Trailers and Posters

Making The Teaser Trailer

We were told to make a trailer out of a short film that had no campaign. Our group chose to make a trailer for HYBRIDS. it seemed more challenging then the other as it had more information a trailer could put in. 

The story is about aliens coming to earth looking for ‘the key’. The main character has a daughter and she is killed as an alien eats her thinking she is the key. After the trauma she decides to take things in her hand and goes hunting for aliens.  

As a group we looked at the teaser trailer of A Walk among the Tombstones among others and analysed the forms and conventions. This helped us understand how a thriller trailer is made. With all our knowledge we moved on to the next task which was HYBRIDS.

As a group we analysed the film and picked out scenes we felt were good to put into the teaser trailer in order to meet the forms and conventions of one. We print screened the scenes we would include and made a picture trailer showing what order we will set them in.

After this we went to the editing rooms and started. At first we just gathered all the scenes were going to include and we noticed that the original plan needed to change as when you edit you notice other scenes you would like to include.  For example (00:31) to (00:35) of the trailer was just supposed to be a voice over of the main character talking in the background while the shot of her holding the gun was being shown. Instead we decided to add a blank screen for 2 seconds adding effect.

The next day we focused on the soundtrack editing in between scenes. The soundtrack was challenging because the original soundtrack was playing in the background while the women was talking. The soundtrack was already in the original film.  We noticed a scene where the woman is not talking and the soundtrack is playing and with this we added it into the background where the production logo appears. The last shot was originally supposed to be just of the aliens coming towards her but we liked the idea of showing the close up of the grenade about to be set off.

For the last shot of the release date we had different ideas as to what we were going write. As you can see we first thought of a release date and add the website. There were two reason we didn't like this.

1. The the layout of the text did not match the theme or title

2. In a normal teaser trailer you wouldn't have the release date until the theatrical trailer come out

After this we decided to look up a different font and we found 'OCR A Extended'. we really liked the font and we also used it for our poster.





Hybrids Teaser Trailer

We start the teaser trailer off by showing the caption informing the audience about what happened before the present day in the film. The next scene is of aliens talking about ‘the key’ to give the audience a little about what the main point of alien’s arrival is. the antagonist which is the alien has more power of the aliens, he seems to want the key and do whatever it takes to get the key.

The main protagonist is shown with her daughter and in the background her voice over talking about ‘the key’. The scene is sweet showing what the main protagonist life was before the aliens entered her life and this is one of the main conventions as we get to find out about the characters. Her daughter disappears. This leaves the audience confused as they don’t know where she has gone.

The next scene is blank and then shows the main protagonist holding a gun. This is now the protagonist trait which is her being resourceful throughout the film. We see a shot of her knife covered with blue like blood and then next moves to an action shot of her attacking the aliens which is a peak of action for the audience as there will be more if they go watch the film.

Lastly the title appears which is to show that the trailer is about to finish and then the shot of the aliens appears leaving the audience excited to see what’s to come as the main character may die leaving enigma codes. The release date finishes the trailer off and because it’s a teaser trailer there is not an exact date.  This was inspired by other teaser trailers we watched in class. 

Full Theatrical Poster

Before we start to make our own trailer and poster we decided to look at two different short films hybrids and the gift this is because the two were not advertised to their audiences.
As a group we looked at Hybrids.
In the full theatrical trailer i decided to make it landscaped because when researching real posters i noticed films like Inception and Gravity have their main posters landscaped and teasers portrait.

Here are a couple of examples:

As you can see the posters consist of

• The main actors name
• Director and productions name
• Title

• Release Date
• Main still from the film for a background
• Most of the time reviews

• Movie Website
• Occasionally a tagline
• Brief information 

Our Poster

I looked over the film and picked out a picture I felt was good for the theatrical trailer which is of the women walking and behind her the buildings are on fire leaving the audience an exciting image of whats to come. The film is about aliens taking over the planet so I decided to add the image of the alien into the poster. At first I was going to show the aliens entire body but after playing around with the idea I finalized with having only the aliens face but transparent. I created this by selecting the image ie the layer, Clicking  onto the tool box and changing the layer opacity from 100 to 50.

Next I added in the title HYBRIDS which I took form the film and copying onto my posters as the title of the film the the main convention of a poster. I also copied the actresses name, the productions names and the directors as they are also the main conventions.
With the trailer we made we added a release date so I also added the release date onto the poster informing the audience. To match the title I had to find a similar font and after going through all the fonts I chose OCR A Std. The last thing  I added to the poster which was the billing block at the bottom which mostly is brief information on who worked on the film and I found it quite difficult so I decided to copy one from a real poster.

Teaser Poster By Mason

Denotations:

• Background picture of the aliens hand
• Tagline at the top
• Title 'Hybrids'
• Website at the bottom

Connotations:

From the background picture we can see that the film will involve some form of alien creature, but however we cannot see the face so we can't tell what it will look like. But as we can only see the hand and it is climbing up the wall, this is sinister and suggests that the alien will be a villain in the film and not the good guy. We can also see a knife on some army camo on a table, this could suggest that the main protagonist is in the army and is involved with fighting these aliens, this could be why the alien is coming for them.

The tagline at the top of the poster is in the same silver style font as the hybrids title. The tagline helps with the narrative but also provides an enigma, as it says that something has arrived but we are yet to know what has arrived, and what they have been doing for this duration.

The title hybrids is bold and is in the same futuristic look as what the tagline is, this conveys that the film could be set in the future. Not only this but it also gives us insight into the monsters as the word hybrid means a cross of something, so maybe the alien is a cross between human and alien. Another enigma that the poster provides.

The website at the bottom of the poster is in a white font and is also small so that it doesn't take up to much of the space and doesn't attract the audiences attention away from the rest of what the poster has to offer. This is typical to see within teaser posters as where it doesn't give away much information such as the date, the website can provide this information that the poster cannot.

When making films its important you don’t just concentrate on the acting you have to concentrate on the camerawork. The camerawork and angles are the basics of movie making this is because it’s been done since the beginning of film making and have an impact on the audience. The 3 main types of basic film making which have an effect on the audience are:

Match On Action

This occurs when he or she is for example having a cigarette and the camera is using an established shot (meaning we can see the whole scene in one shot) we see his about to put the cigarette in his mouth but then the camera moves towards his left side and we see the cigarette was in the same position as it was in shot A and is the same position in shot B.

The audience never notice when this occurs because the editing has to be on the spot and it happens so FAST that you have to keep your eyes open to make sure you don’t miss it. Many directors are criticized by the viewer’s when they notice the tiniest mistakes and they are often the match on action shots because this mistakes occur when in shot A their hands are crossed and then in shot B his hands are out.  

Shot Reverse Shot

This type of shot happens when a conversation in the film occurs and we can see whose talking. For example in the clip below the two are talking to each other and we see that it’s not just an established shot which just shows us only the scene but does not show us their faces and sometimes you can’t see whose talking. Shot reverse shot is very important this is because we can see the characters expression when talking and this tells the audience how the character feels and we also see who they are talking to.

 

In this example we see the two having a serious conversation between each other and they use shot reverse shot so we can see their reaction and the emotions on their face. 

The 180 degree rule

This rule is often used but for some people it’s very hard to understand. The 180 degree rule usually occurs during a conversation in a film. An imaginary line also called an Axis which connects the characters together and the camera cannot go over the imaginary line but stays on the side it first started shooting from. So the camera can be positioned anywhere on that side and if crossed its breaks breaking the 180 degree rule. It can only be broken until the audience are aware of where the characters are standing and where they are.

Some directors choose to break the 180 degree rule and sometimes you can’t see how its breaking the rule for example we see that both Leon and Matilda are having a conversation, it seems that it’s not breaking the 180 degree rule but if you look carefully the camera goes over the imaginary line. 

In this video they explain in detail how the 180 degree rule works. They show examples and what happens when you break the 180 degree rule.  

Hello, my name is Zahra Malik i am currently studying Media Studies, Photography, English (Lit/Lang) and Film Studies in Warren Sixth Form.

I enjoy watching a lot of movies and my favorite genre would have to be Action Adventure. This is because all of my favorite films are Action Adventure for example Batman, The Avengers, Mission Impossible, The A Team and Hulk.

In the future i would like to become a Film Director and the subjects i chose will really help me develop my skills for example in Media Studies we are going to make a Thriller Film Opening with Titles. This can really help me because one of the most important parts of making a great film is to have a great opening, with key elements to show either character traits or a plot.