This document analyzes a student-created trailer for a thriller film called "Silent Town". It summarizes the key elements of the trailer including the title, locations, costumes, props, camerawork, editing, captions, genre, characters, effects, length, and sound. It also analyzes the accompanying magazine cover and poster that were created to promote the film. The analysis explains how these elements develop and challenge conventions of real thriller media.

1. In what way does my media product use , develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real life media
products?

2. Trailer analysis: The title
 The name of our Thriller trailer is ‘Silent Town’. We chose this name
through a popularity vote. As we were unable to decide on a final
name we came up with numerous ideas and shared them with peers
in our pitch asking them to vote for their most favoured one. ‘Silent
town’ came out as the best title, hence the reason why we have called
it ‘Silent town’. This title fits well to our trailer as it is about a town
that faces a natural disaster. The town is left in ruins and most people
are dead therefore it makes sense to call it the silent town as the once
lively town has been silenced, literally. This title has a very chilling
thrill to it. It conveys that the film is more of a serious thriller. We aim
to make the audience question ‘Why is the town silenced?’ ‘What has
happened?’. I am pleased this title came out as the most favoured as I
feel it fits well with our trailer and has a very chilling feel to it.

3. Trailer analysis: Location
 Our Thriller opening has a few settings. Our first setting is in a kitchen.
The setting obviously isn’t thrilling but the camera angle makes it feel
slightly strange. Another setting is in Sainsbury’s. We filmed scenes of
Sainsbury’s empty with abounded shopping basket’s and so on. This
setting was used to emphasise the fact that the town is empty, people
have either left or been killed. The setting isn’t typical of a Thriller
however the fact that the supermarket is empty and looks abounded
conveys aspects of Thriller. Why is the shop empty?, where is everyone?
Within thrillers there tends to be moments of emptiness this is done to
make the audience feel alone and add a sense of chill. The scenes that
were shot outside were obviously used to show devastation. The
locations don’t challenge forms and conventions of Thriller but follow
simple locations found in Thrillers.

4. Trailer analysis: Costume and props
 Costume:
1. Caterina: Caterina wore a simple black dress that came to above
her knee and tights. She also had her hair tied back. We chose this
outfit as we feel it makes Caterina look older and respected.
2. Me (Claire): I wore green trousers and a white vest top as the
colours are neutral and fit well to the narrative of a natural
disaster. This was also done to help us put together our magazine
and poster. I also had my hair up to try and look older.
3. Rachel: Rachel wore a white top and very light blue bottoms for
the same reasons as me. She also had a doll in her hand as a prop
to convey that she is young.
4. Rebecca: Rebecca wore a white top and black bottoms. Her colour
scheme did not matter so much as she isn’t on any of the print
work.
 Props:
The props we used were a can of soup, a car, Rachel’s doll, Rebecca
also had a doll in hand, a shoe and many more. Without the props
it would be hard to convey what is really going on, the props make
the Thriller seem more believable.

5. Trailer analysis: Camerawork
 Within a trailer, as I mentioned earlier on my blog, every shot is there for a reason.
Within my trailer there are various shots and we have placed every single one there for a
reason. Every shot conveys part of the narrative. This shot of Caterina is there to establish
her character. Its introducing her to the audience. The fact we can’t see her face was done
on purpose. The angle is canted to disorientate the audience and to also convey a
character trait subtly. Caterina is playing a character who is mentally unstable due to the
natural disaster. Other shots of Caterina also establish these traits. We show shots of her
overly scrubbing her hands and cleaning, everything is lined neatly on the side and we
see shots of her serving food and making sure the edge of the bowl is clean. These traits
are very OCD like, this character trait would not be possible to establish without these
shots. Also the last shot of Caterina eating alone is there for a purpose. This shot is used
to highlight her insanity. She has made enough food for four but eating alone, are her
family dead from the disaster? Do they usually come over for lunch? The shot of
Caterinas eyes are done through a close up so we do not see her whole face until the end.
This is typical in a Thriller trailer. The identity is kept to a minimum.

6. Trailer analysis: Camerawork
 The shots of the desertion are obviously there for a reason too.
These shots allow the audience to witness the after mouth of the
disaster. It also links to the title ‘Silent Town’, as no one is around.
These shots are showed in colour to convey that they are
occurring now. The shots in black and white convey the past. We
have included shots of the disaster taking place, the wind in the
trees, trees falling, things falling from shelves in houses. All of
these shots allow us to convey the genre of the movie and the
narrative. They are very important and are typical within a teaser
trailer.

7. Trailer analysis: Editing
 The editing of a Teaser trailer is very important. All trailers have a three part
structure. This is whereby the trailer starts slow and increases in pace and
intensity reaching its peak, this is usually where fast pace editing come in, after
this peak the trailer then slowly decreases in pace and speed. It is common for
trailers to have a sting at the end, this is where a shot appears at the very end of
the trailer, usually to make someone jump. We edited our trailer to fit this three
part structure. The opening starts off slow with shots of Caterina in the kitchen
and shots of the desertion, The speed then picks up after a while and we see
shots of a family running from the home, trees falling, wind in the trees,
shelves falling over and so on, these shots are in black and white, the pace then
slows down going back to the shots of Caterina serving dinner. We placed the
2nd part of the structure to work alongside the sound of a car alarm, this helped
us to work on speeding up the pace and bringing it back down. Fast pace
editing is a common convention in Thriller trailers. A key aspect of trailers is
that they do not have to be continuous like our AS work. Therefore it is ok to
break up shots and present things in a random order. However we decided to
edit ours in a slight order of past and present.

8. Trailer: 3 part structure

9. Trailer analysis: Captions
 For our Thriller teaser trailer we included captions made in the website ‘Ribbet’.
Captions are used to let the audience know who the starring actors are, the
producers, the editors and so on. Captions can also be used to tell part of the
narrative, however we did not use captions for narrative purposes as we had a
radio broadcast playing. Our captions I feel are very professional looking. We
looked at the captions used for the ‘Gravity’ trailer and felt that the font and lay
out would fit to our teaser as they are both thrillers on a more serious level
rather than zombies and murderers. We used 2 types of font and messed
around with size and positioning. I feel our captions replicated real life media
and look very professional. If captions are done in the right way they can be
effective, in real media they are used for the audience to judge the new film on
past productions from these actors, producers and so on. Below is an image of
our captions and titles and Gravity’s titles.

10. Trailer analysis: Genre
 There are many things that suggest that our teaser trailer is from the Thriller
genre even though our teaser and narrative is not very typical of this genre.
First the soundtrack used suggests Thriller. Its very eerie and creepy, also the
car alarm sound adds that element of thrill along with the quick pace cutting
from shot to shot. It’s a very unusual sound to begin with as we do not see the
shot of the car until nearer the end. Also Caterina’s behaviour suggests thrill.
We see her acting very nervously and OCD like. This creates an eerie
atmosphere especially when we see her sitting alone. It makes the audience
wonder what has happened to the family that she has made this meal for. Why
is the meal so small? Is it that she is quickly running out of food? There are
numerous enigma codes in our Thriller teaser trailer which is a typical
convention of Thriller. We had many influences such as the movies ‘The Road’
and ‘The impossible’. The road is more thrilling than the impossible but the
impossible has scenes of care and disaster which we have included in our
Thriller. Its difficult to say what sub-genre our teaser is, it’s a naturalistic
thriller.

11. Trailer analysis: Key character traits
 There are 2 main characters in our teaser. The women cooking and the mother with the 2
children. We establish Caterina’s, the women, characters traits through a number of
ways. There are clues throughout indicating that she has some form of issues. We see her
cooking in the kitchen first at a canted angle, highlighting that something’s not quite
right. Caterina also has all of her utensils neatly lined on the side, as well as this we see
her over cleaning the side resulting in her smashing a cup. This scene shows that she is
close to the edge, unstable, broken like the cup. We also see a close up of her doing some
strange eye movements. Towards the end of the trailer we witness her sitting down eating
alone although she has served dinner for 4. All of these shots highlight that she is
unstable and maybe trying to find something to distract her from reality. Her OCD may
be her only way of control. The other character which is the mother is not seen for long in
the trailer but we can see some traits. We can see that she is very family centred as she is
sitting playing with her children. We also see her fleeing the house in panic, she has one
of her daughters in her arms and the other in tow holding her hand. It is clear she is
trying to get her children to safety. This highlights a character trait of care and love for
her family.

12. Trailer analysis: Special effects
 We have not included a vast amounts of special effects in our
teaser trailer as we feel it is more of a serious trailer. Many trailers
do have effects put onto them. We used transitions when
captions were to appear, a ‘dip to black’ at the beginning and end
of the caption. This allowed the trailer to run more smoothly and
look professional. This is a typical convention within a teaser
trailer. We also used a dissolve whenever Caterina was to re-
appear. This was done, again to make the trailer look
professional. We also used a dip to black when the shots would
change alongside the car alarm soundtrack. This was to make the
transition between shots look more professional and smoothly
and to have a greater effect.

13. Trailer analysis: Length
 The length of teaser trailers tend to be between 40 seconds and 1
minute. This is because they are a ‘teaser’ trailer, they are not the
final cut. Teasers are often released before the production is even
complete. If trailers are much longer then they tend not to be a
teaser trailer. Our trailer is around about 1 minute 20 seconds
taking off the last ten seconds that show nothing. Our trailer has
gone over slightly but is still acceptable as a teaser. Bearing in
mind we have the use of captions and an ident which take up
some time.

14. Trailer analysis: Sound
 For our Thriller trailer we used multiple types of sound. First is the
diegetic sound. We took most of the original sound out and put in
sound found from a website. For example when the cup smashes that
sound has been edited in to fit with the scene. This is also known as on
screen sound. This was also used for the voice over that we can see is
coming form the radio in the kitchen. This sound is highly important
as it helps us set up the narrative of the movie, it takes place for our
lack of captions. Without this piece of sound the trailer would be
difficult to understand. We scripted the piece to sound professional
and believable. We also used non diegetic soundtracks to add tension
and create an atmosphere. The music we used is very chilling and gives
our trailer that eerie feel. Sound is important in a trailer as it helps to
clarify what genre the trailer is. We also used the sound of a car alarm,
we played this soundtrack and dropped in transitions and shots to
change consecutively as did the beep of the soundtrack. The shot of an
abounded car then appears at the very end of this part. Making the
sound seem non-diegetic but now is diegetic. We also used sound
effects of wind throughout the trailer to fill up areas of silence.

15. Magazine analysis: Image
 Our magazine cover resembles a Sight and Sound cover in a number of
ways. First looking at the image. The image is of me and Rachel looking
scared and worried as well as hurt and dirty. The image is a mid shot
and involves mainly our faces. This is typical of ‘Sight and Sound’ to use
mid shots/close ups. Our image would have not worked on an ‘Empire’
cover due to the framing. Also ‘Sight and sound’ tend to have more
serious covers rather than covers with superheroes on. Therefore I feel
our cover, image and narrative all fit well to a ‘Sight and Sound’ cover.

16. Magazine analysis: Cover lines
 On our magazine cover we have included the use of cover lines. We had to
think carefully about the language we chose to use due to ‘Sight and Sound’
being a rather illiterate magazine. We thought carefully about what they would
read and looked at existing covers to get an idea of font, sizes and so on. We
made sure the actors names matched the names on our trailer also. We used an
Ariel type font that was rather simple as this was a consistent font used on
existing covers. We altered the sizing numerous times. We decided not to have
a huge title over our cover as it made the cover look less professional and was
difficult to see in certain colours. However this is typical of some sight and
sound covers, for example the one featuring Clint Eastwood, there is not a
major title standing out. I feel our cover lines do resemble a Sight and sound
cover.

17. Magazine analysis: Masthead, pugs
and banners
 On our magazine cover we used a pug that can be found on many sight
and sound releases. We copied the colour as well as the sizing and the
text. We decided not to use a banner due to the colours of our image.
We did not want to make the cover look over-crowded. Our masthead
is the same as the original masthead on sight and sound covers and is
placed in the same position as well as the barcode. We made sure the
date on the barcode was correct as well as the sizing of the bar code and
the masthead.

18. Magazine analysis: Rule of thirds
On any magazine they tend to follow the concept of ‘Rule of
thirds’, we to have done this. Within the first horizontal third
the Masthead is placed. This is where the masthead on
almost all magazine covers would appear. The central third
shows where the main image should be and as you can see
this is where our main image lies. The thirds on the left and
right are a guideline as to where cover lines should appear
and as you can see that is exactly what we have done.

19. Poster analysis: Image
For our poster we used ‘The road’ poster format as it
suited well to the narrative of our thriller and the images
that we had taken. As you can see the images are similar.
We chose to have our main image of 2 characters looking
over the devastation left behind. The image links back to
the image used on the magazine cover. I feel this image
is strong as it implies that these 2 people are now left
alone, separated from relatives and friends, the question
is what will happen next? Creating a thrilling aspect, but
also does not give their identity away as it is a thriller
poster. The image is placed towards the left hand side to
allow us room to show the devastation but to also allow
space for the title and quote. We decided to use an image
that showed the couple from behind as it shows the
journey that they now have to travel and also keeps their
identity shielded as to tease the audience. I feel our
image is typical of a thriller poster for these reasons.

20. Poster analysis: Text
The text on our poster is rather typical and can be found
on most posters. First we have the title on the poster to
indicate to the audience what the film is that is being
advertised. Then we have names of staring actors. This is
usually done on posters to draw in attention from the
audience. The audience can decide if they’d like to see the
film as they will be reminded of the actors past work and
can decide as t whether they enjoyed it and would enjoy
seeing them act again. We also included the director at the
top of the poster to again gain interest. We also used a
quote on the poster from sight and sound to link the two
print work piece together but to also promote the film
further. To see that a sophisticated highly popular film
mag to say such a positive thing and give 5 stars to a film
would encourage the audience to go and watch the film.
All of these things are conventions of a poster, to the right
are some images taken from my poster and ‘The Road’
poster demonstrating this. However we have no billing
block on our poster as it is supposed to be a teaser trailer,
this also being the reason for no release date.