Analysis of Thriller Film Trailers

The trailer starts off with a birds eye view of a plane flying across a green land, this shot is important because it hints to the audiences that this film is a historical, political thriller. The idea of the birds eye view of the plane, was to make the plane look more dominant over the green land, which gives off a sense of invasion, this signifies to the spectators that the film maybe about war. This targets audiences who are interested in history or study history and maybe old age men's who fought in war.


The first shot than fades in to a long shot of the plane landing, the purpose of this long shot of the plane landing was to allow the spectators to get a view of the land. The low key lighting in this scene create a serious and gloomy mood, this fore shadows that bad events will occur, which makes the audiences feel curious, which is the main purpose of a trailer. The typography which states '1933', is centred in the middle of the shot, the purpose of this is to introduce the era of the film.


It than cut's into a over the shoulder shot/long shot of a crowd of people, the low key lighting in this scene is like film noir from the 1940's to the late 1950's. Film noir is a cinematic term primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime drama's, which signifies to the audiences that this film could be a crime thriller.


Than it cut's into a close up of a man (The lightings has changed), this connotes his importance in this film because it is the first close up shot of a character, which signifies to the spectators that he is our main character as well as our protagonist. The high key lightings in this shot, was to get the spectators to focus on his face expression in order to introduce more about his personality, for example in this shot his face expression seems serious looks a bit sly. At the background of this shot I could denote a man, who is wearing a black hat, the black hat casts shadows on his face, which makes him enigmatic and suspicious. It hints to the spectators that he maybe a antagonist because the colour black signifies evil. I could also denote a wall with measurements for criminals, this connotes to the audiences that our protagonist is in a police station, which signifies to the spectators that our protagonist could be a police or detective. This gives a sense of investigation, which is a convention of a thriller film.





It starts off with a establishing shot of a mountain with a distance building, the mountains is surrounded by mist and the low key lighting makes the whole scene looks eerie and mysterious, which builds tension because a mountain is a very isolated place. The chosen location of a mountain is not a very conventional setting for a thriller film because a thriller film is often set in a urban area like a city to create a sense of reality and normality.


It than fades into a scene, where I denote a long shot of the interior house, the house looks like a traditional Chinese/Japanese house because I denoted a sliding door and a fire torch. This hints to the spectators that this film is based on the Asian culture, which may appeal to audiences that are into martial arts or culture differences.


On 0:59, I could denote typography flying towards the screen like a flying star (weapon which a assassin/ninja use), which states 'betrayal', from this it signifies to the audiences that it is a action thriller and it contains rivalry relationships, which is common in a thriller film because it helps to create tension in a film.


The pace of the trailer also gets faster as the music gets louder, which synchronise with the action in the trailer. This makes the trailer more intense, which draws the audiences attention.






This trailer conforms to the conventions of a thriller film, for example there are sense of investigation, which signify that this is crime/mystery thriller. This could be represented through the characters, for example the narrator stated 'Detective William Sommerset', this hints to the spectators that he is our main character/protagonist. This conforms to the conventions of a thriller film because the spectators always see the from the protagonist perspective (restricted narration), which creates enigma codes and creates tension.

The ticking sound from the piano device to count the bars, continues to the next scene, signify that it is a race against time, which conforms to the conventions of a thriller film because the it helps to build up tension.