Inspiration- The Departed

Inspiration- The Departed

The use of san-serif font for the title immediately shows you that it is a serious movie (As you would expect from a thriller). The use of natural lighting creates shadows around all of the characters face and this helps to add enigma. The use of one light and one darkened side of Di Caprio’s face makes it seem as if he has more than one side to him. The use of another character in the background makes it seem as if he is excluded from the group and therefore tells you he Is likely to be the antagonist of the movie.  They all have very serious looks on their face and this tells the audience that something is on their mind and backs up the idea of a more psychological storyline that has previously been written for Di Caprio in thriller movies like Shutter Island and Inception.

From the very start of the clip. it has a lot of fast paced jump cuts and this gives you a feeling of what the actual movie will be like and the use of a drum sound effect synchronised with each cut only adds to the effect.  The fact that Di Caprio is the first person to have a spoken line immediately identifies him as the protagonist of the film.

At 0:51 it has a high angle shot of Nicholson and Di Caprio and this makes it seem as if you are watching something you shouldn’t be and this is just another convention of a crime-thriller. The music change at 1:00 and this is synchronised with the trailer and allows the audience the feel a change in pace of the trailer. This is because the music gets a lot slower and gives you the feeling that the trailer is about to get a lot more serious.  

It again changes at 1:20, after Nicholson says “we got a cop in our crew”.

Overall, in the trailer there are a lot of scenes with high key lighting and this creates a shadow effect over one half of their face that creates enigma.