A2 Summer Trailer Research Work

1: The Master (2012)

 

This is not exactly a thriller or horror trailer, though it certainly has an aspect of mystery which is what I would like my trailer to rely heavily on - I particularly liked the classic style of it and the way it was edited, for example the fact that it is mainly comprised of long shots that have an ominous feel to them such as the one that zooms in on Joaquin Phoenix's face as he walks. I also liked the fact that it was edited to leave a lot of ambiguities and unanswered questions - for example, there is a brief shot of Philip Seymour Hoffman about to address the camera about something unclear to the viewer, and most of the dialogue is very ambiguous e.g. 'you've wandered from the true path' and 'you seem to inspire something in him'. I would certainly borrow from this trailer in this aspect, as mystery is which makes most trailers particularly thrilling. The look and feel of the trailer is something I particularly liked as well - having a similar look to this, as well as similar music, is something I may consider.

2: No Country For Old Men (2007)

In some ways this trailer is very similar to the trailer for The Master - it is never particularly scary or suspenseful, mainly mysterious - however, this is a style that, with the right footage, can be particularly gripping. This trailer, for example, builds up to the action but never actually shows it, leaving it to the imagination of the audience. Like many trailers, to do this it often cuts to black before showing something, which is a convention that I would likely follow in my own film trailer. Avoiding showing the actual action and instead implying it also gives the trailer as a whole a particularly suspenseful paces, as there is a sustained build up with no actual relief.

3: The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

This trailer feels more like a proper horror film than the trailers of the other two films, which are more mystery and suspense thrillers. The film itself is something of a pastiche of many other modern horror films so the trailer as well as the film itself includes many horror conventions - for example, at the beginning the music suddenly stops playing which immediately changes the atmosphere and increases the suspense.

4: Moon (2009)

This is a psychological thriller trailer that I liked because it introduces the more thought provoking ideas of the story without giving away too much. Like No Country For Old Men, it suggests certain ideas without actually showing them on screen, though while No Country For Old Men suggests conflict and violence, this manages to cleverly suggest the idea of cloning that is introduced to the film without properly showing it. I particularly liked the way the clone was first introduced, which is done in a style traditional with some trailers. The music fades out and there is a dramatic silence when the clone is shown, but it cuts away from any further plot details to instead show the critical reception. I particularly liked the fact that the situation in question was set up to be something mundane, which made the reveal all the more shocking.

5: Prometheus (2012)

This is a trailer for a sci-fi action/horror film and the trailer is suitably thrilling thanks to many different devices used within it. The music is iconic, unique and intense, and uses dramatic sound as well as music itself to create tension - something which has become particularly common in modern trailers (other trailers that have become popular due to their use of sound include Inception). In the second half of the trailer, flashes of different dramatic camera shots are shown which adds suspense and intensity to the trailer as well, a technique that can quite easily be replicated and is also used in many different trailers, particularly horror and action trailers.

6: Drive (2011)

Like many trailers for action films, Drive manages to blend telling some of the story with demonstrating the action - most of the dialogue is done in voiceover while the action is shown playing out, something which happens in most action trailers now. Different music is used throughout the trailer which splits it in to different parts, a trailer making device that can be used to, for example, demonstrate different characters in the film or different aspects of the story. I particularly liked the use of classical music at the end of the trailer, as it demonstrates the arthouse aspects of the film and gives the audience more of an insight into what the film will feel like, rather than tell the entire story.

7: A History of Violence (2007)

Like some of the other trailers I have used such as Moon and The Cabin in the Woods, this trailer starts off in a mundane way, using titles to describe the quietness of the town the main characters live in as well as focusing on the everyday lives of the characters (one character is shown playing baseball, for example, while the main character works at a cafe). Like the other trailers, the change in tone and danger is signified by the music cutting out abruptly. This particular trailer also features actor names, demonstrating the ensemble cast.

8: Memento (2000)

My favourite aspect of this trailer is the way in which it cleverly presents the concept of anterograde amnesia the film and what it leads to within the story. For example, the opening of the trailer sees the main character explaining his condition to another man, and at the end of the trailer he does the exact same thing, eventually saying 'I've told you this before, haven't I?' The trailer also introduces characters under title cards such as 'friend' and 'lover', though the idea that the protagonist of the film cannot fully know them is introduced when they are re-introduced in the trailer as, for example, 'liar'. 

Final Task

Our Ident

Each member of our group made one Ident for our film opening - we ended up choosing my Ident as we felt that it had the right mix of bold animation and some understatement which tied in with the more independent aspect of our film as a whole. I applied the idea of using a gold colour scheme for the one we chose which we all agreed would be a good idea as it would help it stand out, and I feel that we have been successful in this aspect for the particular Ident we used. To create all of our Idents, we used Final Cut Pro X - for the one we have chosen, we used a 'fold' title effect. We also added an audio clip which Sam performed on the ukelele.

Preliminary Task

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 4

Who are your audience?

Above is a sample survey carried out by a seventeen-year-old male that is a privately educated student, in their penultimate year of secondary school. Having questioned a fairly broad age range of people, I think it is safe to deduce that our target audience will be someone similar to the person questioned above. We aimed to dress our character in clothes similar to those of people our age, and his behaviour and dialogue were also supposed to be relevant to our audience.
Based on our collected data, I think that it is safe to deduce that our target audience fits comfortably into the 15-25 year-old category. They are most likely a student or young adult, probably either currently in higher education or entering/leaving higher education. Of the people that we sampled, the most complimentary and excited by our piece were most definitely people of a similar age to us. Although the themes of our piece would most likely encourage the diversion use and gratification, the actors we used were relatable to teenagers, meaning that personal identity could also be a reason for viewing our piece.
Although several films of similar genres to ours can be classified as 12 or 12A's, if we were conforming to the guidelines of the bbfc, we believe that some of the themes that we chose to include in our piece could be too violent for viewers younger than 15. When asked, the majority of our audience associated our piece with films such as Drive, Collateral, and The Bourne Identity. These films are all classified as 18’s or 15’s, suggesting that our original predictions were correct.

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies form the process of constructing this product?

Blogger.com – This was very useful for displaying our progress, planning, constructing and evaluation.

YouTube.com – We used this to research thriller openings, which helped inspire us. It was also used to display our preliminary task and our final piece.

Google.com – Arguably one of the most useful forms of technology, as it allowed us to search for and access images, music, and information about similar films for our research section.

Final Cut Pro X – This was used to construct our film, our recce and preliminary task, and also to edit them using things such as filters, titles, colour balancing, and sound balancing that were available with the software. For example, we used an expander to make sections of our dialogue clearer, and we used frame matching to equilibrilize the colour of certain shots. It also had a built-in automatic save feature, meaning that our work was less easily lost.

Apple Macintosh iMac desktop – I found this computer extremely easy to use, and the display was very clear, making editing easier, as we could see problem areas that required correcting.

Sony HD Camera – We used this to film our piece and our recce. We learnt how to use it whilst shooting our recce, and I found it easy to manipulate in order to achieve the necessary shots.

Tripods – We used this to steady the camera, and this in turn helped achieve key shots, such as the wide-angle opening shots of Tower Bridge and the surrounding areas.

Microphone – These were most definitely essential, as even though we had minimal dialogue, the lines that we did choose to include were very important for the audience to hear, therefore we used microphones.

Kaiser Video lights – We decided to include these, as some of our locations were badly lit and therefore required lights, but we also used them in naturally well-lit shots, as it created a better atmosphere, and helped reduce graininess.

Imdb – This was used a great deal to acquire information about directors, films, and production companies, it therefore contributed the most to the research and planning sections of our piece.

DaFont – We found the font that we chose to use in all our titles and the main title of our piece from this website, it was called ‘Bank Gothic’ and we felt it was distinguished from any of the fonts that could be found, both on Microsoft Word and Final Cut Pro X.

Free play music – We obtained the majority of our sound from this website, most importantly, our main music track, called ‘Ascension from the well’ by Peter John Ross. It was useful because it had a wide range of copyright free music.

I feel as though the thing that I have learnt the most about the technologies that we included is how to manipulate them in order to achieve the desired effect. In some cases, such as with Final Cut Pro X, I found it slightly harder to be fully confident with using it, but once I was competent enough, I felt as though it was a lot easier to create the final product that we had envisaged.