The document explores the creation of a teaser trailer for a film, focusing on how it uses and challenges conventions of real media products, including company idents, title styles, editing techniques, and sound effects. Through analysis of various influences from other films, the author discusses the choices made for visual and audio elements that fit the desired genre of teen crime. Additionally, the document details the design process for promotional materials such as film posters and magazine covers aligning with the conventions of the predicted target audience.

1. QUESTION1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2. CompanyIdent From researching Teaser trailers, I noticed every teaser included a
company Ident. To stick to the teaser conventions we decided to create
an our own ident ‘Epedemic Productions’ to create a company brand.
Although not all idents feature at the beginning, it is conventional for them
to appear at the start, which we did.We wanted to create a professional
look by looking at other idents like the images below. These examples all
used a...
● simple font/ colour scheme
● black background
● iconic company logo
Identexamplessimilartoours...
We also decided to create an animated ident, from researching others and decided the splattered ink effect looked
professional and created an iconic company logo. We kept to a dark colour scheme which we thought matched our crime
genre and our ident research. We tried to keep our Ident to a few seconds, which ours was slightly over, at 5 seconds.
Although this isn’t exactly conventional for a teaser we thought the ident worked better being 5 seconds, rather than 2-3.
Touchstone Pictures The Weinstein Company New Line Cinema Working Title

3. TeaserTitles
For our trailer I wanted
to go for a 'preppy' look
with the titles. This
creates an immediate
association with college
or school with the type of
font you would see on a
sports college jacket.
We took influence from
the teaser for 'Mac +
Devin go to High School'
which also used a
preppy font. The teaser
Mac+DevingotoHighSchool ILoveYouBethCooper
also used a white font as did ours as I thought the inverted text
stood out and was easy and clear to read. We also took
influence from The teaser for the teen film 'I Love You Beth
Cooper' which also uses the preppy font which added to our
desire and reasoning for using the font. We also used the font
when introducing the characters. For this I changed the colours
of the titles to suit each character, to hint and match their
different personalities and individuality.

4. TeaserTitles I was also influenced by
the trailer for the comedy
‘Bad Teacher’ which is
also based in a school
where a crime takes
place. These titles
influenced us to add titles
which added a little bit of
information to the plot of
the film whilst still teasing
the audience.
To fit the conventions we
also added ‘coming soon’
and a brief title sequence.
For this title sequence we
stuck with using inverted
text however changed the
font to a simple font,
making it easy to read and
in keeping with the genre.

5. EDITING
Our trailer consists of montage editing, a common
convention for teaser trailers. This form of editing
allowed us to show numerous clips, cutting from
different scenes in a short amount of time, teasing the
audience.
The teaser for ‘The Bling Ring’ was an
example of the type of editing we were
influenced by. It is very fast paced, and not
only a good example of montage editing but
jump cut editing. Using this form of editing
allowed us to make long shots fast paced
and jumpy like ‘The Bling Ring’. This was
the style we wanted to achieve, and thought
would work well with the genre creating an
exciting atmosphere for the audience.
However unlike ‘The Bling Ring’ we decided
to add continuity editing to allow the
audience to have a clearer idea of the
overall plot of the film. This left the audience
with a taste of what was to come.
JUMP CUT

6. SHOTS
We were influenced by multiple teen films
where it appeared conventional to have a
corridor scene, containing the main
characters. Some examples of the films we
were influenced by was ‘Jawbreaker’, ‘Mean
Girls’ and ‘G.B.F’. These long shots were also
all in slow motion, which we thought looked
effective and dramatic. The examples all
portrayed a sense of being in a clique and
acting like they own the halls which we
wanted to illuminate creating a sense of
confidence within the characters. These long
shots allows the audience to meet the
characters and understand the connection
between them. In Both teen and crime
genres, long shots are used to stress the
environment or setting of a scene, which in
this case is a school or college.The camera is
also slightly at a low angle in the shot from
‘Jawbreaker’ suggesting that the characters
are powerful which links to the long stance
they all have as they walk. This angle is
typical in a teen movie as it establishes who
run the school and who is in the dominant
clique. For this reason we decided to use this
angle in our teaser as they walk down the
corridor as you can see in our screenshot.
Low angled shots are also common in crime
films, presenting power and dominance
making them appear stronger whilst the
audience feel weak.

7. SHOTS
‘Jawbreaker’ Closeups/extreme close ups
‘Bad Boys’ Closeups/extreme close ups
‘Jawbreaker’ uses multiple close up
shots to establish who the key characters
are and allow the audience to get a
better look at key characters and grasp
their expressions. Close ups and
extreme close up shots may also
particularly be used in crime films to
create a more intense shot, making the
audience feel almost too close to the
characters face making them feel
uncomfortable. There are also
significantly more close ups of a
particular character which signifies to the
audience she is the main character of the
'clique' with the most screen time and
close ups. For these reasons we used a
variety of close ups, particularly focusing
on the main character.
In a teen or crime genre there is usually
a 'clique' or a 'gang' which allows there to
be multiple three shots. Three shots are
used numerous times in 'Jawbreaker'
allowing the audience to know who the
main characters are and show their
relationship with each other. The shot
also allows the audience to understand
who is in the group with multiple shots of
three girls in the beginning however
changing one of the girls later on in the
trailer. This shows to the audience that at
some point a girl is replaced and are no
longer friends. For this reason we
decided to include many three shots to
establish that the characters friendship
group.
‘Jawbreaker’ Three shots
‘Bad Boys’ Three shots

8. NonDiegetic-Soundtrack After listening to multiple teaser trailer soundtracks for our genre, we came
across many trailers that led to the creation of our soundtrack.
I looked at the comedy crime ‘Pulp
fiction’ which fitted with our genre. It's
upbeat soundtrack is exciting and
powerful, catching the attention from the
audience. This was a contrast to other
crime films I looked into such as
‘Legend’. ‘Legend’ had a slow pace
which i believed was the most
conventional style used for the genre.
After ‘Pulp Fiction’ I wanted to look into
teasers with upbeat soundtracks which still fit
with our genre. I looked at the teen crime ‘The
Bling Ring’ which fit what we were looking for.
The teaser uses a fast beat however more
modern compared to ‘Pulp Fiction’. This
modern electronic sound targets our teenage
audience and matches the characters wild
behaviour.
We used the apple software
‘Garageband’ to create our own
soundtrack.

9. SoundEffects
I was influenced by the diegetic
sound effects from the comedy
crime film ‘Bad Teacher’. The
audience immediately
understand that the film is set in
a school from the sound effect
of the school bell.
After we had created our soundtrack I experimented
with different sound effects in Garageband. I noticed
in many trailers it appeared conventional to have a
sound effect placed when a title appears, such as in
‘Bad Teacher’. I used the sound effect 'Slamming
Metal' making the audience pay full attention creating
an impact when the titles appear. This sound effect
appeared for every title creating a professional
consistency.
When looking into teen films
based in school/college i came
across the teen comedy ‘Mean
Girls’. This trailer influenced my
idea to use a camera snapshot
sound effect. With this sound
effect I then created stills from
footage of the characters as
though taking a picture. This
allowed the audience to see each
character in detail.
I also added a non diegetic 'Cash Register' sound
effect as well as many others as they seemed to fit
in with the soundtrack, adding to the modern and
edgy soundtrack we aimed for.

10. Voiceovers Duration
Voice overs are a common
convention for teaser trailers, which
is why we decided to use them. This
allowed us to cut down on footage
whilst still providing information to
the audience, as we placed the
voices of the characters over
footage.
At first we used the sound from clips,
however the sound quality was poor and
made our teaser look less professional.
For this reason we re-recorded the voices
of the characters to use for our
voiceovers, using a microphone in a quiet
room for a high quality sound.
Unlike theatrical trailers, teaser trailers have a shorter
duration of time as they are only intended to ‘tease’ the
audience. Teaser trailers are typically around 90sec - 1min,
however can be much shorter and a little longer. This
amount of time allows the audience to find out the genre
and a rough insight into the storyline.
Our trailer is 1:22 in length which is a little over the
typical conventions. However through research,
numerous teasers appeared around this length and
we thought our teaser still clearly a teaser using
conventions for a teaser trailer.
1:21 2:01 0:54

11. POSTERWe made sure our poster fit the
common film poster conventions :
● Indication to release or ‘Coming
soon’
● Title of film in bold
● Main character/characters
● Genre indication
● Billing Block
● Tagline
● Age certificate
● Quotes
● Ratings
● Social media sites
● Director and main actors names

12. POSTER
Influences
In order to create a poster for
our film ‘Bad Boys’ we
researched many film posters
in the same genre for ideas.
We wanted our poster to come
across as a teen film whilst also
having the edge from the dark
conventions of a crime film.It is
important that the poster
conveys the genre of the film as
well as information like the
main character and release.

13. The majority of posters I researched contained an image of the main character or characters, giving
the audience insight to who is in the film and for our case that it is a teen genre. The teen comedy
‘Superbad’ was a good example of how we wanted to present our poster, with our three main
characters dominating the poster. This allows the audience to meet their main characters and
understand who their main character is, placed in the center. Like ‘Superbad’ the image of the
characters give an insight to what they are like from the more relaxed and confident stance from the
character in the middle, to the nervous and awkward body language from the characters in the back.
Furthermore we decided to place our characters side by side with simple body positions with
clueless and expressionless faces. This was in order to show how the characters are stereotypical
moody teenagers who don’t really care and are really quite hopeless, as they just stand and stare
straight in front of themselves like robots ordered around by teachers.
POSTER...
The title ‘Superbad’ comes across as ironic as the characters don’t appear
heroic and powerful like the font suggests but afraid and awkward. This
influenced us as we too had a comic element in our teaser, in which we
came up with the title ‘Bad Boys’. We think this title fit in well with the
picture as it is not necessarily something you would want to be called as
teenagers and is ironically not a very bad name to be called but quite
childish. This also fits in with the fact that they look quite clueless and are
not doing anything ‘bad’ in the image, but attending college. They just want
to appear as the bad clique of the college by wearing grungy clothing.
The poster also influenced us to draw attention to the ‘coming soon’ by
changing the colour and size. This provides the audience with an
understanding that the film will be released soon with no set date. We
decided to choose the colour red as it fit with the conventions of a crime
film, which was the colour scheme we were going for.

14. For our poster we were also influenced by the teen films ‘High School’,’Napoleon Dynamite’
and ‘Mac + Devin go to High School’, from their backgrounds. These three posters clearly
demonstrate that the film will be based in a school or college from the image of lockers and
chalkboards, also suggesting the film is based around students. For this reason we decided
to make sure the image was set inside the college, using a typical college corridor, making
it obvious to the audience the genre of the film.
POSTER...
Times' which is popular and recognisable which
may attract the people who read 'The Times' or
'The Mirror'.
On the poster for ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ the title and quoted reviews are on ripped pieces of
paper stuck on the poster with tape. It is as though he has personally stuck it in like he is
sticking something in for a school project. I liked this idea as the lined paper immediately
connotes a sense of school or college, as though he has written his name on the top of the
paper for a test. For this reason, adding to the audience's understanding of the genre, we
decided to add starred ratings and reviews on lined paper. We decided we wanted to add
reviews, from researching the conventions of posters. This attracts the audience to watch
the film as professionals have and have enjoyed it. We also used familiar critics like ‘The

15. POSTER...
From exploring the conventions of film posters we added a billing block at the bottom of the poster. This had to be
done in a specific way with a specific font as all the other posters had to create a professional appearance. We used
inverted text to make the text stand out from the background and fit with the colour scheme of mainly black and white.
We then decided to add a Facebook and twitter page using a hashtag to give the audience somewhere to look for
more information on the film and invite them to get involved to write or tweet. We also added a age certificate to allow
the audience to know if they are age appropriate and to stick to the poster conventions.
Although our teaser is a teen with aspects of
comedy, it is also a crime. For this reason I
researched film posters for crime films, and
they all had a similar dark colour scheme. For
this reason we decided to make the
background and title black and white. Not only
does this stick to crime conventions but allows
main characters to stand out.
I thought of using this font from searching for a font that was similar to cut out magazine letters,
as it reminded me of a ransom note linking to our genre of crime. We thought this worked well on
the poster, adding to the handmade/school project feel from the font not being in a straight line
and like cut out magazine letters, linking to the stuck down lined paper. Although we originally
wanted a graffiti type font, we ended up making it slightly resemble graffiti by layering the title
twice, with a black font behind as though it is 3D. We then used the same 3D effect for the tagline
underneath.

16. MAGAZINE
We made sure our magazine fit the
common film magazine conventions for
Little White Lies :
● Masthead
● Tagline
● Barcode
● Name of film
● Image artwork
● signature

17. MagazineInfluences
Little White Lies is an internationally
distributed movie magazine.
we decided to look at the 'Little White
Lies' magazine because magazines like
'Empire' seemed to be more blockbuster
films, which are film is not.
Little White Lies is an unconventional
magazine that subverts the typical
conventions of a film magazine. The
Target audience is not for the mass
market focussing on cult independent
films that are quite alternative. Our film
is not based at the mass market, but
teenagers.
LITTLE WHITE LIES CONVENTIONS
● Each cover is hand drawn or painted by a different artist usually a close up of
the main actor/actress, this has become iconic and a part of Little White Lies
brand identity. This puts a current and modern spin on the cover.
● The Title of the magazine is placed in the centre at the top of the cover with a
simple black font that is used every issue surrounded by a white circle creating
a brand logo. The bar code has been imbedded into the logo creating a neat
look that becomes a part of the logo.
● Each issue features the tagline 'truth & movies' summing up what the magazine
is about, and is sometimes the only piece of writing apart from the title.
● The cover occasionally features the title of the film, maybe if it isn't as obvious
from the art work. A signature by the artist is also included.

18. To match the conventions of a little white lies magazine cover we sourced
the masthead in the round circle. This not only contains the masthead but
the barcode, price and tagline.To access this Logo, I went on Media
Tech's page on mahara and found the LWL Logo download. I then
uploaded this to illustrator and layered it over the background however
unconventionally under the drawing, as we liked the effect it gave. This
was important to find as it is the magazine brand's identity, and without the
exact logo it wouldn't of worked as an overall Little White Lies magazine
cover.
The magazine cover usually focuses on a close up of the main character,
so I took a close up picture of our main character with a plain background,
enabling us to remove the background when editing. We thought it was
necessary to draw the main image as it is a convention for Little White Lies
to have a piece of artwork for the cover. Like other front covers, we kept
the drawing simple using a black pen to create a dark graphic look. We
thought the use of black matched the conventions of a crime genre,
looking quite mysterious as you can’t see the characters eyes.
A few of the covers we researched contained a simple background which
we decided to add, with an image of lockers. This added some extra
information for the viewers into the film being a teen film, with lockers
being associated to school or college. We didn’t want the background to
overpower the main image so we made the image white and added a blue
colour. By adding the blue colour we thought it would add more life to the
black and white cover considering it is a teen as well as a crime.

19. Again keeping to Little White Lie conventions, we added
an artist's signature.
To keep to conventions we added the name of the film
‘Bad Boys’ down the side of the image. We thought this
font worked well with the overall style of the cover with
the graphic black drawing. I also thought this font was
similar to cut up magazine letters, as though a ransom
note, linking to crime genre. This effect of cut up letters
also matches the hand drawn look of the main image.
This also matched to the font for our poster creating
distinctive consistency throughout the the two types of
media. At first we did consider adding ‘The Bad Boy
Issue’, however from research we noticed not all of the
covers contained the ‘issue’ part and just displayed the
film title. We thought our cover looked better keeping it
simple like the rest of the cover, with just ‘Bad Boys’.

20. GenreConventions
CRIME
Crime is a genre that revolves around the
action of a criminal mastermind. A crime
film will often revolve around the criminal
himself, following his rise and fall. For this
reason our narrative revolved around the
criminals themselves following their
journey.This genre tends to be fast paced
with an air of mystery either from the plot or
from the characters themselves. I think we
achieved this by creating quite a dark and
mysterious atmosphere with limited
dialogue. We also aimed to keep the teaser
fast paced and snappy through our style of
editing.
Another genre we based our teaser on was
‘Teen’, a genre targeted at teenagers in which
the plot is based upon the special interests of
teenagers. For this reason we made sure all
our characters were teenagers, and led to the
location of our teaser to be based at college. I
looked into the different types of special
interests of teenagers such as coming of age,
first love, rebellion, alienation and many more.
Considering our teaser is also a crime we
decided to look into teenage rebellion. In a
teen or crime genre there is usually a 'clique' or
a 'gang' so we decided to base our plot around
three characters.
As well as the classic
teen film, there are
hybrid genres including
teen comedy. This
researched encouraged
us to add an essence of
comedy into the teaser,
through comical
behaviour within the
characters.
COMEDYTEEN

21. SETTING...
As our film is about students, we thought it was only suitable to
film the majority of the teaser in college and around college,
fitting teen conventions.. We shot areas of the college that
would make it clear to an audience of the setting, using
classrooms with students, corridors and we also used Castle
field in parts. This allowed us to have a quite area to film and
adjust the lighting.

22. Characters...
3 TEENAGE BOYS - COLLEGE STUDENTS
● Taylor
● Toby
● Ashley
These college students are stereotypical teenagers who are
careless and rebellious who hate college life, working and
teachers.We decided to go with three boys , as many of the teen
films I explored such as 'Mean Girls' contained a small group
that allowed you to focus on each individual character. From
further teen genre research there is usually a leader of the group
or clique, which in our case is Toby. The characters try to pull off
a bad and careless reputation by misbehaving at college, and
wearing dark scruffy clothing. They appear to think they are
edgy as they walk around turning up late and being sent out,
along with messing about and throwing things. However they
are really quite naive and childish.
We wanted the characters to appear casual and relaxed with a student vibe whilst reflecting their age,
keeping their fashion street wise. They wear backpacks, trainers and jeans as a stereotypical student
would, preferably in black to suggest their 'bad boy' reputations and fitting crime conventions.
The characters of a teen movie consist of
stereotypical students in different cliques.
However characters in crime usually
include a stereotypical ‘bad guy’ in which
we joined together to create the reckless
teens.