Shutter Island

 

Director: 

Martin Scorsese
Drama set in 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding nearby. 

- At the start of the trailer you are introduced to the main character and also different type of characters such as the antagonist and protagonist.

- Shot of a sign saying 'restricted area' suggest to the audience that the environment is controlled

- Scenes from boats also suggest that the environment is out of reach or help, due to the name of the film also gives this away.

- Main character is dressed in clothing that looks like an investigator, this gives you the impression of this as he is wearing glasses, Puggaree type of hat and also a long coat, his body language and facial expressions also suggest this as he always looks at people suspicious and has his hands in his pockets most of the time.

- Police officers greet them at the island, again suggest that it’s a controlled environment and that everyone obeys the law

- Weapons are handed over, this may connote to the audience that death may be a factor within the film

- Non dietetic sound of a scream may connote to the audience that people are dying or are in need of help

 

- Weapon is seen under a foot, within this scene you also have a voice over 'murdered people in some cases' and then a scream after which may suggest that people are being tortured or in need of help

- Throughout the trailer the voice over seems to be between clips that are edited together even though you may not see anything on screen, text is also used as a voice over as well

 

- Tattoo on a characters back who is in a prison cell has a tattoo of Jesus, this may signify hope

- Main character talks to another character dressed in dark clothing which connotes a mysterious character

- Close up of a book which is written in capitals 'RUN' this gives us more mystery and gives a more of an insight of the plot which makes the audience want to continue watching

- Close up shot of a man’s face with stitches adds a bit of gore which is a convention of a horror genre

- The trailer gives you an insight of the themes within the genre such as psychological as scenes of people locked up suggest that the people are mentally ill

- Quick cuts within the editing of the trailer are parallel to the music

- They portray the mystery of the trailer as they show clips throughout the film, the mystery creates a link back to the genre

- Throughout the trailer the music gets louder and the clips or shots start to get faster

- Music throughout the trailer is calm which then gets more of a high pitch and picks up a rapid pace which is high tension music, this is a convention of a psychological genre

- The use of flashbacks is used at the end of the trailer

- Flashbacks within the trailer at 1.59 - 2.03 signifies the sense of time and is used to confuse the audience, this is a convention of thriller as it gives the audience an insight of why the characters are behaving of which connotes to the audience that they are not mentally stable

- At the end of the trailer you have the editing going at a fast pace with different clips getting faster which you can see at 1.52-2.00, this signifies the shock and fear as this is used within scenes that are 'thrilling'

- Low level of lighting used throughout the trailer

- Characters within prison cells gives you an insight of the elements of horror and psychological genre put together as the characters within the environment such as the island itself is in a confined space and uses low level of lighting within some scenes which suggests phobia's such as claustrophobia, this is something that the audience may not realize at first 

Links 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130884/

Frozen

The trailer starts with three friends, to male and one female who are the main characters throughout the trailer. They are 3 good friends as the two male characters have a laugh with one another, they seem to be enjoying the snow slopes and skiing At the start of the trailer you have the main female character talking to a male character of which she is trying to get her male friends on the chairlifts. Within this shot you have a shot of the two characters talking with a machine in front of the shot which seems to be moving. This signifiers the audience that something bad is going to happen, with the machine not in focus it may also signify to the audience that the characters in the trailer are not oblivious to it. Diegetic sounds of machines turning also signifies to the audience that something bad is going to happen.

Within the trailer you have cuts to the titles between a couple of clips, the titles of the trailer have an effect of snow around it which gives the impression to the audience that the environment is cold, this may also give the audience an idea of what the mood of the characters will be like because of the environment they are in.

Between each clip you have titles which seem to cut fast to the titles and then back to the clip again giving it a fast pace to the trailer, this may connote the audience that the situation will happen fast. 

The titles between each clip throughout the trailer gives you a documentary style as few of the titles such as 'with over 30 million skiers and snowboarders in the US' and also 'over 5,000 chairlifts in operation' These titles are giving you facts throughout the trailer of which gives you an impression that the trailer is filmed in a documentary style.

The setting of the trailer is what you would find in thrillers and horror, the setting in the trailer involves a derelict place which connotes to the audience that they may soon need help of which is not there because of them being high up in the chair lifts.

Subverting

For our film trailer we have decided to go with a thriller genre. Although we are going with the genre of thriller, we are also going to combine it with a sub-genre physiological. We will subvert our trailer by following the Antagonist rather than the protagonist throughout the trailer. Films such as Batman always follow the hero, in this case we came up with the idea of following the villain as you don't see the joker in the batman film as much as the hero.

Another unique idea to subvert our trailer is that the main character will be a young girl, this is unique and not often seen in films or trailers which is another idea of how we will subvert our trailer.

The story line of our trailer will be about a young girl who doesn't lead a happy life, her parents are very strict and sometimes mean to her of which her life is miserable. The young girl is sent to the attic to go and get something but stumbles across an old radio which catches her attention. Playing around with the radio she comes across and radio station of an old man speaking, the old man is speaking about depression and leading a hard life of which he asks people to phone up and offer help or talk about people’s problems. The young girl rings the radio station up and start to talk to the man she heard on the radio, she starts to talk about her problems at home, after talking to the man on the radio station for a long period of time she becomes to feel better about herself. Although the girl doesn't have many friends, she feels like this man she is talking to is her only friend and is talking to him every day. Her parents, especially her mom notices something different about her daughter. The young girl will not communicate with anyone and is aggressive, her mom is worried and starts to think what is wrong with her. She notices that her daughter has an old radio and is on the phone more often than usual, her mom demands to give her the phone, after a lot of commotion to get the phone off her daughter she finally gets the phone off her and speaks to the person on the phone but fins that no one is on the other end. Her mom asks her who it was but no answer from her daughter. The mom starts to think of why she has this strange behaviour, her mom decides to put her attention to the radio, the mom takes it down stairs away from her daughter without her realizing, she tries to find the radio station that her daughter has been listening to. After great effort she finds the same voice of the man on the radio station and research the address of the radio station. Her mom goes out the next day to find that the address is an abandoned building on its own. Where is the radio station? Who is this man on the radio station? Could all this be inside her daughters head? 

The Cabin in the Woods

 

The trailer starts off with five characters who are excited to go on a trip. All characters can be linked to stereotypes such as the blonde woman, in many horrors or thrillers the blonde one is normally the dumb one as a stereotype, in this trailer the character comes across as a 'tart' as she seems to be around a male character all the time and her body language is different around them. Another character within the trailer is the male with glasses has a bit of attitude but also can be classed as the smart one within the group because of the stereotype look as he wearing big black glasses. Another female character within the film is known as the innocent character as she doesn't seem to socialize with the group that much. Finally the last male character comes across as a strong muscular man and could also come across as a 'ladies’ man' as he is always standing by one of the female characters.

At the start of the trailer you have a happy or cheerful mood to due the parallel sound of music in the background which changes throughout the trailer which then creates a different mood and also in different situations throughout the trailer. At the start of the trailer you have incidental music with also clips of their friends starting out on a trip in there camper-van. The timbre of the parallel sound is smoothing of which gives you the mood of the group, with the music playing and the clips of them setting off, it gives the audience a sense of felling that everything is okay or jolly. The music then changes to a more mysterious sound as the music is very slow but with sharp and quick high pitch sounds which makes the mood a bit dull and gives you a sense of danger. This may connotes to the audience that the mood is changing and something dangerous is heading there way. This type of music is what you would expect from a thriller genre, although the genre of the trailer is thriller it also has a sub-genre of horror which you would expect death which may be linked to the sense of danger, thrillers are normally violent and out the ordinary.

Within the trailer are in different colours of lighting in different settings. The further they travel as they are going in different environments, the darker it is in scenes which signify to the audience the passage of time has progressed as the trailer has gone on.

One of the scenes in the trailer (0.49) you have the male character with attitude notices a mirror with his friend on the other side. This suggests to the audience that the environment they are in is very odd as you don't expect to have a mirror like this which is out the ordinary and may also suggest to the audience that the cabin carries secrets of which the characters are not oblivious to.

Throughout the trailer you have the titles, the titles are coloured yellow from the start, when the group of friends set off and get to derelict places such as the gas station, the titles of the trailer got to a different colour of red which signifies to the audience that danger is approaching and also death, this also makes it obvious to the audience as when the colour of the title is changing colour gradually, things start to go wrong.

At one part of the trailer you have four of them who seem to be trapped, the muscular character says that we should stick together. A couple seconds later you have a close up of his face which seems to have an edited effect which makes his face fuzzy, he says to the group again 'we should split up'. His opinion has change very quickly. This connotes to the audience that the characters are being controlled or handled within the cabin but without them knowing about it. This is where it gives you a taste of the thriller genre as it’s a mystery of who is controlling them. Throughout the trailer you have different settings such as the gas station and the woods. These are places that are derelict which you would find in horror or thriller genres.

Introduction of my Blog

Hello I'm Craig Fallows and welcome to my A2 media blog, I attend King Edward VI Sheldon Heath Academy Sixth Form which I am now in year 13 which is my final year. This year I am doing A2 of media studies, over the course of my final year at King Edward VI Sheldon Heath Academy Sixth Form I hope to achieve an overall C or above at the end of media studies which I feel confident to aim for. Within this second year of media studies I will be creating a trailer with my group Lauren Powell and Ryan Rheeston.