Analysis of Trailer 'American Gangster'

The beginning of this trailer starts with a few establishing shots, of a urban city, which is Manhattan, America. Establishing Shots help to set the scene of the film, indicating where the film is set, and also to get the feel of the setting of the film. After we have the establishing shots of the view of buldings, showing the city of manhattan it goes to a closer establishing shot on the streets of manhattan city. As the first view of character come envolved to the trailer this portrays 5 men walking towards the camera, walking the street, looking as thought they own the streets of manhattan. These different established shots portray the film is being based in this urban city.

We can see straight away, the character, played by Denzel Washington, is the main character as seen in a conversation, his voice appears, starting to tell the viewers of the brief of what this film is some what about. He then shown in middle of these 4 men, leading the way shows a higher status to them as he wears a Smart, Rich looking suit compared to the other men, wearing casual t- shirts, hats and trousers. From the costume they are wearing we can tell the difference between the main character who will be playin a lead role, who will have that power within the film. Helping our viewers to get sense of who our film is going to be set on, about.

Another main character is then brought into the trailer, play by Russell Crowe. From the dialogue we can convey the different types of characters. As Denzel portrays a high status, as if he is running the streets of manhattan, and then with Russell Crowe's character who is brought in with a variety of cut shots, getting together a theory of what is going down in the film.

He uses sharp short words with as well quick cut shots to get different sides of the movie, from his point of view and the character played by denzel. Cutting in from both characters, contradicting with each other portrays the good and bad character.
These cut shots also show different objects that portray the genre, 'Gangster, Crime'. These include Money, Cars, Guns, Voilence . All for which we can think about using in our trailer to give that straight away clue of how we are portraying our film and to give it that true Gangster, Crime feel.

-Karis