The document discusses conventions of teaser trailers that the author researched and applied to their group's teaser trailer for a film. It describes common teaser trailer durations of 50-100 seconds and how the group's 72-second trailer fit this convention. It also discusses conventions around editing style, sound design including tension-building music, use of voiceovers, text/graphic elements, company idents, and applying genre conventions of thrillers to situate the story in a school setting. Examples are provided from other films' teaser trailers to illustrate conventions the group's trailer adhered to or adapted.

2. There are many conventions of teaser trailers that can be continuously found when researching existing media products.
Duration is a big aspect of teaser trailers that can help to set apart a theatrical trailer and a teaser trailer. After
researching duration I have found out that teaser trailers are commonly between 50 and 100 seconds long. For
example:
Gone girl: 88 seconds
Fatal attraction: 94 seconds
Beauty and the Beast: 81 seconds
The final cut of our trailer ended up being 72 seconds long showing that we managed to fit in the same duration
category as most other teasers.
The duration of a teaser trailer is an important element of a final product as it ensures that not too much is given away
which will in turn mean that an audience may feel more compelled to watch the entirety of the film.

3. Another convention of a teaser trailer that is important is editing style. This refers to the pace of editing and the
transitions used. In our teaser trailer we used a fast paced editing style for each scene in order to portray them in a
shortened manner which ensured that an audience could view a more developed scene if they were to watch the real
film. As mentioned previously, a teaser trailer should leave the audience wanting to watch more rather than leaving
them feeling they don’t need to watch the film to understand its narrative. Here is a gif I created of some key shots in
one scene of the film, when editing the final cut, these shots only took up 5 seconds of the teaser trailer but we
managed to include a lot of information. (Hover over the image and press play).
Here is a gif I created with shots from the ‘Gone
Girl’ teaser trailer. This selection of shots also 4
seconds which shows the amount of information
crammed into a small space of the time with the
use of a fast paced editing style.

4. When creating our teaser trailer, sound was a really important aspect for us that we wanted to stand out and draw our
trailer out from amongst the rest. When researching sound in existing teaser trailers it came across that non-diegetic
tension building music with a climax always featured. Because of this, and the high drama shots that we had previously
filmed on filming day, we also wanted to feature a tension building track with a point of intense climax. When listening to
our trailer, you will notice a soft piano track that enters at 00.00 seconds which eventually transitions into a darker
rumble effect at 00.27. This is where the tension starts to build and more sound elements are introduced before the
climax occurs alongside a scene change at 00.48. We used a cinematic ‘boom’ sound effect to achieve the climax which
you can hear in many other teaser trailers of the same genre. For example, in the ‘Fatal Attraction’ teaser trailer the
same cinematic sound effect can be heard at 01.11 seconds which is also followed by a scene change much like in our
own.
ADDICTED FATAL ATTRACTION

5. In the ADDICTED teaser trailer, we also featured a non-diegetic voice over in the second half of the product. We felt as
though this component added to the professionalism of the production. At first, we used my voice to record the voice
over but later on decided that a teenage voice is more so a convention of a teen drama rather than a teen thriller. In
order to ensure our trailer complied with the conventions of trailers within the same genre bracket we decided to record
the voice over with a more mature voice. In the end this sounded perfect and made it seem as though it matched
perfectly with the on screen action without taking too much attention away from it. There are many other trailers that
we found within our research that also featured a voice over to explain a particular component of the narrative. For
example, in the ‘Hunger Games’ teaser trailer, you can hear a male voice over explaining that the on screen protagonist
(Katniss Everdeen) is taking part in a competition of some sort. Despite this information, there isn’t too much of a
giveaway as to why she’s in the forrest etc. We wanted this same effect in our trailer. We gave away information about
the ‘Fidelity’ drug but enclosed little insight as to where to get it or how you find out about it etc.
Hunger games teaser

6. The text/graphic elements of our teaser trailer fit perfectly with that of existing teaser trailers. Other than the ident we
decided not to feature any textual elements until the very end of the trailer. This ensures that the audience can focus just
on the video footage and hopefully decide that they want to view the film before seeing when it’ll be out and its official
title. This pattern also occurs in many other teaser trailers. For example, in the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ teaser trailer, no
text appears on screen until the very end, after the display of all the video elements.
We debated about whether we should include a tag line graphic in our teaser trailer but we wanted to go against the
conventional pattern in order to ensure the format of our teaser was not exactly the same as so many existing ones.
Because of this, we just featured the film title, a credit saying ‘COMING SOON’ and an expected release date (much like
in the Beauty and the Beast teaser).

7. An ident is a short clip or image that represents a particular company. Idents are commonly seen at the beginning of a
teaser trailer and they show the audience who may be representing/ distributing the film. As a group, we did a lot of
research into ident designs, where they appear in a trailer and how long they can be viewed on screen for. I have
recognised that idents can usually be seen on screen for around 2-3 seconds. For most idents, this appears with a fade
in and a fade to black before the actual trailer commences. Our ident can only be seen on screen for a short 1 second in
order to be able to focus most of the screen time on the actual film footage. In order to fit with typical conventions we
featured a fade to black at the end of the ident which then transitions into the start of the teaser film footage. When
designing the ident, we decided to keep it simple with a limited amount of colour in order to represent our made up
production company as formal and simplistic. After doing research, I found out that straight lines and geometric shapes
are commonly seen in existing ident animations (THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY). Because of this we decided on a simple
red diamond that will surround the company name ‘RED RUMBLE’.

8. Main image of protagonist looking directly into
the camera in order to create a sympathetic
connection with the audience. This method is
called direct address and can be seen regularly
throughout existing film posters
Striking title that stands out against the
backdrop of the poster. This section is also the
largest of all textual graphics on the poster. As
you can see, my group and I have opted for a
very similar colour scheme than that of the
‘Taken’. This film falls under the thriller bracket,
much like our own, so we decided that our
poster would suit really well to a grayscale
image with a repetitive outburst of red coming
through in elements such as the title.
Billing block placed at the bottom of the
poster in an almost invisible font size. (Also
on Taken poster)
At the bottom of both ours and the ‘Taken’
poster there is information on the release
date of the film. (COMING SOON/4
OCTOBER)

9. On film posters, a mention of an actor/actress is
common. This is even more likely if the individual is
well known in the film industry as this will be used as
a promotional technique and a unique selling point
for the film. When creating our poster my group and I
decided to act as though the main character in our
teaser trailer ‘Amie Johns’ (me) is popular and well
known in the industry. Due to this decision, we
deemed it appropriate to feature the actresses name
at the top of the film poster. As you can see this
promotional device has also been used in the ‘Taken’
film poster with the likes of famous actor, Liam
Neeson.
Despite how alike our poster is with the ‘Taken’ film
poster, we decided to choose a different style of
background image. As you can see. In the ‘Taken’
poster, the image is grayscale like ours but it also
features a slight scratchy white hue over the top of the
image. This makes the image look worn and artificial
and almost like a newspaper/comic book image
whereas the clarity of our image adds to the realism.
The realism of our image could help the audience to
understand the genre and how our narrative may
consist of situations that could occur in real life
whereas the artificiality of the Taken image could give
an action/comic book vibe to the film.

10. Similarities
When creating our magazine cover we aimed to comply with the
conventions of a generic ‘Total Film’ magazine cover. For
example we:
• Changed the colour of the masthead font to white in order
to stand out against the dark background.
• Included our protagonist as the only visible person on the
cover.
• Image of the protagonist is positioned in the center of the
cover.
• We used striking colors such as yellow, blue and red to
represent our cover lines in order to attract the audience.
• We positioned the barcode in the same place which helped
to reduce the amount of attention drawn away from the
other information.
• We placed simple shapes such as circles and rectangles
behind the information about the magazine’s content.
• The main image is overlapping the masthead in order to
emphasize the connection between the film that the
character is in and the magazine brand.
• We used expressive words such as ‘MASSIVE’ and
‘ULTIMATE’.

11. Differences
Despite the obvious links between our own and the pre-existing
Total Film cover, there are also some aspects of them that are
different to one another. For example:
• We have not used direct address as a method of audience
sympathy whereas the pre existing cover has. Instead of
this, our character is looking upwards in order to portray
herself as intelligent and confident. The character in the pre-
existing cover is looking directly into the camera/audiences
eye which allow a connection to be drawn between the
audience and the character.
• Despite its effectiveness, we have not added any graphic
elements to our masthead whereas the existing over has
(Top Right). We chose not to follow this convention in order
to prevent our cover looking too busy and clustered.
• Due to the positioning of our main image we had space to
add more cover lines on the left hand side of the cover that
are surrounded by bold and darkly coloured shapes. The pre-
existing over doesn’t feature so much on the sides of the
image as there isn’t enough room.
• On the existing over it is difficult to find a [atch of image
without writing on it whereas we have a large space in the
bottom right section of our cover.

12. When first discussing the creation of our teaser trailer. My group and I decided that ours would fall into the ‘thriller genre’ with a sub-
genre of ‘teen’. We carried out extensive research into the conventions of a thriller in order for our products to be able to comply with
the likes of these.
A thriller is a novel, play or film with an exciting plot, typically involving crime.
Teen film is film genre targeted on teenagers and young adults in which the plot is based upon their special interests such as coming of
age, young love, rebellion, conflict and alienation/loneliness.
In thrillers, the story is usually told from the main characters (hero's) perspective. This usually involves scenes of violence and danger
as the hero battles against the villains. There are also usually short clips from the villains point of view which allows the audience to
understand the fight from both sides.
When creating our film idea, we wanted to go against these typical narrative conventions that concern the film being told from the
hero’s perspective. In order to do so, we have told the film from the perspective of the character who is portrayed as the villainous
individual. This is also a Unique Selling Point of our film as it tells the story from the side that the audience rarely gets to view.
Despite our deliberate effort to go against these conventions, we have also followed some. For example, there is definitely a sense of
danger throughout our teaser trailer and overall film pitch within the section that is concerned with the male antagonist taking the
‘fidelity’ pill.

13. Within the ‘typical’ thriller film, there are character types that regularly appear. For example you can commonly recognize:
- A Vulnerable female - A male hero - Male villain
We decided to completely oppose to these conventions by flipping the genders for each character type and therefore including:
- A Vulnerable male - Female villain
Not only does this act as another unique selling point for our film but we also wanted to send out a message that supports the idea of
gender equality within media and the concept that concerns the fact that males can be represented as vulnerable.
Another film that does the same thing is ‘Elektra’. Elektra is a film based upon a female assassin who defends and protects a young
female and her father. She is a prominent force of power within the film and can be seen represented as a strong leader. Within the
film, she can also be seen defeating many powerful male forces, showing that women are just as able as men when it concerns
defending themselves and the people they love and care for. Here Is a sort clip showing Elektra defeating a male villain:

14. It is common for thrillers to be set within environments that people may be in within their everyday life. This makes the film more
thrilling for the audience because they can empathise with the character and imagine themselves within that environment. Because
our film also had a sub-genre of ‘teen’, we decided that it would be based within a school where the majority of teenagers are on a
daily basis. This would therefore help our target audience to relate to our characters easier as they're feature within the same type of
environments that they can find themselves in.
Another teen thriller that is also situated within a school environment is ‘Bad Kids’ which is due to be released next year.

15. Here is a screenshot of my genre research in
which I explained the typical codes and
conventions of thriller ’style’.
As you can see, I explain how low key lighting, shadows and silhouettes can be
commonly found within films of the thriller genre. Here are some images taken
from my group’s teaser trailer.
We have managed to follow this convention with the use of a black curtain and
some artificial lighting. We have used the low key lighting and shadow effect to
portray the female protagonist as dark and mysterious.