To start off the planning of my production I have taken the decision to seriously look into how I am going to go about filming my trailer. By the time I am due to start filming (in January) I will have my own camera and therefore I am going to use the spare weeks after I've acquired it to practise the different techniques that I can achieve so that I am ready and prepared to film the precise scenes that I want. Up until I get my camera I have decided to research and watch YouTube videos and tutorials; I want to ensure that I have the capabilities to make my work to the best standard that it can be. I will carefully select the tutorials that will improve my skills.
I have decided to study how to film nature as the basic concept I have in my mind means there is a strong possibility that I will be filming outdoors. If I am to film a variety of outdoor shots, I think it will be extremely useful if I can get some helpful tips. I am planning to film both night and day shots for my concept and so will be looking at a variety of videos. These will give me the opportunity to develop my skills in this area of filming and help produce new ideas for my work.
Although this video doesn't show the type of scenes or shots I want to create, it gives helpful tips on what to do and what not to do to try and achieve high quality, professional footage.
This short nature film gives me an insight into the possible shot types I can incorporate with nature. It shows a variety of shot types from extreme close-ups, close-ups and medium shots. Also, the smooth continuity of the footage
allows me to see the effect it has on making it look professional and well thought out.
Thursday, 27 November 2014
Monday, 24 November 2014
Target Audience Research - Finding the Conventions
The target audience for my trailer has been decided, but before I begin the in-depth planning of my trailer, film poster and website homepage, I think that it is appropriate for me to find out the specific conventions that my target audience alone want to see, this way I will have a clear idea of their expectations and can incorporate some of the most popular conventions into my work to help me attract my desired viewers.
My idea is to set up an interview to ask some individuals from my target audience what they associate with the thriller genre and also the conventions that they expect to see within a regular film trailer - overall this will help me conduct efficient target market research and enable me to ensure that I produce a trailer that will be suitable for them.
Below are the questions that I asked and the responses that I received. Each candidate is aged 15 and over so they are in my target audience group and there is also a balanced number of males and females making my interview is none gender biased whilst giving good representative results. I asked different people for every question (all participants were the ages of my target audience).
Question 1 - "When watching a thriller trailer, do you want the scenes included to show a good amount of the 'fast action' that takes place in the film or do you think it would act as a spoiler to the films story line?"
Answer 1 - "Personally, I would want the trailer to show clips of the main disruption in the film but only show a few clips and then that way it would make me want to see it more as I would want to know what this disruption is and
how it is sorted out."
Answer 2 - "I think the trailer should start off all calm and things to build up tension because then it makes the arrival of trouble more surprising and exciting. I would want to see clips of the trouble of the main thing that happens but I wouldn't want to see the villain - if there is one."
Answer 3 - "Yes although it would be better if the trailer just gave hints as to what happens but doesn't tell the audience straight out because then it would be worth going to see to find out what actually happens."
My conclusion - Due to these answers from my target audience, put together with the answers that I received from the general public and my personal opinion, for the structure and content of my trailer I am planning to show the setting and narrative as calm and controlled (known as the equilibrium in Todorov's narrative structure) as this is a good technique to use to build anticipation and suspense as the audience are expecting something to happen but they don't know when or what exactly.
Also in my survey, one of the reoccurring conventions I received was that people, not just in thriller specific trailers but all film trailers, want to see parts of the films main disruption yet they don't want to know why it happens or how it is solved as this acts as a spoiler.
I then plan to show parts of the disruption and recognition of the disruption, as this will help show the audience that something major does happen within the film making them want to go see the full film to see what happens.
Question 2 - "Are there any particular locations you think have to be in a thriller trailer or do you think it can be open to a variety of different locations?"
Answer 1 - "Most thrillers are set around the policing and detective sort of story lines and so there are usually a lot of scenes shown to be in police stations, police rooms, offices and in some cases inside prisons e.c.t but I don't think all thrillers have to involve the story line from the view point of police so it could show scenes anywhere depending on the sort of story line it is."
Answer 2 - "I think they can be set in any location, it just depends on what the narrative is"
Answer 3 - "For a trailer there will probably be quite a few locations if a lot of different scenes are being shown but there tends to be a lot of scenes centered in a city"
Question 3 - "What sort of shot types would you expect to see within a thriller film trailer?"
Answer 1 - " Establishing and long shots of the location to set the scene."
Answer 2 - "Close-up shots of facial expressions to show the response of characters to situations happening in the trailer."
Answer 3 - "Mixture of shots as long as the shot type best fits the thing that is going on in the scene."
Question 4 - "What type of music would you expect to hear in a thriller trailer?"
Answer 1 - "Tension and suspense should be created by the music so eery sounds"
Answer 2 - "Starts off slow to build tension and then get it to build up to a fast pace as the action starts happening"
Answer 3 - "Start off in silence and have loud thuds to start off with and go straight into the eery/spooky vibe"
Question 4 "What are other typical conventions that you like to see in a thriller video such as the typography e.c.t?"
Answer 1 - "Names of the actors included."
Answer 2 - "Text shown in-between the scenes."
Answer 3 - "Release date, name of the film shown, usually at the end."
Most popular conventions mentioned
My idea is to set up an interview to ask some individuals from my target audience what they associate with the thriller genre and also the conventions that they expect to see within a regular film trailer - overall this will help me conduct efficient target market research and enable me to ensure that I produce a trailer that will be suitable for them.
Below are the questions that I asked and the responses that I received. Each candidate is aged 15 and over so they are in my target audience group and there is also a balanced number of males and females making my interview is none gender biased whilst giving good representative results. I asked different people for every question (all participants were the ages of my target audience).
Question 1 - "When watching a thriller trailer, do you want the scenes included to show a good amount of the 'fast action' that takes place in the film or do you think it would act as a spoiler to the films story line?"
Answer 1 - "Personally, I would want the trailer to show clips of the main disruption in the film but only show a few clips and then that way it would make me want to see it more as I would want to know what this disruption is and
how it is sorted out."
Answer 2 - "I think the trailer should start off all calm and things to build up tension because then it makes the arrival of trouble more surprising and exciting. I would want to see clips of the trouble of the main thing that happens but I wouldn't want to see the villain - if there is one."
Answer 3 - "Yes although it would be better if the trailer just gave hints as to what happens but doesn't tell the audience straight out because then it would be worth going to see to find out what actually happens."
My conclusion - Due to these answers from my target audience, put together with the answers that I received from the general public and my personal opinion, for the structure and content of my trailer I am planning to show the setting and narrative as calm and controlled (known as the equilibrium in Todorov's narrative structure) as this is a good technique to use to build anticipation and suspense as the audience are expecting something to happen but they don't know when or what exactly.
Also in my survey, one of the reoccurring conventions I received was that people, not just in thriller specific trailers but all film trailers, want to see parts of the films main disruption yet they don't want to know why it happens or how it is solved as this acts as a spoiler.
I then plan to show parts of the disruption and recognition of the disruption, as this will help show the audience that something major does happen within the film making them want to go see the full film to see what happens.
Question 2 - "Are there any particular locations you think have to be in a thriller trailer or do you think it can be open to a variety of different locations?"
Answer 1 - "Most thrillers are set around the policing and detective sort of story lines and so there are usually a lot of scenes shown to be in police stations, police rooms, offices and in some cases inside prisons e.c.t but I don't think all thrillers have to involve the story line from the view point of police so it could show scenes anywhere depending on the sort of story line it is."
Answer 2 - "I think they can be set in any location, it just depends on what the narrative is"
Answer 3 - "For a trailer there will probably be quite a few locations if a lot of different scenes are being shown but there tends to be a lot of scenes centered in a city"
Question 3 - "What sort of shot types would you expect to see within a thriller film trailer?"
Answer 1 - " Establishing and long shots of the location to set the scene."
Answer 2 - "Close-up shots of facial expressions to show the response of characters to situations happening in the trailer."
Answer 3 - "Mixture of shots as long as the shot type best fits the thing that is going on in the scene."
Question 4 - "What type of music would you expect to hear in a thriller trailer?"
Answer 1 - "Tension and suspense should be created by the music so eery sounds"
Answer 2 - "Starts off slow to build tension and then get it to build up to a fast pace as the action starts happening"
Answer 3 - "Start off in silence and have loud thuds to start off with and go straight into the eery/spooky vibe"
Question 4 "What are other typical conventions that you like to see in a thriller video such as the typography e.c.t?"
Answer 1 - "Names of the actors included."
Answer 2 - "Text shown in-between the scenes."
Answer 3 - "Release date, name of the film shown, usually at the end."
Most popular conventions mentioned
- Show parts of the main disruption in the trailer but not too much to give away the entire films plot
- Location dependent on the sort of thriller story it is
- Villain of the film not shown
- Several different shot types of characters and locations
- Good tense music
- Continuity throughout with colours and music type e.c.t
- Actors named
- Text shown between scenes
- Name of the film at the end of the trailer
- Release date
Sunday, 23 November 2014
Choosing my Genre
The next stage of my research and planning requires me to determine the genre of my production pieces. The genre that I choose will not only be applicable to my main task of the film trailer, but also to my two ancillary tasks and therefore I should ensure that I choose a genre that I can achieve to the best of my abilities. From the research that I have already devised on my blog, I am confident that I am able to select the correct genre for myself.
My exploration of existing film trailers alongside the analysis’s I did for them has expanded and heightened my familiarity of the vast array of film genres notably. Additionally, the small survey which I issued out to my classmates enhanced my awareness of what I needed to take into serious consideration before deciding my final genre. The conventions that will be embodied into my film trailer will need to reflect and conform to the style that I choose if I am to successfully adhere to my coursework brief and engage with my target audience.
Below is my presentation in which I will clarify my genre choice and my reasoning behind it. Now that my genre is firmly selected I can proceed to the selection of my target audience as part of my research and planning which is another critical stage for me to complete.
Saturday, 22 November 2014
Target Audience Research Survey
Now that my genre has been firmly selected the next stage in my research and planning is trying to determine my target audience, this is a critical step as my work will have to reflect their interests. The conventions I use will determine whether I have been successful with my audience at the end of my coursework.
Additionally, once this survey has taken place I plan to send out another questionnaire or conduct an interview with my chosen group to then find out what conventions them alone want to witness in a thriller trailer, this way I can see what the differences are between all the suggested conventions of different age groups and whether age determines what they expect to see. For example, younger audiences might expect too much from a trailer because they want to see something immediately exciting or not give valid answers due to them not understanding the entire concepts of trailers to start with. Furthermore, another issue with the answers that I might get from a younger audience is that they may not fully understand what the thriller genre entails and can easily expect conventions of action films and horrors to make an appearance.
For this particular survey I received 21 responses which I will analyse below in this post.
Results for Question 1 - 'How old are you?'
As seen from the picture above, I received a relatively varied response from this question. This question was important for me to ask when looking at establishing my target audience because different ages have different perceptions and expectations of thrillers and what they should be/look like.
2 of the respondents were aged 12-15. I made this a category as nobody under the age of 12 should watch thriller as they are mostly certificated as 15's - it is rather rare for a thriller to be a 12A as most of these tend to just be action genres. I have to constantly refer to thriller films as well as the idea of a trailer because my trailer is essentially a thriller film broken down to specific parts to make the film look enticing in a short amount of time and I have to make it look authentic. I would not be able to produce a trailer if I were not looking into thriller films at the same time. Therefore, I will not be aiming my trailer at under 15's although I shall carry on analysing their responses in this post to show why my final decision is best.
Moreover, for the 15-18 category there were 8 answers, the 19-22 group had 6 responses and the over 22 category also got 6 responses.
Something I am taking into consideration is that the ages 18-22 are similar ages in that the respondents are all young adults and they tend to act similar and have similar lifestyle habits and in the context of films and trailer, they are open to all genres and thrillers are appropriate for them to watch.
Also, I made an over 22 category as people over the age of 22 obviously watch thriller and films, although they have a minimum age rating they don't have a maximum which means that older people would watch my film if I appealed to them and their personal interests.
Results for Question 2 - 'Are you male or female?'
My results aren't gender biased as the results were equal given that 10 of the participants were male and 11 were female. The 2 younger partakers, between the ages of 12-15 were both males and answered in the third question as thrillers not being their first choice of film genre which furthers my decision as appropriate that they are not my primary audience. Stereotypically, you could say that females are more likely to watch romantic comedy films whereas males are the primary audience for horror and action films but in fact, gender is not a main factor in films as much anymore, especially for an older audience, as both males and females watch a variety of different film genres - they usually decide what to watch based on how good the trailer for the film is.
Results for Question 3 - 'Do you enjoy watching thriller films?'
Out of all participants, only 1 said that they did not enjoy watching thriller films. This figure isn't big enough to be concerning at all and therefore it does not affect my results.
15 said that they did enjoy watching thriller films and 5 said they did but it wasn't there first choice. The 5 that answered that thrillers weren't their first choice also doesn't concern me as they clearly do like watching thrillers and so are still an audience to target.
Results for Question 4 - 'Do you watch a film's trailer before going to see the movie at the cinema?'
The results for this question were extremely helpful; 19 out of the 21 respondents said that they watch a films trailer before they go and see it at the cinema. None of the participants said that they do not watch a films trailer meaning that trailers are obviously an important element in peoples decisions to go see a film at the cinema. Only 2 people answered with 'sometimes' and these were both in the 12-15 category - this supports my idea that younger audiences don't fully understand the concept of trailers and usually go see a film just for fun and therefore pick any without any previous knowledge on it.
Results for Question 5 - 'Do you judge a film based on its trailer?'
17 people answered yes for this question, 1 no and 3 sometimes. This is a varied response although clearly the most popular answer is yes. The age of the respondents that answered 'yes' were all between the ages of 15-22 and over. This supports my idea of having a slightly older audience as they are more mature and will more than likely understand the narrative that I present in my trailer unlike younger people.
Results for Question 6 - 'In terms of a thriller, what do you expect to see in the trailer?'
There were a variety of answers for this question and all of them were in text format so I have listed all the answers in separate screenshots below.
From looking at all the comments I have concluded that I am going to make my trailer an age certificate 15 - this will give my trailer the best chance at being successful as older audiences will be able to follow the narrative and I will have the opportunity to include more mature themes within. I am not going to put a maximum age on my target audience specification because when it comes to films age is not a problem in terms of older age, not like it is with younger people. Therefore I will be targeting my trailer and ancillary products at males and females aged 15 upwards.
Additionally, once this survey has taken place I plan to send out another questionnaire or conduct an interview with my chosen group to then find out what conventions them alone want to witness in a thriller trailer, this way I can see what the differences are between all the suggested conventions of different age groups and whether age determines what they expect to see. For example, younger audiences might expect too much from a trailer because they want to see something immediately exciting or not give valid answers due to them not understanding the entire concepts of trailers to start with. Furthermore, another issue with the answers that I might get from a younger audience is that they may not fully understand what the thriller genre entails and can easily expect conventions of action films and horrors to make an appearance.
For this particular survey I received 21 responses which I will analyse below in this post.
Results for Question 1 - 'How old are you?'
As seen from the picture above, I received a relatively varied response from this question. This question was important for me to ask when looking at establishing my target audience because different ages have different perceptions and expectations of thrillers and what they should be/look like.
2 of the respondents were aged 12-15. I made this a category as nobody under the age of 12 should watch thriller as they are mostly certificated as 15's - it is rather rare for a thriller to be a 12A as most of these tend to just be action genres. I have to constantly refer to thriller films as well as the idea of a trailer because my trailer is essentially a thriller film broken down to specific parts to make the film look enticing in a short amount of time and I have to make it look authentic. I would not be able to produce a trailer if I were not looking into thriller films at the same time. Therefore, I will not be aiming my trailer at under 15's although I shall carry on analysing their responses in this post to show why my final decision is best.
Moreover, for the 15-18 category there were 8 answers, the 19-22 group had 6 responses and the over 22 category also got 6 responses.
Something I am taking into consideration is that the ages 18-22 are similar ages in that the respondents are all young adults and they tend to act similar and have similar lifestyle habits and in the context of films and trailer, they are open to all genres and thrillers are appropriate for them to watch.
Also, I made an over 22 category as people over the age of 22 obviously watch thriller and films, although they have a minimum age rating they don't have a maximum which means that older people would watch my film if I appealed to them and their personal interests.
Results for Question 2 - 'Are you male or female?'
Results for Question 3 - 'Do you enjoy watching thriller films?'
15 said that they did enjoy watching thriller films and 5 said they did but it wasn't there first choice. The 5 that answered that thrillers weren't their first choice also doesn't concern me as they clearly do like watching thrillers and so are still an audience to target.
Results for Question 4 - 'Do you watch a film's trailer before going to see the movie at the cinema?'
The results for this question were extremely helpful; 19 out of the 21 respondents said that they watch a films trailer before they go and see it at the cinema. None of the participants said that they do not watch a films trailer meaning that trailers are obviously an important element in peoples decisions to go see a film at the cinema. Only 2 people answered with 'sometimes' and these were both in the 12-15 category - this supports my idea that younger audiences don't fully understand the concept of trailers and usually go see a film just for fun and therefore pick any without any previous knowledge on it.
Results for Question 5 - 'Do you judge a film based on its trailer?'
17 people answered yes for this question, 1 no and 3 sometimes. This is a varied response although clearly the most popular answer is yes. The age of the respondents that answered 'yes' were all between the ages of 15-22 and over. This supports my idea of having a slightly older audience as they are more mature and will more than likely understand the narrative that I present in my trailer unlike younger people.
Results for Question 6 - 'In terms of a thriller, what do you expect to see in the trailer?'
There were a variety of answers for this question and all of them were in text format so I have listed all the answers in separate screenshots below.
Friday, 21 November 2014
Audience Theories
Considering that I have now determined my genre, I can focus on choosing the right audience to target. To achieve this I have decided to look into some audience theories, focusing on why audiences use the media texts and the dangers of them. This will help give me some detailed information on audience theories that I could apply to my work.
**add reception THEORY
**add reception THEORY
Friday, 14 November 2014
Public Survey - Film & Trailer Conventions
I used a website called SurveyMonkey to create a short questionnaire consisting of 3 questions.
I only needed a small amount of responses for this survey as I just wanted to get an idea of some of the conventions that real people expect to see within film trailers, this is why I made the questionnaire short. I also included genre specific questions such as questions 1 and 2 as I haven't chosen my genre yet and therefore the responses for these will help give me an idea of some of the conventions that they expect to see within the genre that they chose. Below are the questions that I asked:
My fellow classmates were my participants that I chose. They are between the ages of 17-18, which I know is a strict age range however I knew that they all had prior knowledge about films and a lot of personal experience with watching them, this meant that I knew their answers would be useful and they know what they are talking about.
After leaving the survey for a couple of days I collected all the respondents answers and analyzed the results which can be seen below.
I only needed a small amount of responses for this survey as I just wanted to get an idea of some of the conventions that real people expect to see within film trailers, this is why I made the questionnaire short. I also included genre specific questions such as questions 1 and 2 as I haven't chosen my genre yet and therefore the responses for these will help give me an idea of some of the conventions that they expect to see within the genre that they chose. Below are the questions that I asked:
My fellow classmates were my participants that I chose. They are between the ages of 17-18, which I know is a strict age range however I knew that they all had prior knowledge about films and a lot of personal experience with watching them, this meant that I knew their answers would be useful and they know what they are talking about.
After leaving the survey for a couple of days I collected all the respondents answers and analyzed the results which can be seen below.
 |
As we can see, out of 12 participants, 7 chose horror/thriller, 2 chose romantic comedies, 2 chose animated films, 2 chose comedies and a further 3 chose action. From this we can gather that the horror/thriller genre is the most popular within the 17-18 age range. This is something that I need to take into consideration as these two ages will more than likely be included in my target audience.
 |
| Here are some of the respondents answers to the final question about what they expect to find within a film trailer. Some of the responses were aimed at particular genre however most of them were for trailers in general. I can see clearly from these results what this group of people expect to find within a film trailer. |
There is a variety of answers although their is a common ground between them all. The re-occuring conventions that were mentioned were:
- Show some of the best scenes but not so many that it gives away the story line.
- Name of the film at the end of the trailer.
- A soundtrack featuring music conventional to that genre of film.
- Name of the actors.
Because of these I feel like these chosen conventions need to be highlighted by myself as this group all think that these particular things should be included.
My survey has helped me immensely as I now have some real life audience feedback and know what the most important things clearly are for my trailer. I will take these results into careful consideration as I will have to think about incorporating these conventions into my own work when I finally decide on my genre and target market.
My survey has helped me immensely as I now have some real life audience feedback and know what the most important things clearly are for my trailer. I will take these results into careful consideration as I will have to think about incorporating these conventions into my own work when I finally decide on my genre and target market.
Saturday, 8 November 2014
Action Plan (8th Nov - 15th Nov)
I decided to create a timeline in the form of another action plan to help me view the posts I plan to work on in the upcoming week. The action plan shows my ideas of partaking in surveys with society to get some audience feedback. I plan on doing these surveys on the conventions of trailers as this will give me a strong idea of what audiences expect to see within all trailers rather than just genre specific. After this I will be able to chose the conventions that apply to the genre that I end up deciding on as well as offering another survey out which will be a great help as the results at this point will be specifically just from my target audience.
Alongside these posts, I have planned to finish my last analysis's on existing trailers, Once my existing trailer research is finished I will conclude on what I have found out and how this information has helped me as well as choosing my genre. Once my genre is chosen I can begin research which is genre specific and this will lead me nicely into the beginning of my ancillary products research also. My plan is due to start on the 8th November and I am going to continue to finish all these posts by the deadline of 15th November.
Alongside these posts, I have planned to finish my last analysis's on existing trailers, Once my existing trailer research is finished I will conclude on what I have found out and how this information has helped me as well as choosing my genre. Once my genre is chosen I can begin research which is genre specific and this will lead me nicely into the beginning of my ancillary products research also. My plan is due to start on the 8th November and I am going to continue to finish all these posts by the deadline of 15th November.
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