Trailer Reshearch - 500 days Of Summer Teaser Trailer

We looked at the teaser trailer for the recent film, 500 Days Of Summer which was directed by Marc Webb. This trailer gave us inspiration for our improved teaser trailer trailer even though this teaser trailer is a different genre to our teaser trailer.

One aspect we liked about this trailer was some of the first shots which showed the two main protagonists sat on a bench, this then cut to a medium close up of the main male protagonist looking the right at the female protagonist which then cuts to the main female protagonist looking left at the main male protagonist. these shots are shown here:

These these three shots signify that these two characters are the main characters in the story and that they might be together in the story. We liked this idea of having two shots that show both angles of a situation between the two main protagonists which we decided to incorporate into our teaser trailer, shown here:

Another aspect we liked about the trailer was the use of a split screen, which showed two separate shots at the same time, one on either side of the screen. This helped the viewer see what the main male protagonist had seen and his reaction.

The split screen used in the 500 Days Of Summer Teaser Trailer

We incorporated a similar idea into our own trailer, we used a medium shot of the main female protagonist looking upset and troubled and then next to this shot a shot of the main male protagonist with the 'other women', both looking happy, laughing and walking arm in arm. This is similar to the split screen in the 500 days of summer teaser trailer, but we have put our own twist on it and incorporated it into the genre of our trailer, which is period drama.

Another shot used in the trailer which we liked was a medium, wide angled shot focused on the main female protagonist sat at a desk, not looking at the camera. This then un focuses to show two hanging ornaments, leaving the ornaments in focus and the main female protagonist out of focus. We wanted to incorporate this with our first clip on our trailer, shown here:

The shot fades out to show two hanging ornaments

The first shot of the main male protagonist and the 'other woman' which has a 'gaussian blur' filter which then fades into the next shot slowly making the next shot look as if it is coming into focus.

But we were unable to achieve this on the camera that was available too us so instead just used a medium, long shot behind some tree branches, but the viewer was still able to see the main male protagonist and the 'other woman. But we found that we could still achieve the same desired effect by splitting the clip into two and using a transition to bring the clip into focus. This shot/clip, we felt signified the same as the shot/clip used in the 5oo days of summer teaser trailer, which was that the main female protagonist was being watched but in a subtle way, which is similar to the clip/shot we used in our trailer, which we also hope signified the same as the 5oo days of summer clip.