These are my handwritten notes while watching the trailer for Red State. I was trying to write down shot-by-shot what we see to help me understand how trailers are constructed. I have also noted the sound used.
The most obvious thing to learn from this exercise is that there are many shots in trailers. We are going to have to storyboard around 60 shots to create the real trailer feel. In this trailer, there is not much sound used - it relies on the track to give it pace and to accent key moments. The only dialogue occurs right at the end. I don't think this is really typical of all trailers, but it does suggest that in an action thriller (our genre) the shots need to speak for themselves and the action needs to be clear even while put together in a very pacey way.
A final key thing I have noticed is that there is no chronological story-telling. This trailer works as a montage of impressions and the audience is left to make their own connections. This is going to be hard for us as we do not have a real film to draw on. So we will have to imagine small scenes in the film that create an impression but don't necessarily carry the plot as well as having an idea of the narrative of the whole film.
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