Film Study: Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko is one of the films which most closely relates to the sort of style I am aiming for, for my style of trailer. This is a film all about pyschology mishaps, however also you unravel more and more unanswered questions throughout the film, this results in it also being a mystery. The Official trailer is good to study as well, as although it is still an official trailer, it's quite a lot shorter than average trailers, so it's quite similiar to a teaser trailer. (The Trailer is no more than 1.30 Minutes, whilst more modern official trailers tend to be around 2:30 minutes long.)

Donnie Darko (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) is a teenage boy who has to attend meetings with a psychiatrist, this immediately gets the audience asking questions, as to why he has to go see a psychiatrist. You soon find out that Donnie has a friend, of imagination, called Frank, who is a rabbit with unnerving appearances.

When you find out about Frank, you instantly think that Donnie is just crazy, however, in further watching of the film, you start to think that Frank may not be actually be a figment of Donnie's imagination. This is due to the fact that Frank unveils his costume revealing a human, not much older than Darko is, with an eye which has pratically been ripped out. Following this, much to the confusion of the audience, Donnie Darko repeatedly says 'Sorry'.

Throughout the film, Donnie inspects the concept of time-travelling, which most people consider ludicrous, making the audience consider the possibilty again that Donnie really is mental.


Studying the Trailer


Soundtrack/Music: The trailer for 'Donnie Darko', is dialogue which has been taken out primarily out of the film itself. Giving the viewers an insight in both the genre the trailer is representing (Pyschological/Thriller), but also what the film is like itself, and therefore getting to know the characters a bit before you actually go to see the film itself. The trailer starts off with audio which sounds like a reporter of this person's life, which starts as soon as you see anything appear in the trailer. Soon into the trailer, we find out that it is a teacher who is reading an extract from a book in class. Throughout the trailer, a lot of audio clips have been taken out of context of the film and have been shown in a way that it seems like all these people are talking about Donnie.

Footage used: The establishing shot is of the main character Donnie Darko exiting from the back of the bus, whilst the camera is tilted, and spins to return to it's normal format- this is very unusual as an establishing shot as it usually is of a scenic place, eg. a mountain or across a lake, and also often is an extreme long shot/ long shot and shot with a static camera, whilst this was a close-up and the camera was moving. There is very little text in this trailer, until shown at the end, in which it relates to Donnie's last name Darko. Unusually, the text in this trailer is all in a light blue, however, with the font used and the Black background, the contrast still makes the trailer a bit sinister.