Sam Leimanis

How does the trailer USE conventions of real media products?

We used conventions by analysing existing trailers looking at actors, plots, music, how they’re constructed – for example the pace of cuts.

ActorsThe genre of our trailer is romantic comedy so the two lead

characters will of course be male and female love interests. There’s often a conflict or problem keeping them apart which may be another character. The actors for these parts are usually familiar with this genre and become a convention in themselves as they star in so many.

StorylineThe plot is often quite unrealistic with a narrative typical of

Todorov’s theory in which the story fits a pattern of development – Equilibrium, Disequilibrium, and the New Equilibrium.

SoundtrackThe music used solely in trailers is usually upbeat with lyrics

that would relate to the storyline, such as in 500 Days of Summer, a film which gave me many ideas for our own trailer.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/500-Days-Summer-Various-Artists/dp/B002BAODSC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302290840&sr=8-1

EditingFast paced cuts keep the action interesting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQdy98B1nf0

Our media product Our plot was simple and typical to genre

We found examples of amateur trailers that were similar to our own ideas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikCk0u2QpuQ

Rather than using a voice over like many existing films http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILCB_f0IIyIwe chose to use titles screens to help our audience follow the plot

The previous trailer also inspired some of our initial ideas for a soundtrack such as

• Hall & Oates – You Make my Dreams

• The Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition

And

• Mumm-ra – She’s Got you High, which made our cut

Our poster I researched into typical conventions included in

romantic comedy film postershttp://sspa2media.blogspot.com/2011/01/today-we-began-researching-typical.html#comments

Actors names clearly stated

Romantic setting in the background

Both incorporate two colours into the title

Two main characters clearly shown

Details on when the films are out

Our magazine cover To begin with I had to find the conventions of a typical

film magazine cover

http://sspa2media.blogspot.com/2011/02/in-preparation-for-creating-our-own.html

Despite the two different genres of film...

Black, white and red colour codes

Easily recognisable title font

Main character is focus of image

Films from similar genre also on cover