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CODES AND CONVENTIONS OF TEASER TRAILERS

The aim of a teaser trailer is to create an interest and a fan base for the film before it is released, a marketing technique that allows audiences to establish the genre, the story of the film and the people involved. The idea of teaser trailers is to ‘tease’ the audience leaving them wanting to see more of the film, the fact they are short (usually about 30-60 seconds long) means that not much is given away about the film and little is seen; therefore audiences are left guessing. They are released long before the actual film is due to be released, this can be up to a year before, and also long before the full-length trailer, giving audience a small taster of the film and a small glimpse into its story. Teaser trailers create a buzz around the film so that when the full-length trailer and film is released the audience are excited.

CODES AND CONVENTIONS OF TEASER TRAILERS

However, in order to be a teaser trailer codes and conventions must be kept and followed when creating the product. These codes and conventions include:

 

• Teaser trailers are often short clips or a short sequence of clips from the film, and have a time limit between 30 seconds to a minute. Some trailers may go over the 60 second mark, yet this is rare for example the Scott Pilgrim Vs The World trailer is 1 minute 24 seconds.

• They usually contain little information about the film and footage from the film, sometimes no footage from the film is even contained. For example, a clip of a cheerleader was released in the promotion of Cabin in the Woods, this established that the film maybe of ‘supernatural’ form and different to what audience expect, however this clip was not contained in the actual film.

 

• They are released long before the actual film is due to be released, this can even be up to a year before - this idea is to 'tease' people, hence the name 'teaser trailer'.

• Their aim is to start to begin to promote the product; they set the genre and the actors that are involved in the film.

• Although teaser trailer may contain key moments from the film they do not aim to give away any of the ploy details which are either revealed in the film or in the actual full length trailer.

 

• The title of the film is often presented in the teaser, along with the director of the film and previous films they have directed, if these films are already popular than this may draw people to want to see the film of the teaser trailer.

• Music that reflects the genre is often contained.

• Some contain titles (Scott Pilgrim Vs The World) which give away a lot about the storyline. 

CONVENTIONS OF A COMEDY TRAILERUnlike horror and thriller teaser trailers or even full length trailers, where the intention is to leave you guessing almost completely in the dark, comedy intends to show you the story but also create a sense of enigma. Within our trailer we showed this through a title exclaiming ‘Jess has a brilliant idea’The Scott Pilgrim teaser trailer shows this, for example the titles to give away much about the story about being about love. The trailer contains a lot of dialogue that highlights the story of the film for example the line ‘if we are gonna date you are gonna have to defeat my 7 evil exes’. Also the clips used in the trailer as well as the comic book style titles show that the film is of this genre. We created a comedy trailer, so therefore we had to stick to the comic conventions that are contained within these types of trailers.

IDEAS WE GAINED FROM COMEDY TEASER TRAILERS

We looked in detail at the Scott Pilgrim Vs the World and (500) Days Of Summer teaser trailers and the full-length trailer for Whip-It, Juno, Super and gained ideas:

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World – The comic book style genre that is established in the teaser

Whip-It – The strong female protagonist, she is geeky and weird. Also the clothing she wears she dresses in normal clothing yet slightly alternative.

Super – The teaser trailer establishes that the film is based around a man who wants to be a superhero so he makes his own costume and fights crime; he also has a ‘sidekick’. We also used the same kind of idea yet setting our story in a school, based around girl who gets bullied. The fact that the man looks ridiculous in his costume is another idea we based our trailer around.

(500) Days Of Summer – We really liked the idea that the teaser trailer looked different to most of the trailers that we looked at, it had a quirky and cute vibe; we also wanted to give this feel through our trailer.

Juno – The font used within the trailer is something we were really drawn to, we tried to use a similar font in our trailer. We felt the font reflected the comic genre perfectly; it was also like the comic book type.

COMPARISONS IN PICTURES BETWEEN OUR TRAILER AND OTHER TEXTS

The screen grabs from other trailers and our trailer shows how we have gained some ideas from other products

Whip - It

JunoSuper

COMEDY CONVENTIONS

After looking at comic trailers in depth we decided to follow this form and therefore had to follow the conventions. From these trailers we gathered that we would have to follow the same kind of ideas: using upbeat music in order to reflect the upbeat tone of the film, contain the use of titles to help highlight the story of the film giving the audience an understanding about what is going on, comic clips that establish that the film is a comedy, making the audience laugh, short and fast clips that give the trailer an upbeat fast feeling.Therefore after establishing the conventions of teaser trailers of comedy films by studying other trailers we began creating our own trailer trying to follow these conventions.  

HOW OUR TRAILER FOLLOWS THE CONVENTIONS 

• We tried to contain comical clips within our trailer; these clips came into play towards the end of the trailer as the pace begins to pick up. We did not contain comic clips at the beginning of the trailer as we centred the beginning on the fact Jess (our protagonist) was being bullied making her unhappy with her life, therefore the audience can establish that Jess is sad.

• Along with this we also contained slow and sad music at the beginning to establish this factor. However, the pace of the music began to pick up to a happy upbeat tone after Jess has her ‘revelation’ that she wants to become a superhero. The clips that come after the ‘revelation’ are comical and upbeat; reflecting the music.

• We contained titles that helped audiences establish the story, for example the use of the title ‘Jess has a brilliant idea’ the clips that follow are a montage of her new superhero life.

 

HOW ARE TRAILER CHALLENGES THEM

We did not really challenge the conventions of a teaser trailer as we did follow the guidelines that have already been set, however there were some exceptions. For example :

• Our trailer is slightly longer than that of a teaser trailer – probably about 1.05 seconds long, however the Scott Pilgrim teaser trailer is also longer so therefore it has been done before.

• Although our music speeds up towards the end of the trailer we do not have many short snappy clips that appear within a montage, this is because we did not want to give too much of our storyline away; keeping some of it hidden from the audience until the final film or full length trailer

• Only two of our characters have been established in the trailer, also keeping some of our story hidden also creating a key focus on these characters

CODES AND CONVENTIONS OF POSTERS

Like a trailer the poster is involved in the marketing of the film giving the film product an identity. In reference to the posters of professional films I have researched the conventions that they follow are as follows.

• The poster must attract an audience and therefore posters must be eye-catching, making audiences immediately interested in the film.

• They can contain a billing block, showing who was involved in the construction of the film.

• The (famous)actors that are involved in the film can make audiences want to see the film – through star power- and therefore may be contained as a focus of the poster.

• The age certification of the film – depending on whether it has been established is contained on the poster, however this is not usually contained on a teaser poster.

• The title of the film must be large and easy to read – a focus point of the poster so audiences remember

• A tagline is often contained also.

• Symbols are often used, however this has to be well-known and realtable to the audience i.e James Bond and 007 or Harry Potter and the lightning bolt. 

OUR POSTER

Depending on the genre posters can take different themes and therefore follow different conventions. Thriller and Horror films often contain dark colours, bright writing that stands out against the black and the protagonist with a blank or scared expression. Alternatively comedy often contains bright colours with the characters pulling expressions our smiling. We have followed the comedy forms and used bright colours and a picture of our protagonist lying on the ground smiling.

We researched teaser poster for the comedy film Scott Pilgrim Vs The World in detail, within that poster little information is given away about the film. The only information given to the audience is the name of the film, a tagline and the protagonist – who’s face is hidden – the picture of the character however, does not show any detail about the story. The poster does not contain a date of release or the names of people involved.

We also wanted to keep the ideas of our film hidden from the audience, therefore we have not contained a lot of detail in reference to the storyline of our film in our poster. For example, although we have contained the tagline ‘you don't have to be awesome to be a superhero’ the picture in no sense shows that the protagonist will become a ‘superhero’ therefore creating a small sense of enigma amongst the audience. However unlike the Scott Pilgrim poster we have contained a billing block and a month of release instead of ‘coming soon’. Therefore this poster will be released nearer to the release of the film, rather than long before like a teaser poster or teaser trailer. The colours we used in the poster for fonts where contained in the film, we also used the same font across the poster and the teaser trailer.

MAGAZINE COVER Depending on the film magazine different conventions can be followed, for example:

• Empire is an extremely popular magazine that often contains the big blockbuster and highly anticipated films on its cover, I.e The Hobbit. The magazine often contains the protagonist as the focus of the poster. When the film is highly anticipated they often have a specialised cover for collectors and fans. Empire is also recognisable by its red titles, yet this is sometimes changed if the film cover requires it.

• Sight and Sound features both film reviews and interviews of actors on the cover of the magazine. The film covers often take pictures from the posters of the film or screenshots from the film itself. They often have not taken their own pictures, unless the focus of the magazine is on an interview from an actor, therefore magazines which contain a interview from an actor feature the interviewee as the main focus. The format for the covers stays the same from cover to cover; the positioning of the Sight and Sound logo, the barcode and the title. Sight and Sound often contains independent films whereas Empire do not often do this. 

• Little White Lies is another film magazine, this magazine cover takes a different; approach; the covers often contain a drawing or effect on the picture and not an actual photograph, and this is a theme they have running throughout their issues. This magazine follows independent films often, rather than big blockbusters, and is often followed by a artsy audience who love films.

Magazine covers containing the film are released as the release date of the film approaches, therefore as the film comes out in cinemas the magazine will be covering the film – making audiences interested in buying the magazine as they are interested in and drawn by the film.

OUR MAGAZINE COVER

We decided to follow the conventions of the Little White Lies magazine cover, we researched previous issues of the cover and films that the magazine had used and believed this to be most fitting to our film. We believe that our film reflects those films that have a specialised, independent audience like ‘Super’, rather than a large fan base – and this was our aim. Therefore we used the Little White Lies cover.

Little White Lies covers contain a specialised picture on their cover, which is often a drawing, we also used a drawing for the cover. A member of our group drew a screen grab from the film of the protagonist looking at the camera holding books, this picture was then scanned onto the computer than edited on Photoshop – making it look professional. The Little White Lies logo was then added in the same position it is contained on the professional magazine covers. When creating our magazine cover we looked in detail at the editions of ‘On The Road’ and ‘Black Swan’ – these both contain a drawing. The ‘Black Swan’ edition contains the writing covering almost the whole magazine, we also used this as an effect.

We used titles that contained the same colours as our poster, however not the same font as we did not believe it fit.

COMPARISONS OF THE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE COVERS AND OUR OWN MAGAZINE COVER