In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and the conventions of real media products?

 

Introduction

For our media A2 portfolio we decided to create movie trailer which included a movie poster and also a website for the movie. We decided that the genre of the movie trailer was going to be a combination of sci-fi/thriller because this was suited our taste and we believed that we add a few impressive effects into the trailer.

 

Marketing

We started the implementation of the movie trailer by researching the meaning of a movie trailer to ensure that we fully understood what a movie trailer was and what types of movie trailers they were. A trailer or preview is an advertisement or a commercial for a feature film that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema. There are also two different types of film trailers, which are teaser trailers that usually last under a 2 minutes and theatrical trailers which usually last for about 2 and half minutes. Therefore we decided to make trailer a theatrical trailer because the release of the movie was fastly approaching which is usually when theatrical thrillers are released. Afterwards, we researched into different conventions of movie trailers in order to get a general idea of what we needed to include into our movie trailer.

 

Genre

We analysed a number of movie trailers and we learnt that each movie trailer clearly highlighted its genre whilst also incorporating new features which would turn potential audiences into paying audiences therefore we aimed to also imitate this in our movie trailer by adding some crazy science fiction effects on some of the character’s faces and also adding some thrilling scenes into the trailer to enhance but also clearly highlight the genre of the movie trailer to the viewers. A few trailers which we watched were mainly focused on the main character in order to help the audiences get a better understanding of the plot and also build a report around the main character therefore we also aimed to do this our trailer by making the camera duration on the main character longer than the duration on other characters. Through the use of iconography, we also aimed to establish the genre of the movie, for example the iconography in thriller movies would be fast pace running scenes and tense music which we used in our movie thriller to establish the movie trailer.

 

Captions/Character introduction

Many trailers such as the drop added a caption of the name of the character in order to introduce the main character however taking inspiration from the abduction trailer we decided not to add caption for the introduction of our main character because the main character wasn’t popular enough to influence the audience to watch the trailer therefore however we aimed to influence the target audience using the contents of the movie trailers. Instead we decided to add a caption of the season when the trailer would be released similar to a movie trailer called run all night. This was an effective caption because it gave the target audience an indication of when the movie would be released.

 

Costumes

In terms of costumes and mise en scene we used every day costumes on the main characters because through our research we discovered that in thriller movies such as cut bank, used colloquial costumes on most of the characters to portray them as normal people.

Our storyline featured a boy with supernatural powers who is pursed by evil agents. In order to make these evil agents scary we decided to dress them in black costumes because in many movie trailers such as scream black costumes were worn by the antagonist in order to make look them more threatening. Similar to many thriller and horror movies such as the purge we decide to add a mask to the antagonist because we wanted to make his identity anonymous which makes him more scary and threatening.

 

Editing

One of the main conventions of a thriller trailers was fast pace editing. The trailers often started slowly to build up tension and then busted into some thrilling action. This was one of the reasons why we had many running scenes in our movie trailer, this was because running scenes were one of the main elements which are often used in many different thriller trailers such as sky fall and mission impossible.

In comparison to real media products, another editing technique which we used in our movie trailer was fade to blacks. This was simply to create a rhythm which would suit the paste of the editing.

 

Effects

We used a lot of SFX in our movie trailer, this was to make the movie more suited to the genre and to impress the target audience. We used an effect called the sub-surface skin, this effect was used in Iron Man 3 and we looked really good therefore we decided to create this effect using a website called Video-co-pilot. In addition, we also used a sniper effect, this effect has been used in countless movies such as American Sniper and Saving private ryan. However, to make our movie trailer original we added to add our own effects which hadn’t been used in movies. I believe that this was very effective because this made our movie trailer look unique and skilled.

 

Structure

For the structure of the movie trailer, we followed a non-linear narrative which meant that our trailer didn’t follow the storyline of the film and only showed off the most exciting parts of the movie trailer without spoiling the ending of the film.

 

Voiceover

Many movie trailers such as the matrix used captions to describe the storyline of the movie trailers however, due to the complication of our storyline we decided to describe the storyline through the use of dialogue. We used a news report dialogue  to give the audience a better understanding of the storyline and the audio from the news report was carried over other scenes to  explain what was happening in the trailer. This turned from Diegetic sound to Non diegetic sound. Through our research we discovered that this technique has also been used in many movies trailer such as The Purge and Purge Anarchy.

 

Music/sound

From our research, it was evident that Sci-fi, thriller and horror movies often use multiple sound tracks in their movie trailers. This is often to suit the change of atmosphere in the trailer scenes. Therefore we also decided to do the same in our movie trailer. We added a fast pace to soundtrack straight in the opening scene. This was simply to immediately grab the attention of the viewers and to indicate to them that the movie was thriller. This is similar to a movie trailer called Abduction where this has also been done. As the trailer continued we changed the sound track to a quieter but edgy soundtrack which was suited to the edited and created tension within the scene. We increased the volume of the soundtrack as tension increased in the movie trailer.

 

 Lastly, we finished the movie trailer by adding fast paced soundtrack which started off slowly but built up as the pace of the editing changed. At first we were going to use the Run boy run soundtrack by Wood kid but the beat and pace of the track stay pretty much the same therefore we changed to different soundtrack where the beat and the pace of the sound track increased as it played. These types of the soundtracks have used many different movie trailers such as Prometheus where the sound track accommodates the pace of the editing.

 

Camera works

Camera works are one of the most important conventions of a movie trailer. This is because they often assist in telling the story. Higher angle shots are usually used in different scenes to order to show off the scenery and also to make certain characters look vulnerable. This was very why we used higher angles on the main character and his friend who was shot. This was simply because these characters were victims in the movie trailer. Close up shots are used in movie trailers to reveal the character’s facial expression and emotions. Instead in our movie trailer, we used close up shots to reveal the supernatural effects added to the faces of the characters. This was very effective because it helped us to clearly reveal the detail in the effects used and the effects also created an uncomfortable atmosphere within the scene.

 

 We also used several camera movements such as tilt and pan shots. These shots are used to movie trailer to reveal the incoming danger and also to reveal the costume worn by the character. We used also pan shot to portray the dominance of the antagonist, this was also similar to the Dark night where Batman is standing at the top of the city and a pan shot is used to portray his dominance. Furthermore we also used several POV shots in our movie trailers which we felt was effective because it helps the viewers to empathise with the character as they get a first person view of the events, POV shots have been used in many movie scenes such as Spiderman and also Mr Nobody.

 

Lighting

Lighting is convention in movie trailer which is used to create a certain mood or atmosphere and lighting is also used to reveal the antagonist and protagonist. For example, in comparison to the Skyfall, the lighting used on the protagonist was bright whereas we used a darker lightning of the antagonist to reveal that he is clearly the antagonist. Making the lightning darker in scenes of the antagonist created a tense and scarier atmosphere within the trailer.

 

Production company/production logo

Another well-known convention which we had to add our movie trailer was the inclusion of a production company at the start of the trailer. This is a marketing strategy which is used the production company to advertise their company therefore it is essential to add this convention to our movie trailer. Many movie trailers tend to be produces by more than one Production Company therefore we decided to create two different production logos. We were influenced by other production logo names such as Paramount Pictures and this was because we liked the fact that it was alliteration. This led us to create our own production logo names which were Premiere production and lunar productions.

 

Age certification

In the first cut of our movie trailer, we added an America age certification band without knowing the implications. Our age certification band had be British because our movie was a British movie therefore we had to add a British age certification and also the BBFC symbol which signifies that they had chosen the age rating for our film.

 

 

Movie poster

In order to promote our movie further, we decided to also make a movie poster. We research a few movie posters and one of the aspects which we discovered was that movie posters often add all the main characters into the poster, therefore we also decided to follow this by adding the main character of our movie trailer into the poster. Furthermore, our poster was also suited to the genre of the movie because it is quite dark and we have also added a supernatural effect to indicate to the target audience that some aspects of the movie are sci-fi. We also used strong image and effective images for poster because this is one of the elements that catch the eye of the target audience when they look at the poster. As followed in every movie poster, we included a billing block to the poster. Creating a movie poster meant that we were using below the line advertisement as well as using above the line advertisement by creating the movie trailer.

 

 

Tagline

A tagline is almost a slogan for the film which sums up the film in a few words. Most movie posters such as Ghostbusters have memorable taglines which viewers can associate with the movie. The tagline for our movie poster was “You cannot run forever” we felt that this was a short but effective tagline which our target audience could easily remember the movie for.

 

Movie website

In order to make our media product similar to other real media products, we decided to create a website to promote the movie. Although, we created our website using Wix, I still believe that it is still similar to real media products because we added different features which would be found on professional movie website such as a menu which linked to each page of the website. Through my research, I also discovered that many movie website often added pages such as a Gallery page, included a story page and Cast page. Therefore we decided to add these pages to our website. In addition, similar to real movie websites, we also added our movie trailer on the home page of the website and this is normally done in many different movie trailers. The background of the website was also appropriate because it suited the genre of the movie as the background was dark and this is usually associated with thriller and sci-fi movies. Finally we also added a shop page where the target audience could purchase merchandise, although, this page isn’t really added in many movie trailers, I believe that it is effective because it makes the website more specialized and appealing to the target audience.

 

Social network Links

In order to make our products similar to real live media productions, we decided to create social media interactions such as a Facebook page. We felt that this was essential because most movies usually have at least one of social media pages where the fans and target audience can interact with them. Therefore, we decided to create Facebook page where our target audience could interact with us. We also added a twitter hashtag on the poster which the target audience can use to tweet about the movie trailer. This promotes the film on a massive scale because of the popularity of both twitter and Facebook which means that millions of people can be aware of the forthcoming movie resulting in bigger revenue for the movie.