combine and integrate the meaning-making resources of
various semiotic modalities: language, gesture, movement,
visual images, sound and so on.” (Baldry and Thibault)
 As regards the “meaning compression principle”, a trailer
presents as a fundamental feature, a very high degree of
thematic compression.
 Besides being a set of chosen images of the film it shows an
evident example of meaning potential.

7.  Usually the basic units of a video text are linked to each
other according to relations of interdependency which
concern questions of temporal, logical and causal
sequence.
 These relations also have to do with the semiotic
resources of logical metafunctions.
 By the way, in the case of our trailer, this logical and
sequential unity is far from being respected. In fact, in
this trailer the difference shots do not follow the
chronological order of the film plot, and, as a result,
textual coherence and cohesion are clearly broken.

8.  In a video text specific colours may have a special salience or
significance in relation to other features of the visual field with
which they are integrated.
 Generally speaking, advertisements tend to prefer the
saturated colours typical of the sensory/sensual coding
orientation, along with an appeal to the hyperreal world of our
dreams, desires and fantasies.
 In our Avatar trailer, the dominant colour is blue like the skin of
the native aliens of planet Pandora and this may suggest a
sense of dream-like imaginary.
 Moreover, we can notice a chromatic contrast between nature
represented by blue and the artificiality of soldiers and
machines represented by grey.

15.  In a video text bodily movement is not simply a passive movement in
the geometric space. Rather, it is a meaning-making resource.
 A movement is usually performed by a participant in relation to some
other participant. Locomotory and gestual movements of the
participants in the text are integrated to the overall rhythmic
structure of the text itself.
 In fact, some important elements such as soundtrack and camera
movements are synchronised with the participants movement to
achieve this goal.
 In the text we also have to consider the spatial conditions in which
the movement occurs, such as: the directionality of the movement,
the orientation of the movement relative to the viewer and the
position of the participant(s) involved in the movement in the video
screen.

16.  In visual texts another fundamental meaning-making resource
is gaze. Gaze includes different functions such as:
 Transitivity frame: It is a functional semiotic unit in which
the relations among participants, processes and
circumstances are realised in gaze.
 Gaze vector: The visual focus of a given participant may
establish a gaze vector with another participant. This vector
may also serve to define a relationship of affiliative motivation
between participants.

17.  The gaze vector of the participant may also extend to some
indeterminate point outside the visual field of the screen, in
order to suggest a monitory function, a sense of readiness or
expectation.

18.  Direct eye contact: Textual participants who look directly
at the viewer may simulate an interactive and
interpersonal relation with him.

19.  In our Avatar trailer, soundtrack plays an essential role in the meaning-
making process.
 In video texts sounds events interact with each other on the soundtrack
and, as a result, they constitute a dialogic relationship with the listener.
 In this trailer the acoustic flux of the soundtrack is clearly ascending.
This ascending rhythm is linked to the progressively increasing
dynamism of the shots which present action scenes.
 This growing pitch reaches its climax with the growling of the creature
attacking the protagonist. On the contrary, the following shot could be
considered an anticlimax as it shows a romantic and quiet scene
underlined by the fading music.
 So, the general rhythm structure of the soundtrack may suggest a
sense of increasing suspense and expectation remarked by the
absence of dialogues.

20.  Finally, another important resource of multimodal texts is Intertextuality.
 In fact, in Avatar story, we can notice many thematic similarities with the
classic American tale of Pocahontas and her love for captain John
Smith.
 Indeed, Avatar deals with the conquest of a “New World” by a civilised
people and the love story between a member of the native inhabitants
and a soldier who, in the end, chooses to defend the oppressed against
his own companions.

21.  3D Technology could be considered a new proxemic resource
in modern films.
 According to Gibson, when we have moving images projected
onto a screen [...] the field of view of the camera becomes the
optic array of the viewer.
 This specific optic array is delimited, because it is confined in
the frame.
 On the contrary, everything we can see around us is to be
considered ambient optic array.
 In this sense, 3D tries to combine ambient and delimited in
order to make the audience feel more involved into the world
of the film.