Our Project: A Poster

Another part of our A2 project involves creating a poster for our film. I have decided firstly to gather a selection of posters from the genre of our film and see what conventions emerge.









Another possibility we considered was spoofing a famous poster of a more traditional, wholesome, American teen movie as opposed to the grittied, British fare we are trying to capture. We got this idea from the documentary, American Teen- the poster for the show spoofed the famous Breakfast Club poster.












From what I can gather from these examples, it seems the posters of almost every teen movie feature a big group of teenagers, usually attractive ones, dressed in whatetever clothes display their social status, or often semi-clad to promote sex appeal, as shown in the Skins and Tormented posters, and even in the poster for Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

All of the posters for British teen movies make use of dark colours, probably to indicate the bleak and gritty content. This is a stark contrast to the warm, friendly colours used in the posters for the American teen movies, likely to promote the films being reasonably family-friendly.

Analysis of a Teaser Trailer- 4321 Comparisons

In order to better understand the teaser trailer, I am analysing those that I find of films from the genre we intend to use in our trailer. I thought a good way to do this would be to compare two seperate teaser trailers for the same film, 4.3.2.1, and see the different ways in which the film was promoted.



This teaser was released first, in late 2009, with the film's release set in summer 2010- being released half a year before the film's release makes it a traditional time to release a teaser trailer. At 49 seconds long, the trailer certainly fits in with the conventional length of a teaser.

This particular trailer makes use of the technique of showing various, quickly cut shots set to music, enabling the audience to get a feel of the film without giving the plot away b featuring dialogue (only two lines are heard: one at the beginning, spoken by Emma Roberts, and one at the end, spoken by Tamsin Egerton, and neither of these give away plot details aside from hinting at the violent undertones of the movie.)

Again, this teaser does not contain any original material, but for the same reason as the Kidulthood trailer that I previously analysed (written, directed by and starring the same man, Noel Clarke) this is likely due to the relatively low budget of the film.



This trailer was released two months after the previous trailer, in February 2010 (the film was eventually released in May). A totally different technique is utilised in this teaser; the use of a short, relatively unimportant but comedic clip is used, to give people a flavour of the film (so from this trailer we realise it features young, urban English people) without giving away plot details.

At 32 seconds long, it is shorter than the other trailer, which is unusual, as trailers tend to get longer as the release of the film gets closer, but the length itself is in keeping with the conventions of a teaser.

Personally, the first trailer would be the one to generate my interest in the film, as we are shown the cast, the setting and get more of a feel of the tone (the film is actually about the group of teenager's encounter with a gang of violent diamond thieves) that I did not feel was present in the second trailer.

Analysis of a Teaser Trailer- Kidulthood

In order to better understand how to create and recognize teaser trailers, I am going to analyse this one, a trailer for the 2006 film Kidulthood, because it is in a similar vein and aimed at a similar audience to our proposed first idea.



Firstly, the length of this trailer is 1 minute- compared to the length of the theatrical trailer for the same film, which is 2 minutes 46 seconds long. The teaser also obeys the convention of not giving away any major plot points- nothing in the trailer is mentioned of the young girl's suicide, which is the catalyst for all the movie's events, and only gives the merest hint of the strong theme of gun crime in the film, with a quick flash of a gun at 0.43. However, it manages to give the audience a strong flavour of what the movie is about, and who it is aimed at.

This teaser trailer does not feature any original material, but this is likely because the film was relatively low budget and the makers could not afford to film extra material. A voiceover is used, however, which enables the trailer to include dialogue, but not any of the lines from the movie, enabling the trailer to give a summary of events without, again, revealing important plot points.

The teaser was released in late 2005, with the film being released in March 2006. This breaks the convention of teasers being released long in advance of the actual movie, but again, this may be due to the movie's budget constraints (only £600,000 was allocated to the film.) Anothe possible reason could be that as the film is aimed primarily at teens, it was released later so as to keep the film fresh in their minds.

Overall, the Kidulthood teaser is in keeping with the structural traditions of a teaser trailer- it was simply released later than most.

This teaser is going to be influential for us, as our film has similar themes and will include similar violent imagery and bleak landscapes. However, we intend to use music instead of a voiceover, as we feel it will be more effective for our action-driven plot and will better represent the pace of the film.

Conventions of a Teaser Trailer

I have examined several teaser trailers and there are certain conventions present throughout almost every one I have watched.

- Commonly, teaser trailers are very short- between 30 seconds and 1 and a half minutes, compared to the length of an ordinary trailer being 2-4 minutes long. This is to generate hype for a film long before it's release and increase the public's anticipation for the film.

- Teaser trailers are usually released many months or even years before a film is released- as the name suggests, they are intended to 'tease' the audience because they can't see the film. The teaser trailer for The Da Vinvi Code (2006) was released before a single scene of the movie had been shot.




- Often, very little is given away in teaser trailers- either a short, sometimes comedic, scene is posted to give a flavour of the film without hinting too much at the plot, or a series of very short clips flash up on the screen set to music, so that no dialogue is heard. (The trailer for The Da Vinci Code, as mentioned above, features none of the actors who were in the film, only a voice over giving a brief synopsis of the plot).

- It is also worth noting that teaser trailers often include unique footage that does not appear in the finished film. This tends to be because teasers are released so far in advance of the acual movie, sometimes shooting hasn't even begun, as with the example above, The Da Vinci Code. Pixar, an animation company, are famed for their use of original material in trailers, used to amuse the audience and give a flavour of the film without revealing any plot elements at all.

Brief & Initial Ideas + Audience Feedback

The brief we have been given is to create a promotional pack for a new movie, including a teaser trailer, and either a poster, a magazine cover or a website homepage.

We have three ideas for what kind of movie we could create the promotional pack for. We intend to ask our audience for feedback regarding which they would most like to watch.

Ideas

Idea #1

This idea is recycled from one we seriously considered using during AS media, until we decided that it didn't draw enough attention as an opening. However, for a trailer, we feel it has potential.
The idea features three lead characters- two boys and a girl, all aged about 17-18, the target audience we are trying to appeal to. The girl is in an abusive relationship with Boy A, but truly wants to be with Boy B. Near the beginning of the film, she inadvertently reveals this to Boy A, which results in him waging war on Boy B. The ways in which they get at eachother become more and more dangerous until it's too late, and the film ends with a funeral of one of the boys.

This idea is inspired by films like Skins and Fishtank, set in 'rough' areas featuring working class youths. We thought this would make a good trailer in the vein of the Skins TV teaser. We even had an idea for a tagline- a Jean-Paul Sartre quote, "Hell is other people."

Idea #2

The second idea we came up with fit into the genre of 'stoner buddy comedy,' in a similar vein to Pineapple Express or I Love You, Man. The idea involved a pot-smoking social misfit and his cool, womanising dealer being somehow stuck in an enclosed space together, although we haven't yet worked out where or how it would come about.

However, we were slightly dubious of this idea because as none of us are writers, we felt we would struggle to come up with any lines that were amusing, and therefore this idea may be difficult. Also, we thought we may have trouble casting the part of the dealer (we had someone Russell Brand-esque in mind).

Idea #3

The third idea that we had was to create a trailer to accompany the opening scene of Blackout, the film my group and I made for our AS project. We thought that, as a dramatic pscyhological thriller, it would make an interesting trailer, and we also have plenty of foreknowledge of our characters and the kind of places to shoot the trailer.

However, as in our original plot, Matthew became a fugitive and was frequently chased by the police, we thought this may be difficult to film. We were also unsure whether it would be a good idea to use the same idea, as we wanted to try something new. We thought it might be bette rfr us- and we might learn more- by attempting a different genre.

Idea #4

This idea is in a similar vein to the first, but has a slightly more Kidulthood-esque vibe as opposed to the sleeker, more Skins like tone of the first.

In it, a group of teenagers find some money in the middle of the street. They take it and spend it all on cars, clothes, drink and parties. The drug dealers find out that their stolen money was taken by a group of teenagers and hunt them down. The group end up accidently killing a member of the drug gang , landing themselves in more trouble. The group try to run for their freedom, both the police and the gang are after them and want to bring them to justice- only one can be the winner...

Of these four ideas, we like numbers one and four the best, as we feel they will be easy to relate to for our target audience of teens.

Audience Feedback

Our audience, a class of 17-18 year olds, responded best to ideas one and four, just as we thought. They said they found them more relatable and accessable, as the characters are their own age, and that the plot ideas of those two seemed both the most developed and the most interesting. Now, we just need to decide which of the two ideas to use. We plan to ask a different focus group which idea of the two they prefer.

We have also made a Facebook group (http://tinyurl.com/33ke76s) where we will post discussions about the film and ask teenagers what they think we should do in order to gain more ideas about what our audience want. Here is a print screen of a discussion asking them if they prefer idea #1 or idea #2 (idea #4 in this post)




These were the common criticisms, and how we plan to address them:

- "Examiners are getting bored of marking hoodie films, so they might lower your grade because of it".
We are going to attempt to play with genre conventions so that our film stands out from the others and hope the examiners like the originality.

- "You need to make sure that your Trailer is long enough, so that it doesn't look like you haven't done much because you are lazy- not because it is the convention"
Teaser trailers usually last for between 30 seconds and 1 and a half minutes. In order to cram in as much work as possible and show that we have thought everything through, we are going to make a trailer that is on the longer side.

- "How are you going to make your Trailer original?"
We are going to try to twist the conventions of both teaser trailer and genre and make them work for us, resulting in a unique product.

After much deliberation, we decided to go with the fourth idea- that of the teenagers finding te money.