Adhering to the genre:
- opening mid-shot with camera panning of the shadowed man walking through what seems to be a car-repairs shop whilst smoking - quite common in many crime/thrillers to open with what seems to be the antagonist or his 'boss', with his voice over narrating an integral part of the story.
- This slow walk is effective as it is split in between a montage of both the main characters (Damon & Di Caprio - Bankable Actors) with the narration over the top - common convention in many Crime/Thriller trailers is to employ the use of a montage to highlight the narration and to convey that to the audience.
- The fast pace editing in this opening sequence instantly brings the audience into the action and suggests a lot about the film. Most trailers of this type start with an incident or some sort of action before moving onto stage two, which is setting up who the characters are and then moves onto stage three, which is the actors dealing with the problem.
- The close up, side-angle shot is extremely effective as it instantly informs the audience of the style of the film and suggests that death will occur on a regular basis.
- Much of this trailer is set in darker, more gritty environments, which suggest a lot about the film. It is important to define how you are going to depict the world of crime in the trailer and it is clearly defined as something less glamorous in this particular trailer (contrasts to Hummingbird, which shows crime to be more glamorous).
- Close up shots of both bankable actors is a clever technique to create a larger audience as it puts the focus of the trailer itself on them. The first time we see Damon's character he is in prison, which tells us a lot about his character (He's a cop however). We have to wait a long time to first see Nicholson's face, which again suggests and connotes a lot about his character and his importance (why did they make us wait? - must be important). This is something we would like to replicate in our trailer (suggesting facts about certain characters, through length of time on camera, their situation, where they are placed on screen) - weighting is used well in this trailer to suggest a heir-achy of importance amongst the different characters - or to draw the attention of the audience to a certain person or even object, such as the gun, which at certain points is the only object visible on the screen.
- fade to darkness with Nicholson's face smiling was a powerful image that stuck in the memory - something we would again like to replicate and an idea we would like to use and develop upon.
- Sound-bridge used after revealing the production company (again after first sequence, which is common in almost every thriller trailer) - Sound-Bridge is effective as the noise of the police speaking over the top creates tension as we cannot see what is going on.
- Big names introduced before final sequence and then title of film - important to name all the bankable actors for the audience.
- Fast paced editing throughout except when on the antagonist (Nicholson) - draws attention to his character.
- production company - director - actors - title of film - conventional way most thriller trailers are presented - action is in-between these moments - dark beginning, setting up the film, action part to draw audience attention.
- As aforementioned big name stars given a lot of time on the screen - larger audience.
- classic trailer music in the background - big budget, high production values, gives a comedic effect to the film (almost slapstick at points as though they are satirising).
- the whole trailer is similar to that of a montage - lots of clips from throughout the actual film put together to suggest the storyline but not give too much away. The audience know the story but are not informed of too much - something we would like to replicate as we do not want to create a trailer that basically shows the whole film in 2 minutes.
- clear that cops are going undercover - again we want to make our trailer clear and too the point, without revealing too much.
No comments:
Post a Comment