The document discusses conventions used in movie trailers that the author took inspiration from for their own animated comedy trailer project. These include using a school bell at the start to indicate the school setting, introducing characters through animated titles or profiles, and juxtaposing dialogue to form fake conversations for comedic effect. The author analyzed trailers for films like Mean Girls, Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging, Step Brothers, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid to find techniques to incorporate into their trailer.

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

2. Conventions of TYPICAL Trailers Here I am going to discuss some of the very stereotypical conventions that are present within most trailers and genres of all kinds.

3. Narrative The way the story is told The way the meaning are constructed so the audience understands Different medias construct meanings in different ways, using different conventions that are appropriate There are two kinds of narratives that can be used within media texts Open: No sense of ending – could go on for ever, eg Coronation Street. Many more characters – characters shift in and out of prominence and narrative function. More than one story line. Time is more chronological and more with the ‘world time’ . Different knowledge of characters for the audience to that of characters in films 2. Closed: The audience is aware that they are watching a complete story; so watching with the likely ending in mind. There is a small number of central characters; ‘depth’ of audience knowledge often set up. Characters arranged in a ‘hierarchy’ of importance. Audiences invited to make ‘verdicts’ on the characters. Unlike Open Narratives, time is compressed and not with the ‘real time’. Times and events are usually special to this particular story and not linked to the outside world. Audience usually has evidence about the characters only from this single text – plus star, publicity and genre expectations.

4. Narrative Todorov's Theory: Todorov proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with an equilibrium, a calm period. Then agents of disruption cause disequilibrium, a period of unsettlement and disquiet. This is then followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the protagonists and a new equilibrium brings the chaos to an end. The simplest form of narrative (sometimes referred to as ‘Classic’ or ‘Hollywood’ narrative. The Voice Over: (including words on screen) is one of the most frequently used conventions of the trailer genre. It is used for several reasons: Helps the audience to make sense of the narrative by giving us background It showcases the stars appearing in the film Give information about the filmmakers Helps to build a sense of anticipation Sets the tone for the film Can summarise the story in between 5-8 lines.

5. Genre what does it mean? -Every genre has its own particular rules and conventions which distinguishes it from others. -To some extent these rules are based on the contend within the film -Particular types of characters and events for example will routinely occur in particular genres than others. Typical genre conventions of my chosen genre ANIMATED COMEDY - juxtaposing dialogue to create conversations -obvious humour and jokes -action and fantasy -animation and cartoons - punch lines and phrases comedy aspects here is the link to my power point -introduces characters previously made on the ideas behind -energetic Genres and their typical conventions - colourful/childish -made for children or families usually -upbeat music -villain/hero http://etaylorchs.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/genre/

6. Stereotypical Comedy Trailers

7. Mean Girls Although this trailer of mean girls is not exactly the kind of route I would like to take my trailer personally, I still felt it was necessary and worth watching a few times and taking some notes down at some of the techniques that they use within their own trailer that I could maybe possibly take into account and use within my own trailer eventually. I felt that this trailer was liked in a small way to the genre and theme that I was using due to the fact that it is still based within a high school setting and experiments around with different school social groups or as they like to put it ‘cliques’ and bases its main storyline around one central character but in this case she is well known for being smart but unlike my character who is a fully fledged ‘nerdling’ she is also well known for being one of the popular ‘plastics’ as all she wants to do is fit into school and ends up torn between two completely different confronting ‘cliques’ and has to make both happy and herself, she gets in funny and embarrassing situations and also very heartbreaking ones along the way she goes from a home schooled African child to a American high school plastic. The other technique that I thought really worked well was the way they used a split screen to show their phone conversations , in each conversation the screen splits into as many sections as possible depending on the amount of people talking on the phone at a time. This is also identifies the different relationships between the characters and hides their emotions from one another and builds up the suspense of one finding out about the other. Its as if we as the audience are the only one able to be in on the bigger picture of what is the secrets and the main event.

8. Mean Girls The first bit of comedy we come from is where she is being introduced through the opening titles as the new student and she comes from Africa… we as an audience would expect stereotypically an African to be slightly tanned at least and also have an accent or some kind of stereotypical look that we all tend to make, in this case so do the teachers as they look towards a African looking student as it pauses in suspense and she announces she actually from Michigan. We all know that as she is standing up the front of the class this very stereotypical British or American looking normal girl is the new student Animation is then introduced through the use of a cartoon school guide against Janice’s voice over introducing Katie to the school social groups by using lunch tables in the cafeteria. Again in a style that is typically hand drawn on paper. As Janice introduces the group through the use of the guide, we are then given a quick over view establishing shot of each table and their attitudes and character they play within the school.

9. What I took from Mean Girls One aspect that I managed to take away from studying this trailer was the idea of using stereotypes for comedy purposes within my own work which I felt I managed to do continuously throughout all three pieces of work this year but especially within my poster and magazine cover. I loved how they introduced the main character through the use of titles and film strips moving in the background, this also relates back to my trailer as it’s a kind of form of animation and movement within cartoon or shapes. They introduce the characters formal actress name and also by a photograph of her from within the film. This idea was taken in the way that I used the idea of a film strip on my magazine cover to introduce and advertise different comedy trailers from my class mates. I also used the way that they have split the frames up to include the information or characters name ( in my case the film and a slogan) and then the visual aspect of a photograph relating to the information.

10. Angus Thongs And Perfect Snogging Here is the trailer for the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYuKxAspH1A What I really enjoyed about this particular trailer is the way that they have constant music playing throughout that is in relation to what is happening on screen. For example; the first piece of music is very upbeat and sings about changing of looks and clothes and relationships, and this is exactly what we are shown in screen too. Georgia is shown along side, friends and also her family in the first few sequences where as when she suddenly gets interrupted by the site of boys the song smoothly transitions into ‘ever fallen in love’ as she is on a wild boy chase. I also found the way that they use the idea of profiling as a general narrative when introducing the titles. I found that this was very easy and quick in suggesting a new line of address of focus within the trailer such as ‘how to style it’ is then juxtaposed with by Georgia shaving her eye brows off. So you can clearly see the link. It reminded me to that of ‘Diary Of a Wimpy Kid’ and the use of paper also.

11. What I took from Angus Thongs And Perfect Snogging Although this is based around a diary of a female character I thought I would be interesting to see what kind of trailer it could be, when I subverted this idea and use a male character in the same sort of situation, in embarrassing situations and home as well as school life and distinguishing these strange and awkward relationships between each character presented to us on screen. It becomes very quick and clear as to who each character is. What I particularly picked out from this trailer was the use of Polaroid images again scrap paper (this seems to be a recurring theme amongst young comedies set around school children) I found this very useful in the way the voice over also reads out the titles on these pages and the image presented also represents that of the following sequence of shots. I took this idea of a profile using Polaroid photographs and information by using it as a form of introducing my character and took it into animation with the text appearing as if my character writing them down on paper. Here is my first attempt at animation where I used this idea of profiles and handwriting: http://etaylorchs.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/here-is-my-first-attempt-at-some-animation/ I actually used this idea in the idea of placing this as titles alongside real footage but as things turned out I did a fully animated trailer but I still kept to this general idea in my ending sequence where the information if replaced by the titles of the film and the release date alongside a Polaroid image of my main character as you can see: http://etaylorchs.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/ending-sequence/

12. Step Brothers Link to the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANjenc4W1_Q The main convention that I found that interested me into looking at this trailer was the unusual way that they used animated titles to introduce characters done in the style of a Childs handwriting and an arrow. This instantly also suggest the films target audience to be that of maybe families or school students that would perhaps grasp their humor. The non-diegetic music that can be heard throughout the background of the trailer (particularly the introduction of the two main characters) instantly sets the mood and atmosphere between the two, suggesting this rivalry. The comedy aspect is suggested through this idea of juxtaposing shots and lines to suggest answers to previous sentences or questions alongside the visual shot and appearance of the characters themselves. The titles however appear very minimal and simple as the idea of child like fonts, lots of juxtaposed shots suggesting a fake conversation and music would all be too much for the audience to follow.

13. What I took from Step Brothers Although it was only minimal the idea that I took from that of Step Brothers was that of the font type ; where I felt it would be important of a school based trailer to include this idea of handwriting titles or using that particular font. This is where I experimented with the idea using handwritten font types of http://www.dafont.com/ . This idea was also part of all three of my final pieces this year the trailer, poster and the magazine cover; as I introduced this font as my text and titles within my animation along side that of the font used for the release date within my poster and the introduction of my film on my magazine cover. This font really emphasized the idea of being in a school environment and what target audience this film is aimed towards.

14. Diary of a Wimpy Kid The first sound that we hear in this trailer is a distinctive school bell against a black screen which allowed us as an audience to allow our schemas to recognize this distinctive sound and then we are presented with the appropriate shot of the surroundings and mise-en-scene that compliments the typical sound of the school bell ringing as we are now situated within a ‘high school’ setting. This automatically adds to our schemas and knowledge of schools and the typical appearance of teenage and young children are as we have all been there and ‘worn the t-shirt’ as we would say. This also indicates to our audience the type of target audience that this would particular be target towards. In this case I would say that this particular film is for a younger target audience or families in which seeing as everyone at one stage or another would have started out at school, many generation could relate to this and feel for the characters, where as this is a very modern setting of a school this would perhaps be more apparent towards a younger modern generation that could relate to the type of set out and people that typically form a school body of students. One this I also picked up on that interested me is the way they have also used a graphic animation sequence of shapes and story boards just like Juno throughout the trailer to not only introduce the characters but also to introduce the film company such as 20th century fox is made up of a clever sequence where by it looks as if a ball of paper is being thrown at the screen with doodles on it creating this introduction. This automatically tells us as an audience that this is for a child target audience where by the doodles is made to look as if it’s done by a crayon like a child would use. The introduction of the characters also follow in this footpath whereby by they are introduced through the means of a few short clips giving the audience a quick summery of their personality and a short insight into their personal lives before relating back to a simple cartoon character being draw over the top of them against a blank rough page of a ‘dairy’ before introducing them as their characters. This relates very well back to the main title of the film and also back to children

15. Diary of a Wimpy Kid I have also noticed that in most trailers especially comedies, lines of dialogue throughout different scenes and shots are juxtaposed to form conversations that never happened such as in this case where his older brother is sharing his opinion ‘are who’s kidding you’ll be dead or home schooled before the end of the year anyway’ then his is juxtaposed next to a line of dialogue from his dad ‘that you for those words of motivational wisdom’. This almost makes you as an audience think that this is in response to the previous line, this done through continuity editing which creates a steady flow of dialogue and shots that form together to produce a short story line and introduction to the film and characters and keeps the flow going. The general narrative of this young comedy is done through the main character himself narrating his way through the school and his actions, where as an older voice over can be heard introducing the characters and the tiles that appear through different sequences of the clips (these are also done in cartoon d writing to give a sense of childhood and innocence). What I also thought was very interesting as a audience was to actually hear a relationship between both comedy voice over being the young child and the adult at the end when the older man announces the name of the film as a ‘Diary’ we can then also hear over the top ‘this is not a diary, it’s a journal’ which adds to very obvious humor; which also shows that this relationship can be mirrored through the target audience being targeted towards young children and their families. The main ending is also clever in the way the whole sequence links back to the beginning of a diary page whereby the end of the trailer finishes with the diary being closed and the title is printed on top of a diary page. Maybe I could take some of these techniques and place them into my own trailer. I feel that as my trailers genre I would call these an animated comedy. Here is the link to the trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZVEIgPeDCE

16. What I took from Diary of a Wimpy Kid The most important aspect that I took from this particular trailer was the firstly the idea of the school bell present within the first scene and also the first thing that we as an audience can hear. I found that this makes it very clear to us as an audience the genre, style and atmosphere of the trailer being situated within a school environment. As I wanted to base my idea around a school environment I also used this idea as one of the first elements of sound within my trailer that instantly attract and would indicate that they are being taken into a school environment and sets a typical target audience of young school children or families . I took this idea with me into Illustrator and Flash where I created a cartoon drawing of a school bell and animated it along side an audio of a school bell ringing. Here is the animation of just the bell ringing without sound: http://etaylorchs.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/bell-animation/ Here is the starting sequence of my trailer where you can see the bell now has audio: http://etaylorchs.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/we-have-sound/

17. What I took from Diary of a Wimpy Kid Another technique that I experimented with was the idea that when introducing the characters at the bottom of the screen I noticed that the characters names appeared in a cartoon style font which appeared on a white paper appearing s if the paper has been rolled out onto the screen and unraveling for us to see. I experimented with this idea in Illustrator and Flash by animating a full page title to appear as if the page was being unraveled creating the animated titles . This idea was initially done with the intention of using both animation and real life footage so was then rejected when I found a new interest in the Juno Teaser Trailer which I soon found myself on a different level of animation all together. Here is the link to my page illustrating and showing my animated title sequence. http://etaylorchs.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/title-animated/

18. Juno Opening Credits ‘All I Want Is You’ Video I personally found the opening sequence for Juno inspiring and unique in the way that this sequence involves the use of animation combines with real footage being displayed to the viewer. As soon as the upbeat music starts its drums beat and singing you know the genre of the film is going to be a very typical young target audience film as you are presented with this young teenage girl making her way back home, you as an audience also get to see the transformation from animation to real footage which is cleverly executed by the use of a divider that is part of the scene ( in this case the divider is a tree) You notice that first short clip in real life is where the characters are presented together such as Juno and then a few runners in uniform run past her taking no notice of her existence which in this case as an audience you relate these two sets of characters together that will later be explained during the film.

19. Juno Opening Credits ‘All I Want Is You’ Video I love the way that the sequence after the tree suddenly turns to animation of her settings so that this feels as if she is in her own little world and thought bubble as she makes her way home it shows you the settings and surroundings. This could be done through using a short clip on a ‘green screen’ where Juno would be walking and the background would not be recorder leaving a kind of ‘blank canvas’ for which we are able to then add any background or image available. A few photographs or footage of then a background sequence could then be drawn in using illustrator and also something that I used at home called flash. This allows me to be able to draw over the shots to create a comic strip like background which also helps to relate to a specific target audience. In this case I felt that the target audience would be for young adults and teenagers … particularly female who would perhaps relate better to this kind of storyline as she is going through a hormonal stage of her life. This is what really began my love of animation in the way the music and the movement of the background was so interesting to watch and to see how the animation changes into one another creating her path and scenery as she Juno walks along. This is where I knew instantly that animation was one unique route that I could perhaps experiment with as I felt it would be exciting a new compared to that of stereotypical comedies or trailers. Mine needed to stand out as different! Here below is the link to the Juno ‘All I want is you’ video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20PQBtyfNZY

20. JUNO Juno teaser Trailer (linked below): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcOXDJ9YxHM here you can see that my main influence in deciding to use an animated sequence of diagrams was based heavily on the idea of Juno’s teaser trailer and the way in which they used this idea of heavily black outlined drawings being animated together to suggest the ideas that would be captured if it were to be filmed in real life. I also found it interesting how there is no direct narrative other than the song choice, which clearly in this case draws the attention of its audience before really engaging into the idea of the animation coming together to suggest a sense of the scene in which the film would be set and the general direction of the story line. I found Juno such an inspiration for animation in the way that it is not the typical modern animation that of films like Kung Fu Panda, Wallie, and other Disney produced films but sticks to the idea of simple line drawings and block colour and this decided the idea of undertaking such a task of a fully animated teaser trailer in which would sum up my film in a few simple shots and introducing the production team and some of the main themes and actors/actresses names . This also got me thinking into the typical conventions of a teaser and trailer and their own functions and direct influence of their intended audiences. Here is a link below to the power point I also previously made to indicate some research I undertook into the ideas behind teaser trailers and their functions and conventions: http://etaylorchs.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/teaser-trailers/

21. What I took from Juno The Animation and drawing process: What I have taken from this teaser Trailer is the idea of creating a simple line drawing of typical schools scenes and sequences that we as a young audience of students would find typically within our day to day experiences. I have decided to take the font from my title page and use this as my main occurring font within my trailer as it ties in rather nicely with the idea of handwritten fonts and also ties with my poster. I say an easy line drawing but to be honest I still think this is going to be a lot of hard work ahead of me but will be done! Including The next step was to gather some observational photographs of some equipment and environments typical to my own school that I then manipulated and produced line drawings of them to resemble a cartoon comic kind of strip in school within illustrator and then simply placed them into Adobe Flash to animate the drawings together to give the impression of movement and the idea of my cartoons coming to life. Here you can see my first video upload of my attempt at the animation process within flash and uploaded onto You Tube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wqjRohTP5g

22. Continuity Editing: The purpose is to smooth over the inherent discontinuity of the editing process and to establish a logical coherence between shots . Most film sequences are edited so that time seems to flow, uninterrupted, from shot to shot. I felt initially would be hard to produce on the basis of my trailer being totally animated and not actually including any live filmed footage with the use of different camera angles and shots. This is where the idea that the animation within Juno’s Teaser trailer came into play where I repeatedly watched and took notes on the different angles that the animation seemed to be taking me as an audience. For example the teaser trailer seemed to be based around a corridor and we are shown this experience through the idea of things appearing in perspective to us moving creating this sense of a dolly or pan being mimicked along a long corridor as things slowly appear suggesting that we become nearer to them before they disappear out of focus where the direction changes, suggesting a different shot being taken and edited altogether together. What I took from Juno

23. Sound: Voice Over? Diegetic Non-Diegetic sound? Usually within a animated comedy or any film in particular generally (not always) seems to have a voice over which helps the audience to make sense of the narrative by giving us background and some sense of direction within the trailer itself by helping us to build a sense of anticipation. I noticed that the teaser trailer in particular for Juno subverted this idea and did not use this particular technique at all, but instead used this idea of using Non-Diegetic soundtrack of a song that is relevant to the setting and atmosphere as well as showing a general direction of my trailer to it audience. I decided to adopt this idea as I found that is was particularly unique and that would attract a different kind of audience feedback. Being such a new and different experience of a trailer I kind of wanted to see the reaction of my intended audience and I planned to video and record some feedback. Using a song soundtrack from you tube i needed to make sure that the song related to my particular genre, atmosphere and main focus which in my case was the idea of school related surroundings where you can see the animation going into each classrooms and giving my audience a slight insight into each class using this animation. I needed the song be strong if I was going to use this as my main sound and sense of a voice over. The perfect song that I found to suggest the idea of school bells, the environment, the atmosphere and the idea of the release date being set within the summer holidays I found that ‘Schools Out For Summer- By Alice Cooper’ was the perfect combination that tied all of these things together which worked well in giving my audience a sense of direction and theme occurring. I also used some sound effects that brought my school bell and my brother acting as a lion to life. This also gave the initial start of my trailer this sense or a comedy act starting appear. I also felt the school bell was a good way to start the animation off and attract my audience before slowly fading into the main sound track. Here below you can see a link to YouTube for Alice Cooper- ‘Schools Out For summer’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvDPYOe-7nI

24. My Finished Trailer http://etaylorchs.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/final-trailer/ Here is my final trailer for this years project, I feel rather happy in the process and the idea of attempting to create something new and artistic. I felt I did this to the full, but I also felt that my trailer, although the work behind it shows, I felt it lacked the over idea of what general trailers do by introducing characters and storylines. Overall I felt strongly in that my experimentations work along the conventions set by that of the Juno trailer but If I were to redo this in future projects I would prehaps stick to my first idea in mixing both animation and comedy together.