Research

 In this section I will be displaying my research into teaser trailers, websites, film posters and film magazines.

TEASER TRAILER

A teaser trailer is a method used to entice the audience. It gives the audience an experience and allows them to immerse in the film, something that the audience cannot experience through a poster.
Firstly, I needed to establish the key conventions for a teaser trailer before adapting into any genre, I have created a wordle below  to displaying these key conventions:

I carried on my research by creating a PowerPoint of my top five teaser trailers and wrote about them with the knowledge I had at this early stage in the research, I presented these to my class using an interactive white board and was able to gain an insight into other people's top five and understood the concept of genre a lot more after the completion of this task. Here is my PowerPoint presentation:

My top 5 teaser trailers

In order for me to grasp and develop an understanding of the key elements to a teaser trailer I decided to research into two teaser trailers in depth of different two different genres.

 Click here for analysis of Inception and PA2 teaser trailers

Inception teaser trailer

 




 Paranormal Activity 2 teaser trailer

Title Graphics
The genre of a film needs to be established through the title graphics and therefore i have analysed two in order to depict the genre and narrative at first glance.

This title graphic shows a lot about the film ‘Inception’. The word ‘INCEPTION’ is surrounded by  a maze, this suggests the idea of entrapment. Due to the colour scheme of black and grey I can tell that the feeling of being trapped is a dark one and not a fantasy maze or light hearted one. There is a shadow effect around the outside of the graphic showing that there is a lot of depth to this film. The title is created through gaps in the maze and represents the characters in the maze. The word ‘Inception’ also gives of a sense of psychological essence.

In this graphic the juxtapositioning of the text is abnormal linking to the paranormal entities of the film. The text is red and hazy with lines running through it, this is done to look like video recording quality to keep with the style of the film of them being recorded. The “2” is a different colour bringing our attention to it and highlighting the film’s success as this is a sequel. The black background immediately connotes that the film is dark and either horror or thriller.

POSTERS 

Film posters are carefully constructed to entice an audience to watch the film it is advertising. A film poster is the most important product of a promotional package in getting across the release date of the film. It's purpose is to catch the attention of the audience for those mere few seconds they pass by it, this is done by using large images and bright colours. Information film posters display are:

• The title
• The narrative
• Actors and directors
• Genre
• Unique selling point
• Release date

A film poster conventionally uses the following elements:

• Key image - This is used to give some idea of the narrative or to display a well known actor
• Sometimes background images - Further show narrative, parallel story-lines
• Title graphics - typography needs to reflect film genre/narrative
• Actor and director names - Usually if well known
• Tag line - Sticks in the audience's head in order to help remember the film
• Credit block - Display film producers and distributors information
• Website - Usually included in credit block, directs audience to further source of information about the film

Here is a Wordle I created which highlights the key conventions and emphasizes the importance of typography:

I used the two films I have previously researched, Paranormal Activity 2 and Inception, and collected the film posters for both. I have analysed these below to gain a better understanding of the key conventions and too become with familiar with identifying them. I chose the same two films in order to gain an overall analysis of two promotional packages in which I thought would be most beneficial.

WEBSITES
As I am researching into promotional packages, I looked into film websites in order to gain a greater insight into how each product interlinks. This task gave me more in depth research into how to establish the genre and theme through the use of interactivity and multimedia.

The visual look of this website complements the style and content of the film as the text and images are skewed implementing some sort of abnormality. The background image of the street in an impossible position shows that the film is about entering a world that is manipulated. The colour scheme of blue, white, red and black make one another stand out , these cool colours complement dark undertones to the film, whereas the red is used to stand out from this. The use of guns, serious facial expressions and the mention that the director directed 'The Dark Night' shows that this film has allot of action and themes of darkness yet highlighting the age range of 12+.

FILM MAGAZINES

As part of our brief we had to create a film magazine front cover with the cover story advertising our film. The conventions of a magazine front cover are:

• Masthead - Name of the magazine
• Main cover-line - Main feature story
• Main image - Anchoring the main cover-line
• Cover-lines - What else is included in the magazine
• Banner - Masthead tag line or cover story
• Bar code/issue number/price - Vital information
• Menu strip - Additional content

Here is an analysis of the film magazine front cover 'Sight and Sound', I have researched into this to get be able to identify the key conventions of film magazine as opposed to a any magazine.

AUDIENCE RESEARCH
After deciding on my genre, I decided to create a questionnaire in which I could find out more about what parts of Film Noir interest my target audience. After collecting the questionnaires back in I then used the results to create an analysis and clearly shows the pathways in which I should take for my teaser trailer.

Click the images to see a copy of my questionnaire:

 Click the images to see my questionnaire results:

 GENRE RESEARCH

After researching into teaser trailers I found that the next important research task was into the genre specific conventions. At first we were set on creating a horror trailer, this was going to be about a Ouija board. After researching this we found that horror was too predictable and didn't allow us to be challenged and there was less chance of it being real due to the monsters etc. needed for a horror.
We looked into genres that we were not as familiar with yet still had a good enough understanding to produce a promotional package for it. After the idea of doing a period drama film we came to the decision on the genre, Film Noir.
I used wikipedia.org to find a list of film noir films, I then borrowed the film noir DVD 'The Maltese Falcon' which was a great starting point for our research.
We researched into this further and I have displayed a wordle below containing the key conventions:

After a lot of research into film noir teaser trailers I compiled a list of the most important genre specific conventions using the websites wisegeek.com, wikipedia.org and filmsite.org:

• emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations
• keep to the 1940s time period
• low key black and white visual style
• film noir is a form of German expressionist cinematography
• the theme of crime
• Buildings of great heights
• sharp angles
• crowded environments
• depends heavily on chiaroscuro lighting
• first person voice overs
• Characters such as a femme fatalé, detective and antagonist/protagonist
• Shadow effects
• Canted angles

INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH

During my research it was important that I looked into Film distributors and magazine publishers to see which would be most suited to produce my film and distribute my magazine. I have looked at both US and UK film distributors and have researched independent films and blockbusters using the website mediaknowall.com. (Over 9 million pound budget)

Film distribution is the process of a film to get it to it's audience. Distribution can be done in many ways:

• Theatrical release
• Home entertainment release (DVD/Blu-Ray)
• TV broadcast

Click here for Institutional research

Top four UK distribution companies

BBC

• Produced/co-produced 'An Education', 'StreetDance 3D' and 'Match Point'.
• Produce British films that bring the best British talent to the UK audience.
• Produce around eight films per year.

 Working Title

• Produced 'Paul', 'Nanny Mcphee and the Big Bang' and 'Green zone'.
• Founded in 1983
• Parent companies: Universal Studios and PolyGram

Aardman

• Founded in 1976
• Produced 'Flushed Away', 'Wallace and Gromit' and 'Chicken Run'
• Private company
• Specialist in animation

Film 4

• Produced 'How to lose friends and alienate people', 'Trainspotting' and 'Slumdog Millionaire'
• Has its own television channel
• Owned by Channel 4

Click here for Magazine publisher researcher

PRELIMINARY TASK

Before I started my final products I thought it would be beneficial to create a preliminary product. This has allowed me to use Premiere Pro CS4, the programme I have used for my final product, and therefore I have learned the basic uses and key features in order to make my product successful. Also before creating this we had a workshop session in using the Song HD 1000 cameras. During this we learned how to do the following shots:

• Mid shot
• Long shot
• Two shot
• Establishing shot
• Close up
• Extreme long shot
• Canted angle
• Pan
• Crane shots
• POV shots
• Shot reverse shot

We all had to create a horror teaser trailer. I was able to research into music of this genre, understand pace of editing, direct actors in a shot and had lots of practice using cameras and software.

Introduction

My name is Scott Spencer and I am an A2 Media Studies student studying at The Fallibroome Academy.

Brief:

A promotional package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with a film magazine front cover and a poster for the film.

I chose to work in a group with Nicholas Jevons in which we created a film noir teaser trailer set in the 1940s.