Friday, 26 August 2011

Codes and conventions of a trailer


All trailers first begin with a green public disclaimer about a movie to tell if it is PG rated or universal. followed by the message, the media house or the institution/s logo is shown. the log may be shown after some delay or after few seconds of the trailer. 



All trailers end with a page giving credits to media houses who participated in the production, marketing and distribution of the film.


And soon the Darkness

 The genre of this movie is crime, horror and suspense which is similar to our movie. The first 37 seconds of the video show that there are two girls who have visited a new place and are enjoying themselves in this time duration, camera angles used are quite simple with canted shots, mid shot and reverse shots. Camera movements in some places are quite fast and brisk to show that the girls here are partying and enjoying themselves. The non diegetic sounds here are the party music being played in the background to emphasize the mood being portrayed, and a 'swoosh' like sound bridge after every fade out effect shown or a thud like sound appearing after every text. All these sound effects create enigma and anticipation in the video We hear dialogues and other diegetic sounds as well.

After 37 seconds the music immediately changes to quiet but mysterious beats. the background sound is now slow as now we hear the dialogues of the characters in the trailer. from 0:46-1:16 we see and hear what has actually happened and what the movie is about. After 1:16 everything becomes fast paced as we see series of different clips and the non diegetic background music also catches tempo. We also see more variety of camera angle and movements here. 

The Mise en scene is also more rich and emphasizing here. for example in this particular shot the protagonist is standing in a particular valley and the camera rolls around her to that she is the only person there in the valley. Here two girls visit a rural part of Argentina and the Mise en scene is emphasized with the ratty police station office, homes made with plank and bridges with narrow spaces.
 
Many transition and effects such as fast forward, fade out have been used throughout the movies. small graphically made clips with catchy phrases which gradually turn mysterious and escalate the anticipation of what will happen in this movie.

When a stranger calls

The first 9 seconds of this trailer show a slow pan toward a phone with the non diegetic sound of phone statics and then a person answering a call. We see an insert of a woman screaming and lying on the floor. Now in the first few seconds, audience knows the genre of the movie and that  the whole movie would be based on phone calls.  before 31 seconds we only hear the diegetic sounds of people having conversation, phone ringing and Nightingale. The tension builds up here after 31 seconds when the protagonist gets a mysterious phone call. music starts playing at the background and the volume gradually catches up. on screen we see the protagonist tensed, attending a series of calls form a stranger. 

camera movements used here are quite steady with smooth panning however a fast panning shot that goes inside the house is used just before 01:11 minute. Series of shots of the protagonist trying to lock herself inside the house and calling for help are shown until by 01:11 minutes she receives a call from the police that inform her that the mysterious calls are coming from inside the house. From here the tension escalates and the music changes and catches tempo. Now we see different jerky shots of the protagonist trying to run and save herself from the stranger who has shown himself and is now trying to kill her. Different shots of smaller duration are shown now that increase the anticipation. In the last few minutes just before the title appears, a couple of scenes flicker with the non diegetic sound bridge of phone beeping.

The editing is done here in the two shots at the beginning where the shots have been given a black and white surgical type effect. Words and phrases that appear on the screen vary with the mood created. phrases within the time duration off 00:31-01:11 are just fading on to the screen. Texts after 01:11  are appearing with a swoosh like sound effect and are appearing with a different effect. Fade in transition effect is used throughout the trailer between different shots.

The Roommate


The first 53 seconds show the background of the movie; it shows that there is a girl (Sarah) who for her college has moved into a big city and is bonding with her roommate (Rebbecca). We are shown that her roommate is being exceptionally friendly and generous with her. We see the wide angle shots of the scene's and simple high or canted angle shots of few scenes where Rebbecca and Sarah are enjoying their new college life. How ever the music changes after 53 seconds just after sleeping Rebbecca suddenly opens her eyes as if she was pretending to sleep. The R&b music which was playing in the background abruptly changes into a new track which made the scenes look more intense. After 1:15 we hear a thud like sound effect just before hearing dialogue's which stop at 'medication' and after seeing a look of surprise on the protagonist's face. Till here we know that sarah's roommate Rebbecca is on some kind of a medication and she obviously has not being taking that.

We see close-ups, reverse shots and mid shots of the antagonist (Rebbecca) looking uncomfortable and restrained. After a thud, low rumbling background music is played which make things look edgy. 
In 0:08 and in 1:25 we hear bell chimes of the tower in their college which may also be in some way related with the antagonist as in 1:25 we see her getting affected by the chimes and by 1:38 a scene of violence caused by Rebbecca is shown with diegetic sounds of screaming and dialogues spoken in a menacing tone. These bell chimes are heard more often and the scenes shown are more gripping and violent. Entirely different shots of short duration are shown here and parallel editing is done. Here we find out that Sarah's roommate is obsessed with her and it greatly upsets her when her roommate associates with people she disapproves of. In the end we see a chase in an empty house between Rebbecca and Sarah. The bell chimes are now louder and faster and just before the title of the movie appears, we hear someone screaming 'stop'.

Throughout the whole movie, fade in effect is shown when shots appear or disappear into a blank screen. Animation and transition on the text has been done like in all other trailers. 



Monday, 15 August 2011

Defining teaser trailers more

While conducting our research on trailers and how to design them, we came across a website which showed a couple of teaser trailers. Below are the hyperlinks to them


While going through these website and looking at a couple of trailers, we found out that many teaser trailers last for less than a minute and in those teasers we cannot determine the main idea or the story. We find out about the main protagonist of course and what he or she does but the story is left unclear. Such teasers leave an enigma amongst the audience and increase the anticipation of watching that movie. The trailers which generally last for more than 2 minutes are called theatrical trailers and they pretty much tell the audience about the life in general of the main character and what he is going to face in that movie. The endings are usually left unclear.

Difference between theatrical trailers and teaser trailers.

Teaser trailers are released when the movie is coming soon to theaters. Theatrical trailers are released after the movie is released as they are more detailed and audiences generally figure out most of the content of the movie. Also we have noticed that in teaser trailers, minimum shots are used to as compared to theatrical trailers



This is a teaser of an upcoming x men film



This is a trailer of movie transformers 3 which has already been released. Notice the longer time duration and more variety of shots.

Initially we decided to do teaser which are released before the movies comes out on cinema but on our updated specification, we saw that we were to do theatrical trailers that are released after the movie is made. The genre we chose was teen drama/suspense.

We can representative it more deeply because:
  1. It is convenient to arrange the cast
  2. Our target audience is teenagers around the age group 15-20.
  3. With the survey we conducted, people from the targeted age group like the genre we chose.