Trailer Deconstruction - Nightcrawler:

After watching Nightcrawler and reviewing it in this blog post, I felt it would be a good idea to analyse the teaser trailer and look at what made it successful to see if it would give us any inspiration for our trailer.



I really liked the trailer and thought it outlined the film without giving too much away, the use of quick shots along with the voice-over and non diegetic music built up the tension and I can say personally it intrigues the audience and draws them in. Some shots I found interesting are below.

(00:00 - 00:04) "Green band  - rating card"
~ typical convention of a trailer - lets the audience know who the target audience is

(00:06) "Production Companies"
~ typical convention of a trailer which goes at the beginning

(00:07 - 00:11)
~ opening scenes are establishing shots of the city at night, hinting at the setting of the film

(00:12 - 00:14)
~ close up of the side of his face, which makes his eye stand out

(00:15 - 00:18)

~ overhead shot of the car turns into a tracking shot as the camera goes behind - the car plays an important part of the film as a lot of scenes, particularly dialogue between Lou and Rick take place in the car, due to its use to get them to incidents quickly

(00:20 - 00:23)
~ this low angled tilting shot starting at the camera and moving downwards towards the strange expression on his face shows the intensity of what he is doing, the contrast between the dark night sky and then the light on his pale face makes it even more creepy

(00:34)
~ quite simple typography in a bright blue colour, stating approximately when the film will be released

(00:52)
~ as mentioned earlier, this is from one of the conversations with Rick in the car, again I liked how big his eyes are as it just adds to his creepiness

(00:53)
~ this is a middle shot of Lou looking directly at the camera, this means the audience are instantly drawn to him and he's almost talking to them directly

(00:54)
~ mentions the name of the lead actor to get people's attention and also the fact that he has been nominated for an award to highlight the success of the actor and therefore the film - in the same style as before in terms of font and colour

(00:55)
~ this shot is to show the other side of Lou when he is trying to make an impact at the TV station, this will seem weird and unusual to the audience as they have been so used to seeing his serious face and when he smiles or laughs like this it comes across as unnerving

(00:59 - 01:01)
~ this series of shots again show how far he is going to achieve the perfect footage, his obsessiveness with filming accidents has gone so deep that he actually moves the corpse just to get a better angle for the video

(01:02)
~ again this shot is similar to before as he is looking directly into the camera, talking to the audience only, these shots are only used in the trailer to appeal to the potential viewer that they should see the film

(01:06)
~ this is a shot of Lou when he's being interrogated by the police, all through the interview he remains calm and confident that he is innocent and then as he looks to the camera, the audience sense the feeling of cockiness and that he knows exactly what he is doing

(01:14)
~ this over the shoulder shot demonstrates the chaotic side of Lou that he usually keeps hidden but he lashes out and ends up shattering the mirror, the anger that clearly comes through is once again a shock to the audience as he is usually so calm and collected

(01:15)
~ this close up of Lou and his camera is a complete contrast to the previous shot as we can see here that he is calmly focused on filming

(01:19 - 01:24)
~ this clip comes after the big build up and it is simply Lou looking up into the camera, acting like a newsreader and then smiling but again it puts the audience on edge as there just seems to be something not right psychologically with him

(01:25 - 01:29)
~ name of the film - consistent in the use of typography

(01:30)
~ finishes off with the actual release date and social media links

Sound and Music:

• The diegetic sound used is a combination of clips of Lou talking in the film and him doing an off-screen voice-over although he sometimes it will be on-screen as he directly looks at the camera
•  Lou is the only one who talks during the trailer, even though he is the protagonist it still hints at his controlling personality and that he feels like he needs to be in charge of everything
• Diegetic sound effects are used for impact such as the sound of the car crash and the car engine
• Repeats the line "you have to make the money to buy a ticket" five times, which gradually builds up so by the 5th time he is shouting and it coincides with the mirror image of him screaming above, this should be linked to the idea that he believes people need to work hard to get success and 
• The voice-over resembles a monologue, with Lou introducing himself to the audience using rhetorical questions ("Who am I?") and describing his personality maybe to a potential employer
• The trailer opens with regular beats which continue mostly throughout the trailer, they set a precedent for the trailer and along with the speed of the editing that gradually increases. After "this fall", another sound joins in and then a combination of the beats and mechanical whirring sounds build up the tension until the final moment where it suddenly goes to silent and a silent clip of Lou is shown before the beats come back in quietly for the title

Personally, I think this is similar to how we want our trailer to be although ours is based on two protagonists rather than one. As it is a teaser trailer we need the tension to build up, including the use of non-diegetic music as we aren't having any dialogue, although I do like the way the clip of him acting like a newsreader is placed afterwards with no sound as a contrast to the loud music seconds beforehand as it calms everything down before the title comes up with quieter, more gentle music yet still repetitive. We are hoping that the gradual introduction of the Polaroid shots along with the repeated flashing of them at the end will build up until the slow calm shot of the 2015 Polaroid, which links together all the the hints that have been shown throughout to possibly reveal the plot of the film.

Nightcrawler Research:

After a recommendation from Miss Hegley, I went to see Nightcrawler on Thursday at Odeon Cinema.
I went into the film not knowing what it was about, apart from the comments from our teacher that our protagonist is similar to Jake Gyllenhaal's character but enjoyed it immensely and came out with three pages full of notes! I can see how our two films would be similar even though ours is a psychological thriller and Nightcrawler is more of a crime drama/thriller.

• The framing in a lot of the shots was important - it was clear that Lou was the main focus of the film and so he was the thing that the audience were always drawn to first in each shot
• His eyes particularly intrigued me - they were always large and unblinking which adds to his level of creepiness and also adds to the psychological effect - his facial expressions were mostly serious and he was quite stern-faced, during conversations he would be staring quite intensely and any time he smiled or laughed (such as when he greeted all the TV employees warmly) seemed unusual and different because the audience was so used to his serious state
• The music used throughout the film was dramatic and tension-building but always sounded eerie which puts the audience (certainly me) on edge, sometimes it was fast-paced and loud otherwise it would be more subtle, by using a piano or more orchestral instruments like violins however it was constant which added to the psychological impact on the audience
• His appearance was suggestive of a controlling, manipulative, psychotic personality, including his neat, gelled hair, the pale face, the sunglasses that he often used to cover up his big eyes (as I mentioned before), he often wore clean, typically "normal" clothing - nothing out of the ordinary which would raise awareness to the public of his mind - such as a crisp, white shirt and tie with dark trousers and sometimes a more casual jacket
• His voice is also an important part of the film - he speaks eloquently, which makes him sound more formal and respected, he also sounds like he can be trusted, especially when he's lying as it comes naturally to him and he can smoothly cover it up - he used complex language to confuse and then control Rick, often blackmailing him and absolving himself of any blame and putting it onto Rick
• A majority of the scenes are at night (hence the name - Nightcrawler - someone who is socially active at night) which adds to the dark and creepy feeling that is present throughout the whole film, there was a tilt shot as he was holding the camera above his head and as it revealed his pale face it was evident how he obsessive he had become about this job and how much pleasure it gives him when he gets "the perfect shot" 
• At times, his dominance and assertiveness comes through when he is desperate to get his way and this can often be seen as quite aggressive - when he was talking to Nina, he shows off his intelligence and his good memory to try and be more persuasive - this is proved when he covers his tracks and makes it seem like he was trying to help when he was obtaining the footage in the mansion
• The shot of him screaming into and then breaking the mirror was unnerving to watch as it was a complete contrast from the rest of the film - his anger comes through in a way the audience aren't used to seeing as normally he is calm and almost emotionless even if he is annoyed or upset - to me it seemed like he was possessed as it was completely unexpected and a change of character
• The car chase seemed to me like an important part of the film as this was where it dawned on the audience how far he had come since that first incident where he was more innocent, naive and also inexperienced - he is clearly too focused on the chance to get footage and doesn't react to the two other cars crashing although the loud diegetic sounds used made it more clear to the audience - his obsessiveness often comes through, he repeatedly instructs Rick on "steady hands" wanting his footage to be perfect - the fact that he has no compassion or respect for the victims, filming close ups of their bodies literally minutes after they've died or even going so far as to move the corpse to get a better shot - shows his attention to detail and focus on the job and also he isn't affected by the sight emotionally which dehumanises him 
• "I can't jeopardise my company's success" - again this quote shows how important this business is that he's created all by himself and how much it actually means to him - it has literally become his life and he was willing to lead his assistant into a trap (risking his life) just to get the shot 
• The ending hugely contrasts with the beginning, showing how he has built up into being in control by having more employees and two vans (a reference to previous competition who told him how its easier to cover more area with two squads) and also to how easily he is making himself and his company a success with nobody realising the depths he had to go to 

I feel like our killer would be extremely similar to Lou as for example they both have enough confidence and know they will get away with their plans - homeless teenagers wouldn't be noticed if they went missing as usually nobody is looking out for them and he would have to be clever to get away with it smoothly.

Overall I feel like Nightcrawler has given me a lot of inspiration on what to do with our own teaser trailer and especially how to use sound and music to build tension subtly as that is an area in which we are struggling in at the moment.

Creating time lapses

Time-lapse photography is a technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than that used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing. We decided to use time lapses in our film tailer as it is a good way to establish the location. We wanted to have some time lapse shots of some icnonic London locations so that the audeince can easily tell the setting for example we have a time lapse shoton the Golden Jubilee bridge with the houses of paliment and the river thames in the background. To create time lapses you have to film in one location for a long period of time and then speed it up during the editing.



Initially we sped up the footage x8 but we found that this made the people waling along the bridge go by to fast and this made our footage look quite jumpy and not very smooth which looked not professional. Instead we conformed the speed and kept reducigng it gradually at each side so that it would speed up slowly and we could therefore decide which was the fastest we could make it to see the people walking past without it looking jumpy. We then cut the footage so that we used the best parts to create the shots and not include any unitentional shaky-ness.

For the sound we were not able to use the original sounds which the camera recorded beceause you could hear the camera auto-foucusing so we had to silence the footage and then find sound effects od a crowd which we could lay over our footage to make it look realistic.

Shooting Script - 16th Nov 2014

With our group's busy schedule, it has been hard to find a day when we are all free so we realised that we only really needed two of us to film the final shots of the killer up London and in Megan's house. We also need to re-film the shots of the Polaroids with better mise en-scene but that will depend on how long it will take to film the other shots.

Date: Sunday 16th November 2014

Time: 2.45pm - 5.30pm (approx)

Locations: 

Leake Street, Waterloo

Mepham Street, Waterloo

Megan's house, New Eltham

Meet: 2-30pm at Waterloo East Station

People: 

Hayley Tibbs

Megan Tee

Martin Tee (Dad)

Things to bring: 

Camera (Megan)

Tripod (Megan)

Storyboard (Hayley)

Killer's costume - Overcoat, umbrella

Polaroids (Hayley)

Outline of footage to be filmed:

Various establishing shots of killer in street and as approaching girl.

Killer sitting in living room, looking at book and turning off radio

Various close-ups of killer

(if time)

Close up of Polaroids