The first shot you see when watching our film trailer is of the age restriction, this is stating to the viewers that the footage they are about to watch is suitable for all ages. When a film trailer is suitable for all ages this widens the trailer audience and this is exactly what it is doing with our trailer. This is one of many ways in which our media trailer conveys the conventions used in existing film trailers. Even though our film trailer is suitable for all ages, it still falls into the thriller genre of film, when researching thriller genre films the main convention that stood out was the tempo of the trailer. The two film trailers I payed most attention to was 'Taken' and 'The Bourne Ultimatum', both of these film trailers began slow, then in the middle of the trailer the tempo picks up to add to the tension and the thrill of the trailer. At the end of the trailer the music can be either slowed down or it can end with a bang. Our film trailer ends with a bang so that when the audience has finished watching it, they will either still be talking about it or they will be thinking about it.
The theory we have decided to use when creating our film trailer was the theory of Equilibrium by Todorov, this theory is made up of 5 stages patterns, these being: State of Equilibrium, Disruption of Equilibrium, Recognition of disruption, Attempt to repair Equilibrium and Equilibrium is restored. Here is the 5 stage pattern in terms of our film trailer:
1. State of Equilibrium - The first show of our ilm trailer shows a happy mother and daughter having fun in the park
2. Disruption of Equilibrium - The disruption is when the daughter is taken, you do not see this in our film trailer as we feel that to much information will be given to the audience if this is shown. If an audience basically knows the whole story of the trailer they wont bother to go and see the full film.
3. Recognition of Disruption - The recognition is shown when the mothers discovers that her daughter is nowhere to be found, and is in fact 'Missing'
4. Attempt to repair Equilibrium - The attempt to repair the Equilibrium comes when there are shots of the mother trying to find her daughter and doing everything and anything in her power to find her.
5. Equilibrium is restored - This isn't shown in our film trailer but the Restoration of Equilibrium could be the mother finding the daughter or the truth or why the daughter is missing is revealed to the audience.
The main convention that stood out when analyzing film magazine front covers was the powerful image, this image was normally of the main character either showing expression or being pictured in an acting stance, whatever expressions or actions shown by the pictured character is normally related entirely to the film. On our film magazine front cover we have opted for a powerful picture of the mother who's daughter is missing, showing the emotion and distress. These expressions relate to our film perfectly because these are the types of emotions shown by anyone who discovers that their child has gone missing and could be in danger.
We also had to create a film poster for our film trailer and like the magazine front cover, the image shown on this poster has to also be powerful. This image also needs to either briefly sum up the film or it needs to show an important part of the story, at the same time the images mustn't give to much of the story away to the viewers. Examples of film posters i researched were; The main 'Sweeney Todd' poster, this poster shows the main character, Johnny Depp in the role of Sweeney Todd, sitting on a chair in the middle of a old, dark room holding an old fashioned shaving knife. This is good because its a powerful image and it shows an important aspect of the film, this being the fact that Sweeney todd used this old fashioned shaving knife to murder his customers. Our film trailer also follows this conventions as we have opted for an image of the missing child in the hands of an un-known hooded stranger, this is an important part to the story of our own film trailer and at the same time gives nothing away because the audience have no idea who the little girl is or who the hooded stranger is and why are they holding hands?
Another convention that we used throughout all three of our media products (Trailer, Front cover and Poster) was that we used the same text throughout all of them, this is so when the audience sees this specific font they can relate it specifically to our film trailer. This is used in many existing film trailers and media products, examples of this can include Spiderman, Harry Potter and James Bond. The spiderman text style used is iconic because when the creators of spiderman released spiderman 3, instead of titling the film as 'Spiderman 3' on the poster, they used an image of the spider shown on spiderman chest with the Number 3 below it, the number 3 was shown in the iconic spiderman font style. They have done this because they know the spiderman text is iconic and every-time an audience sees that text they know exactly what it means.
2.How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our media coursework was made up of The film trailer and two other ancillary texts, these being a film poster and a film magazine. The film trailer was our main product. A way in which to link all three of these together is to use the same font on all three products, this helps the audience recognise the product. For example with the Harry Potter style writing, whatever product you see of Harry potter the text is always the same, this adds an element of professionalism and is easily recognisable by all audiences. This is why we have opted for the same text in all three of our media products. Another way in which these three can be linked together is by using the same characters throughout, on our film poster we have a picture of the little girl holing hands with a hooded stranger, and by watching our film trailer you will see many shots of the little girl in the hands of the hooded stranger, this is one way the poster links in with the film trailer. The way in which the magazine front cover links in with the film trailer is through the use of the mother, on our front cover we have used a picture of the mother looking distressed and very emotional and by watching our film trailer you will also see many shots of the mother look very distressed and emotional when searching for her 'Missing' daughter.
If our film trailer was to go into distribution and was due to be released in cinemas, we would have a 30 second teaser trailer shown in cinemas a few months before the film was to be released, then have the full length trailer shown a couple of weeks before the film was to released, this is so the audience is left guessing and feeling intrigued about what our film is about.
3.What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Each of my group members, inlcuding myself, created a poll on each of their blogs. We did this so we could find out exactly what the audience wanted from a film trailer. The polls allowed us to access results immediatly as the audience only had to click one of the options to take part in the poll, this was much more consistent because we didnt have to wait for the audiences feedback, we had it instantly. Each member of the group chose a specific area to ask a question on. One group member created a poll on whether it was best to have a twist in the storyline within the location, another member created a poll on which location would be most suited for a horror movie, another created a poll on which other types of media attracts the audience to a film, apart from a film trailer and i created a poll on the specific clothing of a horror/thriller trailers. We did this so we had all aspects covered.
After showing our film trailer to an audience, the main point that kept occuring was that the music could have been alot better. We had trouble when it came to finding appropriate music, first of all we had decided to use an existing song called 'Numb' by Linkin Park but found out we couldnt use existing songs for legal reasons, so we opted for the best non existing piece of music that had tempo and added to the tension of our film trailer. We had a range of feedback from the audience, positive and negative. We used the negative feedback to improve certain aspects of our film trailer such as the music and other certain areas.
4.How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
There were many different technologies that we used when researching, planning and creating our film trailer. Below shows a step by step of technologies we used:
The first step was to create a blog. Our created blogs were used to show research of existing film trailers, the actual planning of our own film trailer and the actual creation of our film trailer. We also used our blogs to discuss different types of media theories and why they applied to our specifc film trailer. Another feature of the blogs was that we could create polls in which the audience could answer questions in order for us to gain a good understanding of what the audience wanted. The blogs also allowed us to embed videos from youtube and analyze each of them below.
The technology we used to research existing film trailers was Youtube. This enabled us to find existing film trailers of the same genre and analyse each of them and look at the specific media conventions each trailer uses. Youtube also allowed us to copy the embed codes of the youtube videos, when pasting this embed code onto our blogs, the video was then visible on our blogs so it allowed the viewers of my blog to watch the trailer and then relate to my analysis of it.
We used google to research existing media film posters and magazine front covers. This was to give us an idea of what to include in our own specific poster and magazine front cover. Google was the main search engine used but there were other links that I found on google that also helped us gain a good idea of what content makes a good film poster and magazine front cover.
Photoshop was the technology we used to in fact create the film poster and magazine front cover. We also used photoshop to create the title sequence at the beginning of our film trailer. We had a good understanding of how to use photoshop as we used it for our AS coursework when having to create a music magazine. AS helped us in many ways because it gave us a good understanding of how to use Photoshop and it gave us a good understanding of how to create a magazine. We knew that we needed a dominant picture on the front cover to make the magazine stand out and to make the audience notice and subsequently purchase it.
This piece of technology is what we used in order to create our final film trailer. It is called 'Premiere Pro CS4'. This was difficult to use at first because we haven't used this before. In our premliminary task we used imovie which is similar to Premiere pro but not as professional. Premiere pro allowed us to add different effects to our specific shots and make our film trailer look any other existing film trailer.
