Category Archives: Creating A Film Trailer

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Evaluation

We have been working on creating our own film trailers, our idea was about a singer called Lola Rose being approached by a mystery cult offering to make her wildest dreams come true.
When we first discussed the idea it was really good we had a plan we all knew what we was doing and what roles we would play whilst creating the trailer. Unfortunately not all things go according to plan I had been ill which resulted in me having to take time off, there was also another member of the team who was also ill which made things extremely hard on the communication front.
Whilst being off my team then continued to planning the trailer, the group decided to assign me director which was hard for someone who was ill and could not attend college. I communicated with my group via Facebook which helped us to still be able to discuss what we was going to be doing. Autumn had arranged to get some of the actors to help us with our trailer but the actors had become unreliable and kept letting us down on the day of filming.
This was becoming a serious issue because it was coming to the last week of filming and we did not have one single piece of footage.
I manage to get my pictures done and edit my poster and DVD cover using Photoshop, I kept both of them simple as I didn’t want to over edit them. The pictures on both have Izzy,Kieron,Raice and Cameron in, the problem with this is that in my actual film trailer the only person from the DVD cover and poster that remains in the trailer is Raice. This is definitely a weakness to my product because I am advertising actors that are not actually in the film, this is obviously false advertisement.
The annoying thing is I am actually really pleased with the outcome of my poster and DVD cover and if only it had the actors we used in the final trailer I would be very pleased the only other thing I personally feel is a downfall is that they both do look a bit to similar to twilight.

When returning back to college after becoming ill and as being placed with role of director I had to get my group back on track and focused on what we needed to do. We decided to use our own group as the actors which mean we did have to sacrifice things like sound operator and we all had to pull together on continuity.  I had to think quick when it came to filming as we was so pushed for time and not having the actors this impacted the story line a little as we would need to drop one character,Danny.
Danny was meant to play Lola’s best friend but as the actors were not available we didn’t have enough group members to continue with that. We kept the story the same and the other actors the same but swapped Cameron for Brooke as he had to work on his own trailer with his group.
Thankfully we managed to get some good shots together with the little time we had and was able to still give an idea of what the concept of the story is via the trailer. Over this whole process I have learnt a lot about team work and adapting to situations that you are not prepared for. When working within a group it is vital to keep communicating even if one team member is absent as I felt the group wasn’t pulling together as well as it should have been.  Although I am aware of the director role I still found it quite pressuring that after coming back and being ill I was having to take complete control over what was going on, with our trailer as my group had gone into a state of panic even with the pressures of this we still managed to pull together and get a reasonably good trailer considering the amount of time we had to do it.

My trailer itself I am pleased with considering the last-minute filming and thinking off the top of our heads. It could definitely be better with more time and preparation, some of the shots could have been taken better for example the fast shots off Autumn at the lift running from one of the guys could have been sharper and when we look over autumns shoulder the second time it does become rather blurred.
I wanted to get some fast paced shots together to show the exciting parts of the film this would keep the audience interested and to get the adrenaline rushing as when creating a thriller type film trailer it’s all about getting that high level of anticipation and uncertainty which will keep the audience interested.  I attempted to do this I personally feel I didn’t do to bad but I feel I could have polished it up to be smoother and faster but as mentioned before I managed to do best I could with the little time I had to edit.

With the poster I like the way it has that professional feel to it, I really like the title and font which I have kept on both poster and DVD to keep the product the same.
The credits at the bottom of the poster look rather professional and have used the same font you would see on a professional film trailer.
The DVD cover I think is good because I really like the image used with the shadow black background around them and the title sitting just under. When you look at the DVD cover you are automatically drawn to the pictures of the actors and the title.

After speaking to my fellow peers the overall comments on my film trailer was quite good everyone understood what was going on, liked the way it speeds up during the exciting parts and thought the camera angles we had shot were good.
I received some great constructive criticism which funnily enough everything that was picked up I had already thought where the areas to be improved, from some people I was advised my trailer was a bit jittery sometimes and rather slow. The audio had been pin pointed out as some parts the audio was still quite quiet and parts where the music was to loud, these where the only factors brought up about my trailer other than that my pears advised they liked it.
DVD and Poster was both a success in my pears eyes as they liked how the products were similar to each other, the only downfall was it had a twilight feel which I had mentioned before and others have picked up on this. I like twilight so I am happy about that comment but obviously I wouldn’t like my products to be similar to somebody else’s.
With my DVD cover I had been trying for ages to wrap my text around the photo on the back but unfortunately as I had used Photoshop to create my DVD cover I couldn’t then go to InDesign to word wrap. This caused an issue for me as I didn’t want to just place the text on top of the picture and it look tacky, unfortunately after trying ample times I couldn’t get the text to wrap round the photograph so I lowered the picture and put the text higher.
When creating my DVD cover and Poster I used Photoshop with both and got my font from DaFont.com, I used final cut pro to edit my film trailer and also got to add in text, a starting image of the Warner Bros skit and added music which was all something new for me. I even added transitions to clips which I had not done in previous work e.g my glee edit and guess the student.

When I first started my assignment we had to analyse a DVD cover, poster and film trailer comparing the front of my DVD cover to the one I analysed and felt there was not really much difference obviously the Photoshop work is neater and clearer than mine with similar information and layout on the front. The back of my DVD the only thing I am not happy about is the writing and how it is placed which I feel personally lets the DVD cover down.
The poster was my favorite I was happy with the outcome of the poster and managed to get all the information on the poster without it looking to cluttered. The poster I analysed ‘The Bodyguard’ was rather plain with not a lot of writing the main focus of the poster is the picture but the editing is good considering this is an old film and technology is different now.
My poster has the picture in the middle and would be where your eyes directed you first I think the picture could have been better as Izzy and Raice the lighting is good on them where as Cameron is a little darker and fades more into the back ground. My film trailer I feel could have been tidied up especially around the faster paced clips,I used a song called Immortal Technique- Dance With The Devil for my film trailer music I felt the name reflected well with the story line as well as the film genre being a thriller the music was quite freaky and I felt it added an edge to the trailer. Comparing my trailer to a the film trailer I originally analysed you can see where I need improvements with the flow of shots and that, I am obviously not up to professional standards but I am pleased with my outcome and think its the best piece of editing I’ve done all year. After playing back my trailer the next day I found there were lines appearing when cross fading to the next shot which means that I have not deinterlaced my video when I exported it.

 

 

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Certification

BBFC

As we have been working on creating our own film trailer we have been looking to how films are certified.
A company called the British Board Of Film Classification (BBFC) is a independent,self financing media content regulator who label and classify media content in the UK.
The BBFC help with protecting the public and children from anything that may offend or may raise harmful risks.The BBFC are self financed and are a non organised profit company whose fees are adjusted to the required cost coverage.
As mentioned before the BBFC if organised to protect the public and children and help parents to make wise decisions on viewing, they also respect adult freedom by rating films specific certificates it is easier to see what films are targets at what age group audience.
This also helps as parents can take control of what their children watch and to not watch films that do not appeal to their age group this helps prevent children being exposed to age inappropriate media.
For an example a child at the age of 13 should not watch films like wrong turn which is rated 18, this is because the film has a lot of gore and violence with scenes of a sexual nature. A person the age of thirteen’s mind is not developed enough to cope with this sort of narrative structure and could cause children to animate the actions shown. With this all taken into account the BBFC have to make sure when certifying a product they are sure it is acceptable for the age group chosen.

Coraline
 PG

Coraline to me was quite a creepy film and the fact it was only rated PG shocks me, I understand that as the film is  featured with animated models  and fits into the fantasy category but I still feel some of the characters were quite scary with the buttoned eyes,spider-like mother and freaky plants. I felt that if I was a young child watching this I would have been terrified, my mother is 44 and when she watched this film didn’t sleep for a week. I felt the trailer personally should of been rated 12a, another film which is a similar debate is Beowulf this film is rated 12a as there are scenes of violence and with very few swear words but the film is also animated and could appeal to children or young boys.

Black Swan
15

Black Swan is a good film but did take me a few times to understand what was going on, I felt that it was not extremely clear what was actually happening to Nina whether she was couldn’t cope with stress, or had some multiple personality disorder. The film does have some key concepts within the production which makes you understand why the film has been certified  at 15 for example there are two sexual scenes which would not be suitable for young children so straight away this indicates it would be more than a PG. As the sexual scenes involve masturbation and lesbian tendencies I feel that it does portray strong sexual activity, the film also shows scenes of wounds and scratches from self harming which would be looked at as dangerous behavior by the BBFC.  When it comes to scenes of self harming the BBFC have to be sure they are aiming it to the right age group as the actions shown can be animated and could potentially cause harm to impressionable viewers,For these reasons I do believe that a certificate of 15 is appropriate for this film.

Adulthood
15

Adulthood I personally think is good for teenager even from an age at 12, even though some of the content within the film would be suited for 15 the general film narrative would appeal to young teenage boys in the UK who may be easily influenced in crime.
This is something that keeps happening in the UK especially places like London,Manchester and Birmingham gangs form and young boys do find themselves in the wrong crowd. Adulthood the film after Kidulthood both show the concept of gangs and how easy it is to be mislead to the wrong things, I feel the more films made like this the more aware the society can be of what its like for young teenager growing up in council estates and places where crimes at all time high.
Adulthood show scenes of violence and drugs within the film, some the characters within the film do in fact walk around with weapons so when certifying the production this would need to be taken into account, making sure that these particular parts of the film are not seen as condoning violence or to be animated.
There shows scenes of drug use and drugs being sold although it does not promote drug selling you do see the handling of drugs. I do think the certificate 15 is appropriate for this type of narrative but I also think it would appeal to younger teenage males that are quite mature for their age.

Juno
12A

I personally would have thought Juno would have been a 15 considering that in the film Juno herself is 16 and it is regarding teenage pregnancy. The current legal age for sexual content is 16 and this film could be perceived as condoning teenage pregnancy or even sexual intercourse. There are times strong language is used but not enough to really certify 15, the narrative does show a positive outcome to a difficult situation and I can see the desire to get the point across that these things happen but I personally feel the film should have certified 15.
In this generation 12 year old girls are becoming sexually active and some having children and I think having a film showing teenage pregnancies and making major decisions like adoption is a delicate topic for a 12-year-old who mentally may not be prepared for such a thing.After researching I found that Juno was originally offered to the BBFC as a PG the production does have a few swear words and has minor sexual references as well as the narrative being about teenage pregnancy so I can see why BBFC certified the film 12A.

The Exorcist
18

I remember watching this film when I was roughly 14-15 and it did scare me but I was very much aware and into knowing about exorcism and devils work being a christian. So although I was scared I had been educated on possession and the devil so I coped with it better than some teenagers would have. The film was released roughly about 1970’s so I can understand why this film would cause up raw as religion would have been a big thing then and to promote such thing would have caused problems. The fact the film has had to be removed from shelves and re released and things was surprising as I was unaware of this information, after researching I found the BBFC never used to certify videos until 1980’s so was vital that The Exorcist was re certified or removed from the shelves if undecided.  Even though the film was certified 18 they still removed it from the shelves as the BBFC thought the narrative to be inappropriate at some point with the relation to demonic possession and thought to cause emotional problems.
With this taken into account I can understand why the film had so many certification issues but if this was to have been released in this day of age the production would have been more socially accepted as horror films now are very in-depth,gory and realistic.

127 Hours
15

127 Hours was rated 15 by the BBFC this is because of the references to sex, frequent strong language and gory details. Part of me agrees with the certificate but at the same time there is only one major gory scene where Aron amputates his own arm with a pen knife,this has happened in extreme circumstances and is not condoning self harm. I think teenagers from the age of 12 would understand the story line and understand why Aron had gone to such extreme measures but I understand as the scene was very gory to why they would put the rating to 15.
The sexual scenes are showing nude scenes or semi nude people but not actually doing any sexual activity and as for the swearing most 12 years olds when in the school with there mates or maybe in there household will hear strong language. I personally feel they go a bit over the top with strong language as depending on what the target audience is most people in general conversation will use a swear word now and again, if not directed at somebody in a aggressive manor then I don’t see why they certificate certain films 15 just because of language.

Our Trailer

Our film trailer we have decided to rate as a 15 this is because we had decided we was going to have frequent strong language within the film and scenes of violence as well as the film having scenes where the main character is being stalked, experiencing paranoia and scenes of the character becoming depressed.
After analyzing the other film certificates and researching the BBFC I feel our trailer would be a balance between a 12 or 15. The reason why I lean more to a 15 certificate is because when looking at the 15 certificate requirements to the 12 certificate on BBFC website, the 12 certificate says there may be moderate swearing and moderate violence within the film with also lack of imitable behavior.  Our film will have frequent strong language with scenes of stalking,minor violence with an enigma type narrative so I personally feel that some 12 year olds wouldn’t understand the narrative.
There’s a scene where Lola starts drinking neat vodka from the bottle as she’s feeling very alone and secluded as everyone has deserted her and turned against her, this type of behavior could be animated by young adults who think turning to drink is the answer.

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Target Audience

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We have been working on our trailer ideas and who our typical audience members would be, our film narrative does not have any sexual scenes but has strong language and the audience watching this film would need to have an open mind and focus on the film to understand whats going on.
I have discussed with my group and we have decided our trailer would meet an age group from 15-30, we think this because 15 year old’s in this generation are very clued up now and feel they would understand the narrative and as the main character is in her late teens I feel it would appeal to that age group, we also would look to putting the certification to 15 . I also put my age limit to 30 this is because I feel that the more mature audience would be able to understand the story line better and be aware of corruption that has been known to apparently lie within the industry.
The Geo-demographic location for this trailer would appeal to a British/American audience, the trailer was filmed in Britain therefore that is the reason why this would attract that particular audience. By the pictures above you can see that both of the pictures are of females this is because the film would personally attract more females than men as the main character in the film is a woman.
This film trailer I personally believe doesn’t aim to a specific sexuality and think it would appeal to anyone no matter what sexuality they are.
For our trailer we have decided that the socio-economic status of this film trailer C2DE, this is because the upper class would not relate to this film where as the middle/lower class may be able to relate more by understanding the desire to want to succeed.