My brief for my A2 media product was for me to create the following:
"A promotion package for a new film, to include a trailer, together with two of the following
three options:
- a website homepage for the film;
- a film magazine front cover, featuring the film or
- a poster for the film."
So, how have I used, developed or challenged forms and conventions of real media products?
Plotline
I decided that I was going to be creating a horror trailer with elements of a thriller trailer in, based on the Christian belief of The Rapture. I didn't know a lot about the Rapture so I did a lot of research into what it is believed to be, what will happen, who believes in it etc.
It is believed by Christians that the Rapture is an 'end of time event' where all true believers in God who are still alive before the end of the world, they will be taken by God into heaven. It is said that this will happen very suddenly and without warning, people will just 'disappear'. According to christianity.about.com, it is said that "true followers of Jesus Christ will be transformed into their spiritual bodies in the Rapture and taken from the Earth to be in Heaven with God. Non-believers will be left behind to face severe tribulation as the antichrist prepares to take his place as the Beast."
As far as my research has shown me, none of the massive media conglomerates have created a film based upon the Rapture. I found two or three indie film trailers online of films based on the Rapture so I watched the following ones:
All of these film trailers have very similar plot lines; people disappearing all of a sudden, no one knowing what is going on, one person explaining that 'the Rapture is here', mainly focussing on the people left behind, no inkling as to what the Devil or the Beast looks like or what Heaven looks like or Hell etc.
I decided to take a completely different spin on my trailer. I wanted the trailer to focus specifically on the Devil himself, with a voice-over on the top of the trailer of him speaking directly to the audience. My reasoning for this is because as powerful of an idea the Rapture is for a film trailer, none of the above trailers are particularly gripping. In my opinion, the last trailer for Nicholas Cage's film is the most gripping of them all as it has been well shot, an amazing soundtrack and has a lot more drama and action compared to the other one; it shows a lot of destruction and violence, loss and grief. This trailer does not specifically reference the Rapture but there is a line in the trailer where a girl says "The God my mother talked about wouldn't let this happen", implying that the Rapture has begun. However like I said, I thought it would be an interesting spin and take on the belief in the Rapture to have the trailer based from the Devil's point of view. This could potentially be a good marketing technique as it is very directly aimed at the audience, with the voice over using words such as "you, me, your". If promoted the proper way, the film trailer could be shown in a very dramatic way, for example having what seems to be a normal shopping advertisement before hand before cutting to television interference and then playing the trailer with the Devil on the screen and the voiceover. In no way is this similar and a horrible example to make but it is like the 2012 Aurora shootings. Audiences were in the midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises before James Eagan Holmes entered the building, appearing to be wearing a Joker costume and starting firing his gun. Some members of the audience thought this to be a marketing stunt or a prank played by the producers of Batman but unfortunately it was real life and sadly 12 people died. If people were watching TV and the trailer came on, they may think it was real life and be more interested into what's going on.
Female lead character being unmasked
One way I have challenged the general conventions of a horror film is by using a female lead character in my trailer as one of the main antagonists and also making her unmasked. In a lot of horror films, such as Scream, Donnie Darko, Saw and Smiley, all of the antagonists wear masks and are male. I decided to challenge that because there are hardly any films where the antagonist is female for a start; if there is a female who is going around killing people it is usually because she has been possessed by the Devil or something along those lines. The lack of mask makes the audience realise that she is just a normal, innocent girl and it gives her a personality and identity. Masks take away a persons identity. Here are some examples of popular masks used in horror films:
First person voice-over
My film trailer uses a first person voice-over which isn't that common in the world of film trailers. Here we have the film trailer for Kiss The Girls:
The voiceover used in this is in third person. The narrator is chronologically telling the plot of the story without giving too much away. I personally feel this makes the trailer less dramatic, unrealistic and I feel it makes it look very forced. The audience instantly loses any sense of realism in the film and knows that it is a movie. What I mean by this, is that it becomes very much like a story and the audience can't relate to it very well.
The next trailer I found is more of the voice-over type I was looking for but not completely. This is the trailer for Along Came A Spider, the sequel to Kiss The Girls:
Now, Along Came A Spider uses the same type of voice-over throughout most of the trailer, with it being in third person. However, near the end around 1:35, a different and more warped voice starts talking in first person directly at the audience saying:
"This is between me and you. I want you to see that I am living proof that a mind...a mind is a terrible thing"
We can immediately assume that the person talking is the antagonist and they are talking directly to the audience, making it seem more personal and true to life. This is the type of thing I wanted to use in my media trailer as I like it when I can watch a trailer and feel instantly connected with the film and feel involved. It makes me want to know more and figure out who the antagonist is. This is why I decided that my main antagonist would be speaking in first person, directly to the audience.
Montage sequence
I used a very short montage sequence near the end of my film trailer to add the suspense and excitement to my film trailer. This is very typical of horror film trailers and thriller film trailers as like I said, it builds a lot of excitement and suspense and leaves the audience "on the edge of their seat". From around 2:27, there is a montage sequence in the trailer for Fast & Furious 6. This film is an action, crime and thriller film. The montage sequence provides a lot of action, drama, loud crashes and bangs and definitely makes the audience feel tense whilst watching it and sends their adrenaline levels rising.
Not using actors names in the trailer
Another convention of a horror film that my film trailer uses is the fact that I didn't put any of my actors names in the trailer, specifically pointing them out. Many horror films don't use actors names in the trailer as it completely takes away the realism of the trailer and takes the horror and the thrill away from the trailer. The trailer for It Follows does exactly this, only featuring the names of the director, actors etc at the end in very small font, in the director's billing. Not using actors names make the film seem more real, makes the characters seem more real and it does make the trailer more personal to the audience as they feel more engrossed and involved with the characters lives without constantly thinking that this is a huge blockbuster movie with some of the leading actors in Hollywood. Again, I mentioned in a previous post that if I were to make my film into a real life film I would use some less well known actors instead of huge blockbuster actors like Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Tom Hanks. Personally, if I am watching a film with very famous actors in, I do not feel as invested in the film as I know they are actors and it becomes less real to me than if I was watching a low-budget horror film with actors that I have never heard of before.
Colouring and font
One convention of a horror film that I stuck with in my film trailer was the colouring and font of my titles. In typical horror films, the main colours featured in text are USUALLY red, black and occasionally white. I decided to use red and white colouring for my text. There are a few reasons as to why I chose these colours. My first reason is because of the traditional connotations of the colours. If I asked you to associate Heaven with any colour, what colour would you choose? Most people would choose the colour white. This is because the main connotations that come with the colour white are purity, wholeness and innocence, it also can be seen as a "blank slate' meaning new beginnings etc. Now, if I asked you to associate Hell with any colour, what would you choose? Again, most people would choose the colour red. This would be because a lot of people associate the colour red with sin, danger, destruction, blood, rage etc but also because of the Media's constant portrayal of Hell being red in cartoons. Many horror films have kept to this connotation such as the three below:
These three film titles have used the colours red and white as their main colour themes with a black background. Black backgrounds are almost always used for horror film trailers as black relates to the hidden, the secretive, has a lot of mystery and unknown associated with it and black is often associated with fear. I decided to stick to these connotations in terms of colour because if I had used bright, soft colours like pinks, purples and yellows, my trailer wouldn't have seemed like a horror film and maybe the audience wouldn't have been able to tell what genre the trailer was.
I also used a font called SF GUSHING MEDOW SC. This is a font that I found online from a free font downloading website. Here is a letter grid of the font:
As you can see, the font looks as if there is blood dripping from the letters. I decided to use this for my main film trailer title because it matched up to the theme of a horror film, being gory and violent. If my trailer was, for example, a social realism film, I wouldn't use this type of font as social realism is based on more gritty, true to life drama. The dripping of the blood lets the audience know that this film is gory, reinforcing the genre of the film even more.
Soundtrack
My soundtrack was composed by Greg Dombrowski and it's called 'The Martyred'. The definition of a martyr is 'a person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs'. Both the combination of the actual sound of the soundtrack and the name lead me to choose this as my soundtrack as obviously people in my film are being killed because they either believe in another religion or don't believe in a God at all.
I think my trailer has definitely challenged the general conventions of a horror film trailer soundtrack. Most horror film trailers use a lot of sound effects and very little actual melodies in their trailer. This is to create suspense and give the audience more 'jump scares'. An example of what I'm talking about would be the following:
I've looked all over for a horror film trailer with a soundtrack with as much timbre, texture and impact as mine has and I haven't been able to find one. I think by me using this powerful soundtrack it adds a different type of suspense to the trailer, not the suspense that you get when you're waiting for a jump scare but more of a suspense where there's a load of action on the screen and you're tense as you don't know what is going to happen next.
In my audience feedback, one or two people mentioned how they thought my trailer was an action film. Looking back, I can definitely see how this is! The soundtrack is (in terms of texture, timbre and instrumentation) very similar to the soundtrack of the Inception trailer. You can listen here:
Inception is predominately an action film, linked in with sci-fi (which one person also mentioned in my audience feedback) and mystery. This soundtrack is one of the most famous soundtracks in the film industry right now. 'Mind Heist' composed by Zak Hemsey is full of stringed instruments which add a lot of suspense, a lot of bass and powerful crashes of the drums as well as synthesised sounds which add to the impact and the sheer powerfulness of this piece. It is personally one of my favourite pieces of music composed for film ever as it represents just how much action and drama is going on in the trailer as well as the film. My soundtrack is very similar to this as it is full of texture, synthesised sounds, loud crashes of bass-y instruments and is just a powerful piece of music.
No comments:
Post a Comment