Film Teaser Trailer Ideas

7th March 2011:

Before starting our film trailer we had brainstormed ideas immediately after creating our opening scene in AS level.

Use of Synergy

During the process of creating our film trailer, we looked to get feedback from our audience. We allowed classmates to review the film and give us criticism that would help us improve. One member of the group noted the feedback so we could look back at what was said.

We used social networking sites to get a wider range of criticism from a range of ages, including family members, friends and friends' of friends. Facebook and Youtube worked most effectively, as Facebook users could instantly watch and share our film trailer, similarly with Youtube sharing and commenting.

To edit our main task we used Apple's Final Cut Express Pro. This is an advanced video editing software, created by Apple Inc. This was a new video editing software for us to use, as we had previously used Adobe Premiere Pro. Although Premiere Pro doesn't edit HD video, so we used this as an alternative. It took some practise and tutorials to learn how to master Final Express Pro, and stylise parts of our film trailer such as the title's font and transitions.

To create the ancillary tasks I used Adobe Photoshop, as I am more familiar with that software. Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing software, that helped me adapt images with text/font and different lighting. Also I used it to manipulate images, for example removing John Walters from an image and extended the shadow to create the poster.
Shown below is the final poster and its original image. I used Photoshop to create the poster, enhancing the brightness, contrast and shadows of the image.

Targetting Our Audience

As we already had our influential films in place from our last project we started to research into how these film target an audience. The chosen films were: Walk The Line (2005), Crazy Heart (2009) and  I'm Not There (2007).

Crazy Heart and I'm Not There are two films with a rated 15 certificate, because they contain scenes with more explicit objects or actions such as drugs, alcohol and nudity. Walk The Line is more discreet about showing these sensitive subjects, by showing them less frequent. In our film, the idea was to create an emotional and serious view on the affects of drugs and alcohol. To create a more indepth view of these substances we were liable to use graphic scenes that may contain violence and drug taking. This came into terms when we chose our target audience because we certainly did not want to explore this subject to younger spectators.

 Furthermore we felt as though this film would be targetted for a more mature audience, as children may not understand the message put across from the films and what the film shows. Similarly to the film Crazy Heart, our intentions were to show a dysfunctional life of the protagonist character (John Walters). We thought that someone may relate to this lifestyle by struggling with obstacles in the way of happiness. 

Research Into Front Covers

Empire is the world's leading film magazine and proved easy to find some influential front covers. I liked how the magazine always places the text behind an object/character, so I used the same style in our own magazine front cover. At first I had trouble doing this, as I wasn't too sure how to fulfill this effect. I simply looked on Bing.com and found a tutorial. I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 to complete this action, as it's a programme I use in other subjects and for personal use. 

I used this front cover to look at the wording of advertisement. For example when Empire states "First Look", I also wanted to add this exclusive peak to advertise. On our final draft of the front cover, I used 'World Exclusive' and 'First look at the wanderer', to give the same the effect but creating a subheading of world exclusive. I made subheadings like this to keep the arrangement of the poster neat, keeping to that old fashioned western theme. 

I also noticed that Empire have their own organisation of headings, always using 'Plus!' as a subheading for inside contents. I thought this was an effective way of targeting an audience, as it allows people to read the front cover and get an insight to what it contains. On our poster I made the sub heading 'More' to keep to our formal appearance I didn't use an exclamation mark.

Another well known film magazine is Total Film, who review trailers, films and film news. They're titling is often large, and make their  heading cover a quarter of the page.   Whilst creating the front cover, I noticed 'Total Film' use the same fonts in their layout or the same colour scheme. After learning this I thought the front cover would be neater if I kept the font the same on the cover, but I did vary this when adding film names. I felt adding the film names in a different font adds their own advertising to the front cover. 

Post Production: Draft Two

After looking through Internet images of any influential poster ideas, I managed to collect a few conventions of a poster. The films I looked at were True Grit (2010), Casino Royale (2006), Inglorious Basterds (2009) and The Dark Knight (2008).

I used these posters to get an idea of how a teaser poster looks in terms of, layout, font, size of text, design and colour. Each poster individually helped me create the teaser poster with the suitable conventions of a teaser in place.

In terms of development we worked as a team to portray a poster as effective as possible with the equipment we had. From the draft one to our final draft, there are noticeable improvements to the quality of work.

As we tried different images, we realised it is crucial to maintain the idea of being a 'teaser'. Therefore we needed to make sure that little information was given away and keep the design of the poster neat. After looking through more posters we had an attraction to making the image of John Walters a shadow. As an editor this task was challenging as I had to cut out John Walters character and expose the shadow clearly. To do this I masked off section of the characters body, and had erased it. This appeared rigid and messy, so I used a range of tools to blur, burn and smudge areas. These tools blended pixels together, therefore reducing the rigid appearance and creating a bold outline. In addition to this I manipulated the image itself, adding darkness by adjusting the contrast and brightness.

Post Production: Draft One

To create the poster I used the graphic editing software Adobe Photoshop CS3. As the CS3 version isn't the newest product Adobe had made, it was easier to get different tutorials because of how long it has been in use. Also I found it easier to work with because I work with Adobe Photoshop CS3 in other subjects.

Firstly I emphasised the influence of black within the photo,creating an ominous presence. I achieved this by 'masking' the areas behind the character John Walters, then filling the area I had selected with black. I also added the title of the film, placing it on the black in a white font so it stood out. I carried on using the same font, used throughout the film. Once I had added the title, I placed the logo that represents our production team and then other logos that existed within our film.

To make the logos appear more effective I had to erase all the white areas around the image. Furthermore I decided to retouch all the rigid areas around the 'Four Horsemen' logo, by zooming in on the photo showing all the uneven pixelated areas. I simply erased the uneven edges, using the 'eraser tool'. It was vital I organised my work accordingly, placing different steps into 'layers'. Layers are in Adobe Photoshop to hold part of an image or a whole image, create exacting adjustments to our images, combine multiple images, or create new images. They are effects or images that have been placed into the programme by the editor, which then can be organised into groups or named.

 After I had completed these steps I looked through the images we had taken for the poster, and decided to start a new draft on an image that looked effective. I saved this draft and began editing a new image immediately.

Feedback: Ancillary Task Poster

I have been working on our film's teaser poster and need feedback but mainly to try and decide what font would be best.
Here are some images below...

Post Production

This image was taken infront of a green screen, to make the editing process easier. I experimented with this picture, creating multiple examples of review ideas.

With this image I had the idea to manipulate the shadow and tone of the image. I converted the colour tone to sepia, portraying an 'old-fashioned' effect. Furthermore the sepia tone distorted the quality of the image, emphasising the old style effect I was trying to achieve.

The main issue with this image was the photo wasn't taken on a blank background. Therefore editing was difficult when selecting and manipulating the image. I had to black out the entire background and remaster the position of objects.

This was our final chosen image to use for our magazine front cover. We decided as a group this was the most effective and neat image for a magazine cover. I managed to manipulate this photo, by adjusting the brightness, contrast and tone of the image. Furthermore I added the title of the cover and placed it behind the character, similar to the 'Empire' magazine.

To Do List:

• Analysis of the teaser trailer differences between extended trailers and teasers
• Analysis of the film magazine front cover
• Analysis of the teaser poster
• All to be done in four weeks. 7^TH of October everything is done
• Film edited within next week

I'm Not There Poster Analysis

Locations: For the John Walters breakdown scene

Locations: Preparation

Tuesday 7th June 2011

Tuesday we had to place our pitch that we presented, onto the blog. I edited the pitch and cut off a part at the end of the clip that we didn't need. Also I added titles and transitions to title the pitch. Furthermore I changed the background of the blog, placing an image of our character 'John Walters' as the background.

Feedback: Pitch for John Walters Teaser

Post Production: Wednesday 25th May 2011

Today we changed our idea completely, realising that our initial idea clearly needed to plan and produce too much. As we only have a limited amount of time to produce a film, it seemed necessary to think of an easier option and one we can get straight into planning. So we decided on creating a teaser trailer for our AS Level film extract "The Resurrection of John Walters". Once decided, we composed a pitch for our trailer to show the class our intentions and to provide ourselves with feedback from other people. Furthermore we created a brief list of ideas towards creating the trailer, noting down potential scene ideas, editing techniques, locations and influences for making the film.

Post Production: Friday 20th May 2011

Firstly we looked at what a blog is and used for, giving examples of blogs. Today we composed a variety of ideas and conventions for a short film. We mainly focused on the subject of a military styled film.  We’re also preparing to create pitch for next week to show the class our primary film idea.