1. Task 3:
Purpose of a trailer:
A trailer is essentially a form of advertisement for a movie that uses the visuals of a
movie in order to encourage people to see the movie when it comes out in the
cinema.
It is an integral part of advertisement and screened all over, both in cinema and on
television, taking footage from the movie in order to tease the movie and get people
interested in their product.
The trailers are made to appeal to a certain audience, showing things they would be
interested in. American trailers often seem more praise full to the military opposed
to European trailers. We see an example of this is the Kong (2017) trailer, in which
the American trailer is a lot more focused on the military and action scenes. While
the European one is more comedic. Teenage movies have quicker paced trailers, and
more of a focus on the front end of the trailer, to capture their attention quickly on
sites where ads are skiable such as youtube.
A trailer may put focus on certain actors, as they are well known and will bring more
people to see the movie, for instance, Kong (2017) has a few notable actors,
including Samuel Jackson, and Tom Hiddleston. Regardless of their actual input into
the movie and screen time, the trailer will heavily feature them as the studios know
that they will bring people in to watch the trailer and eventually the movie from star
power alone.
Identifiable title
Film titles and typeface are an
important part of movie trailers, as
a convention they are more
required than a “trend”, as they
not only provides the title for the
film, a must have if you want
people to go see it, but can also
set the tone for the movie. For an
example we can see Kong: Skull
Island’s trailer shows us the logo for Kong, large, rough, stone and bold, this
conventionally indicates that the movie will be more action orientated. As well as
this, the markings on the stone are indicative of a moment within the trailer where
the main characters find stone paintings with Kong’s face. Having the title be in all
capitals means that It emphasis the title and makes it more evident for viewer that
2. this is going to be a “strong” action movie. Genre changing the style of the title is a
common convention, for instance, A horror film will often have a “scarier” logo,
oftentimes less clinical and more random, sometimes it alludes to moments or ideas
within the movie, If we look at “Rings”, a 2017 horror movie, we can see that the title
is more ragged, as if it has been scratched
in (once again alluding to an idea in the
trailer, where the girl has starched messages
in with her nails), and the title has the titular
“ring” behind it. We can see that this trailers
title is conventional as it reflects the movies
tone, and alludes to ideas within the trailer.
Another horror trailer that does this is is the
recent trailer for “Alien: covenant” The
backgrounds are both black, a common
convention for this kind of movie, both with
white text contrasting against the black
background, again a convention as it puts
focus on the title and creates stark contrast
that’s slightly unnerving. Alien’s title
features it letters far apart, as they slowly drift towards each other, indicating to the
audience that this takes place in space, and these letters are in low gravity.
Company logos
Film production Logos feature in the trailer and
show the viewer what production companies
have worked on this film, this is helpful for
advertising not only the film, but the company,
and if the film is good, encourages people to
see others by the same production company.
For instance, warner brothers has a reputation
for making good movies, thus film goers would
be more likely to see a film if it has the Warner
Bros. Logo in front of it, assuming the trend of
good movies will continue. In the Kong trailer, the Film production Logo is woven
into the trailer. Using the motif of a military photo projector to show each of the
logos, inferring that this is a “Vietnam” style movie, As well as this, the logo used by
Warner brothers is the one used in 1973, the era that the movie is set in, The Logos
then Segway well into the actual footage from the movie . This fast paced style works
with the movie genre, making it a convention
3. In “Rings”, we see a similar convention,
where the company logo changes to suit the
genre. As ring is a horror movie, the logo
changes accordingly, in this case,
paramount’s iconic stars are replaced by the
titular ring in a flash of static, alluding to
“Ring’s” use of video tapes.
Music and other sound
Use of music and sounds in trailers are very important. In Kong, we see they use the Song
“bad moon rising”. This is a good choice for many reasons, for one it covers the idea that
there is something “bad” on the horizon, trouble is “on the way”, it indicates that while
things may seem okay now, something is about to go wrong, as it does in the trailer.
Another reason why it is a good choice is its correlation with the Vietnam War. American
soldiers in Vietnam would listen to American songs to get them riled up, this is one of the
songs they listened too, making sense considering that this focuses on America soldiers in
the era of the Vietnam War. When Kong shows us, the music cuts out, the “Bad Moon”
alluded too in the song has arrived, breaking the helicopters they arrive in and stranding the
group on skull island. Having popular songs is a common convention of trailers, as well as
setting a recognisable mood, it makes people more likely to watch the trailer, simply to
listen to the song. When “Bad Moon rising” stops, its replaced by a constant high pitched
pedal (drone) note, and high pitched siren noises. These siren noises not only indicate the
panic of the group, but that particular siren is often associated with other giant monsters,
such as those seen in Godzilla or Pacific Rim, adding to the general theme of these giant
monsters, making it a convention for this kind of action movie.
In rings, the music is conventional for the genre, its high pitched and ghostly, making use of
a choir to invoke religious/satanic imagery within the trailer, indicating to its viewership that
this is meant to be a horror movie. In the background of these high string, the words “seven
days” are repeated, indicating to both the audience that there are seven days in this film, and
that the idea of only being alive for seven days is on the main characters mind. This is
unconventional for a horror movie, as it slightly under shadows the dialogue, but it is
definitely scary.
Both Trailers contain both diatonic and non-diatonic sound. As well as Synchronous and
Asynchronous sound. Each trailer has a voiceover, we see this in kong, where the characters
are explaining the mission as they set off, and in Rings, where the boyfriend is explaining the
concept of the tape to his girlfriend. As they are voiceovers, they are both examples of
Asynchronous sound, as we don’t see who is talking, voiceovers are also a convention of
trailers, as they are a good way to shove exposition on the viewer.
4. Age certification
A common convention of trailers is to show the age certification, age certification is the
recommended age of watching the movie, In the UK, the films ratings are decided by the
British Board of Film Classification, who view the movie and decide from its content, what
age rating it should be. In the trailer for “Kong: Skull island”, the age rating is notably not
present. This is likely because it is yet to be rated, as the BBFC has yet to watch it and decide
its rating. This is a common convention in trailers, while all movies must be rated eventually,
by having the trailer un-rated, it can attract an audience it’s technically not supposed to,
those too young to watch it, and thus will make more money by attracting this younger
audience into the cinema. This same principle applies to “Rings”, where there is also no age
rating, despite it likely being intended for older audiences, considering its graphic horror
content. As well as this the first trailer will rarely be rated simply because the movie would
not be ready to be viewed yet.
Social media information
While this is a more modern
convention, most trailers will include
some sort of directory to a form of
social media. This will allow the
audience to go onto the internet and
talk about the trailer, this generates
more hype for the movie, and means
more people will eventually be made
aware of the movies existence. This
type. We can see two different types of this with “Kong”, and “Rings”. In Kong, we see that
the trailer shows how you can follow the movie on most forms of social media, including
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. While on the other hand, Rings does not
have any Social media links, but includes the web address to the movies website, where you
can find out more information. We can see that the social media aspects are aimed more
towards the younger generations, and the website are more focused towards older
audiences. This is why Rings, the horror movie with a higher age rating focuses on the
website instead of any particular social media site.
Credits
Studio information is vital to a film’s
success and also the growth of a company
and that company’s reputation, if they are
not shown in the right way then they will
not attract viewers and the company’s
reputation will take a drop thanks to that.
The credits often show up spread
throughout the trailer, as the start and end
of a trailer is when the viewer is least
interested.
5. Cast and credit is used to showcase the actors that are involved in the film, as well as the
directors and producers, the main reason for this is popularity. Well known studios have fans
much like actors and directors do, so putting who is responsible for the film in a trailer will
attract viewers who are fans of them. For instance, in Kong, we can see the trailer says “from
the makers of Godzilla”, to anybody who watched Godzilla and enjoyed it, this would help
make the decision to go see the movie.
It is quite unconventional to not have credits in a trailer, but if the director or writer has very
little to their name, and thus won’t bring in views, sometimes the trailer will opt to not
mention them. None of the production crew on Rings are mentioned in the trailer, as the
director and writer have done very little directorial work, even less of it in English, meaning
they have little to no renown and there would be no benefit to having their names on the
trailer.
Release date
A common, almost
essential convention
is to put the date, or
at least an estimate of
the date, of the point
at which the film is
going to be released.
We see to the left
both Rings and Kong
have the month they
are going to be released, with Kong simply stating the month, and rings giving the
exact date. This is important for obvious reasons, it tells the viewer when they will be
able to see the movie, as the trailers rarely come out when the movie is available. It
also helps generate hype, as knowing when the movie comes out means people will
book tickets pre-emptively, meaning more viewers, and more money. We can see
that sometimes studios will arrange a film’s release date so that it coincides with real
world events. Friday the 13th, seen in the bottom right of those pictures, was released
on Friday the 13th of February to coincide with both the title of the movie, and the
date at which the movie is set. As well as this, Rings is released on October 28th, very
near Halloween, a time traditionally associated with horror movies, this means the
movie will have more people view it, as those who want to see horror movies on
Halloween will go to see a horror movie such as Rings. Kongs release date is on
march, the same month all other classic king kong movies were released on.
Narrative theory
Tottorov’s narrative theory says that there are five elements to any narrative. First,
there is an equilibrium, calm, all is as it should be. Then there is a disruption of that
order by an event. The third is the recognition that the disorder has occurred. The
6. fourth is the attempt to repair the disruption, and the fifth is the return of the
equilibrium, or a new equilibrium. An example of this would be Star wars
1) Luke lives at home with his aunt and uncle
2) Storm troopers invade Luke’s home planet to find the droids
3) Luke returns home and finds his family dead by the hand of the storm troopers
4) Luke goes to destroy the death star
5) The death star is destroyed by Luke, saving the galaxy (until the next movie).
We can see trailers to not need to follow this narrative structure. Conventionally, a
trailer will only include the first four parts of the narrative structure, showing the
build-up, but not the resolution, in order to avoid spoiling the story as a whole.
We see an example of narrative structure in the trailer for Kong.
1) The army goes on a standard mission to bomb the island to investigate it
2) Kong get angry at the army for attacking his home
3) Kong attacks the helicopters
4) Various fight scenes
We see that part 4 is left dubious at best, we are not entirely sure what the goal of
the characters are in this movie, and we just know the cause of conflicts. We can see
that part 5 is entirely missing as it does not want to spoil us on the events of the
movie, giving us no reason to see it in cinema.
