Psychological Thriller Analysis

Memento

Se7en

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Zodiac

Shutter Island

General

- Fast paced action montage creates suspense and a sense of mystery; a lot of L cuts.

- Mixture of voice over and dialogue - we may just use one or the other to create a sense of storyline and mystery.

- Title slides that further the story development could help because we can’t show too much dialogue in case it gives away too much of the plot.

- In all the trailers there were a huge amount of L cuts which makes it easy to link different shots that may have nothing to do with each other.

- Mix of horror genre that allows greater mystery, like shadowy figures in background.

- Very spooky music is used that builds up in tempo throughout the trailer.

- A lot of the time when the final title slide came up, there was always a shot or two afterwards in order to create more mystery or for shock value.

Specific shots

- Shots of camera flashes to show photos being taken we will display the photographs instead of just having the flash.

- Shot of someone’s reflection in a small pool of water allows us to show someone is there but not show their identity.

- Really fast shots that are almost still images collected together in a montage style of editing.

- Shot of film negatives showing suspicious things and a shot of negatives being burned.

- Photographs being burnt.

Starman