Analysing A Film Trailer

The Avengers Trailer.

The title of the film is seen near the end of the trailer. This is a good selling point because it mixes in characters from different films and productions into this trailer so the fans of the franchise will know what the trailer is about and what film is being promoted. Although the fans of the franchise will have a very good idea what they are watching when they see the trailer there will always be that doubt until they see the name of the film which is being promoted and by leaving the title of the film till the end, it will leave the audience in suspense and entice them to wait till the end of the trailer to keep people watching.

The elements of the trailer that enable the audience to recognise the genre range from the type of shots used to the music and even down to the dialogue spoken by the characters. For example, you can tell this is going to be about action and heroism when Samuel Jackson steps out of the helicopter and the shot used was a low angle shot looking up at him in that shot it made him look powerful and in charge and basically ready for action, which is what this genre is about, it’s an action film. The music used fro the trailer was a Nine Inch Nails song. This type of music is generally associated with films which are going to have a lot of action in them because the music is fast paced and somewhat heavy which is why this type of music was chosen to be in this trailer. Finally, the dialogue of the characters clearly indicates which genre the film is trying to be for example when Robert Downey Junior said “If we can’t protect the earth, you can be damn sure we’ll avenge it!” The trigger word there being avenge is enough to clearly show what type of genre is being presented here.

It is important for the distributor to make sure the genre of the film is clearly shown in the trailer because if the film’s genre is misleading then the audience they are aiming for might not go and watch it and the people expecting the genre it misrepresented will be disappointed in the film and the film will most likely get bad reviews and lose money. Also, making films is a very lengthy and costly process and if they make a bad film then all that time effort and money would have been for nothing.

There are two companies distributing this film. The first company distributing the film is Marvel Studios and also Paramount Studios. The logo for Marvel Studios is simply Marvel in a red rectangle background. The Paramount Studios logo is a mountain with stars coming around it.

The stars used in this trailer are all A-list celebrities such as Robert Downey Jr., Samuel Jackson are used to attract an audience because when you hear two or more heavy hitting film stars people would be more inclined to want to watch the film. These people have made a name for themselves individually and when put together along with other A-list celebrities it give the audience the mentality of “This film just can’t fail” and this might have been what the director was going for.

Another person highlighted in this trailer is Scarlett Johansson. She is highlighted because she is a main character to the story but also she is used as a sex symbol mainly for the male audience. She was voted as a peerless sex symbol so the trailer might be playing on the idea that sex sells because of the skin tight leather outfit she was wearing and how in whatever scene she was in there was a clear shot of her face to the extent that the camera would stop and do a medium shot of just her standing still and looking at her upper body and face.

There is additional information conveyed by the music and even the dialogue. The music and the dialogue both work together to build tension and drama to the trailer.



The voice-overs in the trailer are used to tell the sub-plot and to set the mood, such as the dialogue of “If we can’t protect the earth, you can be damn sure we’ll avenge it!” It sets the tone of a serious action packed motion picture. This voice-over makes the film gain a sense of excitement as opposed to it just being explosions and people getting ready to fight.

The film trailer’s language appeals very well to its target audience, which is from 12 upwards. The lighting fits the purposes it is used to fin many ways, for example the lighting around the villain is dark and shady at times, but when the heroes are on screen then the lighting is usually bright and you see them very clearly. The camera angles used when the heroes are on screen are low angle shots looking up this allows them to be perceived as being powerful and always standing tall. The editing also adds to the language the film trailer is trying to portray also which fast clips of action and a lot of cuts the parts with explosion or when things are moving very fast this reinforces the type of genre which is trying to be portrayed in this as an action film which can be enjoyed by people from the ages of 12 and above and even children below that age. The fast clips and the fighting can relate to the 12 year old boys because they will be interested in the action and other things happening on screen such as explosions etc but it shows it can also be enjoyed by older audiences because of the themes being shown on screen on the trailer.
Overall the film’s media language fits its target audience well but didn’t focus so much on just that target audience that the film can’t be enjoyed by people outside this audience.



Documentary Evaluation

Research

Before I started planning my documentary, I first watched the award winning 'One Day In September'. I thought it would be a good idea to watch this documentary first because the only documentaries that I have seen before have just been ones about Astronomy and I needed a different perspective on the documentaries as a whole. From watching this documentary I found that they generally stick to the theory and it is easy to identify how certain parts of the documentary relate back to the theory. In summary, when looking at the theory and an actual documentary they relate heavily to each other.

My perception of documentaries didn't alter much because as I mentioned before I watched Astronomy documentaries so I had a reasonable idea of how documentaries worked. That being said, I wasn't aware that documentaries could be filmed with a thriller feel to it such as One Day In September.

Planning

When I was planning this documentary I essentially wanted to focus on just the locations I was going to be using and the music which would fit in with what I am trying to represent.

I wrote out all of my plans on paper, because of convenience this time instead of  drawing out a storyboard I decided to do a flow chart as an experiment to see which worked better and which I preferred. 

All of my planning is below. 

Production

In the production process we weren't able to stick to our filming schedule because we kept running into problems. The first being, when we arrived up town for the first day of filming it was apparent that the camera we were given it's battery was nearly dead and we only managed to film about 1 minute or 2 on that day so we essentially lost a day of filming. 

The next lesson we had we couldn't shoot any footage because the camera we were using didn't have any power in its battery so we spent the lesson charging the battery. At this point the deadline was fast approaching so we went out and filmed what we could with what little power we had left in the camera and took the pictures we needed on our phones. 

When dealing with the continuity it might have posed less of a problem if we had used out original plan but due to technical difficulties we had to rush our original plan and we ended up shooting long continuous shots with the intention of adding voice overs and music to the shots and so we added 'fades' so the continuity would be less obvious.

The roles in the group were allocated depending on what needed to be done and who would be the best person for the job, by using the person's strengths and appealing to them.

As I mentioned before, we had a few problems with the camera specifically the battery. This turned out to be a major hinderance for my group and I. This then overflowed into out time management which wasn't good on this project and should be better kept in the future because I realised how important good time management is.

We did encounter a problem besides the camera and its battery, by which I mean we weren't allowed to take pictures or film inside the Harvey Centre but this wasn't too much of a hinderance because we had a back up plan which was to focus more on the Water Gardens and the High Street. 

Post-Production

The editing process was more time consuming than we had previously anticipated. Mainly because since we had improvised the actual production we then has to rethink how we were going to edit the work. But other than that the editing was a smooth process and went of with generally no problems. We had all the material we needed we in fact had too much and had to leave out about 2 minutes of footage.

The post-production skill were fairly new to me but once I understood the basic concept everything was pretty self-explanatory. However we did have a small problem adding stills for the montage, the pictures kept showing up upside down for some bizarre reason and we had to use a lengthy process to get them up the right way which is why we didn't have many more stills in our video. 

As for time I wish we had managed our time better because towards the end we were rushing to get it finished and so it looks rushed.

The skills I learnt from this project were a better understanding of the post-production part of it all, I learned new and better camera work and these two skills are crucial for progression and for me to actually enjoy my coursework. Although I do still need to work on time management and also need to work on planning for the unexpected and always have a back up plan, whether it's due to technical difficulties or restriction of filming, I should always have a back up plan. 

Pre-Research and Planning

For my documetary;
I intend to add a very simple dialouge/ voiceover of describing where Harlow is and such other facts such as that tell you a bit about Harlow.
I have started to research how I am going to make the documentary. I also have a good idea about the script and I have started to put pen to paper, I will be taking pictures of my planning and research as I go along and posting them on my blog.