SE7EN: Trailer Analysis 2

SE7EN follows the conventions of crime thriller trailers; a voice over is used, so are captions, almost all of the cast is male dominated and predictable settings feature such as Police headquarters, offices, crime scenes and miserable crime ridden streets. Upon reflection, SE7EN is at completely opposite ends of the spectrum, when compared to The girl on the train and Gone Girl; due to it's more modern style and how it challenges certain aspects of what is expected in crime thrillers by having a female lead. Although SE7EN may seem formulaic from a modern audiences perspective, and more specifically the thriller demographic, the trailer and film still has the ability to captivate and entertain today's audience no matter how long ago it was released. However, it has been refreshing to see strong matriarchal leads take place in the spotlight for a genre that is so heavily associated with powerful, intelligent and hard-working men. Like in most crime films, the women are very rarely the protagonists, which is the case for SE7EN since their most significant female role is somewhat quite low down in comparison to the men, she is portrayed as kind, vulnerable and emotional. But no matter what the gender of the lead roles, a crime film can still be enjoyable either way. It is clear that this film is quite old due to the trailers dated style with the voice over narrating at small points throughout, which isn't much of a convention as it used to be for the majority of different genres currently, and not just crime thrillers.

SE7EN follows the typical format of having a slow first half and then building up the action and anticipation by speeding it up towards the end. This is done by changing the non-diegetic sound; the soundtrack from the beginning is slow, simplistic and not overwhelming as the beginning has to establish a general understanding of the narrative. Eventually the music and sound effects increase in tempo and becomes synchronous sound as it is in time with the speed of the change of shots and fits with the action and suspense.

SE7EN ticks all the boxes for crime paradigms, as this particular genre is already provided with it's own conventions but some of those expectations must be included: such as their use of having police cars, helicopters, dead bodies, crime scene evidence, chase scenes, press interviews and news reports. After watching the trailer carefully, we have drawn inspiration from it in some aspects as it is conventional and formulaic, but perfectly demonstrates what to include in order to gain those generic conventions.

Media Language

The colour scheme throughout is extremely powerful; some colours contrast vividly and compliment each other by being completely different. This is demonstrated when the trailer commences with a sombre and mundane palette, and then these colours are contrasted with an intense red neon light of the crucifix. For the rest of the trailer, the palette constantly transitions from a dull colour scheme (with elements of pathetic fallacy of the rain, highlighting the colour and tone even more), then showing bright red with the fast paced captions of the seven deadly sins. The colours, weather and lighting all suggest that this film takes place in a city of despair engulfed in crime with people who feel unhappy, hopeless and vulnerable. These particular micro-aspects forebode the inevitable that more ruin and horrendous acts of homicide will ultimately take place, and that feeling is carried through from beginning to end in the trailer.

A wide variety of camera angles are used and create a diverse range of effects: close ups are used to reveal more of the characters emotion such as the one used on Morgan Freeman's character showing the reflection of the work  on his glasses to suggest he takes his job seriously and his character has a lot of determination, focus and devotion to his case and his job. When the red crucifix appears in shot the camera pans as if someone is walking by and looking at it maybe the killer or the detectives. Crab angle of the killers feet so that he remains mysterious and unidentifiable by the audience and the characters, a drone shot of the police helicopter to emphasise the threat and urgency of finding the person responsible for the homicides. One the anticipation builds POV and hand-held is used, the POV could be from the perspective of the murderer or the detectives and is left open to interpretation and the hand-held would be to enhance and highlight the action and suspense. Several times fade to black and fade to white is used, on a couple of occasions the fade to white is used for a camera flash effect which is what me and my group have implemented a fade to white transition too achieve the camera flash effect for our crime scene. Jump cuts are used to create an effect of increasing the speed duration for the climax and to made the transition  to scenes sudden and frantic to convey to the audience that their time is limited.