Before production of our teaser trailer, we made sure that we knew all the conventions for teaser trailers from real media products.
This research was significantly useful because it gave us guidelines for our editing - creating anchorage, generating backing sound and constructing the trailer in just 60 seconds.
This research was significantly useful because it gave us guidelines for our editing - creating anchorage, generating backing sound and constructing the trailer in just 60 seconds.
We firstly researched the conventions of both teaser trailers and theatrical trailers:
Theatrical trailer:
- Longer than a teaser trailer
- More of the storyline is revealed
- Shows the dates the film will be released
Teaser trailer:
- Usually up to 90 seconds long
- Shows a small amount of the storyline
- Won't show the exact date of the film, it would say something along the lines of "coming soon"
- It is released before the Theatrical trailer
Codes and Conventions of Thrillers:
- Has a very fast pace
- Uses straight and jump cuts to keep up the pace
- Music that adds to the tension
- Low key lighting
A sub-genre we looked at was social realism. We researched how much of this sub-genre we used in our thriller. So we used an action time graph of a social realism film and of ours to see how compatable they were:
Here was our teaser trailer.
As we can see that the graphs do not completely correlate, however they both follow the overall pattern of a build up then a drop which suggests that we used elements of social realism.
We found that the use of non diegetic sound is crucial in making a thriller because it makes the thriller seem more realistic and increases intrigue. We thought that using it would be particularly relevant for our teaser trailer because we wanted to create something fast paced to match the pace of action in our teaser trailer. To achieve this we used drum and bass and techno music to match the type of sound you would expect in a video game. We extended this idea further and decided to introduce our teaser trailer narrative with just sound. We decided to only use non diegetic sound as it supports our narrative and introduces intrigue and mystery.
^^ This is our finished teaser trailer
For the stabbing scene, we watched films with similar scenes of violence, such as:
“Halloween”
“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”
and
“The Silence of the Lambs”
This research allowed us to discover the time of day and the angle we were going to film it from. We explored many instruments we should use instead of an actual knife which could potentially cut our actors. We looked at plastic knives, handles of knives and a retractable knife. This utensil allowed us to convincingly shoot this scene looking straight at the victim, as if they were actually stabbed. We thought by doing this, it would evoke a thrill in our target audience.
“Halloween”
“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”
and
“The Silence of the Lambs”
This research allowed us to discover the time of day and the angle we were going to film it from. We explored many instruments we should use instead of an actual knife which could potentially cut our actors. We looked at plastic knives, handles of knives and a retractable knife. This utensil allowed us to convincingly shoot this scene looking straight at the victim, as if they were actually stabbed. We thought by doing this, it would evoke a thrill in our target audience.
Researching into theories in pre-production proved to be very useful. We followed Todorov’s theory of equilibrium:
1. a state of equilibrium at the outset;
2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action;
3. a recognition that there has been a disruption;
4. an attempt to repair the disruption;
5. a reinstatement of the equilibrium
We began our trailer with the sense of equilibrium; a boy playing video games. However, we challenged the theory as we ended our teaser trailer with a sense of disequilibrium by ending it with a victim being stabbed by the protagonist.
We showed the divide between reality and virtual gaming, by using a series of jump cuts and used quick edited close up shots between game scenes and actual footage of the main character acting like a character from a game.
We used devices such as speeding up the pace of a scene in order to show how fast one decision can change your life. One of the shots we did this in was when the main character was putting knives in his bag that he had kept hidden in a drawer under his bed.
To include our subgenre of social realism we used a gaming font for the anchorage of the trailer. We found this to be effective as it was the same type of font used for “Space Invaders” (which we used the sound from, occasionally throughout the trailer to emphasise the gaming obsession).
To support and develop the idea of “some live to play” and “others play to live”, we used a straight cut from the main character playing a game to acting out as if he were in the game by focusing on a knife in his hidden drawer.
In post-production editing we were able to use the “Ken Burns” tool to zoom in on existing shots that were too far away. Such as the shot of his eyes to show how he was engulfed in concentration and indulgence in the gaming world.
To keep our narrative open to interpretations we ended our on a cliff hanger, this therefore allowed people to guess as to what the “Gameboy” was or wasn’t going to do next. It also allowed the audience to become intrigued about the extent of destruction that was going to happen within the film. Moreover, through our use of fast paced editing we didn’t encourage people empathise with either character.
The research we conducted during our A2 course enhanced our creative decisions. By studying narrative we were able to confirm our genre through teaser trailer conventions.
We used inspiration from video game clips such as grand theft auto as ideas for copying games as well as including clips from well known games for intertextual references and recognisability for audience members.
The research we conducted during our A2 course enhanced our creative decisions. By studying narrative we were able to confirm our genre through teaser trailer conventions.
We used inspiration from video game clips such as grand theft auto as ideas for copying games as well as including clips from well known games for intertextual references and recognisability for audience members.
Website
Our media product uses the same conventions as other media products through the development of a webpage. This, like most other media products allowed our teaser trailer to be more accessible to fans as more people use the internet to find out about new films.
After looking at other films that involved gaming or the internet as a main concept, we tried to make obvious connections in our website to games that people would recognise.
On our website we had the opportunity to promote our trailer and include information about the trailer, and links to our social networking pages. Such as:
- Facebook
- Twitter
- RSS
This was all to promote our product. The colour on the page was black, with green writing. The black is supposed to emphasise the dark side of the film and the green was to help people draw comparisons between gaming, as we found most games had a green font e.g. "Call of Duty" and "Space Invaders." 
We also put our poster image on the website so when people see the website, they will also recognise the picture from other advertising.
The webpage is designed to be easy to navigate but it is also designed to make intertextual references between different media products and our own.
We did challenge the conventions of a film website by using the same colours and typography all the way through. This allowed our target audience to recognise and associate between our three media products.
Poster
Originally, we were inspired by the poster for the existing media text, "Gamer". The film has themes that are similar to ours and we liked the way they edited the boy’s and the man’s face together.
We made ours by taking a photo of our actor facing the camera and layering it over a picture of the avatar from "Battlefield" (above).
We made ours by taking a photo of our actor facing the camera and layering it over a picture of the avatar from "Battlefield" (above).
However we felt that this was not the strongest outcome we could achieve after seeing the result (pictured below). We then went with the idea that just the eyes being pixelated, before extending this to the eyes and lips.
Our updated image with the eyes and lips being pixelated:
We then added the text around the edge to create our finished poster:
We felt that our poster challenges some conventions of film posters.
It was simplistic with the two tone colour scheme.
It conformed to most of the usual conventions as it had the actor’s name, a release date, a slogan or tag line and credits.
It was simplistic with the two tone colour scheme.
It conformed to most of the usual conventions as it had the actor’s name, a release date, a slogan or tag line and credits.
