Watch Film trailers - The girl on the train

Watching and analysing Psychological thriller film trailers

The girl on the train trailer features:

• The first shot is one of the main characters being introduced within seconds of the trailers, dialog is used by this character
• A fast past cut to a tracking shot of a big white house is matched with the diegetic sound of a high pitched piano note being played as soon as the cut happens
• These piano notes continue along with many different fast cut shots of the main character and different settings
• The main character continues with more dialog and along with this is more diegetic music but this time the tempo is louder and more dramatic
• The trailer then cuts to a blank screen with the words "A week ago" like most psychological thriller there is a change in time and the film will swap from past to present a lot, this is to create suspense
• The high pitched piano notes continue along with fast past background music to fit well with the fast past shots showing the audience an insight to the main characters life
• The trailer then cuts to another blank screen that says "At 4:36pm"
• The music becomes faster and more intense as the main character is shown in a tracking shot of her running under a bridge
• Lots of fast past shots of the girl running under the bridge and a train moving in fast past, this montage of fast past shots along with the dramatic music creates will make the audience start guessing what this film could be about
• A blank screen saying "A women Disappeared" appears on the screen, viewers will now have the knowledge from these blank screens that "A week ago, at 4:36pm a women disappeared". This almost sounds like a news paper headline or a police report and most stereotypical psychological film trailers and films have new reports of the person in the filming going missing or being abducted.
• A new character, another main character is introduced to the audience, she is shown on a train
• She says in a panicked voice "I saw her from the train", a fast shot then shows a train speeding over a bridge
• A fade to black is used to show a blank screen saying "Based on the thriller that shocked the world" this is used to make the film sound as though its the best film of this genre to be released this year so that a bigger audience will watch it
• As the fade to black comes on the screen the loud and slowed down original song of 'Kanye West's, how could you be so heartless' is played throughout the trailer
• Loads more fast past shots are used to show several different settings in the film for example; the train, the bridge, the woods, a flat and a pavement
• In these fast past shots more characters are unveiled throughout the trailer
• The trailer continues with the mystery of where the girl has gone missing and if she is alive or dead
• The reason as to why this trailer has a psychological thriller genre is because of all the generic conventions I have listed above that are stereotypically used for most psychological films and trailers.