Inspirational Trailers

Antichrist (2009): This seems like a horror movie, but it's not an ordinary horror movie as it has an aspect I am looking for in a psychological/thriller movie - which is mental illness. In the trailer, a man states that the protagonist has been taking too much medication (which she throws out in the toilet). This suggests that everything 'crazy' that happens within the movie is actually in her mind. The trailer starts off as a calm almost theraputic meditation (the protagonist is relaxing) and ends up being a disturbing fast paced and destructive story to connote that her mental illness is getting out of control.

What I like the most about the trailer is this scene (0:33). It shows the protagonist walking through the misty woods, the camera is inside a cave/hole to create a closed frame to show that someone might be watching her (like pray and predator)to prove that she has paranoia, it could also mean that she is trapped within her mind. I believe that this trailer has outstanding cinematography showing a different variety of camera angles (crane shots, close ups, point of view shots etc.) At the beginning of the trailer, there was a narration which sounds like a therapist telling her to relax while playing calming music in the background. The narrator states that fear is thoughts that disturb reality shortly after and the trailer turns into a twisted horror - calming music disappears completey and creepy sound effects come in. 

Psycho (1960): This is Film Noir made by Alfred Hitchcock - Psycho is a film he is most known for due to it's interesting plot. It's a classic. I find this trailer inspiring because it helps me understand where this genre originated from and how different the trailers were back in the 60's. Since films and trailers today use difficult technology and special effects, this is a good trailer to be inspired for with a small budget and limited resources. Additionally, this trailer has a strong start (classic horror sound effect) and a powerful end (the last frame of the protagonist looking through a keyhole) to build suspense and curiosity for the viewers. That last frame has great contrast between light and dark suggesting that the light is coming from the other side of the door. This extreme close-up frame (keyhole and eye) could be something to feature in my trailer to relate to the classic films. The plot of the film is a husband who is a Psychopath who is planning to murder her wife, a generic horror but instead of mythical beings, it's a murderer which makes this film more accurate to the real world because there are in fact, murderers. Even though the murderer has a mental illness, this plot is solely focusing on a victim rather than the murderer himself (it does not show things from the perspective of the psychopath) which is something I'd like to have in my trailer, therefore this trailer will not be similar in terms of context. I would also like to have a more modern approach rather than classic black and white filming. Even though Paranoid Fiction has a sub-genre of Film Noir, I will not be taking that path in genre and production.

Jacob's Ladder (1990):  This is a trailer I am mostly inspired from, it has a plot I am mostly appealed to for my trailer, it has incredible suspense (found in genres such as thriller) and it shows the story through the protagonist's perspective (he seems to have paranoia).  Another thing that I like about this trailer is that it is fast paced with some exceptions of dialogue, this makes everything more exciting as the frames change drastically creating many questions that will be answered in the movie itself. Additionally, the trailer shows deformed characters which look quite frightening; that could be a creative way to show his paranoia or hallucinations. Most of the trailer has dark and cold (blue) lighting, this is a good technique to set a particular mood, in this case a miserable mood because we associate blue and black as depressing colours, some scenes have a lot of orange which actually creates a nice contrast and complimentary colour composition. In order to make this trailer even more exciting, the sound is incredibly intriguing making it seem even more fast paced and 'thrilling'. Personally, the first time I watched this trailer, my heart beat was faster than usual and I wasn't distracted by anything suggesting that I was into the story. The plot of this story is about a man who undergoes a traumatic experience in a Vietnam battlefield finds himself filled with anxieties and hallucinations (something similar to PTSD) Due to these hallucinations (such as faceless demons in cars) , the protagonist suffers from panic attacts. I believe that post-traumatic stress disorder could be an interesting context for this particular genre. Even though it shows some hallucinations coming from his point of view to the viewers, I'd like my trailer to look more abstract (or even more random)  from the protagonist's point of view to show the disorganization and the confusion of the character's mind.