When I first started my media course in year 12, I had little experience with producing a trailer or a film opening. I did not really know how to use technology such as the camera and tripod or the editing software Pinnacle. I learnt the basics of using pinnacle when doing my preliminary production: how to arrange and change the length of shots. However moving on to my film opening in year 12, I learnt how to change the lighting and colour of shots using the colour correction tool, as well as using different editing techniques such as jump cuts and match on action edits. This helped my film opening be more interesting and improved continuity. When it came to filming my A2 trailer, I was comfortable using the effects in Pinnacle, like colour correction and the pan and zoom tool. This created more variation in shots such as a zoom to an extreme clos up of the victim’s eyes, as well as adhering to the conventions of the horror/thriller genre, such as changing the lighting to more chiaroscuro lighting in colour correction. In our trailer the use of the camera was more effective as we knew how to use it better, resulting in less camera related problems such as accidentally deleting footage.
I found from the research and planning that I did for my preliminary production and AS film opening, that I needed to do a lot more in order for my trailer to be as effective as possible. For my preliminary production I did very little research and planning in comparison to our trailer, we did not make a storyboard, which was something I learnt was necessary when producing my AS film opening. Also more research was completed, like looking at other film openings of the same genre to identify conventional elements, such as editing techniques, music and titles that could be incorporated into our opening. However, when completing research for our A2 trailer we looked at other trailers within the same genre but also with a similar storyline such as the trailers for: “The Final” and “Tamara”. This helped us look more specifically at the different conventions used as well as establishing our target audience as teenagers, as they were the typical target audience for these films. This further helped us include elements in our trailer that would specifically appeal the target audience such as violence, action and the reference to school bullying. When planning our trailer we made sure our storyboard and shot list was far more detailed than the one we created for our AS film opening as from that experience we decided that it was important to rely on a storyboard for making a structure, keeping organised as well as planning a large range of shot sizes and angles. This was helpful especially with organisation as we managed to make sure that we had all the shots we needed filmed and ready for editing. But of course some shots were spontaneous ideas that we came up with on the day of filming, when we were inspired by either the setting or props. Research and planning was also important when it came to creating the ancillary tasks, such as looking at real film posters within the same genre as well as websites; helping us to shape ours using common essentials, like institutional information, used in all of them.
When editing our trailer we made the decision to add music to create atmosphere. We did this as well in our film opening in year 12, however this was less varied, more repetitive and we could have done with some other music or sound effects added in. When looking for our music and sound effects we mostly used sound cloud and we spent a large amount of time looking for the right ones and making note of them. We also spent some time looking at other trailers of the same genre to help us decide on what type of music and sound effects we could incorporate in our own trailer. We looked at trailers like “se7en”, “sinister” and “Tamara”. We managed to find music similar to that of the opening of “Se7en” to put over some shots in our trailer which are similar to the close ups of hands and pictures in the opening of “Se7en”. We decided to do this as we liked the effect these shots had the break up action sequences. We looked at the trailer for “sinister” and found that there was a frequent use of sound -stings, adding tension and emphasising shots which is a common convention of horror films. We thought that it would be a good idea to include sound stings in our trailer especially in action sequences such as the unsuccessful car escape scene. This fast series of shots, emphasised with sound stings are conventional of trailers as they show enough flashes of action to appeal to the audience without giving too much of the story away. We altered some of our sound by reversing it and changing the speed in Pinnacle, for example, slowing down an echoing laugh to create an eerie effect as well as creating the implication that the specific shot is a memory.
From doing our AS film opening I have found that it is important to be creative when forming the narrative of your trailer, in order to appeal to the target audience. This was helped in our trailer through creating a storyboard and a script. We found that it is important to keep some conventions of the genre the same as other films, whilst introducing some difference; like twists or red herrings. I found that I could also be more creative in sizes and angles of shots; making it more interesting and in some cases emotive such as high angle close ups of victims to present them as vulnerable. This is a repeated convention throughout a lot of horror/thriller trailers because of its connotations and how it presents the character. When editing our trailer I found that trailers used different editing techniques to film openings such as fast flashing action sequences and jump cuts, which we used frequently throughout our trailer to make it seem more dramatic and action filled. I used the software Pinnacle to create the interim titles that establish the narrative, deciding font sizes, colour (white and red) and effects (city lights). We experimented with these until we found that the titles gave the desirable effect. This was helped by looking at titles for other trailers for films of the same genre- linking to research and planning.
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