Film Trailer Analysis-Black Swan (June 2010-Present)

Title of the film- Black Swan

Director- Darren Aronofsky

Institution- For Searchlight Pictures

Year of Release- September 1st 2010

Black swan is a psychological horror film that was released in September 2010. The storyline is about a ballerina, Nina,vin New York City whose life,  is completely consumed with dance, just like any other dancer. She lives with her obsessive former ballerina mother Erica, who exerts a suffocating control over her. When artistic director Thomas Leroy decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice. But Nina has competition: a new dancer, Lily, who impresses Leroy as well. Swan Lake requires a dancer who can play both the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan, who represents guile and sensuality. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark side - a recklessness that threatens to destroy her. The film trailer for Black Swan uses, develops and challenges the typical conventions of the psychological horror genre in which I will be analysing. The black swan movie trailer can be seen below:

Black Swan does challenge some of the codes and conventions of any horror film trailer as the first shot that the audience are presented with is a long shot of the ballerina dressed in white, which makes her come across as innocent and pure and the scene is calm, which is associated with beauty, talent and wealthy people. This could make the audience question the genre of the film because you wouldn't expect a horror film to open in this way, but because there is a close up of the ballerinas foot, it could be the rest of her that is hiding the horror aspect of the trailer, such as her facial expressions. Due to there being such a huge emphasis on dance throughout the first few shots within the trailer, is suggests that the genre is dance rather than horror. The trailer opens with Ident, which conforms with the rules and conventions of other trailers. The first shot that the audience is presented with is when a spotlight is focused on a ballerina with a close up of her foot “I had the craziest dream last night about a girl who was turned into a swan” which fades to black to move onto the next scene within the trailer. The next shot depicts the mother shouting “What happened to my sweet girl”. The last shot within the trailer is a close up-red eyes and the girl breathing. The Low angle shot at the end of the trailer when she has turned into the black swan, showing that it has consumed her. This is a common convention in thrillers to show that the point of focus is submissive. In addition to this, credits are shown at the end of the trailer. Similarly, the release date is then shown so that the audience know when the films release date is. 

However, as the trailer goes on, the horror genre starts to show. The speed that the trailer runs at is faster towards the end-pace speeds up- shows the more intense parts of the film which builds up tension for the audience and excites them to see the film. This draws the audience in more to the trailer. The fact that everything relates back to them dancing, stresses the importance of ballet surrounding the issues within the film trailer, as well as their dedication and passion towards dancing. A close up of one of the ballerinas within the trailer shows her with marks and scratches on her back, which she is looking at in the mirror. This is the first part within the trailer where the audience start to see aspects of horror as if it was a ballet genre, you wouldn't expect to see this. This shows the evil coming through within the character and allows the audience to see the evil develop through the character, rather than allowing them to see it straight away. 

The mise-en-scene within the shots, is also used to help attract the audience and give them a better understanding of the film. Mainly black and white colours are used throughout the trailer, whereas Nina seems to wear pale pink and her bedroom is also pink. A short shot at the end of the trailer shows that horror make-up is used on the black swan at the very end of the trailer, which builds up tension and scared the audience.  Her face is very pale and her lips are red, which has connotations of blood and evil; this make-up represents her transformation from good to bad within the trailer. In addition to this, sound is used throughout the trailer as Nina is talking about the story of the black swan. There is then a voice over that says “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.” You wouldn't associate words such as "dream" with a horror movie, but the line "then she kills herself", allows the audience to understand that it is a horror movie because it shows evil and danger. Also, the voice over of the the mother saying "sweet girl" to her daughter starts of as a whisper and gets louder every time the mother says it, making it sound more evil and catching the audiences attention are expecting something to happen. 

The trailer uses enigma codes to emphasize the genre of the film as a horror. It does this by showing unsolved problems and questions. Binary oppositions are also a main contributor to establishing a genre as a horror.The film is classified as a 15 and is about ballet, which means that it is specifically aimed at females 15-30. Ballet and horror are juxtaposed, which shows the horror genre of the film trailer. I believe that Todorov's theory could be applied to this trailer because  at the beginning of the trailer, we as an audience are presented with an equilibrium as the ballerina is dancing in her dance studio peacefully. A disruption occurs when the voice over says "and then she killer herself." An attempt to repair this is when the protagonist gets chosen to be lead swan. However, further disruption occurs when she is compared to Lily and is told that she needs to improve her dancing. A new equilibrium occurs at the end of the trailer when the audience see black swan and have seen her turn from good to evil and are left wondering what will happen next.

The title 'Black Swan' already gives away the fact that the film is a horror film because the colour black is associated with death, evil and danger. The title of this film was important because it has been linked in really well with the stoyline and allows the audience to have an idea of the storyline before even seeing the movie, which not many film companies can successfully do. Overall, although some of the codes and conventions are challenged due to the ballet theme, I believe that 'Black Swan' meets the codes and conventions of a psychological horror film because we see the ballerina transform from good to evil throughout the trailer and this will make the audience want to see the fill story to see everything that happened to make her turn into the black swan.