CREATING THE TRAILER: TRAILER CREDITS AND CLASSIFICATION

After watching a couple of trailers on YouTube, I realised I was missing two critical elements to my film trailer; the classification of the film at the beginning and the credits at the end.

Classification
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) was created to classify films into age ratings; U (Universal, meaning it is suitable for all ages), PG (Parental Guidance, suitable for general viewing but some scenes may be unsuitable for children), 12A and 12 (This film may not be viewed by anyone under the age of twelve, unless the film is a 12A and the child is accompanied by an adult), 15 (Unsuitable for anyone under the age of 15) and 18 (Unsuitable for anyone under the age of 18).

At the beginning of my trailer, I have featured the rating card which says "THE FOLLOWING PREVIEW HAS BEEN APPROVED FOR APPROPRIATE AUDIENCES". This means, if my film was classified as an 15, it would only be shown before the beginning of a 15 film or a 18 film, nothing below, as they would not be an "appropriate audience", even though my trailer is not graphic, does not feature any blood or bad language. It does however, have scary scenes which some younger viewers may find distressing.

Credits
As I was watching some trailers, I noticed that the trailer credits usually go one of two ways. They are either slap bang in the middle of the screen, with rather small writing which you can barely read OR in the middle of the screen, there will be the text "COMING SOON" or the date that the film will be released, and the credits will be in even smaller print at the very bottom of the screen, so small that you can barely read it. I have decided to go with the "credits in the middle" type credits, because they won't be on the screen for more than two seconds and also, considering as throughout my film trailer, I barely mention any names of people who worked on the trailer, for example actors or directors, for the sole purpose that I want it to be as realistic as possible. But, by putting all of the main information on the people who worked on the trailer at the end, it gives viewers who are interested in seeing who is in the film, the chance to find out!

PLANNING: Finding a Soundtrack

Finding a soundtrack has been more difficult than I anticipated. I cannot put into words how I want my soundtrack to feel and sound and I lack the technology to create a soundtrack myself. So, in order to find the perfect soundtrack, I changed my filter on Youtube to "Creative Commons" meaning that the videos under this filter, I can use without having to ask for permission AS LONG as I credit the composer.

I started to type in random key words into Youtube such as "mysterious", "slow", "minor", "creepy" etc. However, the only tracks that came up had more of a "haunted house" type feel to it, which is definitely not what I was looking for. I was looking for something more "The Hunger Games"-esque... and then I came across the track below. This track is called "Deep Shadows", composed by Tying Tiffany. I first heard this track on "The Hunger Games" trailer and fell in love with everything about it. The tempo, the key, the timbre, the instrumentation.. everything about this piece is what I am looking for in my media trailer.

I have contacted Tying Tiffany to see if I am allowed to use this in my media trailer.. if they do not reply or they say no, I'm not too sure what I'm going to do because this is perfect.


EDIT:

I was unable to get hold of Tying Tiffany so I found a soundtrack composed by Greg Dombrowski called The Martyred. This is under the Standard YouTube Licence, however, in the comments section of the video, there have been many people asking if they can use the track for small projects like my own. They have replied to each one saying yes, providing that it isn't used in monetised projects, which mine isn't so I'm going to go ahead and use it! The atmosphere, pitching, key and timbre in this piece is just what I was looking for. However, I am going to edit it a little bit only by making certain sections repeat itself to extend my trailer a bit more as I currently think it is a bit short. Then, with the extra filming I am planning on doing, the extra filming can be featured in the doubled-up music parts.

CREATING THE TRAILER: BEGINNING THE EDITING PROCESS

Preparing all of my clips for my trailer has been a difficult process. I kept finding things I wanted to add in, things that I didn't want to include and I found many difficulties with shots that I wanted. A lot of my actors dropped out last minute leaving me stressed and pushed for time but I decided to begin the editing process and start piecing together my trailer.

First of all, I had to work out how to import a file from GarageBand, a piece of software featured on Apple products which is essentially a high quality recording device, to iMovie. I had to use a YouTube tutorial video to work out how to do it as I have the new updated version of iMovie compared to what I used last year. By downloading the updated version of iMovie, it meant I had to learn how to use it all again from scratch, learning the basics such as importing clips, cutting clips, editing the colour and sound of clips and how to use transitions.

Once I had imported the voice over, I decided to put all of the clips I definitely wanted to use in my footage onto my iMovie editing timeline and starting sorting out the timing of the clips e.g. how long each shot would last for, possible transitions between shots and which clips matched up to certain points in the voice over.

Eventually, after listening to my voice over quite a lot, I decided I didn't like the way my voice actor was taking breaths and pauses. It wasn't how I imagined it to be, so I edited the voice over, cutting parts out that I didn't like and making the voice over seem more fluid.

Also, during the editing process, I have realised I am missing a lot of shots that I wanted as my computer, turns out, did delete some of my footage when it broke so I am going to have to re-film quite a lot of my stuff unfortunately.