In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventions of a TrailerLaura Garcia Del Pino

Distribution Company We decided that Path’e! would be a good distribution company for our film; ‘The Heist’, because it distributes big films such as Selma, Mandela Long Walk to Freedom and Pride, they also distribute smaller, niche films such as; Suffragette and The Illusionist.

Our film would be classed as ‘niche’ as neo-noir is not a main stream genre which is why a distribution company that distributes many indie films would be good. However we also had to take into account the fact that our film was also on the front cover of EMPIRE magazine, which features, well known and successful films therefore so we had to include a distribution company that through the years has gained more audacity in the film canon so would release films worthy of the cover of EMPIRE. This is why we believed that Path´e! was the best company to use for our film.

We created a logo for our production company to have a more professional look to the trailer. It was created using Photoshop and drawing the city buildings individually. We believed it was important to include a clip of our production company in the beginning of the trailer which can be seen in almost all trailers.For example:

Production Company

It was important to add a clip of our production company because it is one of the most common conventions of film trailers. Which is why it was essential to include, as many film logos give an indication as to what the genre of the film will be. Therefore if we were to apply it to our own production logo we can see that black is used and connotes a serious atmosphere about the company, which is what we intended as the film which would be produced by our company would be indie, serious and thought provoking films.

Titles • During the research phase of

the trailer, I analyzed other film trailers and saw that titles where one of the main feature and conventions which separates a trailer from a short film and titles are what help an audience identify that what is being shown is a trailer. For example titles are used to tell the story and can add a more serious tone to the film and it can also reinforce the name of the film and the release date. This can be seen in our trailer where I placed the the release date and the name of the film.

Including the release date allows the audience to know when it is released and something to look forward too

Titles• We took inspiration from other trailers with a the same genre

of film; neo-noir. And also their filming style and this is the type of titles they included in The Brick trailer.

For example the titles they used where dark and they used blue with black background, which reflects on the serious nature of the film. Therefore we took inspiration from The Brick trailer and we also used a dark background and titles to show the serious nature of our film.

Dialogue

• Dialogue is often used to briefly outline the plot without giving away the ending of major parts of the narrative. We used dialogue to show a conversation between our protagonist and another main character. During the conversation they hint to the audience what the characters are planning to do and what the narrative will entail but it does not give it completely away.

During research we mainly used the Brick trailer and I noticed that there was a lot of dialogue throughout and especially between characters, which is why I decided to use the characters to communicate to each other. However I did notice that there was a lot of dialogue over other scenes and was used as non-diegetic sound. I think to improve the way used dialogue in the trailer I should have included and recorded voiceovers to put throughout the trailer to give strength to the narrative.

Soundtrack • Another conventions of trailers are their soundtrack. A soundtrack is

mostly used to compliment the trailer by helping to set the mood in which the director is trying to create. For example in the Brick trailer it begins with not much music being used but as the trailer progresses more sound effects and music begin to get louder which helps to build up the pace of the trailer and shows shows that the film is full of tension. The same applies for our soundtrack, I used two soundtracks and used one of them to cut and rearrange in certain places. Our trailer starts of with a very paced beat to introduce the trailer but as the trailer progresses there is a change of soundtrack and the tension and action increases , I think this helped to increase the pace and show the emotions of the c characters throughout the trailer. To improve the soundtrack I would have added more sound effects to heighten the tension when there is an important moment to highlight the importance of that scene.