Researching film trailers

Research into film trailers

After having decided to film a trailer I knew that I needed to gain some background knowledge on successful trailers to see what they done to make it a success .It would allow me to see what attracted me and gained my attention the most to give me an inspiration for my own trailer. I had an idea on what genre I wanted my trailer to be and therefore watched two trailers within that genre. This would allow me to know what conventions were common between the two trailers within that genre and what were different.

Film trailers are extremely important as the trailer is what captures the audiences attention about the content of the film.

Thriller sub-genres:

• Psychological thriller
• Political thriller
• Techno thriller
• Spy thriller
• Supernatural thriller
• Conspiracy thriller
• Legal thriller
• Erotic thriller
• Crime thriller

Within the sub-genres there was a specific convention that in included within the film which is action.

The trailers I had watched were “Free-fall” and “Taken 2”. The conventions I saw were that it starts of with something that catches the eye straight away, for example a car crashing or sudden darkness, something that gains the audiences attention. They tend to use landscape pan motions that show what city they are in, which could be used as an establishing shot. This is done numerous times within the trailers I had viewed showing it is a common convention. There is also undoubtedly action, such as fighting or use of weapons, this is popular for fans of this genre as the action scenes is was they enjoy most. Nearer into the trailer once things become more tense the lighting dramatically becomes darker to create an atmosphere that represents the mood and story line of the film. The orchestral music also can be tense to help create the effect of thriller as the louder and quicker the music changes, the most aroused it makes the viewers with anticipation of what will happen next in the film. Lastly another convention I had noticed within the trailers is that there are occasions where there is a black screen with writing to give the audience more of an understanding of the film, however this may be due to having less footage and including text that would explain the story behind the film a bit more.