Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventional Teaser Trailer

• One minute long

• Establishing the concept and the genre of the film

• Released months before the film or the theatrical trailer 

Teaser trailers are very different from conventional theatrical trailers 

• Two – three minutes long

• More detailed, showing clips from the actual film 

• Precise details of the film - actors, actresses, director, release date 

We looked at the teaser trailer of Batman- The Dark Knight on YouTube, which we believed was a very successful teaser trailer, only being 55 seconds, with a voice over revealing very little about the plot. The only image shown throughout the trailer is the iconic symbol of Batman and no footage from the film.

For us it was important to make sure we stuck to the conventions of a typical teaser trailer, throughout our trailer we do not reveal the storyline, only the genre of psychological thriller.  The scenes included may not even be incorporated into our actual movie, this would add a surprise element to the audience. The Train Spotting teaser trailer is another trailer we found on YouTube that we felt was very effective. 

The clip is not shown throughout the trailer, and we wanted to use and develop this idea so that we could really grasp the brief of creating a conventional teaser trailer, this is similar to our trailer because you would not actually see the girl writing on the wall, like shown in Cause Unknown and if it is shown it would only be very briefly. The reason that we decided to show this in our teaser trailer is because we wanted to reveal the concept of mental illness, for the audience to question what she is doing and why she is doing that. This may generate sympathy for the young girl or in fact the complete opposite it may cause the audience to fear her because her actions are not a social norm.


Representation of the girl 

• Blond hair 

• Blue eyes 

• Young

• White/Pale pink dress 

The way in which we presented the girl was very important because we needed the audience to feel sympathy towards her, she is young, with blond hair and blue eyes and this stereotypically suggests innocence, vulnerability and purity, this was then emphasized with the dress. However, we also wanted the audience to feel uneasy, and potentially fear towards her because although she stereotypically looks this way, she is suffering from a mental illness. We therefore felt it important to make the wall she was writing on dirty and scruffy, making something once clean and pure, dirty, used and discarded.




 

Our trailer challenges media conventions because the majority of the trailer is a time lapse, fragmented by short clips of moving image and then moving image at the end of the trailer. We do not introduce the audience to the character until the end of the trailer, and even then it is very briefly, on top of this we do not have any speech or set up a storyline, only a concept. 

 

Draft and Final Trailer

 Draft Trailer

                                                


Final Trailer

Our draft trailer was uploaded on the 29th of February. With our final trailer uploaded on the 27th of March. Both the 1st and final drafts of our trailer were posted on to YouTube and shared on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

 Our draft trailer undertook a lot of feedback which we addressed. The most obvious change to the final trailer we made was changing the ending to make the girl have more of an identity to engage the audience. The music was also changed to make categorizing the genre more easily and also making the audience a bit more uncomfortable when watching.
 We decided to use a time lapse to show the fragmentation of the scene, and can give insight into the mindset of the character who suffers from a mental illness. The effect of the time lapse can emphasise the fact that the character has schizophrenia, and may lead the audience to empathise with the character.  It can also bring confusion to the audience due to the disjointedness of the clips.
This is also shown by the quick zoom in on the writing on the wall, the camera work is hand held.  The time lapse also indicates that it is over a long period of time, showing everything that is written on the wall.  A few seconds focusing on a matchstick being lit illustrates the danger element within the film and a close- up concentrating on the flame is eye catching to the audience, it stands out and would make them question what is going to happen. Shortly after a 1 second flash on a close- up of the girl's eye is shown; looking up then down to give a dark element to the film.  A mid- shot of the girl standing looking directly at the camera is edited to be a black and white shot and very dark lighting to give mystery and make the audience think about what they cannot see and raise questions on the location.  

 

Diary - Initial Time Lapse

Following soundbites taken from filming our Initial time lapse:


Aims:
Test and film the time lapse plus any additional shots
Test camera's, location and and actress


- Arrived, looked at possible walls to use, front room wall agreed as best location, we kept the camera in the same position in the full 0.56 seconds of the teaser 
- Practising our time lapse whilst putting up the wall, camera adjusted to eliminate sockets and the bookcase from the shot
- Hannah (actress) is briefed, has a baggy white t-shirt for the time lapse
- Extra light is added, the wall should be clearer
- Time lapse started
- As well as the time lapse we've taken a few videos
- Time lapse finished, taken a few close ups
- Taken the wall down, reviewing time lapse
- Couple of shadows appear during the time lapse, suggested we can edit alternate shots in
- Job well done, will be uploaded soon


Improvements for future filming:
Mise En Scene not right, should be more dirty, grimy
Actress should wear grey or darker colours then white- because white is symbolising death 
Make sure no shadows get into the frame during the time lapse

Initial Time Lapse.

Here is our initial time lapse, again we will shoot with a Canon 5D. However, we will not be using this in our trailer because we feel that there are a lot of changes that need to be made. For example, costuming - after watching this time lapse we don't feel that the right image is being bought across from the plain white t-shirt. We originally decided on this because it gives portrays the idea that this young girl is lacking in identity, however we now feel that a colour such as grey would be more fitting or if she was in a hospital gown. Not only this we feel as though the wall is too clean, that it should have more character - maybe tiling or very dirty, well used white wall, creating more of an atmosphere. As well as this, when watching the images back we became aware that there is unfortunately movement of shadows across some of the images from movement behind the camera. Nevertheless, this time lapse is a very good idea of what the girl (Eva) would be writing on the wall and the concept that we are going for.