With a teaser trailer the most important rule is to obviously be able to tease your target audience. If it’s for romance or horror, the key factor is to keep the target audience guessing as they already have an idea on what to expect. It is very important to keep them engaged within in the trailer but still on edge about it.
The sound and music is a vital convention of a teaser trailer as it attracts the target audience and it sets the genre of the film even if no scenes from the movie hasn’t been shown in the trailer as yet. A teaser trailer doesn’t give much away from the clips of scenes used. Some would say less is more. Most teaser trailers use text in between the shots for the target audience to focus on. A typical teaser trailer starts off slow by building the action up then when it reaches its point, the clips of the action speeds up. This is so that when the target audience is already engaged in the trailer they are then caught in with all that’s going on which then puts them on edge.
Saw 3D can be determined as an actual horror movie teaser trailer as it does tease the audience and it contains the conventions of what one would include. The trailer for saw 3D has defined the great use of captions in between the scenes shown. It allows the target audience to be engaged with some of the action but the trailer doesn’t reveal what will happen next and so it takes us away from it with the captions used. One of the last shots is of the title ‘Saw 3D,’ it is presented by there being a scene of mechanical devices leading up to the title. This refers to the film itself and what the last caption says’s at the end of the trailer ‘the traps come alive’.
Some might say that the teaser trailer is mainly for established viewers as there is a reference to it from the voice over ‘ All my work has been leading to this’, plus the captions between the shots make up this sentence ‘Every master craftsman - And all true geniuses – Always save their best – For last’. The captions and voice over for this particular horror film is part of the convention as it intrigues the target audience, especially the established viewers as they know what’s happened before in the previous films and now they are be engaged in something new. This is also a benefit for new audiences, there is even a reference to it ‘You haven’t seen anything yet’. It’s not so much a carry on from the other films but it does have the same genre and main context.
The way that the trailer shots are presented, really does tease as it starts off slow for the first 30 seconds as it is setting everything in place and the viewers can get some idea of what the film is about. When the music and action speeds up, we see what is going on and we our caught up with the adrenaline of the teaser trailer as we don’t know what will happen next with the people and the traps.
Paranormal activity 2 is a horror movie but is different from Saw 3D, so the conventions for this trailer will be different. After watching the teaser trailer, you get the idea that it is more psychological. It keeps us waiting and guessing throughout the trailer. The sound used adds to the concept of keeping us on edge. From the start of the trailer we hear what seems to be a heart beating. This engages us within the trailer as we have the felling of our heart beating. The teaser trailer also engages us within by showing clips of the audience and their reaction. This allows the audience for the trailer to see how we are supposed to act; we are feared by other peoples fear.
We only see a bit of action and the rest is just relying on how the effect of the open spaces and how they create a sense of fear due to the fact that we are expecting something to happen or jump out at us. This does happen when in the first part of the trailer, after the man is thrown from a distance on the camera, we are waiting for something to happening, and we know something is going to happen but that is what scares the audience. The fear of the unknown.
Like Saw 3D, Paranormal Activity 2 shows clips from the movie but then cuts to the captions. However as the form of the teaser trailer is set in security camera perspective there are digital interferences between shots rather than captions. The only caption/text that this trailer has in the duration is after the man is thrown across on to the camera there is just a simple normal font that says ‘In 2009 you demanded it’. Sometimes simplicity is all that is needed for the effect of the production.
A key convention is not to give too much away and this trailer lives up to it. It doesn’t define any characters and all that is known for the audience is the genre and presence of the film. Again like Saw 3D this trailer may be aimed at established viewers as it makes reference to it in one of the captions. However it does apply to new viewers because it doesn’t make any reference that there is a need to have seen the first film.
When making my own teaser trailer the key is to not give away too much of the film and create fears by using the other conventions. For example, the sound/music and the speed of the shots. After viewing both of these teaser trailers I hope to use the conventions of horror in my own work like Paranormal Activity 2 and Saw 3D.
Saw 3D Teaser Trailer
Paranormal Activity 2 Teaser Trailer
No comments:
Post a Comment