Trailer Analysis: Panic Room and The Dark Knight

As research for our project, each one in our group is analysing an existing thriller genre film to achieve some ideas and find out what the typical conventions a thriller genre holds. We can see what works well, & what we like & dislike about the movie. I decided to watch a film called Panic Room. It stars Jodie Foster & Kristen Stewart and was made in 2002. The plot revolves around a recently divorced middle ages woman and her daughter who have just moved into their New York apartment & it is their first night. When burglars break late that night looking for money, the woman & her daughter hide in the panic room upstairs, however money they want is in the panic room.

This film really builds the tension. The entire movie happens one evening in one location.


I also analyzed the trailer. The opening shot is an establishing shot, panning across New York City, which is obviously an extremely busy city and typical for the thriller genre because anything can happen there. Also, the fact that this storyline is set in such a popular & normal place like New York is even more terrifying for the audience because these terrible events can happen anywhere to anyone. At the start there are many fades to black in between each scene which is suitable for the genre. The inside of the New York apartment is introduced to us & we see that it is old fashioned & very large with several floors & almost completely empty as they have just moved in. The emptiness gives the audience an Erie feel & makes the two women in the apartment seem very vulnerable and unprotected. There are lots of stair bannister's in each shot, which symbolise entrapment, which is obviously the major theme in this movie. It also shows irony as the woman says 'its just the two of us' which makes us suspicious and we find out, it is untrue as they are soon joined by 'bad guys.' There is a really interesting camera shot half way through the trailer where the camera zooms out the bedroom door and backwards through the gaps in the bannister's. It ducks and flies down two levels to reveal the silhouette of a masculine character peering through the window. This camera shot demonstrates how far away the characters are from where the 'bad guys' are entering and therefore, how unaware they are. This is a typical thriller convention as we want to know if & when the character will realise they are in danger and if it will be too late. The overall colour palette of the trailer is extremely dreary, many blacks, blues & greys. This is something we must consider in our trailer as it sets the mood very easily. 1 minute into the trailer, slow music starts to play, building the tension that implies something exciting is about to be shown. The exciting bit is played in slow motion, which helps us to gather what exactly is happening, especially in a trailer because it is so short. Suddenly the music gets louder and faster and builds to a climax then abruptly goes silent. This is a typical technique for thriller genres. It ends with diagetic sound of a voice being played over a black & the movie title showing. Narrative structure, iconography and characterisation have been usesd in Panic Room as the narrative structure is organized in the typical way, it starts at the start and takes place over one night. The character conventions are broken because its the woman and the daughter vs. the three guys, but in the end the woman and the daughter win. Also, they are represented as very smart because she works out ways to defeat the men. Similarly, the daughter is not represented as weak, she too atempts at defeating the men.

I really love the way this trailer starts, with each 'boom' of music, a image is shown in time with the sound. This builds suspense, which is released when you see the man jump off the building. This gets off to a quick start and lets you know straight away that it is going to be an exciting thriller. The production company logos etc. are displayed here. The camera angles sweeping the city at the beggining are amazing and set the location perfectly. It then slightly tones down, some more characters being introduced sitting in an office and getting more in depth into plot, next a car is shown crashing through a wall, then the shot goes back to the people in the office. These changes of atmosphere make the exciting scenes appear even more exciting and significant, as they are in short bursts between the less exciting but vital scenes. The appearence of the character 'The Joker' is striking as he looks so unlike anything else, drawing the attention of the audience as they are interested to know more about this unusual creature. The huge explosions demonstrate what is to come in the film, as they are so extreme, and demonstrate that a large budget has been used to fund as well as special effects. The contrast between scenes that show reality and an everyday life such as the people in the restaurant and at a party, and the extreme shots of unrealistic circumstances are interesting, and indicates that these events are occuring in the real world to normal people, which makes the plot easier for the audience to relate to. The music really gets going around halfway through which is when the majority of the exciting thriller scenes are shown, edited in a fairly fast pace for anticipation. Overall this trailer is great at capturing the attention of the audience due to each snippet of an important and shocking scene.