The Retrograde Final Trailer

Evaluation Question 1

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

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Question 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned through audience feedback?

Final Storyboard

Storyboard

The Retrograde Second Draft

This is the second draft to our trailer. We felt really pleased with the overall outcome but eventually decided to cut out some shots due to the audience feedback and to meet the exam criteria.

Poster

This is the portrait example of our trailer. This would be the initial poster seen to promote the film. We thought the effect of the silhouette promoted the genre of the film by increasing the mystery and tension.

This is the landscape version of our poster which would be seen on the side of buses and billboards to promote the film.

Website

Link:http://281158.wix.com/skinnypigproductions

Test Audience Feedback

Here is the feedback we received after showing our initial film trailer, The responses we got were really appreciated and we were so pleased with them.

 As a result, we have made changes to the trailer in order to appeal to criticisms we received. For example, we've changed the font which seemed to be the most common fault, we also concluded that the storyline and ending may appear to be confusing to some viewers but this s because it was still unfinished. The purposed of the trailer is to create an interest and curiosity and so an unclear storyline can only add to this.

Technology

Health and Safety

Font

This is the original text which inspired us to mirror in our film trailer. We saw it whilst analysing one of our film inspirations, 'Taken'.

We liked the font because it appears to be worn and almost rusty, and we felt that this reflected our trailer setting which features mainly in a town/outdoors.

However, after receiving feedback from our first screening, we found that the majority of criticisms were against the font. This made us rethink our inspiration from 'Taken' and we focused on 'Lucy' instead.

We felt that a more simplistic style was needed to reflect the action genre, so we found this font and the feedback we got was much more positive. The sharp text makes it feel more futuristic as well as dangerous which is commonly reflected in our genre.

Certificate Rating

Currently, we have labelled our film trailer as suitable for ages 15 and over. We found that action films usually offer this certificate, however, if we later on choose to include visuals of blood in our trailer than it must be changed to an 18.

Films under this category can contain adult themes, hard drugs, regular use of poor language and limited use of very strong language, strong violence and strong sex references, as well as nudity without graphs detail.

First Draft of Trailer

This is the original trailer we created. It is unfinished because we concluded that it was more similar to a film opening rather than a trailer. We continued to use some of the same shots for our second attempt but placed it in a much less linear sequence.

Music Updated

We have decided to use two different music clips for our trailer, the first being a calm tone to create an equilibrium to the audience and introduce them to the protagonist. The second piece of music is of a much faster pace which creates the tense, dramatic side to the film trailer.

The first clip is 'Apparat Goodbye'

The second clip is 'Kinetik One'

Secession Studios - this is a reply from the youtube channel to a user who wanted to use their music also for a school project. This showed us that we were able to use this music in our trailer.  

Conventions of Genre

Trailer credits

Here is an analysis of three film trailers which gave inspiration to our own project. I have noted down on a time scale, the moments in which the credits of the film appear. The results were each fairly different. 

'In Time' introduces with many cuts to dramatic wording and this is to establish the narrative of the film. It then follows with continued linear cuts, slowly increasing the tension and finishing with the film title at the end. This is a common theme throughout all three so it will be reflected in our trailer.

'Interstellar' and 'Lucy', I found were more similar with their credits, spacing out the text and having less of it. However, 'Interstellar' included only two appearances of dramatic text and I feel this worked effectively so it is a potential method for our trailer.

Behind the Scenes

Voiceover 2

Chatroom Testing

This is the template for our chatroom which we have created. We wanted to use Google Hangout but failed to make it work effectively, therefore, we decided to create our own.

History of the Action Thriller Genre

Social Networking

These are screenshots of our Instagram and Facebook pages for our production company. We thought this would be a good way to promote our trailer as social networking provides a substantial fan base to begin with. On these pages we have been posting 'behind the scenes' images to update our followers on our progress.

History of Action Thriller Genre

Costume/Props

We decided that our protagonist should be dressed in normal clothes despite several films in our genre dressing characters in suits. We chose to avoid this convention so that continuity would be achieved more easily. The costume really depended on Lewie's availability, but we felt that this did not affect the trailer too much as we wanted to show our main character as a normal boy.

What's Next?

The Next Steps:

- Find out Louis' availability
- More filming of the trailer
- Decide on a poster design
- Continue with website design

Poster Inspiration

Poster Designs

We created four poster designs and chose the top right one as our favourite. It reflects our inspiration from the poster of Taken 2 the most and therefore, shows the genre of our trailer. We have decided to create several examples of the poster but each slightly different, for example we will experiment with the size of the title and names of actors. Once we have decided on a font for the text on our trailer, we will use that also on the poster to create a brand.

Test Shots

Here are some test shots before our first initial day filming. The shots indicate the type of quality and positioning which we want to include when we begin the real thing. Using ourselves as the actors, it will help us prepare for our shoot and enable us to be as efficient as possible.

Directors

Alfred Hitchcock: Arguably, the most famous thriller director. Hitchcock is the director of classics such as "Psycho" and "Vertigo". Often nicknamed "The Master of Suspense", he pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. Renowned as England's best director.

Christopher Nolan: Best known for his cerebral, often nonlinear story-telling, acclaimed writer-director Christopher Nolan was born on July 30, 1970 in London, England. Over the course of 15 years of film-making, Nolan has gone from low-budget independent films to working on some of the biggest blockbusters ever made. Nolan probably had the biggest influence on our trailer, as we took inspiration of his films "The Dark Knight" and "Inception"

Clint Eastwood: We were inspired by the trailer for "American Sniper" and we used a lot of aspects that were used in that trailer in ours. We liked the way that the trailer started with a hook that would be revisited later on, but not resolved. Clint is also famous for many other action films and westerns.

Filming Schedule