The Hangover was a comedy released in 2009 and directed by Todd Phillips, who's made such films as Road Trip and School of Rock and to this date is the 3rd most successful comedy's of all time by grossing $467.4 million dollars. The film also won an Oscar for best comedy of 2009. Stars include Braddley Cooper, Ed Helmes, Zack Galifianakis and Justin Barrtha. The film had a budget of $35,000,000 and made $44,979,319 on opening weekend thus reflecting the films success.
The plot revolves around 4 characters all opposites who are going a stag (bachelor party) in Vegas but of course things go out of hand as they they wake up to a trashed hotel room only to find that they are in all sorts of trouble including losing their friend Doug the groom one day before the wedding. At the risk of stopping the wedding the 3 must work together to remember what they'd done the night before and ultimately find their friend before the wedding.
The type of trailer I am analysing is the teaser trailer (which is different from most trailers because) The role of a teaser trailer is to give the audience a preview of what to expect by introducing the setting, characters and narrative In the first opening seconds of trailer the institutions credits are briefly presented to the audience. This is a usual convention in film trailers and shows the studios affiliated with the film. In this case its Warner Brothers is the company associated with this project. 
After the 7 second mark the audience is presented with a long shot which shows the 3 characters and within the scene reveals the plot to the audience. After this an inter textual title screen is used which says two days earlier which takes the audience back in time to see some of the events that lead up to the first scene. A voice over is also used briefly within the first 30 seconds of the trailer. The voice over is used to explain how none of the characters have any knowledge of the night before, thus creating this problem before the characters that they must overcome,which in turn relates to Todorov's Narrative theory as the trailer starts at an equilibrium but when they lose their friend the problem becomes a disequilibrium.
The Hangover trailer follows is using soundtracks to connotate the adventure the character are about to go on, and also pumps up the audience and encourages to go on on this thrill ride by watching the film. An example of sound is used between 20-30secs of the trailer with use of a heavy metal soundtrack. and then again at the end of the trailer.
A convention used withing the trailer is a title card which has the purpose of revealing the title of the trailer, however strangely despite being used its not inserted at the end of the trailer but instead about 3/4's of the way through the trailer, with the addition of a comedy sketch with Mike Tyson (famous boxer) being used at the end of trailer, which shows the audience that the film can afford sporting celebrities, and furthermore encourages boxing fans to go and watch the film.
By the end of the trailer I believe the trailer achieves in what it sets out to do as it gives the audience this adrenaline rush and a second hand experience of what the characters have gone through,but most of all leaves the audience wanting more i.e. what happened to Doug? and what else occurred that night?
Posters
Here is the official poster released in cinemas across the globe. As you can see the main image consists of the three main characters and a baby. Braddley Cooper's character Phil (the one in the middle) seems to be the leader of the gang despite being at the back he is dead central also indicating that he's more aware of his surroundings. The character Stu positioned on the right is clenching a towel and pointing to a gap in his mouth where his tooth should be indicating to the audience that he may have lost his tooth indicating an enigma (Barths Theory) Creating the question why is he missing a tooth?, thus encouraging the audience to watch the film and find out. In terms of his facial expression he seems dazed and confused much like a person would if they'd had a hangover.Finally the character on the left Alan seems really easy going despite his serious face expression. This is mainly due to his long hair and beard. Out of the 3 main characters Alan is the only one wearing sun glasses creating the impression that he's trying to look cool to the audience. The baby in the foreground is used as a comedic prop as the baby also wears sun glasses to add further humour to Alan's character and further adds to the comedic effect. In addition the audience will want to find out the importance of the baby by watching the film.
Another convention in which this poster follows is by having the title "Hangover" as the biggest and boldest text on the page. The text is in the style of a neon light that you'd find in Vegas, which relates to the setting which is in fact Las Vegas. Below the title institution credits are present displaying the institutions responsible for creating the film, and further below this is the release date, which says "Feel it June 5" the sentence feel refers back to the Title "Hangover" as it implies the audience will feel this bodily experience if they watch the film.Finally There is a Tag line "Some guys just can't handle Vegas" Indicating the misfortune the characters will go through. In addition to the text on the poster the title the "Hangover" is the biggest font on the page, which is conventional as on most if not all poster the title of the film is the biggest text on the poster. Above the tagline there is a reference to the director eventhough no name is mentioned the only thing metioned is that they've directed "old school" which I'm guessing is a good film and will attract fans of the director to see the hangover also A billing block has also been used on this poster, which is the chunk of thin small text, which states any companies involved in the film. This is common on most trailers as it fills any negative space on the poster. Strangely their is mention of box office stars on this poster probably because they're not A-list actors, however if they were there would be medium sized text of the actors name, which would encourage fans of the actors to see the film.
Overall I believe this poster succeeds in grabbing the attention of the audience with a balance of clever text and ambiguous image.
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