The main production piece for my A2 Media Studies coursework is a teaser trailer for an imaginary melodrama called 'Winter Shadow', which you can see below.
I wanted to incorporate both the conventions of teaser trailers and the conventions of the melodrama genre into my production, which required a great deal of research to ensure that my teaser trailer was authentic.
The very first piece of research I did into teaser trailers was comparing them to theatrical trailers to determine similarities and differences in terms of the trailers structure, content and the way that that content was presented. I decided to look the trailers for two very different films - '50 Shades of Grey' and 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier', as I thought that choosing different genres would enable me to work out which conventions were typical of the medium. At this stage I didn't want my findings to be influenced by genre (in fact, I hadn't even chosen the genre of my film at this point). I made a list of all of the differences between the teasers and the theatricals and I noticed that the differences were almost exactly the same across both films, such as the theatrical trailers delivering more narrative information than the teasers, less dialogue in the teaser trailers than in the theatrical trailers and quicker editing with the repeated use of fades or cuts to black in the teasers.
I made note to include some of the conventions that I have found into my own teaser trailer and added the elements into the drafts of scripts storyboards, shot lists and running orders that I have produced. Prior to this, however, I looked in more detail at a range of teasers from a number of different genres to create a definitive list of the conventions of found in teasers. As you can see below I have incorporated each one of these conventions into my teaser trailer.
Once I had decided that I wanted to create a film from the melodrama genre I looked at five trailers for existing melodramas, including 'Safe Haven' and 'Dear John'. I made a note of typical genre features that occurred included style of music, type of font, figure behaviour of characters, typical iconography and conventional storylines and incorporated these into my script and shot list.
I wanted to incorporate both the conventions of teaser trailers and the conventions of the melodrama genre into my production, which required a great deal of research to ensure that my teaser trailer was authentic.
The very first piece of research I did into teaser trailers was comparing them to theatrical trailers to determine similarities and differences in terms of the trailers structure, content and the way that that content was presented. I decided to look the trailers for two very different films - '50 Shades of Grey' and 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier', as I thought that choosing different genres would enable me to work out which conventions were typical of the medium. At this stage I didn't want my findings to be influenced by genre (in fact, I hadn't even chosen the genre of my film at this point). I made a list of all of the differences between the teasers and the theatricals and I noticed that the differences were almost exactly the same across both films, such as the theatrical trailers delivering more narrative information than the teasers, less dialogue in the teaser trailers than in the theatrical trailers and quicker editing with the repeated use of fades or cuts to black in the teasers.
I made note to include some of the conventions that I have found into my own teaser trailer and added the elements into the drafts of scripts storyboards, shot lists and running orders that I have produced. Prior to this, however, I looked in more detail at a range of teasers from a number of different genres to create a definitive list of the conventions of found in teasers. As you can see below I have incorporated each one of these conventions into my teaser trailer.
Once I had decided that I wanted to create a film from the melodrama genre I looked at five trailers for existing melodramas, including 'Safe Haven' and 'Dear John'. I made a note of typical genre features that occurred included style of music, type of font, figure behaviour of characters, typical iconography and conventional storylines and incorporated these into my script and shot list.
