Our genre is action and thriller. We looked at several existing products and deconstructed thrillers and deconstructed action trailers to help us to identify the conventions and forms that are usually found in our chosen genre's teaser trailers. This meant we could identify if we wanted to conform to this set code within our own product or if we wanted to subvert the conventions.
The Teaser Trailer
One way in which we stuck to the conventions of our genre was through the location we used.
- After researching films similar to ours in plot and style to see the type of locations used, we starting to search for one appropriate for our product.
- It was very similar to location used in existing products - after considering slightly different locations such as an abandoned factory and a run down stately home, our final location was an old industrial estate near the Thames Barrier.
- The location was perfect as it had a mix of indoor and outdoor shooting locations which was required for our story board and plot. We found with many of the films we looked at that the location was kept as an unrecognisable place so that the audience could feel like the events could happen anywhere - we decided to conform to this convention and ensured that there where no iconic locations which would allow the audience to see that we were in South East London in the shots.
Costume research for male characters and female characters help us to see the conventions of costume design in our genre.
- Male characters typically wore plain clothes which allowed movement; combat trousers or jeans, plain t-shirts, quite fitted clothing to allow them to be active without the costume being in the way, trainers or boots. Female characters typically wore similar clothing to show unity with the male members of the group they were with; plain t-shirts or vests, combat trousers or jeans etc. However the woman's clothing tended to be a little more fitted or revealing to appeal to the male target audience - this we did not conform to as our actors did not feel comfortable with this and we did not think it fitted with the characters identity.
- We decided to use these main conventions in our final costume designs for men and the female characters and have the characters wearing plain clothes that allowed the audience to identify with them but still resemble a collective uniform; this meant plain white or black t-shirts and jeans. This also allowed movement as we needed the actors to be able to run and be physical in the roles.
Mise en scene was important for our film and so we did a lot of research into how make up and props could be used.
- As this is a action and thriller trailer we had to look at weaponry and special effects that we could recreate on a budget.
- We researched different types of guns we could use to make the shots look real. Though this is obviously not a social realism film, we wanted to make the weapons as real as possible and used either real ones, such as the bow and arrow, or very good replicas.
- We did a lot of research into makeup for injuries and bruises so that we could make the characters seem as real in the situation as possible.
- We did a lot of research and planning into our characters- the clever woman, the wimp, the father figure, the sadistic woman and the fighter - before and so we wanted to maintain the identities we had created for them. We then cast each actor from an amateur acting site based on how well they matched these characters.
We looked into the use of Freytag's dramatic structure pyramid to see how it could be applied to teaser trailers. We decided that challenging this would allow us to maintain audience interest throughout the entire trailer. The structure is based on there being 5 parts to the narrative structure: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution.
By leaving the audience at the end of the trailer with out falling action or resolution, the audience is left with disequilibrium. This is as shown in Todorov's theory in which the narrative goes from calm equilibrium at the beginning, action and disequilibrium in the middle, and then return to the same or a new equilibrium at the end. Our trailer focusses on the 5 characters and their fight against each other in a rich man's sick game for his entertainment - we do not see this man in the trailer and so we have focussed on the contestants and their sense of disequilibrium through camera angles, pace, cuts and sound.
- Most of our idea for the trailer came from our theory work and social link. We looked at the theory of morbid curiosity and crowd mentality - looking at Derren Brown's Experiments - before researching the back story to The Experiment which we deconstructed. This link to a comment on society is quite common to films in this genre as we found that it creates a more realistic terror.
Our final product used the conventions of real media products in our non-diegectic sound.
- We found through research that most action or thriller film teaser trailers use a heavy drum and bass track or dance music as the backing track. The drum and base music is used in the trailers to set a fast pace and show it is an action movie.
- In the trailer for SWAT the track starts right at the beginning to show the fast pace of the film and that the action starts right from the beginning.
- We developed this to fit with the modern style of music and chose to use a DubStep backing track made by an unsigned act we know. The alternating slow and fast pace fits with shots and builds up to meet the climax of the trailer.
- We also used specialist sound equipment when filming the shots so that we could ensure good sound quality on any lines we wanted to use - in the trailer for Fight Club the non-diegectic voiceover is matched in sound quality with lines from the film. We wanted to make sure any lines we wanted to mimic this on were usable quality.
- We also decided that using the convention of a voice over was appropriate for our trailer as 60 seconds was a short time to show the general plot.
- We did not want to reveal the narrative but we decided using a non-diegetic voiceover, similar to Fight Club, was a good way of showing the audience the general tone of the film. We still wanted to retain a sense of mystery and so the voiceover only reveals how one character feels about having to fight.
Website and poster
Our ancillary products developed the conventions of our genre. We researched existing websites and made a list of the conventions we should use and considered as a group how we could develop them. We deconstructed different posters - Gamer, The woman in Black, Terminator Salvation, The Dark Knight, The Blair Witch Project, and others - to see how they were set out and how much they showed of the characters. We also looked at their tag-lines for positioning and wording.
- Our editing of the poster challenged the typical triangle set up of a poster - we decided to use all the poster space rather than have focal points. Mid shots of the characters were put together in the middle with the name of the film underneath and with the credits at the bottom.
- We used dark colours to reflect the mystery of the film; the characters do not know why they are there.
- For the website, one way in which we used the codes and conventions of real media products is that we made the background interactive. We found when researching existing websites that a moving background made the site seem professional and fitted with the action genre. Instead of using one fixed background we used 4 that alternate. We also focussed on the protagonists rather than props or antagonists.
No comments:
Post a Comment