1. Nikon Ahamed
Unit 2, 3, 22 Task 3
Conventions of film trailers
Trailers are a video based advertisement media used to raiseawareness of a
film and have the purposeto attract a specific target audience so that they
then want to see the whole film, in this way those who invested in the film
stand the best chance of making a profit on it. What trailers show is a brief
narration of the actual film that should only hint and give somedetails of the
main storylineso that it gives a general idea to the viewer aboutwhat he will
watch and trailers mustnot give away too much of the story otherwisethey
will not be able to attract the audience as they will lose interest on the film due
to the fact that they already know too much of the film.
Trailers are needed because a film cannot justcome out by itself as not many
people would wantto watch it (as they may not like it), they became part of
the production of a film as you need a hint, somestarting point to initially
convince the audience to watch the whole product.
Trailers are meant to give a sneak peek and establish the main characters
without revealing the actual story, another main objective would also be to tell
the audience the release date of the film. Trailers are important as they are a
powerfulweapon in the marketing campaign, posters as well are important,
but trailers havemuch more power as they have a good combination of
moving image and sound which makes the audience feel moreexcited about
the actual film and all this gives us an impression of the film that still images by
themselves cannot do. A trailer also tells you the type and genre of the film
and telling this is important in film marketing becausethe decision the
audience makes aboutwhat to see depends upon whether they have enjoyed
other similar films.
2. Todorov’s narrative structure – The equilibriumtheory
(1969)
This theory is applied in almost all of the trailers and it is essential to use as this
is the way in which the media can easily attract the audience (in trailers). Itcan
be modified and there can be someexceptions, but generally trailers follow
this structure.
This is how it is structured, it starts from the equilibrium.
Identifiable title
This is the title
that the trailer
“Kong Skull
Island” has a
unique style and
has a specific
effect on to the
audience as the
font style gives it more meaning to the context. The markings, the colour and
the fact that the writing is straightand sharp resemble “Kong” and how wild
and strong a giant gorilla could be. The way it has been edited also tells us that
“Kong” is huge, powerfuland not feminine, the title also makes us think that
the film is about frenetic explosions, battles and that there will be a lot of
action scenes where there is fastphased scenes.
3. Here instead we can
see that the text has
more background
telling; as we can
see, the background
is foggy as if it just
came out from a
place that was on
fire and this background reflects again the genre and the place in which the
film has been set. Italso relates to the cuts being made beforeas they were
showing up fire.
Everything is in
capital, only the size
of the writings was
different as
depending on the
sizethey had more
emphasis on
something on top of
something else, such as on the screenshotbeforewherethe date of release
was much bigger than the rest. All this was conventionaland has been done to
attract the audience and to tell them the genre in general of the film they will
watch.
In this other trailer,
from “The Boy”
(which is a horror
film) we can notice
the styleof the
writing being much
more different to
address the
audience and the
theme in a better way based on its genre. Itis conventional to have this dark,
low key lighting screen with the main title because this is whatpeople expect
fromhorror themed films. The writings in specific look like they were
professionally designed but then a kid or somesortof disruption has messed
up the writings by doing scratches which tells us that the film will be about
4. something dark
and that there will
be an enemy
figure who has the
purposeto scare
the audience. This
convention
element creates
more meaning
within the horror
genre and makes it
look morelike horror. Also
the background is always
dark as it makes the
writing stand out even
more and creates more
suspicious tenseas it looks
like darkness is
everywhereand there is
few light which is a
conventional element in a
horror movie. The font of
the writing looks professionalas it is straight and sharp, but at the same time it
resembles the old mansion which is the main location of the whole film.
The main title that appears in the trailer has
the writing “Boy” in a much bigger size than
“The”, this is to emphasisethe word “Boy” to
the audience, to make it stand out more as it
looks like it’s the main key word that people
should be aware of; also the scratches are
only on the word “Boy” making it look more visible and giving it more
attention. Every single piece word is in capital so that people pay more
attention to it and the importance of the attention instead depends on how big
or small the writing is as the producers wantto emphasise something over
something else, such as the main title “The Boy” where “Boy” is much bigger
than the article who has less importance.
5. Company logos
Company logos are
important factors in
the marketing of a
media product as
they show company
names and give
them credit and
reputation and also
people, after seeing a specific well recognised logo might be more willing to
watch both the trailer and the film as they expect it to be a good film due to
the producers being famous and capable. This is a screenshottaken from the
trailer of “The Ring 3” and here we can see Paramount’s logo being shown
which should attract
even more the
viewer’s attention as
it is a well-recognised
name.
Sometimes in trailers,
companies change
their logo style or edit
the logo to fit the
genre or the context
of the film in a better way. For example, in the trailer of “The Ring 3” we can
see the Paramountlogo being modified to fit the theme of the film as it looks
like it’s flickering as if it’s disturbed. Also on the firstscreen-shotwecan notice
that instead of the
Paramountstars
we have a ring
which relates to
the film and the
title itself and
these changes
have been made
to make the
audience feel
6. disturbed, less relaxed and make them understand that in the actual film there
will be an external presence that will causeproblems.
In the trailer of “The Boy”
we can see the logo of “STX
ENTERTAINMENT” and
there is no change made on
it a part from the colour
yellow that resembles light,
brightness and in a horror
film, escape. In this frame
wherethe logo is shown there is some sourceof light coming out from the top
which makes the writing logo stand out even more as it gives moreimportance
and meaning. It
almost looks like
the logo is the
only element you
should be paying
attention at in this
case. It is done to
make it moreeye
catching for the viewers and to makeit easier to impress the wholeimage (of
the logo) in to people’s mind so that they remember this company in case of
they see it in the future.
The same style
has been applied
for the other
logos
(H.BROTHERS –
LAKESHORE
ENTERTAINMENT)
still to make them
more remarkable
and to give them moreimpact in to the audiences’ minds. These changes made
to logos and special effects are all conventions to fit the genre and to eye
catch/surprisethe audience and they all havea common purposewhich is to
give credit to the specific companies that made the film. Even in logos as for
the other writings everything is in caps for the samepurpose.
7. Music and other sound
There are a lot of conventions in music and sound as the producers wanted to
create verisimilitude for the viewers so conventions haveto be used.
The initial song
played at the
background
remembers the
period of time in
which the film
should be set at
as the starting
music used to be used to convince Vietnam soldiers to go in to a fight, to pump
them up and make them feel ready. This tells the viewers the time in which the
movie and trailer will be located at.
Here is when the
disruption of the
Todorov’s
narrative
structurecomes
in place and the
sound frombeing
happy (music
used to make Vietnam soldiers feel ready) it justsuddenly goes darker. In this
shotwhere the disruption starts wecan hear a siren and screech as the
helicopter gets
crushed; this
makes the
audience think
that there is
something wrong
and that they
should be
panicking as the actors do and show in the next few shots. This sudden crush
sound makes us think that people in the film went suddenly from safeto
complete danger and this is an unconventionalelement in such a media
product.
8. A lot of incident
music has been
used in this
trailer,
specifically here
whereKong
smashes the
helicopters and
here you can also hear the heart beat as everything slows down, this heartbeat
also matches the helicopter blades moving.
Another
conventional
element that has
been added in
this trailer is the
music
background at
the beginning,
we know it is being used as a symbolfrom the past, but it rises as the voiceover
or the characters stop talking.
A part fromthat also when
actual characters are talking
the music and sound added
through editing lows down to
let the viewers pay more
attention to the discussion and
less to the music as they are more important.
9. Transformers thelast knight(2017)
The music used as
a background
makes us think
about something
ancient that is very
old and this
resembles the
transformers as
they are robots
made of “metal”
who have a long life.
The music is really fastpaced and this is conventionalas in all trailers you want
to make the audience feel excited about the actual film by using quick cuts,
sound and scenes to attract them even more.
The music in the background
matches the cuts and at
some point, when Optimus
appears it all the building up
of tense stops, the sound
goes much slower as he is
revealed. Based on the
previous film Optimus has
always been the hero, the
positive figurein the films and having all this tense building up until Optimus
appears can mean two
things for the audience, one
being his return one more
time or him as an enemy.
The scene where Bumblebee
chases Optimus has only
little sound that matches his
steps, but as Optimus grabs
him and puts him on the ground the music completely shuts down. This is
because the audience didn’texpect Optimus as an enemy thereforethis should
leave the viewers in a situation where they feel like they want to know more of
10. what actually happened as after that scene there’s one more cut and then the
trailer ends.
After the last scene the
producers used a
conventional sound of an
electronic machine
turning on and we see an
electronic eye which
should make us think that
Optimus has woken up
again. Also after this we
see all the circuits being turned on with a background music that again starts
building up tense until we
see the main title of the film
“TRANSFORMERS THE LAST
KNIGHT”. Allthese robotic
sounds arealso very
conventional in such a genre,
the blades touching the
metal, the weapons are also
much related to the genre.
Age certification
Depending on the platform age certification in trailers are not shown in UK
unless it is for an audience composed by people over 18, although in UK it is
not shown, in America there is a notification that will always tell you the age it
is aimed at and whether it is approved by the Motion Picture Association or
not.
11. In the trailer
“The Boy”
there is the
American
notification at
the beginning
telling that
everyonecan
watch it.
This is becausethe trailer is American, but in others British there is no
certification as the BBFC cannotrate them that early and due to this in trailers
you see the writing “yet to be rated”. Itwill get rated 3 or 4 months before the
release of the film.
Social media information
Trailers are made to advertisethe
film and to makepeople awareof
the existence of it and because
social media have a huge impact
into the audience, at the end of a
trailer you are always likely to see
the socialmedia logos and
websites so that the producers
can create more audience direct
interaction for the ones who are more willing to look up for some more
information on these socialmedia and wantto interact with the actual makers.
This also creates “hype” and makes the audience feel like they are wanted and
important as pages forums arecreated accordingly for them. Because of all
this, socialmedia are a convention in trailers as they serveeven more the
purposeand the essenceof the existence of trailers, which is to attract
customers to make them watch the actual final product. In the trailer “The ring
3” no social media has been put to make the audience’s focus concentrateon
to the release date and maybe on the website which is shown under the
release date. Instead in the trailer “The Boy” we havea good range of well-
known socialmedia (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and Instagram)
shown at the end, instead of putting the names they only used the logos
because the contrastof colours impacts more the audience and becausethey
12. are well recognised names there is no need to write them as people will
immediately know whatand who they are by looking at the logos. Using logos
of social media is conventional in a trailer as the society is moving forward
towards a more modernised society that relates a lot with social media, so
using them to interact even better with the audience suits better the purpose
of a trailer.
Credits
Credits are a convention in trailers as they give credit to the people who
participated in the making of the media product, butnowadays the credits
have shifted from the cast to the crew as there is moreneed to focus on the
people behind the camera who often times get ignored. The actors don’t
appear in the credits as
much as before as justby
looking at the trailer the
audience can recognise
them which immediately
gives them credit for being
present actors in the film.
For example in the trailer of “The Boy” the protagonistis Lauren Cohan who is
an American actress and model, best known for her role as Maggie Greene on
The Walking Dead which made her famous around the world. So by having her
as an actress in this film people will be already morewilling to watch it as sheis
well known for her good acting in “The Walking Dead”.
13. As of late even credits are
being shown less in
trailers as people do not
pay much attention to
them. Producers also
stopped putting the
credits to make the
audience’s focus concentrate more to the action and to the actual scenes and
cuts that are being shown as they are quite quick, they wantpeople to get
distracted less by the writing you would see on credits.
In the trailer of “Lights out” we can see that credits haveactually shifted to the
crew as they wantto get credits and wantpeople to focus on them as well.
People who get credits are the director, producers, editors and cameraman.
In this trailer also we
can see a common
convention of extra
advertisement as in
the middle of the
trailer they state that
the producer who
made this film is also
the maker of another
well recognised film
“The Conjuring”, this is being done a lot as of late to attract even more the
viewers as they know that in this case“The Conjuring” is a film that had a lot of
success so the viewers are morelikely to have positive expectations about it.
In addition to that
the director gets
even more
importance than the
rest of the crew as
he appears right in
the middle of the
trailer which gives
him more power and
14. leadership compared to the restwho gets nominated only at the end.
Names of people who
get credited are also
in a much bigger font
than the restof the
writing still for the
same reason as before
as they havealways
been left out and
need more attention,
so by having a bigger
font their names get stand emphasised even moreto the audience.
Release date
The release date makes you, the audience, understand when the film gets
released and this is extremely conventional as without it people would stay
confused as they of coursewantto know the date of release.
The release date also makes the audience more involved on the actual release
as it almost looks like they are participating to the countdown of the release.
At the same time the release date is often times related to the genreand the
period of time.
Also, release dates
are fundamental to
chooseas usually
good films get
released based on
their genre on
certain periods. This
means that they are
conventional too as they have a relationship with the time it’s been released,
for example in the trailer “Kong SkullIsland” wecan see that it says that it will
be coming out in March 2017 which has a relationship with the previous King
Kong's films released in USA as they all got launched in March. Generally
horror films are released in Halloween and romancein Valentine's period for
example, this is due to the fact that the timing and season is more appropriate
15. for the audience and they can relate to it even better which means that they
should be more willing to watch it.
Another example of a convention
of release date is from “The Ring
3” which is coming out on
October 28th
. This is conventional
for a horror movie as the end of
October means Halloween and
because Halloween is a creepy
themed event. All horror films
generally get released around that
time to give it more meaning and to have more people watching it as they
would relate it more with the time it’s being released.
