OPENINGThe opening establishes the setting both visually and acoustically as being in a small town: Portland, Oregon, USA. The trailer’s setting revolve around the main characters home, school and music venues. The trailer introduces the main character very briefly in the beginning and focusses primarily on the secondary character: Adam, the love interest of the central protagonist.

BUILD UP: RELATIONSHIPSThe relationships are then established, mainly between the central protagonist (Mia) and the love interest (Adam). The relationships between her and her parents are also established, revealing that they have very different characters. Her parents being very extroverted, meanwhile Mia being very introverted, as shown in the screen grabs below. The character of the ‘best friend’ is also established when they’re not only shown sitting next to each other at a family dinner but also talking at school about the main characters love interest.

BUILD UP: CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT The main character, Mia, is then further developed via different shots of her and her voice as the narrative: ‘Here I am, Mia, the girl who thinks about the cello’ (1.15). This subsequently conforming to the typical narrative structure of trailers. The secondary character, Adam, is also further developed as he’s described as ‘already being somebody’ (0.39)

PROBLEM The problem or dilemma that is often conveyed in trailers that the central protagonist has to overcome, in ‘If I Stay’ is a fatal car crash, in which the central protagonist is involved in. In this car accident, the central protagonists family are severely hospitalised, as is she. However, Mia is shown to be having an out of body experience, in which she can see and know everything that is going on with her family and her own body and eventually has to decide between staying or leaving. Which is ultimately the choice between life or death.

EVENTS During the trailer, it is revealed by the narrative, that if Mia wakes up, the she’ll be ‘waking up an orphan, if she wakes up’ (1.40). This provides as another obstacle the central protagonist must overcome. More decisions are displayed by on screen text, addressing the audience but from the perspective of the central protagonist: ‘If I could change that moment’ (1.47), ‘If he waits for me’ (1.58), ‘If I wake up’ (2.07).

RESOLUTION AND ENDING The resolution and ending is left a mystery, as trailers are meant to entice people to watch the full film. If the trailer revealed, essentially a condensed version of the film, then nobody would watch it. Revealing the ending of the film within the trailer would be ineffective.