Task 3:

Purpose of a trailer:

A trailer is essentially a form of advertisement for a movie that uses the visuals of a movie in order to encourage people to see the movie when it comes out in the cinema. It is an integral part of advertisement and screened all over, both in cinema and on television, taking footage from the movie in order to tease the movie and get people interested in their product. The trailers are made to appeal to a certain audience, showing things they would be interested in. American trailers often seem more praise full to the military opposed to European trailers. We see an example of this is the Kong (2017) trailer, in which the American trailer is a lot more focused on the military and action scenes. While the European one is more comedic. Teenage movies have quicker paced trailers, and more of a focus on the front end of the trailer, to capture their attention quickly on sites where ads are skiable such as youtube. A trailer may put focus on certain actors, as they are well known and will bring more people to see the movie, for instance, Kong (2017) has a few notable actors, including Samuel Jackson, and Tom Hiddleston. Regardless of their actual input into the movie and screen time, the trailer will heavily feature them as the studios know that they will bring people in to watch the trailer and eventually the movie from star power alone.

Identifiable titleFilm titles and typeface are an important part of movie trailers, as a convention they are more required than a “trend”, as they not only provides the title for the film, a must have if you want people to go see it, but can also set the tone for the movie. For an example we can see Kong: Skull Island’s trailer shows us the logo for Kong, large, rough, stone and bold, this conventionally indicates that the movie will be more action orientated. As well as this, the markings on the stone are indicative of a moment within the trailer where the main characters find stone

paintings with Kong’s face. Having the title be in all capitals means that It emphasis the title and makes it more evident for viewer that this is going to be a “strong” action movie. Genre changing the style of the title is a common convention, for instance, A horror film will often have a “scarier” logo, oftentimes less clinical and more random, sometimes it alludes to moments or ideas within the movie, If we look at “Rings”, a 2017 horror movie, we can see that the title is more ragged, as if it has been scratched in (once again alluding to an idea in the trailer, where the girl has starched messages in with her nails), and the title has the titular “ring” behind it. We can see that this trailers title is conventional as it reflects the movies tone, and alludes to ideas within the trailer. Another horror trailer that does this is is the recent trailer for “Alien: covenant” The backgrounds are both black, a common convention for this kind of movie, both with white text contrasting against the black background, again a convention as it puts focus on the title and creates stark contrast that’s slightly unnerving. Alien’s title features it letters far apart, as they slowly drift towards each other, indicating to the audience that this takes place in space, and these letters are in low gravity.

Company logosFilm production Logos feature in the trailer and show the viewer what production companies have worked on this film, this is helpful for advertising not only the film, but the company, and if the film is good, encourages people to see others by the same production company. For instance, warner brothers has a reputation for making good movies, thus film goers would be more likely to see a film if it has the Warner Bros. Logo in front of it, assuming the trend of good movies will continue. In the Kong trailer, the Film production Logo is woven into the trailer. Using the motif of a military photo projector to show each of the logos, inferring that this is a “Vietnam” style movie, As well as this, the logo used by Warner brothers is the one used in 1973, the era that the movie is set in, The Logos then Segway well into the actual

footage from the movie . This fast paced style works with the movie genre, making it a convention

In “Rings”, we see a similar convention, where the company logo changes to suit the genre. As ring is a horror movie, the logo changes accordingly, in this case, paramount’s iconic stars are replaced by the titular ring in a flash of static, alluding to “Ring’s” use of video tapes.

Music and other soundUse of music and sounds in trailers are very important. In Kong, we see they use the Song “bad moon rising”. This is a good choice for many reasons, for one it covers the idea that there is something “bad” on the horizon, trouble is “on the way”, it indicates that while things may seem okay now, something is about to go wrong, as it does in the trailer. Another reason why it is a good choice is its correlation with the Vietnam War. American soldiers in Vietnam would listen to American songs to get them riled up, this is one of the songs they listened too, making sense considering that this focuses on America soldiers in the era of the Vietnam War. When Kong shows us, the music cuts out, the “Bad Moon” alluded too in the song has arrived, breaking the helicopters they arrive in and stranding the group on skull island. Having popular songs is a common convention of trailers, as well as setting a recognisable mood, it makes people more likely to watch the trailer, simply to listen to the song. When “Bad Moon rising” stops, its replaced by a constant high pitched pedal (drone) note, and high pitched siren noises. These siren noises not only indicate the panic of the group, but that particular siren is often associated with other giant monsters, such as those seen in Godzilla or Pacific Rim, adding to the general theme of these giant monsters, making it a convention for this kind of action movie. In rings, the music is conventional for the genre, its high pitched and ghostly, making use of a choir to invoke religious/satanic imagery within the trailer, indicating to its viewership that this is meant to be a horror movie. In the background of these high string, the words “seven days” are repeated, indicating to both the audience that there are seven days in this film, and that the idea of

only being alive for seven days is on the main characters mind. This is unconventional for a horror movie, as it slightly under shadows the dialogue, but it is definitely scary. Both Trailers contain both diatonic and non-diatonic sound. As well as Synchronous and Asynchronous sound. Each trailer has a voiceover, we see this in kong, where the characters are explaining the mission as they set off, and in Rings, where the boyfriend is explaining the concept of the tape to his girlfriend. As they are voiceovers, they are both examples of Asynchronous sound, as we don’t see who is talking, voiceovers are also a convention of trailers, as they are a good way to shove exposition on the viewer.

Age certificationA common convention of trailers is to show the age certification, age certification is the recommended age of watching the movie, In the UK, the films ratings are decided by the British Board of Film Classification, who view the movie and decide from its content, what age rating it should be. In the trailer for “Kong: Skull island”, the age rating is notably not present. This is likely because it is yet to be rated, as the BBFC has yet to watch it and decide its rating. This is a common convention in trailers, while all movies must be rated eventually, by having the trailer un-rated, it can attract an audience it’s technically not supposed to, those too young to watch it, and thus will make more money by attracting this younger audience into the cinema. This same principle applies to “Rings”, where there is also no age rating, despite it likely being intended for older audiences, considering its graphic horror content. As well as this the first trailer will rarely be rated simply because the movie would not be ready to be viewed yet.

Social media informationWhile this is a more modern convention, most trailers will include some sort of directory to a form of social media. This will allow the audience to go onto the internet and talk about the trailer, this generates more hype for the movie, and means more people will eventually be made aware of the movies existence. This type. We can see two different types of this with “Kong”, and “Rings”. In Kong, we see that the trailer shows how you can follow the movie on most forms of social media, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. While on the other hand, Rings does not have any Social media links, but includes the web address to the movies website, where you can find out more information. We can see that the social media aspects are aimed more towards the younger generations, and the website are more focused towards older audiences. This is why Rings, the horror movie with a higher age rating focuses on the website instead of any particular social media site.

CreditsStudio information is vital to a film’s success and also the growth of a company and that company’s reputation, if they are not shown in the right way then they will not attract viewers and the company’s reputation will take a drop thanks to that. The credits often show up spread throughout the trailer, as the start and end of a trailer is when the viewer is least interested. Cast and credit is used to showcase the actors that are involved in the film, as well as the directors and producers, the main reason for this is popularity. Well known studios have fans much like actors and directors do, so putting who is responsible for the film in a trailer will attract viewers who are fans of them. For instance, in Kong, we can see the trailer says “from the makers of Godzilla”, to anybody who watched Godzilla and enjoyed it, this would help make the decision to go see the movie.It is quite unconventional to not have credits in a trailer, but if the director or writer has very little to their name, and thus won’t bring in views, sometimes the trailer will opt to not mention them. None of the production crew on Rings are mentioned in the trailer, as the director and writer have done very little directorial work, even less of it in English, meaning they have little to no renown and there would be no benefit to having their names on the trailer.

Release dateA common, almost essential convention is to put the date, or at least an estimate of the date, of the point at which the film is going to be released. We see to the left both Rings and Kong have the month they are going to be released, with Kong simply stating the month, and rings giving the exact date. This is important for obvious reasons, it tells the viewer when they will be able to see the movie, as the trailers rarely come out when the movie is available. It also helps generate hype, as knowing when the movie comes out means people will book tickets pre-emptively, meaning more viewers, and more money. We can see that sometimes studios will arrange a film’s release date so that it coincides with real world events. Friday the 13th, seen in the bottom right of those pictures, was released on Friday the 13th of February to coincide with both the title of the movie, and the date at which the

movie is set. As well as this, Rings is released on October 28th, very near Halloween, a time traditionally associated with horror movies, this means the movie will have more people view it, as those who want to see horror movies on Halloween will go to see a horror movie such as Rings. Kongs release date is on march, the same month all other classic king kong movies were released on.

Narrative theory

Tottorov’s narrative theory says that there are five elements to any narrative. First, there is an equilibrium, calm, all is as it should be. Then there is a disruption of that order by an event. The third is the recognition that the disorder has occurred. The fourth is the attempt to repair the disruption, and the fifth is the return of the equilibrium, or a new equilibrium. An example of this would be Star wars1) Luke lives at home with his aunt and uncle 2) Storm troopers invade Luke’s home planet to find the droids 3) Luke returns home and finds his family dead by the hand of the storm troopers4) Luke goes to destroy the death star5) The death star is destroyed by Luke, saving the galaxy (until the next movie).We can see trailers to not need to follow this narrative structure. Conventionally, a trailer will only include the first four parts of the narrative structure, showing the build-up, but not the resolution, in order to avoid spoiling the story as a whole. We see an example of narrative structure in the trailer for Kong.

1) The army goes on a standard mission to bomb the island to investigate it

2) Kong get angry at the army for attacking his home3) Kong attacks the helicopters4) Various fight scenes

We see that part 4 is left dubious at best, we are not entirely sure what the goal of the characters are in this movie, and we just know the cause of conflicts. We can see that part 5 is entirely missing as it does not want to spoil us on the events of the movie, giving us no reason to see it in cinema.