Deconstruction of Before I Go To Sleep Teaser Trailer

Before I Go to Sleep Deconstruction

The opening shot of this teaser tailer is an extreme close up of the protagonist's eye. This is very shocking to an audience and immediately captures their attention, and invades their personal space, forming a sense of discomfort. The character's eye is very wide, dilated and bloodshot, this automatically connotes a sense of panic and fear, and depicts that something is very wrong, to the audience.

The following shot displays the protagonist waking up with her partner. The natural lighting allows for the protagonist the be lit with sunlight, whereas the partner, whose face is hidden, is shadowed. As his face is hidden and he is shadowed this creates negative connotations, and depicts that the male character is hiding something.

Positions of power are established in several ways throughout this trailer, one of which being the framing of characters, particularly in this shot. The audience is presented with a central, front on, medium-long shot of the male character, which focuses the audiences' attention onto him, whereas the female character is displayed through an over the shoulder shot, she is out of focus and heavily shadowed. This gives the power to the male character and grants him with a more superior and pivotal position. Additionally, the low-key lighting resembles the female character's confusion and negative emotions.

This displays very effective use of graphic matching, as the sequence flickers between the protagonist in her home and in hospital wear. This highlights her disorientation, it could suggest that this is a flashback, due to her lack of memory. It hooks the audience as it creates a sense of mystery and tension as it causes the audience to question what has happened in her past.

Several of the shots within this trailer obtain very low-key lighting, which could depict the darkness and deceit found within the film. One example, is this shot, which portrays the protagonist's husband lingering by the door, watching her as she sleeps. This is a very disturbing shot, as it distorts the traditional view on marriage, and creates the impression that the male character's intentions are not as he says, but perhaps are much darker. This is done by creating a sense of mistrust and fear throughout the trailer, this is done through the cinematography, music, typography and the narrative. For example, the use of red in the typography 'What if everything is a lie', connotes pain, blood and evil, which could represent what the protagonist has experienced in her life. 

The music is very tense and dramatic, it builds tension by beginning as very slow and eerie, conveying the disturbed nature of the film to the audience. This conforms with the psychological thriller convention of the use of contrapuntal music, as the sound is high pitched, slow, piano music, which would usually be associated with serenity and tranquility, but in this trailer it is distorted by a low pitched ominous swooshing sound, which causes the music to appear dark and eerie, which mirrors the onscreen action and enforces the sense of fear. A change appears when the phone rings and there is a high pitched sound which evokes tension within the audience, this signifies the thrilling side of the film. As the on screen action unfold, the music mirrors it throughout the trailer, as it grows in intensity and creates fear and tension in the audience. The music constantly builds up to a climatic point at the end of the trailer, this creates anticipation, which is followed with very quiet sounds and a non-diegetic voice over of the protagonist.

The narrative such as 'Sometimes when the truth is painful I don't always have the strength' and 'He says he's protecting you, but don't trust him' reiterates this lack of trust and sense of fear, as it suggests that the protagonist has a very disturbed past and is now left confused and unable to trust anyone in her life.

Evidence of her disturbed and traumatic past is conveyed repeatedly throughout this trailer, such as flashbacks to her attack. These flashbacks are presented in black and white, along with this being done to convey to the audience that these are flashbacks, this effect could be used to depict the darkness and the trauma of the events.

The past paced editing used in these sequences highlight the panic felt by the protagonist as she is being attacked. Additionally, as conveyed in the narrative, she is an amnesiac, therefore, cannot fully remember her past, so the fast paced disjointed editing represents her inability to remember the events properly and chronologically.