Research and Planning - Trailer Taglines

Taglines (known as slogans) are meant to be catchy, enticing or short phrases used by Film marketers to create a synergy (or buzz) around a film. They sum up the plot/tone of the film often placed of film posters under the title or merchandise (eg DVD cases).

 

A lot of the time taglines are forgotten and most sequels just add the word 'Again' to there second film, for example mission impossible two ''expect the impossible again'' to me this lacks a lot of creativity and isn't great for the all around as a tagline, a better tag to me is the Alien films ''in space, no one can hear you scream''.

 

To me the Alien films tagline is all around better and more imaginative this is a lot better to me and I wish to have a tagline as strong when I make my teaser trailer and magazine cover, as I believe it creates a bigger atmosphere around the film.

 

Research and Planning - Crime Film Classification

When researching into film classification I found that crime films often get certificates between 15-18 for the nature of what these films often contain, by the British Board of Film Classification or the BBFC a film must contain things seen as unsuitable for people under 15 years of age

Examples of these things are:

• strong violence
• frequent strong language (eg 'f***').
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking

18 works are for adults and can contain strong issues such as:

• very strong violence
• frequent strong language (eg 'f***') and/or very strong language (eg ‘c***’)
• strong portrayals of sexual activity
• scenes of sexual violence
• strong horrorstrong blood and gore
• real sex (in some circumstances)
• discriminatory language and behaviour

but when 18 you are considered an adult in the UK so there are more precautions that you may be offended rather than not be considered old enough so it is set as a view at your own discretion.

But personally I would prefer my film to be a 15 because then you get a wider audience and many things that would make the film considered an 18 I wont and don't wish to use. 

Research and Planning - What is a Trailer?

A trailer is a movie teaser, short segments of the films often shown before other films in the cinema, or on a television advert as a method to introduce a film which is soon to be shown, Trailers are often used as a marketing technique. It often contains clips from the film, usually exciting parts of the movies or a hook used to entice viewers to go and watch the films.
The following features are used in many trailers:

• A Montage: A series of scenes strung together by non-diegetic music playing over the top. They often show expansions of time.

• Peaks and Troughs: Peaks are elements of high action or exiting moments within the plot of a film, Troughs are more relaxed, less thrilling, often dialogue.

• Voice-over: Dialogue (Non-Diegetic) over the top of most clips.

• Titles: Text appearing on the screen, usually over a plain single colour background.

• Film Title: The title of the film that the trailer is advertising.

• Release Date: Its essential that the audience are told from what date they can go and see the film.

• Certificate: The audience must be shown what rating the film has as it can affect whether they watch it and tells of things such as how violent a film will be.

• Studio Name: The company who created the film must be mentioned within the trailer.

Research and Planning - Meaning of Fight Club look

 

Now the Fight Club or the Damage look I was talking about, much like other similar films (Blood and Bone) these are not crime films but they do have a certain look to them which makes them look gritty and all more appealing to me, a crime film fan, another reason in which I wish to use this look is because I think people set out to make conglomerate looking films on no budget for there media projects where it believe films like Fight Club could be done on a very low budget as all you need to use is an open space there's no real need for a big house and cars etc. I believe this is a cheap yet good looking alternative for my teaser trailer.

Research and Planning - Pitch

 

The Teaser Trailer that I am planning to make is Hopefully going to be styled a lot around a crime theme. Which I will be basing on the films Snatch, Lock Stock and two smoking barrels and Rock and Roller, but in addition to that I wish to give it a slight fight club or Damage look (I shall explain in my next post). But why I want to do this is because looking around at other media blogs I believe people have tried to go for a high conglomerate budget looking film or a cliché looking horror film and I don't wish to just recreate the same theme.

Things I will include A fight scene or an underground fighting scene, people who look like promoters, people who look like 'Boxing promoters' like Jason Statham in snatch and an object or objects of interest for them all.

Research and Planning - Effective Poster Conventions

Today I was browsing through Movie Posters trying to pick to movies that really stand out to me to make posts on they where Transformers and P.S. I Love You but another thing I noticed shown best in this Twilight Poster is that most posters that I find to be very effective are single character or main character posters in this case Edward Cullen in Twilight, and I believe this poster is vey effective because of not only his status in the film but because of how devoted all of the fans are to there particular 'team' but no matter where I look when the film was first brought out this airbrushed image of Robert Patterson was everywhere making it one of the most powerful sales posters I know of, which I admit it lead me to watching a film I claimed to hate and actually enjoying it and buying all the films on DVD.

Research and Planning - Ps I Love you Audience appeal

 

A second very successful and probably one of my personal favourite films of 2007 is the Dramatic Romantic Comedy, Ps I love you but once again how did a $30million film make in advance of $150million in box office alone, once again I put this down to the production company in this case Warner bros.

 

But unlike Transformers P.S. I Love You had to be marketed to a largely female audience and I believe this was done in Three major ways.

 

Firstly the release date a vital part of selling any film P.S I Love You was released on 21st of December, I believe this was very clever because every person I know who enjoys this film does call it there Winter film although not that much was shot in winter it is just a very homey cosy feel all together through the film, but also with other films similar being Love Actually and The Devil Wears Prada (being from the same director) I believe made this film far easier to sell to a female audience.

 

Secondly there was an existing audience for P.S. I Love You as the film is based on the book by Cecelia Ahern (irish) published by Thorndike Press which was an international best seller

at the time, so for this reason word of mouth would be a huge sales point.

 

Thirdly the trailer it contains everything any good romantic story should a dramatic twist of events, an attractive man (or two) Gerard Butler and Jeffery Dean Morgan, an amount of comedy made obvious by Lisa Kudrow known for the American globally famous comedy series Friends in which she played Phoebe  and an adventure in this case the letters and going to Ireland from new York in a quest to find herself and her passion.

Research and Planning - Transformer Audience How it Appeals

By far the best Transformers film Transformers one (2007) directed by Michael Bay had a budget of $150 million and made well in advance of $700 million, but why was the science fiction action film such a big hit I believe its all about how they aimed it at a target audience.

The target audience I can safely say is probably males of all ages and some females, but and not to sound sexist probably mainly males. How did DreamWorks and Paramount sell this to us quite simply Transformers pretty much sells itself as a movie.

The reasons for this is transformers has always been known from Transformers by Hasbro (also a very popular TV show) so the film had an existing audience of science fiction fans who know of the comic and series, but on top of that it has everything to appeal to its male audience in the trailer alone you see Robots, Soldiers, Guns, Explosions, Cars and as all action films an attractive female actress (in this case Megan Fox) and what makes me believe these are its selling points simple you hardly see the main character in the trailer and the poster, but at the same time you see a romantic side of the story and for this reason I believe the production companies where trying to give it a big female target audience.

Research and Planning - Conventions in crime posters

There aren't really many codes or conventions when creating a crime poster but there are a few patterns I have noticed occurring quite regularly.

Firstly almost all crime movie posters I have seen have the main characters and as I'm into old fashioned gangster sort of crime films they are often wearing suites and are all round well groomed looking people, also I have noticed the males on these covers are usually dark haired weather this is just a connection to the idea of the Italian mafia I'm not sure it just seems to me like a very common pattern.

Another notable thing are the colours they are dark with white and red no other colours or shades usually, and when the background is more of a scenery surrounding and not just black background  more often than not its a big city.

When it comes to the manner and diction of the text however this often seems to range a large amount in these posters there never seems to be a set theme in the way that the text looks or where they place writing on the page.

Research and Planning - Red Widow Poster Link

Today I was going to make a post about conventions of a crime poster but have decided to postpone that until tomorrow as when I typed in 'Crime Movie Posters' to get a wide variety I found these Red Widow posters and instantly recognised them but not because they are from the film Red Widow because they are very widely known as 'The Godfather' poster and 'Scarface' poster and I realised though out the day I couldn't get the Red Widow title out of my head until I Googled what the film is about, now weather this is a clever marketing technique to promote the film by linking it to current very popular films at the same time it could just be someone who has photo shopped the posters with subtle changes either way I am under the assumption not a lot of people may come across these same posters and it is making me consider taking one of the great well known films for my genre (e.g. Goodfellas-Crime) and creating a slight link to my movie poster.

Research and Planning - The importance of a sound, Harry Potter

Also today I watched probably in my opinion one of the greatest films ever made for the fact every last detail has been watched for and in this quintessential moment I noticed something also very interesting, the sound which builds up to when Voldermort kills Harry is almost as important as when it cuts out and I realised I could use this same technique in my movie trailer, as the sound increases it adds a tension and an on edge feeling but as soon as it stops I noticed a lot of people are so connected with the films and the character they actually breath in, I believe this to be a very powerful tool to have such a connection with the character and I wish to try and use this technique in my movie trailer or a similar technique just to see if you can give the same connection with a character during a trailer because I believe connection with your audience is how you draw them to the cinema.

Research and Planning - A comment on lighting, Dexter

I have recently watched the entire series three of a crime TV show called Dexter and although we are working on movie trailers and not TV shows this ending scene in episode 11 made me realise how much lighting can effect the mood of the scene, now me and my girlfriend where discussing why this drain of colour was so brilliant at setting a mood and we came to a few conclusions.

Could it be showing how killing someone close is draining the life from Dexter, or maybe how he is cold and emotionless or even contemplating his actions and regretting what he did. Either way I believe this to be an emotive lighting technique for any dramatic scene and made me realise the importance and how I could use it in my trailer to tell a lot about the genre of the movie without making it to obvious.