2. I conducted primary research into what is expected by the
audience in terms of the music and sounds used in the
soundtrack for the trailer in regards to what is familiar and
unfamiliar.
I composed therefore, a survey online by the use of Office 365
forms accumulating 10 responses from which I will analyse to
understand what we will be able to challenge, conform, or
refute in terms of stereotypes or conventions to create desired
strategically effect on the audience and content of the trailer.
My questions focus on looking at what instruments and genre
of music should be utilised to our specific target to achieve a
post modern superhero sci-fi / action adventure trailer.
3. We needed to ascertain when we needed to commence the
soundtrack in the trailer, 50% of the respondents chose the
‘Company Logo / distribution logo’ which identifies and implies
that the audience only truly realise music begins at that point.
30% of participants had argued that it should commence at the
‘BBFC slide’ and 20% picked ‘Movie Footage.’
We will therefore be conforming to the conventions here, starting
our soundtrack with the ‘Company logo/ distribution’ as further
research into trailers I identified that many do not start at the
BBFC slide such as ‘Hostiles.’
1.When do you expect the
soundtrack for the trailer to
begin?
4. At what point do you believe
the soundtrack should end for
the trailer?
As well as knowing when to start the music we needed to
determine when the soundtrack should end in the trailer.
Majority (60%) of participants stated that the soundtrack should
end on the release date slide which would be the last clip that is
seen.
We can confirm that we will follow this convention, partly
because we decided that we will have the credit interwoven
through the trailer to break up scenes so that audience can easily
identify distinction between scenes.
A minor percentage of one respondent stated they would expect
the music to end with the last footage though we decided that this
might be too abrupt, and the extra seconds available via the
release date would allow us to ease the music out.
5. What genre of music would you expect for a superhero movie?
We were surprised to discover that majority (30%) of participants stated that they would expect Rock to be the genre associated with superhero
movie. Although, recently in the latest superhero movie there is an emergence in the rock genre music being used for the soundtracks and ‘Thor
Ragnorak’ demonstrates this.The ability of rock music for superhero extremely empowers the characters involved.
However, there is quite a diverse range of music genre people chose, such as ‘Pop,’ ‘DubStep,’ ‘Alternative’ and ‘Metal’ however each of these
forms of music will not collaborate the mood of our trailer that focuses on a important element of mental health.
We will take the choice of ‘Rock’ though into consideration, potentially this genre will match the trailer to empower our protagonist Clary and
also the conflict of the Rock which will contradict what is included in our trailer perhaps will helps accentuate Clary’s conflict of state of mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLGajUQ14Dw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7MGUNV8MxU
6. As exemplified by the pie chart, the majority of respondents
stated they would expect to hear ‘3-5’ musical instruments in the
trailer, whilst the remaining percentages were 10% picked ‘0-2’
and ‘6-8’.
Myself and my partner agreed that we would follow this majority
rather than the other highlighted choices because using 3-5
instruments would allow a diverse range of instruments that can
be used so that we can create different tones.
How many musical instruments
would you expect to hear in the
trailer for the soundtrack?
7. This question coincides with the genre question, to pin point what exact
musical instruments should be used to create our rock genre music.
This question allowed respondents to select more than one option as
composers do not use one specific family of instruments.
Majority of people stated that they would expect percussion to be used,
strings and minor instruments: Brass.
We will include the two main groups of instruments chosen as our
dominant primary instruments and potentially Brass as secondary
instruments to interweave as additional sounds to create the
atmosphere we need.
What musical instruments do
you expect to form the
soundtrack?
8. Do you expect to hear ambient
sounds in the trailer?
This was a stand alone question on ambient sounds and whether if our
audience of our trailer would expect to hear ambient sounds. 100% of
participants agreed there should be ambient sounds in our trailer.
It is therefore implied this important detail can be used to establish location
and setting, as sounds can signify certain locations (example a playground–
running footsteps and children laughing.)
Although in our trailer, we will contradict these findings by using minimal
ambient sounds. Our locations such as the hospital med scene, which would
associate sounds of;
Crying Wheels
Machinery Doors slamming
Talking of staff Echoing of murmured voices.
We are going to isolate the location ambient sounds of just the sound of the
door slamming at the beginning of the trailer.Yet we will make the sound of the
door slamming pleonastic so to represent her isolation and entrapment within
the Censor run mental institution.
By us not using ambient sounds it would also disorientate the audience by not
able to establish a verisimilitude setting.The quietness of the locations will
amplify the black and white edit we have on our hospital footage.
9. When do you expect the music to climax?
To captivate our audience the importance of music and when it climax is crucial. Climax is used to add tension.
7 people voiced that action was when they would most expect to hear the climax in music.This affirmed our initial
hypothesis ourselves.
The fact that one respondent selected emotional scene collaborates with our conclusion to not have any music during
the mental health scene that has Clary screaming, laughing and staring.
10. Do you expect a superhero
movie to have an identifiable
soundtrack specific to them?
Whilst investigating into the conventions of superhero trailers and movies, we could
identify that majority of superhero movies are argued to have no memorable music that
could be identified to them specifically – essentially music all blends together. For
example, think of the Iron Man theme song or the Avengers Assemble soundtrack.
An exception to this was ‘Wonder Woman,’ Diana’s character first airs in ‘Batman v
Superman’ with the leit motif ‘Is she WithYou?’ which evokes intense power of this
female character.The music matches this revolutionary superhero who is the first female
to have her own solo movie, the music is exceptional, break taking and is like a lighting
bolt justifying and representing how she is; indestructible, Godlike in her destructive
nature that paves way for new growth.This conveys the mental and physical strength of
Wonder Woman subverting the damsel-in-distress females. In film, female roles in
movies originally were seen as submissive female – weak, vulnerable and perceived by
the costumes of white dresses.
We therefore investigated whether an audience would want a leit motif such as Wonder
Woman implies, for our trailer to present our protagonist and 100% of respondents
agreed. We will therefore design a soundtrack that will empower our protagonist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRYMaot4LOg
11. When do you expect the
soundtrack to increase in
tempo?
As you can see from the chart, 60% of participants stated that
action is when the tempo should increase.The remaining
percentage expressed that emotional climax was also when
tempo should increase.
I agree, fundamentally always the climax of music is seen in the
tempo of action and emotional climax.We discussed that
identifying the typical convention here for music, would be the
strategic opportunity to subvert and challenge this typical
tradition.We decided that we would use non-diegetic voiceover of
whispers instead of music for our encoded scene of mental health,
that is red filtered exposing the audience to see into the mind of a
mental health person.
We will follow these traditions mainly but will challenge these
conventions, so to disorientate the viewers etc.
