Location scouting

I came up with a criteria i needed for location for my trailer, I needed it to not have any obvious signs of civilization in it, to make sure its believable. I needed there to be open space as well as quite dense woods to give me different looking locations but close together, i needed there to be pathways as well as untouched woods.

 I went location scoping and found a place named 'grey mare woods' in Cornwall, the location has all of the requirements needed for my filming
My location follows the common conventions of horror as it is set in the woods, I did this because its important to keep within certain conventions for your production to make sure you attract the audience of the genre you are targeting.
These images show that the location is very wild, not populated and dark, perfect for my horror teaser trailer 

example shot types

I decided to make a sample of basic shot types to make sure i have the basic knowledge of shot types. having this knowledge of basic shot types will help me when filming.

Mood boards

I created these mood boards with the most iconic horror movie characters. This shows me that most horror movies have a very iconic character featured within which is generally the villain, and is usually very unique.  From this I know that for my horror trailer that I need a very strong character presence for my villain as well as seeing that the colours featured are dark or red, e.g black, blue, dark green as these are all connected to fear

Audience research

Representing the right target audience and their needs is critical in a film promotion campaign because if people do not feel they are represent they will not pay to see the film and the film will not gross a profit. To get this right, professionals used primary and secondary research methods to find out exactly what their target audience needs/wants. I decided to create an online survey to find out exactly who my target audience are and what they want, I did this by creating the survey on 'survey monkey' and then posting the link on the social networking sites 'twitter' and 'tumblr' which I knew would generate quick responses. Posting this online caters for the needs of my target audience because young people prefer to use the internet.

Easy A : Comedy

Easy A Trailer : Comedy  http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/easy-a/trailer

The trailer starts off with the main character telling us about ‘her side of the story’ which gives us an idea that something has happened in the narrative that has shown her in a bad way and she needs to correct this, this scene is done is a video blog/diary way with a mid shot. We then get various shots of a high school which tells us the character is in high school and that is predominantly where the narrative is set. This clearly connotes that the primary target audience for this film was 15-24 years olds as they can relate to this setting as it represents their own experiences.


We then see a shot of the main character being knocked over by peers and nobody even notices us, this tells us the character is not a ‘popular’ person in the school. This is confirmed in the next shot, which is a funny clip to show that the film is a comedy with the main character ( who we find out is called olive) ‘’Olive, that’s your name right?’’ ( in a sarcastic tone)  Yeah.. Uh.. We’ve had nine classes together since kindergarten’’. 

It then cuts to another shot of the main character doing her video blog/diary telling us this is part one , Which says this is part one of the narrative of the story.  We then see Olive talking to a guy asking her out, even though he is gay, we find out this is because he gets tormented and wants it to finish.  We see a over the shoulder shot of the guy walking into the classroom with a broken nose, giving the impression he is being beaten up for being gay (this represents gay people in the target audience but also supports Medhurst's theory that media texts make gay people; "Look awful because they are not like us"). While we see this shot there is a voice over of the boy talking to olive saying ‘’I’m tormented every day, all I want is one good imaginary fling’’ and it cuts to this shot of him saying this.  It then cuts back to the mid close up shot of Olive talking to her video blog/diary telling us this is part two, so we know this is what happens next. We see the guy and Olive walk into a party, seemingly ‘together’. They go into a room and pretend to have sex by making loud noises, jumping on the bed and punching each other which is funny and further shows it’s a comedy. We then see multiple shots of guys asking Olive to do the same thing for them, using mid shots and over the shoulder shots. One of these scenes is comedic, a boy offering Olive a coupon to pretend have sex with her ‘’ 20% of bath and body works?! Is that how much our imaginary trust meant to you?! I fake rocked your world!!’’ This bawdy humour, communicated through images, dialog and sound effects clearly connotes that the target audience is young people who want to see a film to "Escape' (Blumer and Katz, Uses and Gratification Theory) as this sort of humour represents this need. Also, it represents them as 'youths' because these clips support Hall's theory that "Adoleescence is inherently a time of storm & stress when all young people go through some sort of emotional and behavioural upheaval" (Hall, 1904).


We see people holding up signs saying ‘trash’ etc directed towards Olive,  we then see Olive doing her video blog/diary telling us; ‘Come Monday, things took a turn for the scandalous.’’  We see footage from the film ‘the scarlet letter’ while olive talks about its ironic who she’s studying about it, which before we even know why its ironic that it is very important to upcoming events. She says that the woman in the film has to wear a red ‘A’ For adulterer, Which we then see her wearing a red A on her clothes. The sound is now ‘Poker Face’ by Lady Gaga, this use of non-diegetic which is appealing to the 15-25 age group and she is a popular artist for this age group. We then see another comedic scene of Olive's parents telling her that her new clothes look like she is a stripper ‘’ a high end stripper... for governors and athletes. ‘’ We then see various other shots of Olive talking to people/laughing which connotes it’s a happy fun film . We then see the list of cast names, with all the A’s being bright red which is using the joke of the film. We then see a blonde girl telling olive ‘There’s a higher power that will judge you for your indecency’’ to which Olive responds with ‘’Tom Cruise?’’ which is a joke to end the trailer on a comedic scene. We then see the title of the movie on a white background with black and red text to contradict. Obviously, this can all be related to Laura Mulvey's feminist theory because it makes light of women being; "Objects of male desire." However, the film will obviously be popular with women because Olive is a strong female role model they can relate to. Mise-en-scene, namely costume, also supports Mulvey's theory because the main character is seen wearing dark corsets which is giving off sexual connotations. The main character has dark red hair while her 'enemy' has blonde hair, this connotes innoccence unlike the main character.

Star vehicles are also used to represent the target audience; Emma Stone – has appeared in various other movies, generally comedies therefore attracting people to see the movie by just her staring in it, The movie also features Amanda Bynes who has starred in many movies and had her own TV show called 'The Amanda Show' and Lisa Kudrow who played phoebe in 'Friends'. 

Donnie darko : Genre – thriller

Donnie  Darko : Genre – physiological thriller http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/donnie-darko/trailer 

The trailer opens with a shot of the main character jumping out of a school bus, the shot is canted to the right and returns to an upright state while focusing on  the main character. Then it cuts to a sped up shot of  people walking up and down the stairs of a school, which connotes that the movie is fast paced.  From the start of the trailer you can hear somebody reading out loud, which it then cuts to. What is said by the person is a hint to the plot of the film as it says '' Crystallized by the pain of puberty'' gives the impression the character is at the peak of his life and will die soon, this is re-enforced as it then cuts to the main character after she finishes speaking.  We then see the main character hitting something with an axe - which then cuts to a scene of the school with lots of people standing around, staring at graffiti on the floor which sells out '' They made me do it''  Then we see a stereotype of the suburbs, with women jogging , while Donnie ( the main character) is cycling down the street,  with a possessed concentration on his face.  The shot changes to the main character and a girl, where Donnie admits he has emotional problems, which adds to the idea that the main character has issues and has some mental problems.  This is then confirmed when the next shot of the main character is talking to which i think to be a therapist about his 'new friend' who he admits is imaginary. It then cuts to a overview of many drawings of his imaginary friend. Donnie then admits to his friend that he is seeing things, which is overlapped with the audio of his therapist saying he is suffering from 'daylight halucinations' which confirms this when the audio switches the Donnie saying that he has to obey him.  we then proceed to see his therapist talking about his imaginary friend 'frank the giant bunny rabbit'' whom we then see is a scary costume bunny rabbit.  It changes to a scene of Donnie talking about time channel which we then see different special effects such as morphic type blob channels moving around and effects e.g fire  this is all in very fast paced shots put together with canted shots of Donnie which ends with his house shaking results in everything falling down while his family are terrified. we then hear frank the bunny telling Donnie he got away with is while we see shots of a house burning when then cuts away to Donnie pulling out knifes and him with an axe, which we saw him with earlier in the trailer. There is then a mix of different sped up shots which end in dialogue of Donnie and frank speaking saying ''when is it going to stop? '' which frank replies '' you should already know that''. It then ends the trailer with a list of staring cast members which then shows a picture of them. this is done to make people want to see the film because of who is staring in the film. The whole movie has fade in and fade out shots for nearly every shots except for the fast paced shots. The colour of the movie is an almost overly fake bright light which shows how surreal it is. The target audience for this film is 15-25 age groups, the film is a 15 age anyway so this excludes the younger age groups and therefore the family audience, but this kind of genre is a favourite amongst youths and which is confirmed as it has a cult following now. It was shown in the pioneer theatre in new york citys east village for midnight screening for 28 consecutive months starting in 2002. The white shirt donnie is wearing at the begining of the trailers indicates his inoccences at the start, before anything happens, as the trailer contiunes we see him in various other colours but they are getting darker untill the end where we see him in a skeleton costume which signifys his darkness at this point. 

Legal restraints

When creatting a film trailer you have to take into account the legal restraints around the content.
The BBFC is the British board of film classification which decided on which classification a cinematic release gets in Britain and was set up to do so in 1912, and they have determined DVD/VIDEO classifications since the 1984 video recording act was passed.

the various classifications are :

Universal : suitable for all ages

parental guidance : some content may be unsuitable for under 8 years old may contain mild violence (e.g fantasy) or sex/drug references, mild language

  (cinema only since 2002) Generally unsuitable for very young people. Any under 12's are to be accompanied into the cinema by an over 18 adult at all times during the motion picture. films that come under this catergory can contain sex references , moderate violence, soft drugs, moderate swear words, discrimination etc.

(home media only since 2002) 12 home media classification is the same as 12A cinema classification DVD/BLURAY/VIDEO/GAME can only be bought/rented by 12+

only over 15 age are permitted to view film or rent/buy the film/game. films under this rating can contain hard drugs, adult themes, strong sex references, strong language, moderate violence and undetailed sex activity.

only 18+ adults admitted. nobody under 18 can buy/rent a film/game with an 18 classification or view an 18 film in a cinema. films under this category don't have a limitation of language used. Hard drugs are generally allowed, strong violence/sex references as well as strong sexual activity is also allowed.  strong real sex may be permitted if can be justified by context.

Therefore when determining what to put in my film trailer, I had to think about my target audience. My primary target audience is 15-24 years therefore the content of my trailer (and the film) must be suitable for people 15 years and over. In other words, I need to make sure my film trailer does not contain any very strong language or violent themes so I can keep it in this category in accordance to legal guidelines. The age classification will also appear at the start of the trailer to allow audiences to see who the film is suitable for (this is a legal requirement of trailers).

The reason legal age limits have been applied to films can be explained, in part by the Frankfurt School Hypodermic Needle Model. This theory basically implies that vulnerable people, such as children under 18 years, can be influenced by what they view on screen. Although some may disagree with this, there is evidence to suggest that children are more likely to be influenced by what they see on screen and this is why, complete with decency laws, the age restrictions must be followed.

What IS a film trailer?

A film trailer is marketing for feature films. Usually shown at the beginning of a film of a similar genre in the cinemas. But show also on television and at the beginning of DVDs. They advertise up coming film to attract the attention of their target audience, they are the usually quite short therefore go to the extremes of their genre for example. If the film was a comedy the editing would be fast paced as would the music to amplify the tone of the film but if it was a horror the editing would be slow and the shots be de saturated or dark. Film trailer have become increasingly popular searches online on websites like youtube and film companies are taking advantage of this by creating many trailers and other campaigns in an attempt to go viral . They generally follow the same pattern that a film does, they have a beginning or introductory sequence followed by a problem and then a solution. This shows the audience what the films are about.

The first trailer was shown in 1912 at Rye beach, New York at an amusement park. It was shown on a hung up white sheet, shown after ‘’The adventures of Kathlyn ‘’

In 1916, paramount became the first studio to officially release trailers, but only did it with their highest profile films.

The early trailers consisted of short clips showing the key features of the film alongside narration, a big score soundtrack and screens with text and a cast run.

Andrew J keuhn 

‘’ a trailer has but one goal: to draw audiences out of their houses and into a theater. To do that you have to set up a sense of urgency. In the process of arriving at that forced ace, we advanced the style of editing. We really pushed the envelope in terms of what audiences would accept ‘’

22/06/11

Brief:

A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following three options :

• A website homepage for the film
• A film magazine front cover, featuring the film
• A poster for the film

I picked this brief because I wanted to gain experience in filming and to improve my skills in it.   Also because for AS I did a magazine cover, Contents page and double page spread for a music magazine I have experience with this and could do well with the flm magazine cover.