Prior to the start of my production work, we were set a task in which we were told a name of a film in which we could interpret in any way and as a task we had to make a trailer. In order to apply the recognizable conventions of trailers, in groups, we came up with ideas about how to market and promote a film. The name we were given was 'Bloodshed high'. As this has obvious links to the horror genre we decided that we would make a trailer which was of the horror genre and as we wanted to have a unique approach we included elements of comedy which we believed a cross genre such as horror and comedy is rare which is why we decided to also use this as one of our USP's (Unique Selling Points).
Approaching the task was quite difficult at first. Firstly as a group, Vanessa, Chantel and I asked each other is we each had any ideas in what our trailer should roughly be about. The name 'Bloodshed High' reminded us all of a typical american high school which is how we linked this to our horror concept of a school retreat that goes horribly wrong. The one thing I have learnt about trailers is that they DO NOT GIVE AWAY THE STORYLINE of the film however the excite and tease the viewer leaving them with no option but to go and watch the film. With this knowledge in my head we decide that we should include many rapid shots to raise tension for the viewer. We each jotted down our rough ideas before coming together as a group to discuss them and also decide how we were to present it to the class. We also discussed areas such as sound, location and also the props that we would use to attract the viewer.
Our USP, we decided was not only that it was a cross genre between horror and comedy however I thought it would be a good idea if we could include famous actors/actresses in order to create brand awareness. As a group, we concluded that Megan Good (shown below) was a good actress to feature in our movie as it would encourage all of her fan base to watch our movie and would also introduce other movie lovers to watch our movie after having seen her featured in the trailer. Also Megan Good has starred in other films which have a similar target market as our film such as 'Scary Movie'. Another USP which we thought would be a good idea was if we made 'Bloodshed High' 3D. Although this is becoming more common nowadays we felt it would stand out from many other movies and would enhance the sense of fear and gore in our most frightening parts of the trailer/movie.
We decided to make our trailers directors be from a company named 'Filmworks', which is not only a well known company but will also raise audience expectations for the movie. For example if we knew a film was produced by Disney, the viewers would probably expect an animation movie which targets families.
BELOW: Image of Megan Good and 'Filmworks' production company logo.
This task not only gave us an insight to see how it would be to work with eachother as a group prior to our actual production work, however it taught me that:
- Trailers are NOT movies- There is a different way to approach trailers. Movies tell the full story in chronological order. However trailers purpose is simply to tease the viewers and allows you to play on elements for example including snippets of the best parts of the movie and showing them in a confusing and random order.
- Audience expectations are key- Viewers have different expectations of trailers or movies depending on many factors such as who the production company is for example.
- How to engage the audience-Audience can be engages into trailers by concentrating onthe simples of elements such as sound or props.
- How to apply knowledge- Most importantly, this activity showed us how to apply our knowledge to our own production.
BELOW: Is a video recording of our presentaion which we presented to the rest of our class marketing our trailer. (From left to Right: Chantel, Melissa(Myself) and Vanessa)
No comments:
Post a Comment