Trailer Analysis #1: Shutter Island

Shutter Island is a 2010 film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Production started in March 2008. Shutter Island was originally slated to be released on October 2, 2009, but Paramount pushed the release date to February 19, 2010.  The film is set in 1954 where two U.S. marshals investigate the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane on an island in Massachusetts. They run into trouble when they are deceived by the hospital's chief administrator, a hurricane hits, and an inmate riot traps them on the island.

The extended trailer for this film can be viewed on the video embedded below. 

When I first watched the trailer it was clear straight away what the genre of the film was, a psychological thriller.  The trailer starts by setting the scene with some extreme long shots to show where the film takes place.  First with one of the island:

And then with one of the prison itself:

A sense of the story in the film is built up throughout with the detective arriving at a strange island at the start where he learns that one of the patients has gone missing, the missing patents has suggested that there is an extra patient on the island which they don't know about and then things start to get weird for the detective which vision of his wife on the island etc.

Several methods are used to lure potential viewers in to the theatre.  One of these methods is star theory.  Star theory is used in the trailer with Leonardo DiCaprio being the main actor used to draw people into the cinema.

Many people are fans of Leonardo DiCaprio as an actor and for women he could be seen as the sexual interest in the film, the use of a popular, good looking actor helps people to be persuaded to go and see the film.  It becomes clear that this movie does not feature an ensemble casts and is a more intimate movie as DiCaprio is the only actor who's name is mentioned in the trailer.

The directors name, Martin Scorsese, is also shown toward the start of the trailer.  This is another case of star theory being used and many people would be likely to go and see a film by Scorsese simply because he is the director.

The film is edited as would be expected for a film in this genre.  The plot details are given using slightly longer scenes where the characters in the film can be see and hear saying lines from the film which when hear in succession help to detail the plot of the film.  Then for dramatic effect, and especially as the trailer moves towards the climax at the end, shorts scenes with fasts cuts are used to imply that it is a fast paced, excited film.  The short scenes often show clips of the film which may shock/scare.

The music in the trailer is a mix of dramatic score with lots of banging sound effects generally used when a quick cut is used.  This helps to give that impression that the film is fast paced and the dramatic score gives a eerie feeling which lets the viewer know that it is a thriller film.


The trailer ends with the title screen which shows the movie title in a stylised way and is followed by the billing block, which gives information about the production companies, director and the actors in the film.

Poster Analysis #1: Shutter Island

Shutter Island is a 2010 film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio.  Production started in March 2008. Shutter Island was originally slated to be released on October 2, 2009, but Paramount pushed the release date to February 19, 2010.  The film is set in 1954 where two U.S. marshals investigate the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane on an island in Massachusetts. They run into trouble when they are deceived by the hospital's chief administrator, a hurricane hits, and an inmate riot traps them on the island.

        

Overall the poster fits conventions of a horror/mystery film with the use of dark colours and desaturated images.  The poster for Shutter Island can be split into three; the top third contains a character image, the middle third shows an image image of the island and the bottom third show the films title and the billing block.

The top third shows the main character of the film, Leonardo DiCaprio.  This is normal for film poster to use an image of the main character but in this case it is not used so much for star theory at this part of the  poster (the star theory is used more at the bottom of the page, where the actors name is mentioned).  I say this because it is a dark image with only part of his face visible, this means that some people who we're not fully aware of who he was wouldn't recognise who he is.  The image is used more to show that the character is lonely and goes through his journey in the film on his own, there is no other characters/actors mentioned on the whole poster.

His facial expression tell us a lot about the movie.  He has a furrowed brow with open eyes, which make it look like he is looking for something but is not sure what it might be.  His eye is a bright blue which not only matches with the colour scheme of the poster, shows innocence in the character.  He is also not looking at the camera which gives the sense that he is paranoid.

The character is holding a lit match, which provides the light which lights up his face.  The  match contrasts the rest of the poster and draws the eye immediately as yellow is one of the most eye catching colours (along with red in the main title).  In terms of relevance to this film, it again echoes the theme that he is looking for something, presumable in a dimly lit place (presumable on the island, pictured below).  The positioning of the match above the lighthouse on the image of the island seems like a deliberate decision, the light could be seen as a beacon of hope which stands out against the otherwise dreary background images. 

There is a very small three word tag-line which states "Someone is missing.", this confirms that the main character is looking for someone and also tells the reader that it is a person that he is looking for (as oppose to an object/place/etc). 

The middle third of the poster contain the image of an island, this is fully relevant to the movie title and the viewer instantly presume that his is an image of 'Shutter Island'.  The image itself is strange, it is purposefully cut up with lines which look like parts of the full image have been cut out and the remaining images have been pushed back together.  This gives a physiological uneasiness to the image which makes the viewer think that all is not as it might seem on the island.  The weather around the island is rough, there is a clearly an ongoing storm as the rain is visible in the light above the island, rough seas can be seen all around it and big waves are crashing up against it.  The use of  these techniques create a pathetic fallacy around the island, it makes it seem like it has human thought and knows it is a bad/scary place.  There is also a glow around the island which looks like it is cause by the island blocking out a light source placed directly behind it.  This gives the impressions that the island is divided/blocked off from the rest of the world by something.

This bad/scary image is enhances further by what is on the island.  There are several buildings surrounded by a large wall with barbed wire on the top which gives one of three impressions; it was either built to keep something in, keep something out or both.  It shows that the island is clearly not a hotel but the light that are on in the windows of the building show that some people are living on the island.  This makes the viewer think about what is actually on the island and is a good technique to use on a movie poster as it give small clues about the plot of the film without giving away all the information at once, it makes the viewer want to go and find out more.

The bottom third of the poster shows more text based information about the film.  At the top there is direct use of star theory with the directors name and the main actors name shown.  This is done so that people who know these people might be aware of their other work so might become interested in the film.            Just below their names is the movie title.  It is larger than all the other text on the page so that is stands out better and is in a very vivid red font which is not only used to contrast the against the background images (as with the match) but it also connotes danger as it is can be directly linked with blood.  The grunge effect around the text makes it look as if the text is bleeding into the water of the background image which again shows danger/death.

Below the poster title is the billing block.  This gives more textual information about the film including the producers, who wrote the original novel, who wrote the screenplay, the website address and studio logos.  All this information is written in a small part of the posters and towards to bottom to not distract too much from the main images.  At the bottom, in the middle of the billing block is the release date of the film, this is done in the same font and colour as the movie title but smaller.  This is again used to contrast the background to draw the viewers eye to the release date, which is one of the most important parts of the poster.

Related articles

• `Shutter Island' makes waves with $40.2M debut (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Movie Review: 'Shutter Island' (laist.com)
• 'Shutter Island' Knocks Off 'Valentine's Day' With $40M Debut (huffingtonpost.com)

Movie Promotion Questionaire

To find out what my audience thought about different type of movie promotion, I created an online questionnaire which I can distribute through social networking sites to get a good range of peoples views.  I will review the results of the questionnaire at a later date.