Applying recognisable conventions of trailers

In order to play with the recognisable conventions of trailers, in groups, we came up with ideas about how to market and promote 'Bloodshed High'.

Before we started to storyboard, 'Bloodshed High' we identified the important aspects of trailers, such as soundtrack, actors and directors, production or what to include in shots . We discussed what a USP (Unique Selling Point) is and identified different selling points in films.

Me, Hannah Ajala and Samson Ruwangu came upon many decisions in how to promote 'Bloodshed High'. We started off with the plot of the film in order to help us with what the USP of the film should be. Our main Unique Selling Point are:

• a British setting instead of a typical American set,
• a male victim rather than a female.

Secondly, we decided that our target audience would be teenagers aged 15+ therefore we looked into ways were we could attract them. For instance, we chose to use something similar to Paramore (or a soundtrack in the rock genre) as our soundtrack since most of their audience were teenagers and released a soundtrack for the movie 'Twilight' which was popular movie for our target audience and for non-diagetic music, we chose a kind of an eerie sound to it.

Soundtrack

Non-diagetic

Finally we decided on using Lionsgate as our production company because rather than going for companies such as twisted pictures we wanted to bring something new.

From this task, I learnt that:

• trailers are the most effective ways of attracting audiences,
• shows the best parts of the movie without giving too much away and,
• audience expectations are the key.

Film Posters

The two main colours that are being presented in this poster are black, red and white. In my opinion, the colour black always relates to the horror genre. The white in the film poster, allows us to see the person and trap more, and it could also be that the person is in the spotlight, meaning that she is being watched. In addition, the character in the poster looks like she's in an empty room and looks completely helpless.

The main title 'Saw IV' is in red, this is also related to the horror genre. The title is placed in the middle of the poster making it more visible to the audience. The font of the title are in capitals making it look strong, therefore it is representing power and strength. The colour red also symbolises blood, so it informs the audience that the film will be bloody or gruesome. The title also tells us that the film can make people grip their seats as there have been previous saw movies.

The tagline 'its a trap' anchors the image's meaning that the person is trap. I can tell this because the chains on her feet are visible and the machine seems to be a trap. Lastly, the main character sitting on the machine is in danger, this is easy to say because of her clothes which are red and red symbolises danger or blood.

Concepts of horror movie

In todays lesson, we shower stormed different concepts of our horror movie. Overall, we came up with 2 ideas for the synopsis and from them we chose how we were going to use sound, editing and mise-en-scene.

The first synopsis, is about a true story that happened during the 20 century where there had been kidnaps happening for no reason.

For the sound we decided that we use eerie music, heartbeats, the usual bus sounds.

The problem with this synopsis was getting the right setting and the right props for the film.

The second synopsis would be set in a hospital, a patient who is possessed would have worms coming out of her mouth. The problem with this was how we would be able to use a hospital and how we would be able to make the worms look realistic enough.

Introduction

One of the requirements for our coursework is that we our to work in groups of 3. My group consists of: me and

• Hannah Ajala

www.13hanaja.blogspot.com

Analyzing a trailer

What point in the trailer are we told the name of the film? Why is this?

• The name of the film is given to us at around 3/4 of the trailer.
• It is given to us here, so that we are able to associate our anticipation and tension with the title.

Why are we told the who is starring in the film? Ho

w is this information given to us? Why?

• We are told who stars in the film since it indicates which actors are involved in the film. By telling us who is starring in the film, fans of the actors would want to watch them therefore increasing the popularity of the film.
• In the trailer, we are not given any names, the main point in this trailer is to build anticipation and to capture our attention rather than promote any actors or directors.

What type of action from the film do we see?

The type of action from the film can be seen by the screen shots below:

What clues does the music give us as to what type of film the trailer is advertising?

• The non-diagetic sounds from the trailer suggests that the film advertising is a sci-fi. The deep bass sound and high pitch sound suggests that it has something to do with outer space and aliens.

What can you say about the voice of the person delivering the voice-over? Why do you think this voice was chosen? What effect does it have?

• This trailer does not contain any voice over. However, the effect that it gives is that it aids us in our understanding of the film and to add to our anticipation. It builds a sense of mystery and suspense about the film to through the accent and register alone.

How does the speed of what we see compare to watching a clip from a film? Why is this? Does the speed alter through the trailer or stay the same?

• The speed of the shots in a trailer tend to be more quicker than those in a film.
• This is because trailers usually consist of selected shots(usually the exciting ones) and to attract an audience.

What information are we given in the very last frame of the trailer?

• In the last frame we are given the date, websites, universal studios logo, relatively logo and rogue.

Which is more effective in making you want to see the film, the poster or the trailer?

• Trailers usually make me want to watch the film more as they can create an atmosphere which keeps me anticipated for the film. Some people also find that trailers are more effective as you can see action from the film itself which catches attention rather than a poster.

Research

Some people would say that image would be more important than font since having an image would create the atmosphere and would be more eye-catching. It also makes films look more interesting to making their audiences want to watch. For example:

From this poster, people would be more drawn to the image because of its unusualness rather than the font, where it seems to be less exciting unless accompanied with an image. You could also say that people are usually drawn into things visually and since images take up most of the portion of the poster it would be hard not to miss it. Images are necessary to posters as they link in with the actual story line or narrative, without it, it wouldn't make sense. Finally, images are very informative of the genre. For example, from the image below, the genre of the film would be historical.

However, you could also argue that fonts are more important than image because it helps create an atmosphere. The blurring effect on ‘one missed call’ gives a mysterious feeling, therefore drawing people to it.

Also, some people would argue that the main point for having fonts would be to anchor the meaning of the image. As shown below, we can suggest that the film has to something to do with spiders from the web coming out of his wrists and the design of his costume and also maybe something heroic, since he is high above the ground this suggests that he has a duty to protect the city. This is all anchored by the text in the poster 'spider-man'.

Overall, both the fonts and images are important as they rely on each other to capture people's attention and to raise their curiosity and anticipation. Both the font and image give out information whereas if it were to be presented separately it would not be eye-catching and interesting.

Copy of Film Titles on Prezi