A2 Media PowerPoint

1. Research and Planning
A2 COURSEWORK

2. Through my research I found…
There is usually always a Protagonist
 This could be a detective figuring out a mystery
There is also usually an Antagonist who doesn’t give their act away until the end of the film,
therefore you keep guessing.
 The Antagonist I found is usually someone who has committed a crime like murder however I found
a lot of Thriller films also have Psychopaths or stalkers in their films.

3. Through watching Thriller trailers…
Through watching Thriller trailers I learnt that I needed quick shots to create tension and music which switches
from fast to slow, all of this creates a sense of threat which is my main aim when creating my trailer, this keeps
the audience guessing and keeps the film exciting and mysterious. When I had found the basic skills I needed to
create my Thriller I then had come up with a plot, to do this I searched for a typical Thriller plot to help give me
ideas;
 Your hero discovers a secret conspiracy of enemies (for example, a secret political or criminal organization).
 The villain has discovered the hero's point of psychological weakness and is playing mind games with the hero. The
hero will have to overcome this psychological weakness in order to stop the villain from committing a crime.
 A crime is about to happen. Or a crime has happened and is about to be repeated as a larger crime. The hero
alone can stop it. For example, there are many thrillers about serial killers, who kill at least once at the beginning of
the book and who, if not stopped, will commit more and even worse crimes.
 The hero is trying to stop a disaster
(medical, nuclear, environmental, political) that has spread out of control.
 The hero is involved in a dramatic court case that has drastic consequences outside of the courtroom

4. By finding this information and by already watching a number of
different trailers I began to plan my Thriller film. By planning out the
entire film first it meant I could create a more effective and
mysterious trailer as I knew the entire plot, therefore I could add in
the best shots into the trailer to create the best tension and
mystery. I decided t create a film about a new boy starting a
school, I decided there would be a lot of students that randomly
go missing every month from this school, however no one
understands why – this is the mysterious part of the film. I decided
the missing students will have something to do with the teachers,
however in my trailer it will not be obvious which teachers are
really involved with the missing students and if in fact they are at
all. My aim is for the new boy at the school to figure out exactly
what is going on.

5. Survey
• As I have a basic plan for my film I decided to ask my
class members if they had any suggestions on anything
else I could add and also to help me choose a good
name for my film, to do this I created a survey.
• Through this survey I could decide on a name for my
film, the most popular one chosen was ‘Silent Students’
therefore this is what my film shall be called.
• I only received a few simple suggestions back,
however I spoke about these suggestions and
adapted on them with my teacher and other students
and it was decided that;
• Within the school, to keep the teachers secret we
decided there would be posters around the school
promoting ‘No mobiles’ and ‘No talking in the
corridors’ this was so no students could have any
communication, I decided this to help link it in more
with the name.

6.  I also decided this would be the opening shot of my trailer, a panning shot of the corridor showing
all the posters and school rules. We then started discussing the teachers and I decided that I did
not want them to be actual qualified teachers, I discussed this and eventually decided on the
idea that they would be scientists, taking the students for some kind of organ testing and research.
Finally I decided that for my trailer I did not want the audience to assume that every student
missing has been killed, because of this I decided I wanted a small news report in the trailer
reporting on one of the missing students being found. However this student has no memory of
what happened to them therefore keeping the mystery of the film and not revealing all within the
trailer.

7. A2 Trailers
 When watching other A2 media trailers on YouTube I found a lot of them were
more like a 2 minute short film, I found they did not have different scenes and all
stayed within the same location with very slow cuts. After watching a Grade A
media A2 trailer and other popular film trailers on YouTube, I found they were a
lot more effective and looked a lot more like a trailer as they cut to different
scenes and different locations – quickly. Because of the different scenes it is easy
to understand it is a trailer, promoting a film, whereas if it is all filmed in the same
location with the same clothes and people, it begins to look like an extremely
short film that usually gives away the entire plot.