Script Ideas

Here I want to make note of the intial ideas I had over what speech I want to have during my teaser trailer.

My first idea was to start my teaser trailer with a either my studio logo or a black screen accompanied by the speech between the producer of the Reality TV show and the woman he asking to be a part of it...

Producer: ''I'm creating a new reality show.''
Woman: ''OK?''
Producer: ''I want you to be a part of it..''

I feel that this sums up the key theme of what the film is about at the same time as creating alot of intrigue because it is only speech over a black screen meaning the focus is entirely on what they are saying. This is a similar technique to that used at the beginning of I Am Legend where you can hear the speech of the characters but on screen is the studio logos.

Initially I wanted the majority of the teaser (i.e the middle section) to be based on visuals so certain shots that give hints to the storyline whilst being accompanied by the increasing speed of sound from either computer clicks, keyboard noise or the sound of electronical computers to represent the technological side behind the reality show for example the huge amount of editing that goes into it.

My next idea for speech was towards the end of the teaser...

Woman: (screaming) ''This is not what i signed up for!''
Producer: (shouting) ''This is exactly what you signed up for, it's a reality show on you, all of you!''

I want to now make a storyboard and then a animatic to have the ability to visualise my ideas. During this I might change what I hve expressed in this post but I now have ideas to work on.

SCRIPT UPDATE:

After recording the script as a dummy run and playing it to a sample of my target group I got feedback that the speech as a sound was too complicated - at first I didn't entirely understand what they meant but researching further into teaser trailers I realised that alot of them take speech from the original movie and cut it to make the information shorter and easier to digest by the audience. So in theory the full feature film would still include my original script but for the purposes of the teaser trailer the speech is shortened.

I have changed:
Producer: ''I'm making a new reality show.''
Woman: ''OK?''
Producer: ''I want you in it..''

to:
Producer: ''I'm creating a new reality show.''
Woman: ''OK?''
Producer: ''I want you to be a part of it..''

AND

Woman: (screaming) ''This is not what i signed up for!''
Producer: (shouting) ''This is exactly what you signed up for, it's a reality show on you, all of you!''

to:
Woman: (screaming) ''I didn't sign up for this!''
Producer: (shouting) ''It's a show on you, all of you!''

Film Classifications

The themes concerning my trailer has given me the initial idea that it would either be classed as a 15 or an 18 so in this post I am going to research into the two classifications to see which one suits my teaser the best. The first is a table that I made showing what is permitted and what is unacceptable in terms of the 15 classification certificate.

Next is brief information including a bullet point list on the 18 classification certificate I have put together.

Most 18's are allowed to include strong references to the themes discussed in the 15 certificate. The following areas, however, are completely unacceptable:

• Where material is in breach of criminal law or created through criminal offence.
• When material appears to risk harm to individuals or, through their behaviour to society e.g. detail portrayal that may harm morals such as eroticising sexual assault.

18's are permitted to include sexual material as long as it seeks to inform/educate in matters such as seuxality, safer sex, health etc. 

Taking into account these two certificates I have decided that my teaser will advertise a feature film that would theoretically be an 15. Obviously my teaser will not portray this certificate explicitly in hope that this would stop any restrictions in terms of exhibition. Whilst my research shows that an 18-29 year old market suits the audience for my teaser, holding a 15 certificate stops it from isolating any other audience ages above 15. 

The Thriller Genre

Thrillers must...

• Stimulate the viewer's mind using techniques such as anticipation, heightened expectation, tension, suspense etc.
• Keep the audience at the ''edge of their seats'' as the plot builds towards a climax.

Whilst researching into other conventions of a thriller I found out that they often portray the world very negatively making it seem dark and corrupt. My particular sub-genre of thriller; Psychological Thriller, is based on mental and emotional conflict rather than physical.

Themes in a Psychological Thriller...

• Mind – Human consciousness; the location for thought, memory, intelligence and emotion. The mind is often used as a location for narrative conflict, where characters battle their own minds to reach a new level of understanding or perception.
• Reality – The quality of being real. Characters often try to determine what is true and what is not within the narrative.
• Perception – A person's own interpretation of the world around him through his senses. Often characters misperceive the world around them, or their perceptions are altered by outside factors within the narrative.

These themes relate closely to the storyline I am trying to portay in my teaser. Portraying these with the series of shots/signifiers during my teaser will allow the audience interested in this particular genre to know that this film is right for them. As my market research has shown, storyline is key to attract the interest of my audience and therefore exploring into how I can show Perception, Reality and Mind whilst also sticking to the themes of a thriller is vital to the success of my teaser.

Questionnaire Results - Confirming Thriller Choice

One question I asked was in aim to confirm my choice of thriller. Out of the 4 different types my choice of Psychological was actually the most popular with over half of both males and females put together choosing it as their preferred choice. The second most popular was Technology thriller and whilst putting this particular choice into my questionnaire I realised that my teaser for film holds certain conventions of techno-thrillers such as the heavy use of technology based around reality TV and it being a key theme of post-modernism noted by theorist James Francois Lyotard but in the same respect this trailer exploits the negatives of this: the idea of being watched all the time in this day and age.

This has therefore coming second most popular has confirmed the combination of thriller genres that my teaser will aim to portray.

Questionnaire Results - What to include in teaser

Because of the popularity that the Thriller genre had with both females and males I have plotted both of their results in one pie chart to answer what would raise their interest in a teaser trailer as one target group.

The thing they felt would raise their interest the most was actually the effect of creating suspense which is a very popular technique I have discovered with the teasers I have deconstructed. The second most popular thing was storyline which will be the technique of providing the audience with clues to what genre the film is or hints as to what themes and plots their are within the full film. Music and Sound was the next most popular answer followed by Cast and Action. This would make me think that it is perhaps more the effect of the trailer that raises interest with audiences rather than who they see is in it, especially within a short 30-60 second clip.

Conclusion

• Creating suspense will ultimately raise the most interest with my target audience. 
• The clues to the storyline is very important to allow my target audience to know what they could be watching if they are to see the film. 
• Music and Sound also plays an important part in grabbing the attention of my audience, something I have seen done with teasers for 2012, Inception etc. where music helps to tell the story whilst also creating suspense. This is almost the point that will help the first 2 - Suspense and Storyline.
• It seems that the studio, director and distributor were not main selling points for my target audience. This works well as the film would have an independent background so these would not be the selling points the same way they are for Warner Bros films.

Questionnaire Results - Genre & Gender Audience

Conclusion

It is clear to see the differences between which genres are more favourable with each gender. For females, the most popular genre is Romantic Comedy followed by Thriller and then Comedy. The least popular were Documentary and Sci-Fi Adventure and Comedy didn't perform horendously bad but the key thing I wanted to take from these results for females is that Thriller is still a popular genre even if it didn't perform as the best. Because those who answered this questionnaire had to choose 3 genres each, thriller being chosen 25 times means that at least half of the females that answered chose it as one of their 3.

For males, Thriller actually performed as the most popular genre being chosen 37 times for one of the 3 genres that were my target groups favourite. Action was second popular for the boys followed closely by again, Comedy. Because Thriller was more popular with both genders than I had expected it has altered what I thought would be a male target audience alone.

After researching into the audiences of thrillers throughout the past century using IMDB, this sample research has slightly contradicted this and those who I have asked in the age group I am aiming for, Thrillers seem to be more popular to females than shown in the audience for figures on IMDB. However I have to take into account that those figures shown on IMDB are users of the site and are therefore the types of people who feel the need to rate the film and are more fans of media in general rather than just someone who has watched the film. I also have to take into account that the market research I have conducted is with only a sample of 100 people all in the same locational area and therefore this cant be heavily relied on.

My conclusion is that my audience would include both males and females however taking into account the storyline and features within my film I believe a thriller based on reality TV and the celebrity culture would primarily reach a female audience. However, I also have to realise that the history of thriller's audience demographics indicate a popularity with males meaning there would still be a large fraction of males within my audience that I would be aiming my trailer at.

Questionnaire Results - Exhibition

I sampled my questionnaire with a group of 100 (50 male/50 female) that suited the target age I was intially going for which is 18-30 and then plotted the results into individual pie charts so I could look at the answers as a percentage. I haven't plotted results for each gender as I could see from my results as frequency charts that the most popular answers were agreed with both males and females. 

The first question from my questionnaire that I wanted to focus on was where my target audience actually watched most of their films? The outcome was that 36% of the results watched the majority of their films at the cinema followed by TV then DVD being the most popular forms of watching Films. The least popular format for watching films was online via sites such as YouTube, Channel 4 and LoveFilm.

However, when asking how often my target audience go to the cinema the majority (at 35%) only went once every few months. But altogether 53% went at least once a month or more including 12% that went once a week. 

A really important question I asked my target audience was where they view trailers the most; this came back as a majority (32%) watching them via YouTube as well as 18% watching them at the cinema. Formats such as DVD, TV and online Trailer Websites were less popular.

 I also wanted to confirm with my target audience that trailers shown before a film persuaded them to see the feature length film. As you can see 86% said that this was.

Conclusion


These results have confirmed the formats of exhibition that would be most suited for my trailers.

With a majority of my target audience watching films at Cinema I notice that this is one of the most popular routes to take for exhibiting a trailer. As well as this the results came back that the trailers that my target audience view before a film whether it's on DVD, at the Cinema or via online methods do persuade them to see the entire film if including the qualities that attract them the most.

However, when asking people where they view most trailers the most popular method was YouTube which hints that perhaps those out of my target audience that are avid cinema-goers either don't pay attention to the trailers or arrive after the majority of trailers have finished.

Postmodern References Market Research

To ensure I wasn’t referencing/paying homage to styles that would not be recognised by my target audience I conducted some market research. I asked them two questions, one asking them if they would recognise a reference to George Orwell’s Room 101 and another asking them if they would recognise fly on the wall style angles from Reality TV/Documentaries such as Big Brother and Channel 4’s The Family. As you can see from the question and their tallies I have put together from the results below the majority from my target group sample said they would not recognise the references to ‘Room 101’ but they would recognise the fly on the wall angles I want to use.

Conclusion: This market research has altered my decisions in what I want to reference and whilst I will continue to borrow interest into reality TV by ensuring that they recognise the fly on the wall style it is clear that the reference to Room 101 as a House No. would be lost to the majority of my target audience. 

Reality Show Iconics - Stylistic Conventions

Here I have print screened some shots from reality TV shows The only way is Essex, Made in Chelsea, The Hills and Big Brother to show some of the similar stylistic conventions of all four. The top two photos show the establishing shots used in Made in Chelsea and also The Hills, as you can see both use text devices to give factual and locational information about where the scenes are set.

In the bottom four photos you can see that a shot has been provided from each reality show and eachone again used a text device but this time to introduce the characters that are in these scenes. The Hills has done this since it's beginning in 2006 and this style was then adopted by the creators of The only way is Essex in 2010 and those of Made in Chelsea in 2011. Big Brother has also only just adopted this technique in its recent series on new channel 'Channel 5'.

These stylistic conventions are therefore very familiar to the genre of reality TV and my idea was to somehow incorporate this in some of the shots within my trailer to again emphasize the theme of reality TV within it. These sort of styles will attract a wider audience than just those interested in a thirller because people who are avid watchers of reality TV will recgonize them and therefore I will have borrowed their interest by capturing it in my teaser.

As you can see the angles are very high, often in the corner and on the diagonal often used in shows such as Big Brother and I'm a Celebrity get me out of here as well as for day to day life in the positioning of security cameras. Therefore these angles hold connotations of unobtrusive camera work often implying that the people being watched are unaware. It creates the fly on the wall documentary style that I want to incorporate in my teaser trailer.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, after looking into the software that is available to me I am unable to add text over images - to stop this from being a problem I will focus on stylistic conventions that I have already looked at such as the Big Brother angles.

Reality Show Iconic - Big Brother [& discussion into my teasers postmodern message]

Modern Reality TV show Big Brother takes its name from the famous film '1984'. The original version of this film directed by Michael Anderson in 1956 showed the poster above as a propaganda technique for the plot of the film. The film is based on a book written by George Orwell in 1949 which also had a second film adaptation in the year 1984. The storyline follows Winston Smith who lives in London under a totalitarian society led by the figure 'Big Brother' which censors everyone's behaviour and even their thoughts. This is very similar to my teasers storyline in which the woman is being watched in ways she did not agree too and the director is 'Big Brother'. 

As well as these posters being an icon from the original adaptation, the book/film is also famous for introducing the room 'Room 101' - a torture chamber in where the leading party in charge subject a prisoner to his or her own worst nightmare, fear or phobia. There have been several references to the idea Room 101 since such as the British TV show Room 101 where celebrities list their pet peeves as well an idea for a task in the 2005 series of Big Brother and more recently an idea for the episode The God Complex in the 2011 series of Doctor Who. My idea was to reference the number 101 somewhere in my teaser for example, the house number for where the woman lives - therefore her greatest phobia being her fear of entire exposure and this fear being located in her home (Room 101).

Using these iconic references as inspiration for my teaser will help to reveal it's themes/messages but also pay homage to the films' storyline in which a utopian society is only found through 'following a grand-narrative - a dictatorship'. Lyotards' theory of post-modernism describes it as an era that declines these grand-narratives and instead focuses on micro-narratives. Therefore post-modernism can be seen as declining the society presented in the film '1984'. However, my teaser is about a film that attempts to exploit the truth about reality TV, a product of Postmodernism. Like I have said before, modern Reality TV is often scripted or manipulated whilst focusing on themes such as glamour and appearance. I see Reality TV as its own grand-narrative as it falsely entices its consumers on what can be seen as a prime example of Baudrillard's theory of hyperreality - the idea that we only experience prepared realities such as edited war footage, tabloid talk shows and my own focus; Reality TV.

By adopting my own postmodern techniques such as paying homage to previous films and adopting it's styles for inspiration I am taking the discussion further into Baudrillard's theories and his ideas of simulation and simulacra - the process in which representations of things come to replace the things being represented. This would beg the question whether postmodernism is positive or negative because...

• Products of the era such as Reality TV are examples of hyperreality being falsely presented
• My teaser itself is presenting this question through it's own technique of postmodernism - simulacrum.

UPDATE: Click this LINK to see an update on this research after market research