The use of real media technology in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages

Throughout my entire coursework piece I been continuously using media technologies to further develop my work to that next level. The construction of my coursework would be nothing without media technologies as all my work has been obviously uploaded to this blog. Blogging is the key programme I have used to present all my found knowledge and experiences to you and is key because it has the ability to intertwine so many different forms of media into it, blogs give us the option of embedding sound and movie clips into our actual posts rather than just being reliant of a link working for example and give us that much more freedom when it comes to being creative with what we present. It also helps to keep all our research and media organised into different posts and sub headings if we so choose, before our coursework used to be in coursework booklets where we used to have to have our final products put separately onto a PowerPoint or disk to be able to show them and have our work in a booklet to show physically, this makes things so much better as by using blogs we can keep all our work in 1 much better more effective place making things so much easier.

During the research stage of my coursework I used media technologies to gain a good understanding of just how teaser trailers work by looking at a number of different genre styles to see how they differ from each other. I also looked deeper into how different genres of film differ from each other and why certain audiences like certain genres of film. To do this I mostly used YouTube to watch examples of existing teaser trailers where I can easily interlink there videos in with my blogger account and therefore the posts I make giving me so much more freedom when it comes to doing research into my thriller genre and presenting it back on my blog as it means that I can physically show you what I am talking about rather than simply describing what happens in the video and writing about it. I also used search engines like google as google is one of the most advanced search engines and most popular to help me get a wide variety of research into different genres before i decided on my own.

During the planning stages of my coursework I used media technology to look at many different magazine front covers and film posters, I did this by looking at film magazine websites like EMPIRE magazine where you can see thousands of their magazine front covers aimed at different genres of film to see how they present their picture and titles together to give a certain effect and so that I could break them down to see how exactly they make their magazine front covers look like magazine front covers. I did the same when it came to looking into existing film posters but this time used google again to see how magazine front covers and posters interlinked with each other when they were made for the same film. I did this as I wanted to see how they made this work as I had to do the exact same thing with my task.

During the production stages of my coursework I used an apple MAC and the editing software Final cut pro to edit my work, this software makes editing very simple and straightforward and allows you to upload your footage straight to YouTube from this programme rather than having to render it and save it on you computer then go to YouTube and upload that file, it cuts out the middle man so to speak saving time. This programme comes with a variety of different sounds and edits that I do not have available to me using a more basic form of editing software such as iMovie. Final cut pro also allows for not destructive editing, so it does not permanently destroy footage once you edit it like iMovie does. This means that if you make a mistake it can easily be corrected.

For the evaluation stages of my coursework I uploaded my final product onto YouTube and posted the link on my facebook profile where I was able to get a variety of different opinions on my work as feedback on what my target audience thought went well, what did not go so well and how effective it was on them, I designed my own questionnaire in the description of my facebook post and let the comments be my feedback. This method of gaining feedback proved to be very effective as  I was able to post my actual final video into my facebook post so my target audience were free to See my end product and comment on it whilst they were watching it. This idea of again websites being able to intertwine in with each other makes doing tasks like this so much easier to pull off.

In conclusion without media technology I would not of been able to create such an effective final piece,  the freedom I had research wise to look into what made other simular porducts effective and what did not gave me a far clearer understanding of that I wanted my end products to look like and had a direct impact on them. I used a wide variety of different media technology throughout the whole of my media project such as search engines, youtube, facebook, final cut pro, editing software, photoshopping programmes for my titles and my ancillerys and my blog itself and I have used all of these to create a high quality effective final piece that I am very proud to call my own.

Combination of main product and ancillary texts

I think that the combination of my main product and ancillary texts work very well, what I have are a very effective final teaser trailer that does a very good job of enticing the audience into wanting to find out more about the final film its self which is fantastic. My teaser also adheres to many of the different codes and typical conventions of teaser trailers and the thriller genre to give me a real life, quality looking final teaser trailer that I am proud of, the many different ways in which I have achieved this have been explained in my evaluation. These are intertwined with my ancillary poster and magazine front covers that both look again very life like and look like actual film posters and magazine front covers.

It is very important that each of my products are designed to either compliment or look very similar to each other so that when it comes to distributing them that the target audience makes the link between each of them and notices that they are part of the same product. Each of my products are effectively marketing tools that are there simply to make media companies money, therefore this reliance on recognition that my teaser trailer, magazine front cover and film poster are all intertwined as one is crucial to the successful sale of my end product.

To do this I decided to focus on the recurrence of the same styled trailer title featuring in all 3 of my products, clearly showing the audience that they are part of the same product. I have also made my main character feature in each of the texts to again reinforce that they are part of the same final product.

Magazine front cover: With my magazine front cover I decided to keep the mis-en-scene the same as my teaser trailer, the dark lighting eerie looking alleyway in the background just to add to this repetition on theme to make you associate the 2 products. I made space for the title of the magazine as well as many other subheadings that scatter the page. It have been designed very carefully to make it look like any other film magazine front cover and in my opinion looks like a real magazine front cover. Craig is posed in a much more casual/less hostile position with his iconic leather jacket removed, as if he is willing to talk to the magazine, reinforcing the exclusiveness of it whilst still making it look like he is in the movie rather than just an actor posing.

Poster: With my magazine front cover I decided to go for an action shot of my character as most film posters do, action shots are designed to make the audience that see them want to watch the actual film so having the main character posing looking bad ass with a gun with the subheading 'they made this personal', along with the low to high angle shot of him making him look dominant all adds to this end effect I want to create when presenting my poster to the public. In conjunction with my teaser trailer this poster does what my teaser does not, it reveals the main characters face which if you have already seen the teaser trailer and are wondering who he is this is great to fill in the missing gaps of information. Its as if my ancillaries act like pieces to the puzzle of my main text.

Here I have shown The combination of my main product with both the ancillaries:

Evaluation of my teaser trailer

I believe that my teaser trailer uses a range of different teaser trailer conventions to make it effective and look real, I made sure to keep the same font of the title screen 'Vengance' so that it effectively linked in with my ancillary texts. The MPAA title I used are used in most teaser trailers, as films generally come out in the US first I thought it would be appropriate to use an approval screen from the MPAA rather than the BBFC as it helps to make my teaser look realistic.

I made the man that got attacked look like a thug in the way he dressed and walked to hint at the audience that he is not just an innocent man being attacked for no reason, if he just looked like an innocent bystander then it may of made me audience develop a negative prejudgement about him which I don't want. I wanted the audience to think about what was going on in this clip, to make them wonder who both men are and why Craig is attacking the thug.

I used the crucial typical convention of character conflict to make my teaser work effectively, the attack scene was part of the conflict, but only a sneak peak of it as the audience can tell that he was effectively provoked into this attack for reasons that they don't know, using an enigma code like this is very effective as it makes the audience ask questions like why is he attacking him. The titles I used effectively act as a catalyst to propel this question in the audiences mind, by saying 'how far would you go' and 'when you are their only hope' it tells the audience that he is not just some nut job that likes going round kidnapping people, that there is reason behind his attacks. It also helps to make the audience empathise with him by proposing those questions, it makes the character look like he is just an every day person like anyone from my audience that has just had something terrible happened to them to which the question proposes to my audience that maybe they would do the same thing given his situation. This effectively establishes the characters in my film to my target audience. This effectively introduced both the protagonist and one of the antagonists without even showing the protagonists face which is exactly what I wanted to do. Not knowing who the main character is a very effective method to use as it makes the target audience want to find out, I do give subtle clues as to who he is by showing the back of his head (not a very good clue i know) and by letting the audience hear his voice with the use of a voice over over the title screen. This makes my target audience more active as after watching my teaser they are likely to want to find out more about the film to find out who they mystery actor is, creating some sort of hysteria about the film.

A thriller film would not be such without thrills, so I had to make sure that my audience got thrills out of watching my teaser trailer, otherwise it makes my entire product redundant. I made my teaser thrilling to watch by making the most out of all of my target audiences senses, making the pace of editing flow with the change in flow of the beat of the music, I believe this made my audience pay more attention to my final piece as it made it more aesthetically pleasing to watch. I used flash effects during the attack scene where white flashes came up to represent flashes of adrenaline that the attacker was having, I thought that this worked very well at adding emotion to my piece that my audience could then relate too and feed off his emotional pain, it shows the audience that he is emotional about this attack almost as if it needs to happen for him to overcome an obstacle.

I made sure not to reveal too much about the storyline of this film through my teaser trailer, I gave subtle clues to it with the use of the 2 titles 'how far would you go' and 'when you are their only hope' to explain the attack scenes, that there is someone that needs to be saved and interrogating this thug is key to getting necessary information to find them. Although I do not directly tell my audience about what is going to happen in the story looking back at my consumer feedback I can see that it pointed my target audience in the right direction. The majority of people could see that someones life needed saving and that this man had one of the pieces of that puzzle. Making my audience on some level forgive him for committing a necessary evil so to speak, even though he commits at least 3 crimes here of assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping and grand theft auto the audience still see him as the good guy through the use of these title sequences, I was slightly sceptical as to weather this technique would work at first but it made sense in my head so I decided to go with it and am glad that I did as it payed off.

Sound is used effectively throughout my teaser trailer to set the mis-en-scene, the sound starts out slow and has bursts of bass, I made sure to use this soundtrack to my advantage by making the pace of editing change with this music, for example when Craig draws the tire iron the beat of my music comes in to emphasise this, adding tension to the attack scene. The teaser starts out silent which is typical for a teaser trailer when the MPAA approval title comes in, the sound then starts as the paramount ident comes in and we hear the first beat of the bass in my soundtrack, this combination of sound and editing makes  my teaser more aesthetically pleasing and makes my target audience focus more on my trailer, it also helps the teaser flow much smoother and adds to the professional quality looking finish I have been hoping for. I continued this editing technique, making the bassy beats match up with key action codes such as when Craig draws his tire iron making my audience again focus on this and again when he hits the thug.

The date of release I chose for my teaser trailer would be typical for a thriller film, since October is usually associated with Halloween, the time of year when most people are seeking thrills this would be the perfect time to release a film such as my one as it would cater to not only action thriller film fans but also horror fans to an extent as they are far more active at the cinema during October. Teaser trailers are released around a year before the production comes out so if it were to have been released at the start of my A2 year then this would be perfect timing as it would run for a year. I used another typical editing technique in revealing my release date where the title of the film comes up first then the date comes up afterwards, making the audience first read the title of the film then read the date after.

Overall I believe I have made a very effective end teaser trailer that uses a variety of real media conventions to give it a quality looking finish and I am happy with the end result.

Audience Feedback

To see what some of my potential consumers had to say I posted it onto my youtube account and onto my facebook profile along with a small questionnaire to see what they had to say, here are my restults:

My results show that from the small amount of people that did watch it that the vast majority of people that did watch it, liked it. Even with the one comment saying that thriller movies aren't really her thing but if they were she would definitely want to watch it, which is good to know. Everyone that commented said that the trailer made them want to watch the film which is fantastic! this means that my teaser trailer has done exactly what I wanted it to do in intriguing my target audience and making them want to watch the rest of the film. There were a few comments on the use of sound which is good as they picked up on my use of it meaning that it made them pay attention to my teaser, editing the footage so that it matched the rate of the music made my target audience pick up on this easier as the change is music is also shown visually. When I asked them what they thought the story was about from watching the teaser trailer most of them were pretty close with their guesses, considering I did not give away any significant story lines and only gave small clues I am glad that it set them in the right direction and gave them an accurate rough idea of what to expect in the film its self. Finally looking at the overall ratings I got for the final product on average I got 8-10/9-10 which is an awesome score, I am very happy with the results and can see that I have made a good quality teaser trailer from them. I have received many positive comments from my target audience which tells me that I have done a good job at catering to their tastes and making them interested in my product.

This test obviously isn't 100% reliable as it was posted on my facebook page where only my friends can see it however I received a range of valid opinions on my product which is exactly what I wanted. Overall I think that this questionnaire tells me that I have catered very well for my target audiences wants and needs as this teaser trailer makes them want to watch my film.

Final Ancillery Piece - Magazine Front Cover

I think that I have made a very effective quality magazine front cover, it looks very lifelike and uses traits of other magazine front covers to do this. I have the magazine its own made up title of 'Movie Weekly' aswell as its own logo, price and tagline to make it look as real as possible. Because this would be a movie magazine I added other subtitles of film articles that would interest movie fans aswell as 'exclusives' on many new thriller films that are coming out soon. I kept the same movie title font and colour 'vengeance' as well as its own movie subsitle 'is finally here' many magazine front covers have this so I wanted to include as much of this as possible with more reviews and exclusive movie content relating to the movie below it. My main character has been posed to look like he is in a interviewing stance but still keeping is movie poise. I edited this photo using http://www.picnik.com/

Final Ancillery Piece - Poster

I think that I have made a very effective poster, it looks very lifelike and uses traits from other posters to achieve this, I have also linked in my AS film 'Infection' to this poster to show it was made by the same director. I used http://www.picnik.com/ to edit this poster and designed the title of the movie using one of the preset fonts aswell as the names of the actors and the tagline 'they made this personal' giving the audience another clue about the movie. I used a low to high angle shot to make him look very dominant as well as making him face the camera straight on, I make him very central and symetrical on the poster to make it again look like a quality shot poster. I took the shot down a rough looking alleyway and took it so that there was nice looking green foliage to the right with light coming through on his right to show his inner goodness and the darkness is shown on the left where it looks darker and dirtier, the shadowed half of his face also reinforces this as well as him holding his gun on the darker side.

Ancillery Research & Planning

To make my own Ancillery texts to go along with my teaser trailer I have looked at existing posters and magazine front covers for existing films and annotated them, here is what i found:

Posters:

From looking at these posters I can see that the main hero/anti-hero is very central to the poster, that they are seen as being more dominant then everything else with the use of high to low angle shots, that the Title of the film is nearer the bottom of the poster and that the actors that feature in the film usually have their names somewhere on the poster. When it comes to making my own poster I will have to keep these points in mind. I will take a picture of my main character in a low to high angle shot of him to make him look more dominant and add the title and other featured actors names using a great editing website called http://www.picnik.com/

Magazine front covers:

From looking at these magazine front covers I can see that the main characters are very central to the magazine, only one character is shown and that they seem to be in a more interview friendly pose. The title of the magazine front cover is usually at the top  and the title of the movie is usually underneath the main character of the film with a tagline underneath the title. Many other sub stories that tie in with the film are spread over the page to give their target audience more to read. When it comes to making my own poster I must keep these points in mind. I will have my a picture of craig in a more relaxed but still action shot by an alleyway and add the titles and other effects using a brilliant editing website I have found called http://www.picnik.com/





Vengeance

Here is my final teaser trailer:

The actors that feature in my teaser trailer are:
Craig Smith who plays Daniel Brown
Zac Haines who plays one of the gang members

When it came to editing my final piece I had about 20 different shots lasting approximately 2 minutes that I had to narrow down to between 30-60 seconds along with title sequences and a production company. I am very pleased with my final teaser trailer and after putting in a lot of effort to achieve my final product I believe that I have made an effective final piece.

I started my teaser trailer off with the MPAA logo, teaser trailers a usually released first in the united states and as such the MPAA (motion picture association of America) would be the ones to approve a teaser trailer. This is then followed by the production company that I think would be most likely to want to produce my thriller film. I went onto YouTube and searched for the Paramount ident and cropped it down making it fit into my teaser, this is also where I first introduced my sound. I designed it so that the first beat of the music came in when the paramount title came into the picture so that the picture responded to the sound, as well as making the end of the ident fade out as the second beat came in. I then straight away introduced one of the gang members, we can tell he is a dodgy character by the way he walks and by him throwing up his hood, this helps to portray him as a thug.
The next shot I think works extremely well, again it introduces another character straight away and shows us that he is a problem for the first character with the drawing of a tire iron, I edited this so that the beat of the music again mates the timing of him drawing his weapon, making the music have a dramatic effect on what we see, it makes the audience expect to see something every time a dramatic beat happens in the soundtrack raising tension and making them focus more on what they see. I use a flash special effect to show a flicker of adrenaline, hinting to the audience that he has done this before and that he gets a rush from the attack, this is shown throughout this scene with the cuts to speed the attack scene up and the flash as the thug is struck, the beat of the music again comes in here as he is struck to add dramatic effect to the scene. A title screen then comes up to give the audience an enigma code 'how far would you go?', this hints to the audience that there is purpose to what he is doing and makes the audience question as to what that purpose is. There is then a flash fade back into the car driving away, this gives the audience a hint that he has kidnapped the thug and stolen his car, this tells the audience that he is not afraid to break the law to get what he wants, this tells the audience that he is an anti-hero which makes fans of anti-hero films such as Taken and Batman more likely to want to watch this movie. The car drives off into the distance and fades out making the audience question where they are going. There is then a fade in to a title sequence where the audience is given a hint as to what the answer is to the last title sequence was 'when you are their only hope' it gives the audience the hint that the anti-hero knocked the man out because someones life is dependant on him, making the crimes he has committed more socially acceptable. It stops the audience from building up a negative relationship with him and shows them who they should like and who they shouldn't. The camera then fades back in where we see that the thug has been tied to a chair, the fade in helps to show the audience that he is coming too and reinforces the clue the audience had about him being kidnapped from the previous scene. White flashes and quick cuts are used together to show that he is coming around, the anti-hero can be seen with an over the shoulder shot looking at him, this keeps him a mystery as we can only see the back of his head, making the audience want to find out more about him meaning that are likely to look up the film to find out who is playing him and helps to raise awareness of the actual film. The man finally comes round, he looks at the anti-hero in terror and says 'who are you' telling the audience that the men do not know each other. There is then a cut to the title of the film telling the audience the name of the production that by not they should want to know, the anti-hero then replies saying 'tell me everything you know', this tells the audience that he knows something that is key to saving the person he's trying to save as well as giving them a small hint as to who the actor is meaning that fans of this actor are likely to want to watch this movie. 'Coming October 2011' then comes up underneath this title to tell the audience when to expect the film to come out, this particular month has been set as October is usually associated with Halloween and therefore October is a good month to release a thriller film.

I think my teaser trailer does a very good job of grabbing my target audiences attention from the beginning. It introduces the main character without showing his face making the audience want to know who he is as well as why he kidnapped the thug. My teaser usues a number of typical teaser trailer conventions to make it work effectively such as the pace of the music matching the pace of editing, the enigma codes such as the title screens and him knocking out the thug making the audience question what they see as well as the fact that the teaser trailer gives them small clues as to what the sotry is about but does not give away any significant plot lines.

Editing

Once I finished editing my work the last thing production wise that was left to do was to edit it, editing argubly the most essential step when it comes to creating your own teaser trailer as this is the main tool which shapes your footage and makes it look like a teaser trailer. I will make sure that the pace of editing matches the pace of the soundtrack I have selected as well as carefully selecting my footage to make sure that I do not reveal too much about my story.

I used iMovie to edit my teaser trailer, this software was readily available to use at my school and is a very simple and accurate editing programme, making you able to crop footage down to the frame. This software also comes with a host of different special effects and soundtracks perfect for making a teaser trailer.

When it came to maknig the title sequences for my teaser trailer making the white writing on a black background was quick and simple, however when it came to making the title with a white background with black writing the programme made it impossible to make, I therefore had to use After Effects to design my own title and import it into iMovie, what a nightmare for 2 seconds worth of footage!

Sound

From what I have learned from looking at many different film teaser trailers I can see that to make an effective one that sound is essential. It is used as a centre to which all the editing is based around, I therefore had to make sure that the sound I used effectively represented my genre of film. As most music now a days carries copywrite infringement I had to make sure that I got my soundtrack from a royalty free website. I used http://www.purple-planet.com/ to find and download the tracks I used for my teaser trailer, this website contains hundreds of royalty free tracks free of charge.

Here are the 2 soundtracks that I narrowed my choice down too:

Into Battle (Pad):
http://www.purple-planet.com/#/preview-into-battle/4534502091
This is the final soundtrack that I decided on, I thought that it would fit well around the variety of different shots that I had and that the pace of the editing would fit nicely with the beat of the music. I felt that I could make a very effective teaser trailer to this soundtrack

Night In The City (Theme):
http://www.purple-planet.com/#/preview-night-in-the-city/4537962303
Although I also liked this soundtrack for my teaser trailer I felt that my teaser trailer would not match this song as well as Into Battle (Pad)

Props and Equipment

When it comes to filming my production I must hook my audience from the beginning, for a teaser trailer this is a must as they do not last very long. Using props are a very effective way of grabbing your audiences attention and making them interested in your teaser trailer. When it comes to making my own teaser trailer I want to make sure that my end product looks as professionally made as possible to make it look like an actual teaser trailer, I will therefore use all the equipment I have available to me to help add to the overall quality of my end product.

Props:

I used a tire iron as a weapon that the main character knocked out the thug with, this scene was used to throw the audience straight into the action and I felt that to grab my audiences attention effectively that I had to put emphasys on the use of a weapon, I therefore used a close up of the tire iron to grab my audiences attention.

I used my car to show that the main character is willing to kidnap the thug and steal his car as a taste of the crimes he is willing to commit to get his son back. Adding to my target audiences interest in my teaser trailer.

Other props were more subtle in the choice of clothing I had the men in my teaser trailer wear, Zac was dressed to make him look like a thug and Craig had his leather hooded jacket on to mask his identity, I also had to wear this when it came to driving away in my car.

Equipment:

When it came to filming my work the most basic but most important piece of equipment I had at my disposal was a Panasonic SDR-S50 digital camera provided by my school, it was the newest camera that I had at my disposable, however is not high definition as I would have preffered to film with a HD camera to make sure that I ended up with a higher quality finished product. And from previous use in my AS coursework I have found out that it is very light sensitive and becomes very blurred if it pans too quickly or if something moves on screen too quickly, which is very frustrating to find out when you get to editing the final product.

Too keep some of my shots as steady as possible I used a tripod, this helped to add to the quality of footage as hand held cameras can make a teaser trailer look unprofessional.

Storyboarding

The key to making a quality and professional looking teaser trailer is planning and storyboarding is argubly one of the most important aspects of planning what you are going to film, from what type of shot you are going to take down to what angle you are going to take it at, what sound will be in the scene, what sound you will be adding to raise tension down to how you will break up each shot with effects and titles, no matter what you decide to do it must be planned. Here I have made a rough but detailed storyboard of what I hope to capture in my teaser trailer and how I hope to put it together.

Certification of my final Idea

My teaser trailer would be aimed at a target audience of 18, I believe that to make my film as realistic as possible that there would be elements of torture in it to show the things he is willing to do to get his son back and to show his emotional pain in losing his son. Here are the guidelines that the BBFC have for an 18 certificate film:

Suitable only for adults

No-one younger than 18 may see an ‘18’ film in a cinema.
No-one younger than 18 may rent or buy an ‘18’ rated video.
In line with the consistent findings of the BBFC’s public consultations and The Human Rights Act 1998, at ‘18’ the BBFC’s guideline concerns will not normally override the principle that adults should be free to choose their own entertainment. Exceptions are most likely in the following areas:

• where the material is in breach of the criminal law, or has been created through the commission of a criminal offence
• where material or treatment appears to the BBFC to risk harm to individuals or, through their behaviour, to society – for example, any detailed portrayal of violent or dangerous acts, or of illegal drug use, which may cause harm to public health or morals. This may include portrayals of sexual or sexualised violence which might, for example, eroticise or endorse sexual assault
• where there are more explicit images of sexual activity which cannot be justified by context. Such images may be appropriate in ‘R18’ works, and in ‘sex works’ (see below) would normally be confined to that category.

In the case of video works (including video games), which may be more accessible to younger viewers, intervention may be more frequent than for cinema films.

Sex education at '18'

Where sex material genuinely seeks to inform and educate in matters such as human sexuality, safer sex and health, explicit images of sexual activity may be permitted.

Sex works at '18'

Sex works are works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation. Sex works containing only material which may be simulated are generally passed ‘18’. Sex works containing clear images of real sex, strong fetish material, sexually explicit animated images, or other very strong sexual images will be confined to the ‘R18’ category. Material which is unacceptable in a sex work at ‘R18’ is also unacceptable in a sex work at ‘18’.

It is clear to me that from what I intend to include in my final production that I would have to settle with an '18' certificate as most of the rules for an '18' apply to what I am likely to include in my final film.

Whole Film Synopsis

My thriller film is about a hardworking marine who is forced to leave the army following the tragic loss of his wife to become a single parent to his young son, Private Daniel Brown (played by Craig Smith) has not been able to spend much time with his son due to him serving his country and blames himself for why he could not be there for his wife. He steps up and masks his torment to make sure he does not project any of his pain onto his son. Dan starts to get his life back on track when his life is once again turned upside down, his son goes missing and he is left with nothing more than a calling card left by the kidnapper. This tips our ex marine over the edge and though he has not spent long in the army he was top in his unit in close quarter combat and small arms fire making him an efficient and silent potential killer. This movie follows the protagonist’s quest to find his son and take down the men responsible for his kidnapping, as well as his transformation from law abiding citizen to anti-hero vigilante. His mission makes him face his own previously dormant demons in this gripping action thriller and our hero discovers that the closer he comes to finding his son the more he unveils about the corrupt organisation responsible for the kidnappings.

Teaser Trailer Ideas

My first idea was to do a crime/action thriller based around the kidnapping of a man’s son, where the main protagonist must hunt down the men responsible through any leads he has to find the whereabouts of his son. The hero finds that the closer he gets to finding his son the more he realises the extent of the criminal underworld leading this operation. This movie would follow an everyday man and his transformation into an anti-hero, some of his methods may be unorthodox but his only concern is finding his son, no matter the cost.

My second idea was to do an action/adventure thriller film about a group of parkour ‘movers’ that transport items and money between gangs, things take a turn for the worst when a deal goes sour and the product they were meant to deliver gets stolen, both gangs blame the group and the hunt starts for them. The group must attempt to work together despite their differences to evade gang hit squads whilst at the same time trying to clear their name by finding out what really happened. This film would feature adrenaline rushing parkour style chase scenes through built up urban areas.

My third idea was to do a horror/action thriller based on a post apocalyptic Britain, were a zombie outbreak has spread and taken over civilisation as we know it. The plot of this story would follow a group of survivors that have set up their own camp and are trying to build a civilisation again, but danger lurks around every corner and as night time comes, these undead mutated beings flock in search of food. The film would also follow the strengthening and weakening of relationships within the group and how they work together to protect those closest to them.

My Ideal Target Audience

Here I have created a profile for who I think my target audience will be, what their interests are, how they look/dress and why they are into thriller films. In the picture above I have shown a group of casual dressing teenagers that appear to be into sports, I think that audiences that like to watch thrillers often enjoy the thrill they get from watching them, I therefore think that they enjoy other ways of thrilling themselves such as playing sports and like some elements of risk. Thriller films take these elements of risk and show a world in which taking risks and doing outrageous things leads to the main characters bettering themselves in some way, these main characters then project themselves onto the films target audience and makes them want to be just like they are by making the protagonist someone to aspire to, they are usually put into a very difficult position where the likely hood of success is very slim and the situation looks hopeless but they still manage to overcome their problems through perseverance, I believe that thriller films target audience may feel the same way about themselves, that they are never ready to give up and therefore see themselves in the protagonist which makes the audience relate to the film on a far more personal level.

My ideal target audience would be teenagers to young adults of ages 15-25, I believe that this demographic is an accurate range of target audience ages that are most likely to want to watch thriller films or be able to watch thriller films, many thriller films are given age rating certificates of 15+ due to the more mature content that tends to feature in many thriller films. I believe that more students want to watch thriller films as they are still learning and thriller films are usually far more complex and clever, stimulating the minds of its viewers which I believe students crave in the gaining of knowledge.


I believe that my target audience will expect to see many enigma codes throughout the teaser trailer, theses are used to make the audience question what is happening or going to happen in the trailer and is key when it comes to entriuging its target audience into wanting to find out more about the film. My target audience will expect to hear gripping audio which starts out slow but then builds up a faster pace as it reaches the climax of the trailer, the audience will expect the same effect to happen with the pace of editing. My target audience will expect to be told about the actors that feature in the main production as well as who the the company is that produced the film.

My Chosen Genre

For my teaser trailer I have decided to go with the thriller genre, I chose this genre of film because I think I enjoy thrillers the most and feel the most comfortable about what to do to make my teaser trailer a thriller. This will also help to keep me motivated throughout making my teaser trailer as thrillers sound the most exciting to make.  The fact that thriller films reach a far greater target audience through the use of many different subgenres also helped to sway me towards wanting to make one because of this vast variety of different films.

Thriller - The Anti-Hero

The anti-hero is normally a complex and misunderstood character. Often he/she is a character who refuses to conform to the traditional values of a hero. However, the anti-hero often follows a strict moral code, which they strive to uphold, in spite of their flaws. The anti-hero’s flaws help the target audience to better relate to him/her and mean that the movie increases in popularity.

Anti-heroes have been around for many years, films such as ‘On the water front’ (1954) and ‘Rebel without a cause’ (1950) have used anti-heroes to make their target audience better relate to the anti-hero and portray the character as someone to aspire to.

 Now a days anti-heroes are found all over the media, from TV shows such as ‘Dexter’, ‘heroes’ and ‘True Blood’ all the way up too big budget Hollywood blockbusters such as ‘Batman Begins’, ‘Batman the Dark Knight’ and ‘Taken’. Many Anti-heroes come from comic books, were readers can get a far deeper insight into the characters letting them connect on a personal level, most comic book readers want to know as much as they can about a hero, their past, why they do what they do and what they are likely to do next, this is great when it comes to advertising a movie because Anti-heroes have a huge fan base with some websites dedicated solely to the fictional characters.

Thriller Film Conventions and Target Audiences

Thriller films are usually watched by 16-25 year olds and are not usually bound to a specific gender, which is a great point for the thriller genre because it caters for a far larger target audience. There are so many different subgenres of thriller films that it makes it difficult to broadly state who their target audience is, however thriller films are usually watched by those that seek a complex, thrilling storyline that grips them from start to finish with many pitfalls that the characters seem to get themselves into but use their whit to save them, this genre of film is argued to be the more psychologically engaging genre because of all the many different thrillers that make you think about what the main character is going to do and how they are going to do it. The target audience never normally knows what the protagonist is going to do next which is usually where the thrill comes from in these movies. This is true in the movie ‘Inception’, throughout the entire story the film has its target audience on its toes, making them try to keep up with what is happening and how characters are going to overcome their problems in a very psychological dream world, the movie really makes you think and often leaves its audience confused at the end of it making it a very complex but clever film. I believe that it is this cleverness that makes its target audience so hooked on the thriller genre and that it works very well.

Thriller films are designed to keep their audience thrilled throughout the entire film, hence the name thriller; they mainly rely on suspense to achieve this and usually create the suspense through the use of a main antagonist, who is constantly causing problems for the hero. For example in the film ‘Batman the Dark Knight’ the Joker is constantly causing problems for Batman, the most thrilling scene from this movie where the joker plays a key role in causing problems for Batman is where the joker kidnaps Batsman’s girlfriend as well as the face of Gotham’s crime fighting force and straps them both to timed explosives at opposite sides of the city, making him have to choose between the love of his life and effectively the people of Gotham, this scene is so effective as we see Batman racing to save someone however we do not know who he has chosen to save until he saves them, there are many quick cross cuts between these 3 characters during his race to get to one of them which really helped to effectively raise a huge amount of tension during this scene. Making their target audience very worried for the people about to die and if Batman can get there in time to save them. Dramatic music is also used to heighten the tension in this film.

There is usually multiple plot lines happening all at once that have a direct influence upon one another, as tension rises more plotlines may open up usually when the situation becomes more dangerous and the pace in which the film flicks between these story lines speeds up. In the movie ‘Inception’ there are 3-4 different plot lines happening all at once in different stages of inception, so each character has his own quest of protecting the others from armed militia as they dive deeper into the subconscious of their targets mind.

Thriller films usually have elements of Action in them, having action in a thriller film helps to make the movie more interesting and therefore engages its target audience more thoroughly when it comes to building up the pace and tension of the movie. Action is usually used with a male hero or in many thriller films now a day’s male anti heroes, to whom the target audience has someone to be in awe of and to aspire too, the hero/anti-hero usually encounters a beautiful damsel in distress that needs the hero to save them, in the thriller genre the heroes usually have a more complex background to them and there is far more to know about the characters than in most other genre of film, this is a very effective strategy as it gets the audience intrigued and makes them want to find out why they might have a certain set of rules and ethics that they live by and why they do what they do. This point relates very well to the film ‘Taken’ were Liam Neeson’s character has his daughter kidnapped by slavers, they do not start out with a very strong relationship but by the end of the film we see the troubles he originally faced with his daughter disappear. His character is also quite the vigilante in the film however we agree that it is the right thing to do so that he can save his daughter, it is rather impressive that watching a film such as taken can make us condone murder that is effectively happening throughout the film.

The last key point of the thriller genre is that there are so many different subgenres of thriller that there is potentially something there for everyone, whether your target audience like romantic thrillers or crime and action thrillers there is always something there for them making the range of people that watch thrillers vast, this means that there is a lot of money in the thriller genre as it reaches a far greater target audience. This means that thriller also reaches niche audiences which is positive as it means there is potentially more creativity in this genre.

Action Movie Conventions and Target Audiences

Action movies are watched predominatly by men/teenagers of most ages, they rely on their target audience aspiring to be the hero in some way or another using a range of different methods, these methods mostly revolve around these alpha male main characters, having them do things that are next to impossible to do in real life to impress this target audience and make them want to watch more. I will use the 'James Bond' franchise for example, the James Bond movies have used a very smooth talking but deadly main character that is admired by its target audience from the very beginning to create their own James Bond legacy, creating a massive British fan base loyal to the film which basically garuntees the film will be watched by millions just because of the name of the film due to their previous work. many action movies want this same loyalty so make their movies as big budget and wild as possible to try and make their film the best film.

Most action films adhere to their own set list of conventions which affect the way in which they are presented to their target audience, there will always be a main hero or heroes (usually male) this is because action films are generally catered to a male target audience and having an alpha male main character gives the target audience a strong character to aspire to become.

Action movies are designed to give their target audience a world in which seemingly impossible goals are reached directly through the perseverance of the main character(s). This creation of an alternate world provides its target audience with an outlet in which their wildest dreams become real life and is the reason why the fan base of the action genre is so large. This is true for all of the ‘Mission Impossible’ series where the main character played by Tom Cruise is often if not always put into situations that look impossible to get out of.

During action movies there is a main goal or mission that needs to be accomplished or a trial that needs to be endured, the story will evolve around these goals with the many different problems and hurdles our hero/heroes face along the way. The main goal/mission will nearly always be a race against time were the hero/heroes only have a limited amount of time in which to complete their tasks, this basic but highly effective technique creates a very powerful element of suspense throughout, action movies use this technique to their advantage by making it look like the main character will not be able to complete their task in time, often making the situation look hopeless for the main character to then come in just in time to save the day. This technique keeps its target audience on the edge of their seats most of the time as this makes them never 100% certain on how the movie is going to end.

These tasks will usually be a race to save someone close to them or to save innocent civilians caught up in the situation the hero has put them in, making the hero feel personally responsible for their safety showing the audience that they are caring and therefore admirable. These tasks are also usually killing someone before they can do something terrible, like a terrorist trying to set off a nuclear warhead in the action movie ‘True lies’ were Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character has to stop the terrorist and disarm the bomb whilst he has he daughter as a hostage.

There are nearly always very emotional moments in action movies were we see the more vulnerable side of our hero/heroes just to make the characters more human and therefore believable, this is done through the use of many close ups throughout these scenes and is again another effective method of building a relationship between the main character and the audience which makes the audience more active in their viewing of the movie. This is evident in the action film ‘Rambo’ where the main character played by ‘Sylvester Stallone’ often remembers back to horrifying Vietnam battles that haunt him and are the reason why he cannot leave the jungles back to his home.

There is nearly always a love interest in action movies where we see the hero seduce someone of the opposite sex without any difficulty, this is used again to make the character seem more alpha and more admirable to the audience, someone to aspire to become which is the main point action movies rely on their target audience wanting.

These love interests can also be motivation for getting revenge, for example in the movie ‘The Fast and the Furious 4’ Vin Diesels character has the love of his life taken from him, murdered by a high ranking powerful gang member, his quest throughout the film is to kill him.

There is nearly always blood spilled, violence and explosions throughout action movies, the general public do not often get to see any violence in real life and seeing violence glorified in movies may help to show a part of the audiences self that they did not know, this also helps the audience to let out any frustration and rage they might be feeling so really involves the audience and makes them connect with the film. This is true in the film ‘The Expendables’ where one of the main mercenaries obliterates 20 men with an automatic shotgun to save his comrades, there is a lot of blood and gore and the violence is glorified as he is seen as saving their lives. Explosions are used to create some sort of adrenaline rush as we never see explosions in real life and they are seen to be very impressive and powerful, great when it comes to spicing up an action movie.

There will usually be car chases in action movies, these are usually used in the race against time aspect where the hero must get somewhere in next to no time, they are very effective in building massive amounts of tension especially in the movie ‘The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift’ where the 2 main characters race downhill drifting on very thin roads at very high speeds that they could easily drive straight over the edge plummeting to their deaths.

The last point about action movies is that they are very fast paced usually throughout the entire movie or they start off slow to begin with then the speed picks up, this includes the pace of editing and helps to create this element of suspense and urgency when it comes to getting something done in a specific time frame.

Horror Film Conventions and Target Audiences

Horror movies are watched predominantly by those seeking some sort of thrill or adrenaline rush, horror movies are very good at making their audience fearful, scared or tense and although we as a target audience may not associate being scared by these movies as a good feeling, the rush and excitement we get from watching them is the feeling we crave and is what horror film directors strive to achieve. Horror films are usually watched by most age groups and are sometimes watched just so you can say you watched it, they can be seen as making you feel the alpha in some way if the film did not scare you but did scare your friends and hold some social prowess if the film has been reported to be gruesome. This is seen in a lot in social groups with movies such as 'Saw' were watching the movie with your friends is seen as some sort of initiation.

Most horror films adhere to a set list of conventions in how they are made and presented to their target audience. Horror films generally use dark lighting to raise tension, the dark is where most people feel least safe as they can not see any oncoming threats, its where they feel most vulnerable so the horror genre takes advantage of this and feeds off it. This method is very effectively used in the movie 'The Decent' were the main characters go pot holing with their group of friends only to become lost and trapped in a cave were they discover cannibalistic creatures that inhabit it, the only lighting in this whole movie is light from a small torch and the night vision on one of the cavers cameras, this really helps to build up a lot of tension and suspense throughout the film and is the main reason why this film was particularly scary.

There is always an agent of change that disrupts the main character(s) normality, usually the monster the film is based around that leads to the main character(s) quest to overcome this change usually by either fleeing or fighting the monster, the story lines of the horror genre usually evolve around the agent of change and what they/it are doing to have an effect on the main character(s). This technique is mainly used in the movie 'Jeepers Creepers 2' were the group of students is running from the creature throughout the entire film, they barricade themselves in their school bus thinking they are safe but the creature adapts and finds a way to break through so the main characters must then run to find a safer place with the creature following their every move picking them off one by one as they go along.

Horror films usually have their plots located in deserted or isolated locations to reinforce the loneliness and or helplessness of the heroes situation, knowing that there is no chance or very little chance of help helps the audience to empathise with the hero and thus feel fear and terror when the hero does, making this genre of film very effective and popular when it comes to projecting emotions onto the audience making horror films very interactive and creating a huge fan base for horror films. This is true for the film 'Alien' were the main characters encounter vicious killing aliens on their spaceship light years away from earth with next to no chance of help, this really helped to raise the films suspense.

There is usually some sort of monster fodder at the beginning of the film that has no direct impact on the storyline just to show the effects of the monster and what it is capable of/why we should fear it. we the audience usually know more about the agent of change before the main characters do making us worry for their safety as they are oblivious to the monster to begin with, this is another key technique the horror genre uses to make the audience empathise with the characters to make them engage more effectively with the film raising their interest to make the film as least passive as possible. Monster fodder is used in the film 'Jeepers Creepers' where the creeper kills 2 police men in their moving squad car at the beginning of the film and throws one of their heads onto the bonnet of the main characters car, this scene also uses symbolisation too help accelerate the fear of this scene as police officers are meant to be the ones to go to for protection but the creature kills them just as easily as everyone else telling the audience that there is nowhere safe to go.

Amongst the evolving of the main storyline there are usually some sort of sub plot that also evolves amongst the main characters where relationships become stronger or weaker, usually were the relationships become stronger we see the characters survive and were we see the relationships become weaker we see characters isolating themselves from the group were they are vulnerable to the monster and easily picked off, this evolvement of relationships and problems encountered by them is another effective tool the horror genre has in its arson to make its target audience relate to the characters through their emotions to make them more active in their viewing and therefore more interested in the film and concerned for the heroes safety as well as creating a need for the relationships to continue to grow. This is used in the film 'Dawn of the Dead' were Sarah Polley's character loses her husband to the zombie infection and seeks the comfort she lost in Jake Weber's character, this helped to make the audience feel sorry for her and want their relationship to grow, this also helps when it comes to building suspense as it means that the target audience wants these characters to survive and makes them very nervous when it looks like one of them might become infected.

In the horror genre the men are typically separated from the boys, the weaker (usually female characters) are normally the most vulnerable to the monster and are therefore usually the first ones to become victim to them, I believe this is done on purpose to make the hero the 'alpha' of the group, making them a more desirable character that the audience aspires to become. This is shown directly in the opening of the movie 'Zombie Land' were the main character talks about and shows the audience that keeping fit is key to survival as a fat man is running away from a zombie but becomes tired and gets eaten.

Terminator Salvation - Teaser Trailer Analysis

This MPAA frame is frequent in many teaser trailers posted on YouTube, this is because teaser trailers are generally released in America first as this is where all the big budget Hollywood movies come from, this frame notifies the public that anyone can watch this teaser trailer and is something to consider when making my own teaser trailer to make it look more realistic, I will however need to find a BBFC approval that is in lines with the age rating I want for my teaser trailer.

The camera tracks down a long winding road when we see the films first enigma code, a car that has crashed into a telephone pylon, this clever use of footage makes the audience ask themselves what has happened to make the car crash into the pylon and what has happened to the people driving the car.

The camera starts to flicker and you can hear the sound of static that gives the effect of something is messing with the picture; this is what gives the audience the first clue as to what film it is a sequel to as this is a classic calling card of the terminator franchise. We get very quick cuts of the Warner Bro’s Pictures Logo as well as the Halcyon Company Logo, the 2 makers of the movie.

This static effect continues but starts to become clearer similar to the sound of tuning a radio to the right frequency, we then start to hear a broadcast saying ‘it was coming’ along with the clip of tank treads crushing a skull, this is an effective short enigma code that makes the audience wonder what is coming and also makes them ask what do those treads belong to.

The broadcast appears to become clearer and we hear ‘I knew it was coming’ the same distorted edits are used throughout to give a post apocalyptic feel to the movie, making it seem like the broadcast is very low tech and almost desperate in terms of what they are able to work with,  as we hear the character say I knew it was coming we also are shown a clip of him hiding behind a wall with him looking at a white light, indicating that he is looking at what is coming, this is again a clever enigma code as it makes the audience want to see what ‘it’ is and is likely to make them want to watch the movie.

The character then ducks back behind his cover and the camera shot immediately cuts to a clip of a soldier being abducted by a huge robotic arm, the speed of this clip is a more subtle enigma code as it only lasts for 2 seconds and makes the audience wonder what just happened to that man and what the thing that took him was as we only see a small part of it because the rest of the building is in the way.

The static interference continues and we hear the voice say ‘But this is not the future my mother warned me about’ and we see a man running through a forest that appears to be lit and he is being shot at by something but again we do not see what that something is. This also adds to the questions the audience are asking themselves when they watch it about who or what is shooting at the man, who is the man, why is he being shot at and does he make it or not.

We see a helpless pilot stuck in some broken electricity pylons, the pilot is still alive as we see he/she moving and we can see someone in a trench coat walking towards them, this makes the audience wonder who the pilot is and who the man in the trench coat is, if the pilot is okay and what the man in the trench coat is going to do.

There is another voice over and this time there is an edit of the actors name who is speaking he then says ‘And in this future, I don’t know if we can win this war...war’ the static then comes in again to make the word ‘war’ repeat, this is edited very well as each time he says war an explosion goes off in front of the character on screen and when the explosions get closer to the character the screen goes static again as if it was damaged by the explosions. We are then told who plays the character on screen with another edit saying ‘Sam Worthington’.

The audience is then given some information about who is playing the main character as this is the fourth film and Christian Bale is new to the terminator franchise he is a very well known famous actor and is likely to make his fans want to watch this film. The audience are told this by him saying ‘This is John Connor’ and this clip coming up at the same time.

I think that this is again a very effective teaser trailer, this is the 4th film from the Terminator franchise and there has been a change in the main iconic actor of this film which caused some hysteria before the films release. I believe that this teaser helped to ease the films huge target audience into this change by introducing the 2 new faces of the terminator series through action scenes to grab the audiences attention without telling us anything about them other than that Christian Bale is now playing John Connor. I think that it was a fantastic teaser trailer that gripped its target audience and made any terminator fan want to watch this film through the use of the trailer showing glimpses of new machines unique from the last 3 films as well as what looks like some sort of machine concentration camp.