Lost River (2014)

Genre: Fantasy - Neo Noir Director/Producer/Writer: Ryan Gosling (Well know actor) Production companies: Bold Films, Marc Platt Productions & Phantasma Distributed by Warner Bro Budget: $2million Box Office: $406,000 5.8/10 – IMDB 30% - Rotten Tomatoes

Synopsis:A single mother is swept into a dark underworld while her son discovers an underwater town

Micro-elements: Camera

The trailer starts with an establishing shot of a seemingly abandoned building, represented as a very mysterious location, especially as the scene uses low-key lighting. This fits the profile of the stereotypical neo-noir location. This shot also combines with a tilt angle, as the camera tilts down to show the building – which soon will be down underwater.

There is then another establishing shot, that completely juxtaposes the first one. A tracking shot is used to follow a young boy playing in the over-grown grassy fields. With the beautiful sunset in background, a lens glare is created on the camera, thus this all creates a positive vibe. Now, positive feels like this are unusual within the Neo Noir genre, but it's soon understandable. This establishing shot is a part of a flashback where the main character, a teenage boy called Bones, is in fact the little boy playing the fields, and has no idea of the destruction of the world around him. (Towns being flooded to make way for a Dam) This is the use of a flashback, a common feature of the Neo Noir genre narratives, often making them so complex – in particular this trailer is fairly hard to understand.

There is a wide shot, similar to the establishing shot, of the inside of a destroyed building, probably by the flooding. The whole room is dark, gloomy with a character's head looking out of a door filled with light, almost 'holy-esque'. This shows that there is still some remaining hope, some sort of life from what used to be a full, joyful community and is now dominated by the protagonist played by Matt Smith. He fits the profile of a typical character you'd find in a Neo Noir film.

There is a low-angle shot of Bully (Matt Smith's character), the leader of this new version of the town, a hated man, that certainly lives up to the name. Although the name choice may seem 'cheesy', you can't argue against it perfectly summing up his character, who is represented within this trail; to not be liked by the audience. This low angle shows only half of Bully's face, focusing on his biceps; a sign of strength and power; seemingly the two main interests of the character.

A similar low-angle shot that cuts out the face of a character, with the help of extremely low-key lighting that erases the facial features, but yet there is still an eerie presence. This is an example of how the Chiaroscuro 'effect' is used. (a convention of Neo Noir)

There is also a lot of interesting camera positioning that doesn't conform the generic 180 degree rule in Film. Both characters are positioned far right of the shots, as they alternate through the editing technique eye-line match, and I'm yet to see something like this in a film trailer that I can recall. This unique characteristic of this film trailer is what Neo Noir is all about, as it a niche genre with niche techniques.

Micro-elements: Editing

There are multiple eye-line match edits along with multiple two-shots to create an early representation of the relationship between the two(or more) characters in shot, particular a young boy and girl who seem to flourish despite the nasty world around them. They're the personification of light in a dark room, a setting repeated throughout the trailer.

Like in the other Neo Noir film trailer there is a small section very fast editing, that classes as a montage. As I have mentioned before, the trailer is effectively a montage of clips from the film, so this montage acts as a montage of the trailer. There are a vast amount of clips used, maybe some not significant enough to warrant more screen time; but the montage symbolises that the film is packed with content. This montage technique seems to a convention of Neo Noir film trailers.

Another common theme within the Neo Noir film trailers that I have analysed is fade to black, and fade transitions in general. This trailer has plenty of them, creating a suspense when it fades fully to a black screen, a colour that symbolises the genre... hence noir=black. The transitions help make the clips interchange smoothly, slowly building up the momentum

This coincides with the build up in the pace of the editing for this trailer. The pace speeds up, e.g more clips per few seconds, as the music speeds up/intensifies. This signifies to the audience a matter of importance is coming up, as well as generally keeping up the interest, as a trailer that is slow paced throughout can often be boring; though no Neo Noir trailer that I have watched has been boring... as of yet. This implies that a lot of thought is put into trailer's of this genre, not only to sell the product but to make it an exceptional piece of art, not just a mix up of clips and dialogue, but an artistic video that has it's whole own meaning and style. This trailer lives up to that expectation perfectly. Many critics have said that this is one of the best film trailers they've seen, yet the film was a massive disappointment However, that is a massive compliment to have well this trailer has been made, using all four micro-elements and more.

There are also some other clever transitions, such as the end where the film title appears onto the screen through lots of little fireflies you see hovering above river water. There is then a ripple (of water) sent through the font of the film title. This creates the ideology of the film by manipulating two different things into the film title at the very end, something that adds to the artistic value of this trailer.

Micro-elements: Sound

Throughout the majority of the trailer, the non-diegetic incidental music is calm and chilled just like a lot of the clips, but you can hear the underlying beat slowly getting faster like the editing, and the intensity of the clips. As the trailer narrative starts to build momentum the still down beat music intensifies, getting the audience more 'pumped' for the conclusion.

When the conclusion comes, the sound cuts to silence, a very powerful effect that draws the attention of the audience, if they weren't already some how gripped;. It also centres the attention of the dialogue that breaks the silence. In this case, the quote was “Now you believe me about the spell” referring to a story told by a female character earlier in the trailer. This reference point concludes that that will be a pinnacle part of the overall narrative.

The way in which that quote is spoken also fits with the Neo Noir genre. Everything about this genre seems to be mysterious, and they way she said it in such a soft tone, creates that mystery... especially when it makes the audience ask the question; What spell does she mean? Also, this piece of dialogue is edited over a scene where the two teenagers are swimming in the dark, mirky waters of the 'lost river', their path only lit up by a single light source; their handheld torch. This stylistic lightning plus the dialogue creates a perfect sense of mystery that was worth the cut to silence technique in the sound editing.

Going back to the dialogue, the girl's limited dialogue in this trailer always seems to be consistently very monotone, there is little emotion in anything she says. This choice indicates to the audience a negative past experience, thus creating a vital part of her character development.

Like all the other Neo Noir trailers I have seen, there is a voiceover added to mix of dialogue to create a good idea of what the narrative is. Because this seems to be such a popular technique, especially within this genre, I think that when we make our own Neo Noir film trailer that we must use this technique to our advantage and seems to becoming a key convention of Neo Noir film trailers.

Micro-elements: Mise En Scene

Staying with the female character, her facial expressions seem to match her monotone dialogue, suggesting she must have many troubles in the area for her to be so forlorn. Both these factors make her eerie quote so creepy and mysterious like I described before.

The colour scheme of this trailer is the most noticeable outlier compared to a generic Neo Noir film trailer. Like big Neo Noir film 'Sin City', bright primary colours play a large part in contrasting the dark, negative atmosphere of the place. The colour alternates between a illuminating pink and purple. For example, there is a certain scene where there is a completely black and white clip, with one window of a house emitting a eye-catching purple colour; the bedroom of the girl. Maybe she is the only hope of the down, hence the only colour in a dark world.

This colour scheme is introduced from the every start,as even the production and distribution companies at the start have changed to match this colour, creating a blend effect.

Inevitably in a film about a town drowned by a river, there is a scene in this film where the water obscures and alters the view and perspective of the clip. Illusions created by water is a common convention of Neo Noir, adding to it's artistic value, especially for this trailer. There seems to be no other purpose than the fact the technique is ideology of the genre.

The first location we see is a low-key abandoned building, as one of the character risks getting beaten by bully to steel valuable wire. We next see him walking past walls that look quite the opposite to the building They are bright colours, yellow, blue and the pink/purple I mentioned before. This recurrence shows that it is wanted as a colour scheme, especially when at the end the title of the film is the same colour as our the end credits. They have subtly reinforced that colour as the brand of the film.