Teaser Trailer - First Draft (& Market Research Feedback)

Development of Teaser Trailer

·         Does it create a sense of mystery?

·         Does the pace of the trailer hook you?

·         Has the trailer hooked you enough to interest you without giving too much away?

·         What do you think about the sound?

·         Is the text appropriate for the teaser? (if no, why?)

·         Any other comments? Any improvements? Anything you don’t like?

After putting together the clips for my teaser trailer the first time I decided to sample it with some people suited to my predominantly female target audience in the age group of 18-30 as well as a couple of males from that target group. This was with the aim to find out what the group I’m aiming for would change and what they thought was effective therefore ensuring I was reaching my target group effectively. Above you can see the question steers that I felt were appropriate to provoke comments from my market research participants as well as photos of some of them watching and taking part.

As well as doing this I also let my media teacher look at it, even though she is out of my target audience age wise, as she is able to look at it with a media perspective criticising it technically as well as taking into account the aims I am trying to achieve before critiquing it. Below I will summarise the responses I received:

Does it create a sense of mystery?
‘Yes, want to know who the male voice is’ ‘Yes’ ‘Yes…makes me want to watch it to find out [more]’ 

‘Yes – I would watch the film’

Does the pace hook you?

‘Yes, perfect mix of long and short clips and the slight slow motion in some make it look sinister’

‘Slow build then slows down further, this would work if you juxtapose it with some tension building music’

Has it hooked you enough to interest you but not given too much away?

‘Yes’ ‘Yes’ ‘Yes it has hooked me’

What do you think about the sound?

‘Keyboard sound a bit too repetitive, [add] music?’ ‘needs some tension building music when she starts running’ ‘needs some with the lights’ ‘natural sound makes it tense’

‘sound of typing links well with the teaser being based around technology’ ‘some proper music would improve it’

Is the text appropriate for the teaser? (if no, why?)

‘Yes – looks social networky’ ‘could do with being bigger’ ‘gets a bit lost in the rest of the trailer’

Any other comments? Any improvements? Anything you don’t like?

‘female looking at camera – slightly repetitive’ ‘needs a visual with the opening voiceover’ ‘need consistency with colour e.g black + white for all the scenes when camera is watching her’

 ‘needs more dramatic music’ ‘Don’t understand why it cuts from black + white to colour’

Conclusion:

As well as conducting written market research I also recorded a male and a female as examples of my target audience and asked them what they thought the key things they could comment on concerning sound, visuals, text and personal interest. Below you can see that the key things they commented on were almost identical to the stuff that the sample who filled out my questionnaires commented on.

Overall the things commented on multiple times were:

• The shots of the female turning around were too repetitive
• The sound of the keyboard get’s too repetitive towards the end of the trailer
• Sound to accompany the shots of the studio lights
• Visuals to accompany the beginning of the trailer
• Make the black and white effect of the recording shots more consistent

I will now think of ideas to combat these and then re show my trailer to the same people to ensure that I have mate their needs as on a small scale of producing a teaser trailer they represent the needs of my whole target audience

Sound - Foleying

For my teaser trailer an important factor for increasing the tension is the sound I want to use which has meant that foleying is an essential part of my production. Foley is a term that describes the process of live recording of sound effects which can be seen in the picture above where I have recorded the live sound effects of a moving mouse and the typing on a keyboard. These sounds will then be added in post production to enhance the audio for films, however, I have also used the HD camera to record shots of my hands clicking the mouse as well as typing whilst I record the sound. These shots will possibly be added to the final teaser trailer so the sound of the keyboard and the mouse are identifiable because the audience will visualise the sounds being made.

The device I have used to do this is a marantz professional handheld recorder (PMD620) which has an inbuilt stereo condenser microphone perfect for recording high quality sounds. I also used my headphones to plug into the device to get a better idea on any other background noises that might have spoilt the recordings.

Magazine Title Development

After narrowing down my titles to 'TAKE2' and 'CLOSE-UP I have now gone onto looking at font styles that I feel would best suit my film magazine cover taking into consideration the readership I am aiming to attract and the brand identity I want to portray.

Evaluating Fonts:

Segoe UI -

Monotype Corsiva -

Baskerville Old Face - 

To make the right decision in what title to go for and in what font I have printed 25 sheets with this selection of titles and fonts on it and placed tick boxes beside all of them. After handing them out to people within my target audience I then got the sheets back with the individuals favourite title. In conclusion the title that did the best was TAKE2 in a variation of styles. As well as this the bottom fonts in both CLOSE-UP and TAKE2 done the best in comparison to the other fonts.

My next step is to produce both titles into different mock ups although as it stands TAKE2 seems to be the preferred title in the bottom choice of font.

Magazine Title Ideas

STARLET - I thought of this name because the word has a strong affiliation with Hollywood movies as it is given to young actresses with aspirations to become a movie star. Because of these connotations the term will most likely be familiar to women with a strong interest in film and as these women would be the target audience for the magazine it works quite well. The female nature of the word also supports the idea of the magazine drawing in a female readership. However, because of strong affiliation with Hollywood the brand identity of it being a British Female Film Magazine does not come across - in this respect it seems to American for my magazine. The archaic nature of the word 'starlet' is almost too old fashioned for a magazine that is trying to appeal to a modern female audience choosing to buy a magazine based on film rather than gossip, celebrity or solely fashion.

CLOSE-UP - This name is inspired by the cliché of actors and actresses saying 'I'm ready for my close-up' originally from the American film noire 'Sunset Boulevard'. Although the film was American the title alone does not immediately give an American impression. However, I feel that the title could be easily misinterpreted as a fashion and beauty magazine unless I was to make it clear on the cover that the magazine was based on an interest in film. On the other hand, the connotations of beauty and fashion when hearing the title could work in favour if the magazine was also going to include features of this nature.

TAKE2 - Because this phrase is so well known when you think about films being shot I feel that this title is the only one that gives an immediate indication as to the nature of the magazine. I like the fact that there are very few characters/numbers in the title because it would work quite well on the cover giving it a modern and minimalist feel. However, there are no female connotations when hearing the title and as this is a unique selling point (USP) of the magazine it might not work as effectively when attracting my audience.

I have chosen to focus on the titles TAKE2 and CLOSE-UP however I want to carry out a small bit of market research to ensure my target group also like these title choices. Firstly, I need to choose a font suitable so I can show my market research group visuals to ensure I get the most reliable data back.

Exploring into Brand Identity for my Magazine.

Editing/Creating Movie Poster [with Photoshop]

Above are the print screens during the creation of my movie poster. The first thing I did was enlarge the photo I wanted to use to cover the canvas I had created with the specific dimensions of a medium sized movie poster [18x24 inches]. I then added the white strips I chose to use instead of the ‘film strip’ style I initially put on my movie poster mock-up – this was because I felt that they created an old fashioned film, this was also something fed back to me when showing the poster to my class. Instead, the white strips connotate a much more modern style which is perfect in attracting people interested in this type of film. I placed them across the woman’s eyes as well as below her mouth – this was to emphasise the importance of her smile in being part of the reality show juxtaposing the shots of her being watched effectively blind her implying the idea of her ignorance in the film. I then added the titles in a white font similar to the one I am using in my teaser trailer. When opening the photos I want to place on the white strips on Photoshop I inserted a black and white effect adjusting it to make the shadows more prominent and to embolden the blacks in the photos – this was to create more of a darker feel that would juxtapose the coloured photo in the background that I go onto saturating it to suggest a positive feel for the woman in the background.

Here is my final movie poster...

After receiving feedback from the members in my class that fitted my target audience they thought that the initial final poster's juxtaposition did what I intended it to do by hooking their interest- initially they thought it was a happy photo yet the mode of address for the '15 minutes of fame quote' was imagined to be sinister. They felt that the placing of the text underneath the strips of the pictures drew their eye to both these details instantly which is perfect if I were to use transit advertising as my route for exhibition. However, criticism was made over the fact that the photos were uninteresting and did not tell any story - the only positive significance of it was that it emphasised the idea of being watch but it did not hint at the genre of the film being a thriller or the distress that the girl was being caused which is evident in the trailer. So I decided to edit my ''final'' poster...

Second Final Movie Poster

As you can see I have changed the three photos in the lower part of my poster and instead of just using photos I took specifically for the movie poster I used 2 still images from my teaser trailer. Looking again at my movie poster gave me the opportunity to reinstate continuity within my campaign and now viewers of my teaser trailer will recognise the images used in my movie poster and vice versa. I have also told more of a story between the images; now the bottom three increase in tension as she runs down the stairs, runs out the door and finally the full identity in the face of the girl is revealed as vulnerable and suspicious which hints more at the nature of the film and its genre. 

Researching Existing Film Magazine

Whilst researching existing film magazines I came across one that had a female target audience. A cover of one of its issues can be seen above and just by analysing it you can see that they have targeted their audience through quite stereotypical devices. The advertising slogan 'Britain's first women's film magazine' is a recurring feature on it's issues but regularly featuring colours that connotate a feminine readership such as purple and pink. The font used for the logo is very clean cut which paired with the word 'STUDIO' creates a sense of glamour continued with the font used for the cover lines such as  'New Year, New Role?' which is very similar to the font used in leading fashion magazines such as Elle and Vogue. These stereotypical interests of fashion, glamour and sex/relationships are continued throughout the magazine with regular features on these topics as can be seen on the website...

As well as this being stereotypical interests of women it is also a technique of borrowed interest to widen the readership of the magazine. Where most film magazines such as Empire and TotalFilm target a male audience it is not enough for STUDIO to simply reach it's audience by providing it with something that no one else is, instead they have taken the usual features of women's magazines and giving them a 'hollywood/film' angle.

As my market research has shown my film will appeal to males as well as females but as my film features reality TV, the topic of being a celebrity and features a female character as it's protagonist, whilst these might also appeal to males they will primarily reach a female audience. However, creating a film that portrays these features through the thriller genre gives a darker sense to my brand identity, and so adopting a feminine tone as can be seen in STUDIO magazine would send out the wrong message to my audience unless it was made explicit that the type of film the magazine is featuring has effected the features included on the cover such as images and cover lines.