First Film Trailer Analysis - Essay Form

Before I Go to Sleep is a thriller film based on a bestselling novel. A women is in a traumatic accident where she receives blows to the head which cause her to wake up every day having forgotten everything she learned from the day before. She is told to record a video diary so that she can remind herself of what she learnt the day before, whilst doing this she discovers the truth around what happened to her.

The close up of the eye in the establishing shot of the trailer is very disconcerting to the viewer as this breaks the conventions of a trailer when the establishing shot is normally of a setting to set the scene and this normally gives the audience an idea of the genre of the film as they can tell from where it is based. The fact that there is an extreme close up of the eye could make the audience quite uncomfortable as they are so close to a person which is not normal. Having dilated pupils is an obvious sign that someone is scared, but the eye does not have dilated pupils which could confuse the audience as normally we are shown close ups of faces and expression to portray an emotion, but there doesn’t seem to be one, this will make the audience wonder what the significance of the eye is.

The sudden movement of the woman waking up shows that she woke up suddenly as of from a bad dream, then she looks around and doesn’t seem to know where she is. The audience then see a man lying next to her. This is seems normal, except for the fact that she asks “Who are you?” This has connotations of a drunk hook up which would explain the fact that she doesn’t know where she is. The man replies saying “I’m your husband” which is confusing as she should know who her husband is. This, along with the fear in her eyes when she is talking to him makes the audience worry for her as they don’t know why she is in that situation.

The unknown man who states to be her husband starts to help explain why she doesn’t know who he is because she had an accident which resulted in her “storing information for a day” but then forgetting it when she wakes up the next. This is the first bit of information about the narrative and even though it does answer some questions that the trailer has already created it makes even more.

The short flashing image of the police creates a sense of dread as this could imply that everything is not as it seems. This is then followed by the phone ringing, the short shots create a sinister feel to the phone ringing and the fact they zoom in on her hand when she pick up the phone makes the audience assume that the person ringing is bad.

The person on the other end of the phone turns out to be Dr Nasch, a doctor who is helping her with her memory. The thing that creates tension is the fact that he then says “I’m not sure if Ben knows”, this sounds shifty and makes him seem untrustworthy, combined with the fact that the camera work has made him seem like a bad person makes the audience distrust him.

The shot going backwards down a hallway, probably done on a dolly, depicts a bigger problem, there is an overshadowing thing that they need to work out in order to get past this. The solution seems to get further and further away as the camera quickly moves back. Later in the trailer the woman is seen running down the same corridor,
almost she is chasing something, the resolution?

The woman asks “Who tried to kill me?” after she found out she was found naked with “repeated blows to the head”. This is a convention of the thriller genre, they are trying to figure out an enigma or two, who tried to kill her and how can she keep her memory.

The white light that flashes on screen could represent the woman’s memory, blank, nothingness. It could also symbolises her aloneness which is then solidified at the end of the trailer when she tells herself to trust no one.

The use of the black and white flashbacks create a sense of unease for the audience because along with the tense music makes the audience untrusting of “Claire”.

The music that accompanies the trailer is full of big drum hits and otherwise is quite repetitive. The use of this music creates tension for the audience and the repetition of the motif could represent the repetition of the woman trying to get her memory back each day.

The sound of the heart monitor not picking up a heartbeat could be foreshadowing to the audience that something bad is going to happen to her, such as the person who tried to kill her previously trying to kill her again. This creates a sense of worry for her as she is in a vulnerable position, but at the same time intrigues the audience as they want to know what happens to her.

The husband is represented as the victim as his wife doesn’t know who he is and he has to remind her every day. Also he is shown to be crying about the situation that he is in, making him get sympathy from the audience. He is also shown to be protective over her as he tells Dr Nasch “get away from my wife” this shows him to also be very loving towards her as stayed with her even though she doesn’t know who he is.

There are lots of short shots that are edited into a montage which is a convention of the thriller genre, also the fact that the story line is quite realistic and it seems like it could happen to anyone which makes the story scarier and more intense for the people watching it.

This is a very effective trailer as it creates so many questions for the viewer to answer.  Also as it is quite confusing the viewer will want to watch it in order to understand the story line better. I think that thriller trailers should create lots of questions which cause the viewer to think about it more and even what it again without knowing the story line completely and I think trailer has managed to do this.