Trailer Conventions

Written by Emma Taylor

This is a Prezi presentation to show 'Trailer Conventions' for different genres.

Trailer Convention Evaluation 

There are some key conventions in every trailer shown, despite it's genre. These include;

- Institutional Information - Institutional information must be given throughout the film trailer and is a legal necessity. This includes the director, actors and production company names, along with film ratings. This could also help promote the film, because if there is a distinct actor or director working on the film, this could appeal to a wider audience, who may go and watch the film due to the fact that they enjoy the work of those involved, thus selling the film to a wider audience. This can be seen in 'Trance' which was promoted heavily on the fact that it was 'A Danny Boyle Film', after his success in directing 'Slumdog Millionaire' and the recent 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.

- Good trailers will commonly show the film's quality by stating awards and nominations of either the individuals involved, or if the film itself has won a film festival. In the film trailer 'The Life Guard' the trailer states very near the beginning that it had been nominated for 'Sundance Film Festival' and in the trailer of 'The Great Gatsby' many famous names are stated.

- Todorov's narrative theory is also displayed throughout trailers, but more trailers have more narrative than others. For example, the R.I.P.D trailer from Universal Pictures, does present a fairly detailed explanation into the storyline, but the movie trailer for 'Some Girls' hardly displays any story line, but just introduces characters. Both are equally as effective, as the former really makes you absorbed into the film and you start to understand the complexity of the story, and the latter makes you wonder what happens next, as you don't really have much of an idea about the narrative in the film. However, no trailer will show the 'revised equilibrium' as this would spoil the ending of the film.

- Most trailers will show a distinct range of scenes to appeal to a mass audience. For instance, many action films, take James Bond for instance will have romance, action, drama ect. There will be a range of shots, ranging from impressive ariel and crane shots to close ups. There will commonly be special effects including CGI and sound effects.

- All film trailers will show the key characters appearing in the film, adhering to Vladimir Propp's theory as there is commonly a villian, a prize, a helper, the hero ect. 

Cinematography Crash Course DSLR

After going on a 'Cinematography Crash Course - DSLR', I have decided to write this post because I believe that it will help me, when making my coursework trailer to make my work have the 'cinematic' feel, and will let me achieve the shots I desire for the trailer. I believe that I will shoot my coursework piece differently due to this crash course and have already seen the difference in my personal film projects. These simple, but very effective tips will help us to design our coursework effectively, so it has the most professional style possible.

Anamorphic Lenses

Feature films and therefore trailers are always shot with anamorphic lenses, which give a shot a cuboid look instead of a square. Whilst you can't get anamorphic lenses for DSLRs, we can get the appearance of an anamorphic lens during post production. This involves us cropping the film during editing above and below the shot - this consequently means that when we're on set for filming the trailer, the Director of Photography has to bare in mind that we will be cropping the shot, and will have to position the shot accordingly, leaving room at the top and bottom of the shot to crop the image.

Cropping the image in Final Cut Pro X

The result of an anamorphic lens

An anamorphic lens

Depth of Field

 Depth of Field is the amount of subject in the foreground, mid ground and background are in focus. A shallow depth of field is when only one plane is in focus, a deep depth of field would be when all planes are in focus. On DSLRs, depth of field is determined by focal length and aperture size. It is not uncommon for films, and trailers to play on this idea and switch a shallow and deep depth of field - perhaps to hide someone/something in the background, or even to make the audience focus on one minute object in the foreground which is crucial to the shot. Changing from one focus in a shot to another is called a 'focus pull'.

Aperture and DoF

Depth of Field

 ISO

When shooting a scene in a dark place with little lighting, it can be difficult to see your shot properly as it's so dark. By increasing the ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) you are increasing your camera's sensitivity to light. The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive, and the higher the ISO number, the more sensitive it is to light. However, the relationship between a high ISO number and amount of grain (distortion) on the shot is linear. So to achieve a nice shot with little grain in a dark place, we will need lots of external light for the camera to recognise so we can decrease the ISO setting. If we wanted to darken the shot for any effect - for example, it is a horror trailer and we wanted a dark, mood filled shot, we could always under expose the shot during the edit by grading it.

Shutter Speed

The shutter speed on a camera also effects the camera's light intake. The shutter speed of a shot refers to how long the shot is exposed for. In the UK the standard shutter speed for film and television production is either 25 or 50 frames per second. However, when shutter speeds change, they have different effects, allowing for more 'filmic' looks. High shutter speeds create 'jerkier' images, such as in 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'Gladiator'. Lower shutter speeds create 'smoother' images as there is more motion blur.

Lighting''Just like with human eyes, a camera can only capture the images for a movie through light.''

Without the correct lighting surrounding your shot, it is going to be difficult to get the audience to have the cinematic experience we want them to. Some cinematographers say that lighting is more important than composition, because light can connote so many different things - a shadow on the face usually symbolises horror/thriller, where as too much light connotes a ghost like, stylistic feel. Other effects such as lens flare can add atmosphere to a shot, by holding a light box under a camera with a high aperture to catch the light. 

lens flare

Tungston Lighting

LED lights

As we are working without a budget, for our coursework we would only have access to two types of lighting at most; open faced tungsten lights and LEDs (along with practical, diegetic lighting). Whilst tungsten lights are powerful and very useful for low budget films, they do give off an orange glow, which is ideal for in house lighting but not much else. We could either grade the colour in post production or use lighting gels to achieve the colours we want.

LEDs would be useful in our cinematography for our coursework because they are very energy efficient, and they are not hot to touch, which is very useful for health and Safety purposes, especially when holding the light to create lens flare.

Within film, I strongly feel that both lighting and sound can either make, or break a film, and without it being as good as possible, our trailer will not be as good as we want it to be. So whilst shooting for our trailer, these two crucial aspects of film making will be at the forefront of my mind.

The Art of Story and Scriptwriting

The chapters in the book 'On Film Making - An Introduction to the Craft of the Director' written by Alexander Mackendrick has helped me to understand how to create a story and how to show this on screen effectively, and how to play with the audience's minds, because ironically, the art of film making and story telling, is not what you see, but what you don't, and to make the audience fill in the gaps in a way in which you want them to, is a accomplishment in itself.

In the book, it states that 'One of the essential components of drama is tension, and may or may not be the result of conflict between the people on the screen. Tension in the imagination of the audience that leads to curiosity, suspense and apprehension'. Therefore I think that the dialogue within a film is at its best when it serves a direct purpose and provides a reaction in the other characters and even audience members, because this is the essence of drama and I think, is at the pin point of tension and enigma.

Reading this, and also having ideas for the coursework trailer, I think it will be important to build up tension, through close ups and imitate sound rather than dialogue and to perhaps not to display the reason for the tension. For example, if a couple are having an argument, perhaps it may be wise in the trailer, not to display why, to create enigma and mystery, to keep key aspects of the plot well hidden. This can be seen clearly in horror movies when characters get intensely scared, and because we don't know what they're scared of, we are also afraid, therefore capturing the audience's full attention.

'On Film Making...' continues to guide readers into what and what not put onto screen - the most important being 'Don't put into a script what the camera cannot photograph in action'. Whilst with the emergence of high quality technology such as CGI and recent developments in green screening and animation, this is becoming ever more avaliable to directors who want to film what is not possible in true-to-life situations, for a very low budget trailer, we will certainly be sticking this concept, and is certainly something to bare in mind when script writing. It also states that 'in a well told story, every fictional story has a network of character interactions. Characteristics of the protagonist and antagonist are revealed only through relationships with others or in circumstances of events.'

 In terms then, of making a trailer for my coursework, I think it may be wise when thinking of characters and connections, to draw the characters and link all of their experiences, relationships, their feelings towards each other, in order to have a deeper understanding of the characters we've created, and will therefore be able to display the character's story accurately. 

Director's Notes

As a director, 'On Film Making...' suggests that for any film that we're planning to make, there are some key questions we must be able to answer.

'1. How many characters are there in your story? - Select three 'principles', remember that drama and tension is easily created through characters reacting to each other on screen, so try and stay away from 'there is only one main character'. Often it is most effective to have three main characters as there is then a triangular relationship, perhaps a central character who is being pulled in opposite directions by the others. Note - that in films with dramatic scenes where there is only one character present, these tend to be the scenes where the enviroment itself plays the part of the protagonist, and makes the central character react to their surroundings, horror movies is an obvious example.

2. Who is your point of view character? Sometimes it can be difficult to decide between who is the antagonist and who is the protagonist. Ask yourself: by the end of the story, what does your character hope to achieve? And what is required to make this achievable whilst creating a visible result on screen? But there also has to be a negative objective - to try and prevent the end goal from happening - but this too should be a result of an action.' For Example - A girl wants a boy to be her boyfriend (the achievement). But the boy isn't interested, due to the fact that he has a date with the girl's horrible half sister (negative objective), but only because the half sister has found out the girl likes this boy, and wants to spite her (the result of an action).

3. How does the conflict lead to crisis? What is at stake for the main characters? Is there a confrontation scene? In a well constructed story the audience is held in expectation of what is called a obligatory scene brought about by a reversal (or series of reversals). The obligatory scene (the scene that the audience expects and looks forward to), classically expresses the theme and the story's central moral.