Film Trailer Analysis: Black Swan

Black Swan is the psychological thriller movie I have chosen to analysis. It came out in 2010 and it develops and challenges the conventions of the stereotypical thriller movie.

The first shot we see is a long shot of a ballerina dancing gracefully across the dance floor, she is dressed in white communicating pure and innocence to the audience. All that is is on her is a single strobe like from above. The atmosphere of the movie is confused at the moment because the audience doesn't know what to expect. However, the audience would get a feeling that the trailer is going to take a turn for the worse, in the voice over we her the ballerina say “I had the craziest dream last night. About a girl who was turned into a swan, but her prince falls for the wrong girl, then she kills herself.” 
This is an strange statement to make because audience don't put the words etc kill, love and prince in the same sentence. Those words are makes it a more thriller genre.

We then meet the character of Nina. We have a wide shot of a dance studio and we she the adult ballerina stretching out her feet and dancing we quickly discover that she is the main protagonist and that there is an heavy theme of dance that is going to be used through out the film. Halfway in to the trailer is where things begin to get dark and more into the thriller genre as before that we where just getting hints of thriller but around 52 seconds into the film is where things begin to start happening.

We start to have some close up of Lily dancing and this of Nina's face looking distressed telling the audience that there will be some rivalry between them. Mirrors where used a lot in this trailer the use of the mirrors where very effective because towards the end of the trailer the mirrors are smashed and is associated with Nina and her changing character However, the mirror was also used to broadcast the dancers beauty and almost as an envy to the other dances. The mirror has two meanings in this trailer it is the equilibrium and disequilibrium.

Towards the end of the trailer we begin to see a series of fast paced editing, montage shots, and an repeating non diegetic voice over of key words. 'Sweet Girl' and 'Please believe me'. This makes the audiences feel on edge where not aware of what is going to happen yet still wanting more. We are then showed an shocking image the final shots of Nina are truly horrifying we she her a long shot shows her blood shot eyes, blood red lips and pale skin and her black costume. This shows the audiences the transformation she went from good to bad, she is no longer the innocent ballerina in the beginning we almost saw her journey to the dark side.