Inception Teaser Trailer...

The teaser trailer for Inception depends totally on music to set the mood, not having any dialogue throughout the trailer. It is a good example of how a teaser trailer can be made, as despite not hearing a word be spoken in the trailer, the audience still gets a sense of what the film is about, through watching, reading, and listening. The trailer begins by introducing the director of the film, 'Christopher Nolan', for viewers who know of and enjoy his films, this will immediately be a selling point for the trailer. For those who don't recognise the name, the next shot tells the audience that he was the director of 'The Dark Knight', a popular film which more people are likely to know of, this quick outlet of information may give people the reason they were looking for to carry on watching the trailer. The music/sound for the entire trailer is a very low, slow paced at first tune, which beats in time to the change between shots, this helps the trailer to flow more smoothly. The shots in the trailer start of relatively obscure, with a spinning top, and an overhead view of a city, neither of which give away any obvious information about the plot of the film. The trailer also puts alot of focus on Leonardo DiCaprio, who is the main character in the film, he is the only actor to be mentioned in the teaser, as well as the main focus of a number of shots during the trailer. This is a tactic used when there is a big name involved in a film, just having them starring in the film instantly attracts all of that stars fanbase to the film. The shots of the film which are shown give nothing away about the storyline, but do give something away about the genre of the film, and the type of people in the film. A number of the shots shown involve action, like the fight scene nearing the end or the man being dragged away, which suggests the film is partly action. Also all of the characters we see are men wearing suits, which could be a way of showing the audience the kind of characters which the film has to offer. The camera shots are relatively simple at first, such as the spinning top and the glass of water, which are both close ups on a level height to the objects. The range of shots does vary more as the trailer goes on though, with the tracking shots of buildings with the dialogue on the screen, and the extreme close-ups towards the end. The mise-en-scene of the teaser trailer does give the impression that the film is a high-tech, city based film. This is due to the numerous shots of industrialised, modern cities, including the shot of the helicopter on the roof of a building. It also gives a sense of postmodernism, with shots of the glass of water lying at an unnatural angle, as well as the fight scene, which shows the room spinning as the two men running towards eachother, giving a sense that the world they're in may not be real. Without dialogue being spoken, the trailer relies on showing short phrases during the trailer to explain the story slightly. The phrases read 'your mind''is the scene of the crime'. This lets the audience read into it whatever way they want to, keeping a sense of mystery about the film. The editing of the trailer is relatively straight forward, probably so as not to take away from the actual content of the trailer, using a faster pace of shots as the trailer goes on, which matches the rise in speed of the music.

This teaser trailer is nearing the longer end of how long a teaser trailer should be, but can afford to be longer due to the methods it uses to give the audience a feeling to what the film is about.