www.dicitonary.reference.com definition of a trailer:

-’A short promotional film composed of clips showing highlights of a movie due for release in the near future’

Wikipedia definitions of trailers and teaser trailers:

-‘Trailers or previews are film advertisements for feature films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema’

- ‘A teaser trailer or teaser is a short trailer used to advertise an upcoming movie, game or television series’

-‘Teasers, unlike typical theatrical trailers, are usually very short in length (between 30 – 60 seconds) and usually contain little, if any, actual footage from the film’

- ‘One of the reasons for the name ‘teaser’ is because they are shown usually a long time (one or one and half years) before the movie comes out, so as to ‘tease’ the audience’

blurtit.com ideas of what a trailer/teaser trailer is:

-‘A teaser trailer is a very short trailer (usually less than a minute) which offers a quick glance at an upcoming film . . . Teaser trailers are usually released quite a while before the film is released. The full theatrical trailer is usually released after filming is complete, and a few months before the film is due to be released’

soundtrack.net types of trailers:

ehow.com on trailers and teaser trailers:

-www.ehow.com/video_4872064_how-can-movie-trailer.html

-www.ehow.com/video_4872071_basic-conventions-film-trailers.html

Conventions of the fantasy genre in film and trailers:

-I looked a few different sources of the fantasy genre (Pan’s Labyrinth, Tideland, Coraline, Alice in wonderland, ‘brick by boring brick’ music video) and these are the features that kept occurring:

> A young female lead

> A doll or some other non – human character

> Some kind of quest or adventure

> an obstacle – usually related to an ‘evil’ character

Pan’s Labyrinth:

- The most noticeable things about pan’s labyrinth is the change in tone and colour in different shots – the tone changes depending on place and mood – the darker tones represent the darker aspects of the movie and the lighter, the hope and good aspects of the movie.

- The title screens in the trailer use a ‘bleeding effect’ which looks quite creepy and uses the cooler colours and tones to emphasise it.

- To build up tension at the end the cuts get quicker and you only see flashes of shots which are quite weird and don’t really make sense.

- The narrative/storyline is never explained - the trailer isn’t supposed to make sense so that people go and see it.

- The pace changes a lot – it starts fairly quick and slows towards the middle before it speeds up again towards the end to create tension

- The trailer uses a range of transitions – this mix of pace and transitions makes it seem quite jumbled and not straightforward like the movie itself is.

Tideland:

- No voice over but title screens which again gives an isolated feeling and makes it quite creepy.

- Begins slow and the music sounds quite childish which represents the child lead but the music changes and builds up which suggests that’s what’s going to happen to her – lose her innocence.

- Title screens used again with a twisty, gnarled design round the edges, similar to the creepy ‘bleeding effect’ in pan’s labyrinth.

- It also builds up in music and edits towards the end which creates tension.

- It doesn’t give away any narrative or storyline, it makes the audience want to watch on to find out what it’s about because it doesn’t reveal anything

Alice in wonderland and Coraline:

Alice in wonderland:

-The film is often compared with pan’s labyrinth

- Female lead

- non human characters

- Crazy land – goes on a quest/ adventure

- Lewis Carroll’s work inspired many others such as ‘the matrix’, ‘labyrinth’, ‘the last mimzy’, ‘Freddy vs. Jason’, ‘resident evil’ and many more.

Coraline:

- Female lead

- non human characters

- Embarks on a quest

- creepy and evil characters, themes, music, shots etc

Paramore’s music video – ‘brick by boring brick’:

-It’s not a trailer but has been likened to pan’s labyrinth and alice in wonderland

- A young girl enters a fairytale land, as she enters deeper it gets darker and less friendly

- The young girl is wearing wings (quite like a fairy or butterfly)

- The hole being dug is similar to the one alice falls down and there are objects in crevices in the wall of the hole – one being a white rabbit

- It uses colour and tone to reflect the girls feelings and mood in different areas of the fantasy land

- The tones in the swing location are extremes – either bright or dark possibly representing good and evil

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDCaiMB-Lrc&feature=related – here’s the making of

Conventions in my trailer:

- I used a young female lead.

- There is at least one non – human character.

- It’s suggested that she embarks on some kind of journey and there is some kind of evil to escape.

- In terms of the actual production rather than the storyline I took the fragmented pace idea because I thought it could work – I started the trailer with fairly frequent cuts which then slowed in the middle and built up to very quick towards the end to create tension.

- I took the idea of the ‘bleeding effect’ but I used a variety of colours and edited the film to make it look dark but vivid – this looked quite weird which I liked because it didn’t really relate to anything except it was different and kind of creepy.

- In many of my shots I changed the colour and tone to blues to make it cooler and darker which is supposed to represent the mood and overall tone of the film.

- I kept dialogue of any kind out of the trailer because I wanted to give it that isolated feeling because it’s how the girl is supposed to feel, even with her doll.

- The trailer as a whole doesn’t really say anything about the storyline, there are hints but as a teaser trailer I wanted to keep it very mysterious to the audience.

Other conventions in my trailer:

-I wanted the lead to be a young female because that’s a convention of creepy fantasy movie and I wanted her to look a certain way too:

I wanted her hair to be natural, almost wild because this would represent the outdoor locations, the twisty trees and wild scenery

I wanted her clothes to be quite floral which is a hint at her femininity – colours like purple and pink are good for this – like the pink jacket she wears in some shots (this may be seen as not so conventional because it’s using brighter and happier elements rather than darker ones.

The doll is mainly there as a character but I chose it to be a doll because that hints at the girls innocence.

- I also thought more about the other ‘human’ character in my trailer and how they should be presented

- I didn’t create any kind of background for this character, I don’t really know who they are at all but I wanted them to be someone you didn’t if they were good or evil

- To do this I got her to wear a white sheet (meant to be a robe of some kind) because white connotes goodness, pureness etc but underneath I got her to wear all black because personality wise, underneath she was going to be quite evil, deceiving, manipulating etc.

Music conventions in my trailer:

-I’ve briefly mentioned the music in pan’s labyrinth and in tideland, they both start fairly simple, quite, almost innocent sounding and then as the trailers progress they build up towards the end

- For my trailer I wanted something creepy sounding and that would begin simple and end complex and big and layered.

-Myself and two others created all the music in my trailer:

(video about the music in my trailer just below the power point)

What’s not so conventional?:

-The first notable thing that isn’t so conventional about my teaser trailer is that it seems more like a full length trailer; a teaser trailer is recommended at around 30 – 60 seconds but mine lasts 1 minute 47 seconds – so nearer to 2mins. However, the pan’s labyrinth trailer I researched was a teaser trailer and lasted longer than a conventional teaser trailer but that didn’t really matter because it still didn’t reveal anything important and about the movie and it felt like a teaser because of the lack or information n the storyline.