Mood-board

Creating a mood-board for my teaser trailer inspired the colours and mise en scene I wished to include. Mood-boards are popular in the film industry as they give a 'feel' or 'vibe' to what the product will look like.

In this mood-board I have researched famous film scene of thrillers and the most famed emotional scenes in my plan to evoke empathy in the audience during my sequence.

Here I have created an Animoto to present my mood-board:

Character Profiles

Choosing characters for my teaser trailers is vital ensuring the character suits the role and is able to act in ways that I envision for such character.  

When first planning the murder was to be a male character - and so a male should play that role - however, after some run-ins with different actors (drop outs) I felt the role could be played by a female as a male character which gave that character a twist in the trailer.

Here I have created a slide-share illustrating the characters playing within my teaser trailer, movie poster and front cover movie magazine. 

I have done this as part of my planning for production to ensure the actors and models I am using match the characters personalities and appearances.

Through the use of costume and make-up I will be able to present the characters how I view them to look. 

** Update: in my planning stage I included the father of the young girl to be included in some scenes of my teaser trailer, however, when filming was done the scenes did not seem appropriate or relevant to the trailer and so I chose not to include this aspect to the teaser trailer.  

Planning

Detailed planning is crucial when producing a media product such as a teaser trailer - ensuring all aspects are adjusted for the genre and plot of the film is key to address the audience with a successful teaser trailer.

Characters, location, sound, lighting and plot are all addressed in this detailed Prezi illustrating the ideas and aspirations I have for my teaser trailer.

+ research

Psychology of thriller genres

Thriller films also fall under the category of suspense and psychology films. This genre are known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety and nerve-wrecking tension.

What makes a good thriller film?

1. Intriguing plot / storyline
2. Involvement of the audience through direct address
3. Good sample of dialogue - screaming, crying, shouting
4. Tension building music
5. Mixture of light and dark lighting

+ research

IMDb top ten best thriller films:

1.		Spectre (2015)
2.		Crimson Peak (2015)
3.		The Gift (2015)
4.		Jurassic World (2015)
5.		Bridge of Spies (2015)
6.		Everest (2015)
7.		Sicario (2015)
8.		Hitman: Agent 47 (2015)
9.		Knock Knock (2015)
10.		Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Outline

Thriller teaser trailers, through my own research, are the most popular and exciting genre of film and so this reason is why I believe my teaser trailer should carry the codes and conventions of a thriller teaser trailer as this will gain a large target audience. The music and sound atmosphere will be the most demanding element of creating a successful thriller trailer and so I feel this will best challenge me.

Whilst carrying out my research for teaser trailers I was deeply inspired by 'The Lovely Bones' and so I aim to recreate the plot and storyline of that film in my own teaser trailer.

Outlining my ideas for my teaser trailer is vital to inspire developments in the process of creating it:

The disappearance and murder of Emily Fields.

To enhance a more intriguing plot for the audience the murderer will feature greatly in the trailer - a voice over of the young girl will give the plot a twist (as though the young girl is speaking from the grave).

Plot - A young girl, while playing in a park/field, disappears - later pronounced dead after finding her body. The family is seen grieving while replaying the moments before her disappearance in their heads (flashbacks used to convey this). The murderer is an unsuspecting friendly man who spoke to the family during their walk through the park.

Characters - The characters involved in the teaser trailer will include the young girl who is murdered and her murderer who will be of an older- middle aged man. The family members in the trailer will include the young girls mother and her older sister. These characters are important within the sequence to emphasis the hurt and grief of the young girls disappearance and murder.

Locations - A country side walk area or park is where the young girl will disappear - this scene will be sued throughout in flashbacks and so on.
The killers house will be seen to acknowledge the character as the killer - blood and clothing will ensure the audience are aware this character killed the young girl.
I plan to also use the family's home as a location to show the grief and impact on the family in the moments after her death and disappearance.

Ideal reader - Profile

Ensuring my media products; teaser trailer, magazine front cover and movie poster had a target audience. So through developing an ideal reader I am able to provide an example of the kind of person that would be interested in my teaser trailer, movie magazine front cover and movie poster.

I was able to create this ideal reader based the results of my questionnaire.

Target Audience Questionnaire Analysis

Question 1: What is your gender?

From this graph it is apparent that most of my target audience is female and so I should construct my teaser trailer around the female precipitation of films – the use of female characters and attractive males will help attract the majority female target audience. 

Question 2: What is your age group?

When asking this question I had to ensure my teaser trailer is age group appropriate and so the results from my questionnaire show that most of my target group are 13-17 year old therefore language and violence should be kept to a minimum. Although a number of the questionnaires answered were by 18-20 years old the teaser trailer should follow the guidelines of the youngest viewers to avoid harm or offence. 

Question 3: What is your favourite movie genre? (choose two)

Although ‘rom-com’ and ‘comedy’ were the most desired genre of film I have decided to produce a thriller teaser trailer as after previously researching and analysing thriller teaser trailers; Inception and The Lovely Bones – I believe I can put my best effort into creating a thriller teaser trailer. As I am going against my target audience interests I must ensure my teaser trailer is appealing to their wishes and so I plan to highlight a sense of romance for the ‘rom-com’ viewers. 

Question 4: Do you enjoy watching teaser trailers?

 I included this question in my questionnaire because I felt it was important to know if my target audience enjoy teaser trailers or do they find them ‘nuisence’ marketing adverts. The response to this question was positive for my task – yes was the majordly reply which encourages me to create the teaser trailer with confidence that my target audience will enjoy watching it.

Question 5: What teaser trailer, that you have seen, is your most memorable?

The response to this question allows me to research into this teaser trailers to gain an insight into the types of features and effects my target audience enjoy in teaser trailers. All answers to this question were different including; Harry Potter and Insidious, as memorable teaser trailers. Using the responses I am keen to look at how these teaser trailers were successful within the industry.

Question 6: Are teaser trailers more enjoyable with or without dialogue?

Sound and dialogue is an important aspect of a teaser trailer and so I felt this question was essential to ask my target audience. The target audience has said that they enjoy teaser trailers with dialogue meaning they prefer the characters talking during the clip. I feel using dialogue allows me to produce a more interesting piece so I am happy to have this positive result from my target audience concerning dialogue.

Question 7: Do teaser trailers interest you to watch a film? Are they effective?

 Again this question was answered positively encouraging the production of my own teaser trailer – from asking this question I am confident that my teaser trailer, following the codes and conventions, will be effective in creating a  ‘buzz’ for a film. From this question I have gained insight into how interested my target audience are in teaser trailers and so the positive response is constructive when I am producing my piece.

Question 8: What do you find most attractive in teaser trailers? 

This question was the most important one within my questionnaire; what attracts the target audience to a teaser trailer is how I will structure my piece to ensure it draws them into watching my own. The most popular response was the plot of the teaser trailer meaning I will significantly focus my trailer on the plot of the film. 

Question 9: Watch this link; 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWmBtuNmDdE

What was your favourite feature about this teaser trailer? What did you like about it? Please explain. 

I used this question in my questionnaire as I wanted to gain an insight into what kind of things my target audience notices in a teaser trailer as well as what they liked about this specific teaser trailer. I am pleased with the responses from my target audience – the areas mentioned I will emphasise the most effort as I now realise my target audience are aware of the lighting, sound and other aspects of a teaser trailer. 

Target Audience Questionnaire

Create your own user feedback survey

Movie Magazine Montage

While researching I saw many movie magazine front covers of different genres and films that have inspired me when creating my own. 

This montage image illustrates a number of different film magazines which I have looked at; the camera angle, mise en scene, location, actors, colour scheme, lighting and special effects all play a significant part in the overall quality of the image. 

I created this montage to gain an idea of the different aspect I can re-create in my own movie magazine front cover. 

Movie Magazines

As part of creating my own movie magazine I plan to carry out research into the movie magazine industry - there are a number of massively successful movie magazines that produce and distribute magazines to film audiences.

Movie magazines are another form of advertising a film and so they are key in the marketing of films.

Codes and conventions of movie magazines

Film magazines; like music, fashion and other magazine genres, follow a specific code and convention to effectively attract large audience to their magazine and essentially the product they are promoting.

I have research and conducted a power-point slide noting the different conventions included in a film magazine to aid my production of my own movie magazine later in the task.