2. Favourite trailers
• Through our questionnaire given to the public we found that most
people preferred the trailers of recent releases, where there was good
use of tension to draw the audience in and enough suspense to keep
them guessing about the rest of the film. As well as those that
provoked emotional reactions, despite the audiences limited
exposure to the main characters.
• From this we understood the relation between releasing enough
information about a film to interest and audience, and keeping some
mystery end enticement for them to then go and pay and watch it.
3. What influences audience opinion on
Shown with family
characters Family not seen
Shown with respect
Not underdog
Honourable
Disposable
To plot
Show victorious
Bad guy
Hero
4. Identification
• Despite many characters from the questionnaire being morally
questionable, audiences still managed to identify with them or be
drawn in by their character.
• This is because any developed character can be identified with, and
their actions often justified or accepted as part of their character.
Such as gangster characters who many would avoid in real life, yet
are romanticised and glamorous for entertainment in cinema.
• This is good to know as it allows us to choose the level at which the
audience can identify with out character to keep them interested in
the character, or add to the mystery of the film by making them
unique or odd.
5. Expectations
• Weather consciously or not, the typical audience will pick up on the
conventions and expectations of a trailer, such as providing a setting
and establishing the hook of a movie to draw the audience in.
• Most movies will also attempt to grab attention by adding dramatic
scenes and key phrases that appear in the film later on, to let the
audience understand some of the emotions they would be feeling
watching the full movie.
• From this we could choose to follow the conventions of professional
trailers from our questionnaire, and the already proved to work
techniques, or perhaps challenge some of these conventions for a
surprising and contrasting effect.
6. Suggestion
• By asking audiences what expectations they had of movies from
what they had seen in the trailer, we could also understand how
much of the trailer relies on suggestion and connotations of what the
movie will be like later on, rather than the truth of what is shown.
• From this we could gain a better understanding of the ideas and
suggestions our own trailer could make, based on the footage shown
and how it is designed to appear to the viewer.
7. Relative genre
• We also found that each genre of film influences the conventions
expected from each trailer, in order to entice the fans of that genre
with trailers that appeal to them.
• Such as horror movie fans who will be enticed by dramatic tension
and expectations to be scared by the movie.
• Action movies would feature shots of heated battles and a quick
explanation for events which may have lead to it.
• From this we knew that we had to look into the conventions of our
own genre and build the trailer accordingly.
