Genre - 1
Conventions of genre can be found in all action-thriller films, as the intertextuality and familiarity of other real media texts is what informs the audience of the genre. Some of these conventions include a large variety in the colour scheme or high production values, as seen in The Disappearance of Alice Creed, Welcome to the Punch and 7 Minutes. We aimed to conform to as many conventions of genre as we could, and by doing so we hoped that our trailer would feel similar to many different trailers to the same genre and thus the audience would be clear in the genre of our film. One way in which we hoped to establish genre through conventions is denoting to the audience a clear premise and plot for them to decode, this is established primarily in Act 2 which utilises cross-cutting between the protagonist, the antagonist and the central conflict in order to show a clear narrative which is simple to understand. This is further emphasised in the montage in the third act where these cutaways are shown in conjunction with the dim shots of the woods, hinting at the location for the resolution of the conflict.
The first shot of our trailer acts as a teaser to the the rest of our film, showcasing a strong image of the girls hand's tied up, our trailer then shows the kidnapping of the girl. This all happens within the first 15 seconds, this was deliberate as David Coultas states that "you've got grab the audience's interest in the first 10 or 15 seconds or they're eating their popcorn again". When producing our trailer we were extremely concious of the audiences interest and therefore we needed a moment of excitement within the first 15 seconds, we hoped that this piece of excitement both grabbed the audiences attention and informed them of our genre. This convention can be seen in the majority of trailers, of all genres, however primarily in the thriller genre which is particularly over crowded and therefore films need to grab the audiences attention quickly. Films such as 7 Minutes, Hummingbird and The Town utilise this technique.
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| Shot taken from The Town trailer inside the first 10 seconds |
Location - 2
We took great care in choosing our location, taking inspiration from our main film influences such as The Disappearance of Alice Creed and Reservoir Dogs for our different locations. We wanted to avoid using any noticeable landmarks in order to gain an anonymity within our trailer and therefore not have to place our setting in any one place. This is seen in many thriller films as the budget may not be large enough to include large set pieces involving London's skyline as seen in large blockbusters such as Skyfall, therefore mid budget thriller films such as The Disappearance of Alice Creed, 7 minutes or John Wick became primary influences to us. This also meant that our trailer moved away from the traditional British Social Realist film, such as Shifty or Welcome to Brighton and towards a more American style of thriller.
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| London skyline as seen in Skyfall |
Our locations were influenced by several real media products, this was because we hoped that the audience would be familiar with those films and therefore be able to establish the genre and style of the film. The woods location for example, shown in Act 3 of the trailer was inspired by The Disappearance of Alice Creed as the woods along with the shovel denote danger. The warehouse location was primarily influenced by Reservoir Dogs, however unlike in Reservoir Dogs where the whole warehouse we lit we wished to include a sense of mystery and sinisterness to our warehouse and so therefore we used a spotlight in order to only draw attention to the characters, this also hides the size of the warehouse further creating a sense of peril through the location used.
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| The Disappearance of Alice Creed |
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| Reservoir Dogs |
Title - 9
We wanted our title to appear less mainstream than other thriller films than we looked at, we felt that in doing so we could differentiate ourselves from them and leave the audience with a memorable moment from the trailer that would make them remember our film. Most titles in action-thriller trailers consist of large bold text on a black background, this can be seen in many films such as Taken or The Equalizer. In order for our title to stand out we felt simulating blood dripping created a very powerful image, this is important as this image also needs to be incorporated onto our poster in order to create a synergy between them. We were influenced by the horror genre in particular It Follows and Oculus. This image is powerful due to the connotations of blood which it represents, this image also fits into the style of the trailer as the red has connotations of danger and peril. By using conventions of horror trailer titles in our trailer we are aiming to create a hybrid between the two genres of horror and thriller, with the desire to entice both sets of audience to watch our film.
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| Title from the It Follows trailer |
Graphics - 8
We used two different graphics throughout our trailer, the reviews were inspired by our main film influence The Disappearance of Alice Creed, with the roughed up background behind the bold text, this background implies blood or dirt hinting at the conclusion of the trailer. The strobe effect on the graphic was inspired by another main film influence 7 Minutes, it is important for thriller trailers to build excitement and tension throughout and therefore having the graphic flashing in time to the music aids that. This graphic was created with the mass market in mind, as it uses many conventions of thriller graphics, such as the white bold text and the reviewer's name appearing smaller, it was also essential that the graphic fitted into the style of the trailer, which was accomplished through the placement of the reviews which help in building tension throughout the trailer. This graphic fitted far better in to the traditional connotations of a thriller trailer, consisting of sharp, large, clean fonts which build excitement.
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| Disappearance of Alice Creed |
The graphics used for the narrative graphics are different, we used the deep flowing red ink from our title behind these graphics. This gives them a different darker feel along with drawing together the trailers stylistics and the connotation of the colour used, the deep red implies danger and blood. The effect of having a moving image behind the title was inspired by Welcome to the Punch, however we felt that using a red image would fit better in our genre of action-thriller rather than the blue image used in Welcome to the Punch which has far more connotations towards a police crime thriller. Similar to our title, the red used for our graphic is unusual for a thriller film and represents a hybridity of genres between thriller and horror, specifically It Follows, similar to our trailer the graphics which are used before the title hint at the image. This technique is successful as it doesn't spoil the title but draws interest from the audience as they are curious what image is behind the text. This style of graphic is less traditional and therefore was made with a far more niche audience in mind who perhaps prefer horror and intellectual thrillers rather than the standard blockbuster.
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| Welcome to the Punch |
Lighting tropes were essential to our trailer, as obviously we didn't have an extremely high budget, meaning we had to think very carefully about the style, positioning of the camera and colouring in order to create the stylised, key images that we were after without using a expensive camera or very powerful lighting equipment seen in many of our key influences. We set out to include a variety of colours throughout our trailer, so that the trailer would be visually appealing to the audience, similar to high budget films such as The Signal or Spectre. As the colour scheme is changing it gives the appearance of a film that has a far larger scale. As we had several night time shots we wished to include as much chiaroscuro as we could, creating an aura of mystery and danger. We wished to contrast this with the interior shots which would be well lit, showing the lack of danger in those particular moments and the scene in the woods where the green was dimmed giving a creepy, sinister sensation. In the montage the full effect of having a wide range of colours is seen as the whole trailer becomes far more interesting to look at, this technique is used by our major film influences The Disappearance of Alice Creed, 7 minutes and The Town this showed us how successful and important the range of colours used are. The style of our trailer is conventional to fans of other thriller films such as Nightcrawler where the low key lighting creates a sinister tone, this tone is shown in the first 15 seconds and is then carried over throughout the whole trailer. Using tropes of the action/thriller genre was essential as the narrative conventions such as the fight between good and evil, the damsel in distress and the building of tension are all encoded through the colour and style, this can be seen in virtually all action/thriller films such as The Dark Knight and Inception, therefore it was essential that we followed the same style in our trailer through the positioning of both the camera and the lighting.
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| Varied colours shown in The Signal trailer |
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| Chiaroscuro in Nightcrawler |
Character/Actor - 5
We adhered to many conventions of the thriller genre through our characters and their motivations, in order to keep our trailer more mainstream, we decided it was important to have the intentions for each character clear and easy to understand for the mainstream audience, therefore our trailer consists of a clear hero/protagonist, villain/antagonist and a character who is leaning towards villainy. Most action/thriller trailers place importance on showing the protagonist and the antagonist and the divide between them, this can be seen in The Disappearance of Alice Creed and Welcome to the Punch, in these trailers a large proportion of time is spent showing the battle between the two characters. As in The Disappearance of Alice Creed and Reservoir Dogs we wished to establish the characters as all morally ambiguous from the start, as all the characters decided to rob the house. Similarly in Reservoir Dogs this was done to show that none of the three male characters are 'good guys' and are instead all criminals with differing views on how to solve a problem. We adhered to the conventions of many action/thriller trailers by keeping the protagonist and antagonist mostly separate through Act 2, through the use of cross cutting in order to then bring them together in the third Act to further enhance the tension and anticipation throughout the trailer. We wished to establish that the leader of the men was in control throughout by using low angle shots on his close-ups representing the control he has and his positioning in the frame, always in the centre between the other two. The leader primarily performs a narrative function, in order to push to story forward, this is appropriate for a trailer as there is a only a minimal amount of character development that can be done in the time span, especially for one that has to introduce the audience to the films premise and characters.
The conformity to the conventions of the genre is further enhanced with the casting of Robbie Whyte as the protagonist, highlighting the characters metrosexual and appealing nature, reflecting the lead actors of many thriller films such as James McAvoy (Welcome to the Punch), Luke Mitchell (7 Minutes), Christian Bale (The Dark Knight). For our antagonist we cast Charlie Fox, we chose him based of Mr Blonde (Reservoir Dogs), as you don't immediately know that his is villainous by looking at him but through his actions you can. Our female character was inspired by Amanda Seyfield (Gone) and Gemma Artenton (The Disappearance of Alice Creed), throughout planning we were away of the trope of the blonde damsel in distress and wished to combine this trope of the weak female character, to make her appear vulnerable with scenes of her escaping showing her courageousness. The tropes that we associated with each character allows Barthes Action code to take effect, playing with ideals of expectations and representations within class, age and power all within the action/thriller genres conventions.
Narrative/Structure - 4
The narrative structure of our trailer is very conventional and we have conformed to many of the conventions which are used within trailers, such as the three act structure. Our narrative follows the conventions of Todorov's narrative theory as well as the action thriller genre. We use the Redemption arc as our protagonist looks to correct the mistake he and his companions have made. The three act structure allowed us to show the stages of Todorov's narrative theory in a clear and precise way, meaning that it is not difficult for the audience to follow along. The equilibrium and disruption are shown in Act 1, with the realisation of the distribution shown in Act 2. The final attempt to repair the damage and the restoration of the equilibrium is not fully shown but are however hinted at during the montage during Act 3. We felt that the three act structure was essential as all of our main film influences incorporated it including The Disappearance of Alice Creed, The Town and Nightcrawler. This structure allows the audience to follow the narrative consciously and due to this structure being a convention of the genre it allows audience members to pick up the story even if they haven't seen the start of the trailer, a trait which is essential if targeting a mainstream audience. Many trailers utilise a voice over at the start in order to introduce the audience to the situation, we however deemed this was not necessary as the non-diegetic sound would distract the audience and place too much importance on one particular character. We instead decided to follow the technique used by The Town and The Disappearance of Alice Creed of cross-cutting between scenes, using sound bridges to link them together, this also utilises both Barthes Action and Semic codes as it gives the audience a clear understanding of each characters ideologies and thought process. By adhering to the conventions of our genre and form, utilising the structure of trailers and using classic story types after adapting them, we were able to introduce the situation clearly and create a readerly text which therefore means we are able to target a mainstream audience.
Editing - 7
The editing of our trailer for done in a way to prioritise the increase in tension, which is essential for a thriller trailer. We accomplished this primarily through the Final Cut effect 'fade to black' and using a mix of high and low paced editing. We took influence from The Disappearance of Alice Creed trailer for the editing speed as we felt that the The Disappearance of Alice Creed was successful in creating a contrast between the fast paced action and the slower more intimate, narrative based moments. The general convention in a trailer is having the editing slowly get faster and faster throughout leading into the montage in the third act, we wished to challenge this convention by including moments of fast paced editing throughout the trailer before slowing down the pace again, we got this idea from The Disappearance of Alice Creed and hoped that this would increase the tension throughout and give a greater contrast better the different moments. Similarly to 7 Minutes we wanted to have a moment of fast paced editing right at the start of trailer, as said previously we hoped that this moment would intrigue the audience and encourage them to continue watching.
Sound - 3
Below are my prezis in which I have responded to the Evaluation Question 1.
AF
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