In this essay, I am going to be writing about the Summer Trailer me and my group made over these past six weeks which is a psychological horror about a girl's fight between the good and evil in side of her. Within a trailer there must be a sense of narrative that allows the audience to catch and understand what the film being advertised will be about. Therefore, without it, a story is not built up and is not as effective on its viewers. This is different in trailers, as a story is not meant to be told, only parts of the plot are put on screen to leave the viewers wanting more and leaving them with unanswered questions.
One of the theories that can be applied to my trailer is the theory of Todorov, however, with trailers, this theory is reversed. For example, a trailer must be a mintage of clips from within the movie, this is so that the audience is left with questions, which watching the full film will then answer. So, in order to do this, it must not follow the set three steps a normal film would, (equilibrium, disequilibrium and resolution) and due to the fact that these cannot be clearly identified in my summer trailer, I believe I have successfully achieved including this theory. This is important, as again as I have explained in my previous paragraph, the viewers do not watch the trailer to find out what happens within the plot, but instead they watch to gain an idea on the type of film they would be watching, therefore including a resolution moment would ruin this pleasure.
Another theory that I can discuss in regards to my summer trailer, is the theory created by Roland Barthes which talks about a list of narrative codes that a horror film/trailer must have, in order for it to be instantly recognisable to the public. Since we used a lot of symbolic codes within our trailer, through the use of dolls, blood, a knife, jump cuts, etc. people would immediately be able to identify our trailer as a part of the horror genre in cinema; since each of these codes have a specific and dark meaning to them that help portray this idea. Also, our main enigma which was about the cause of our protagonist's insanity was and how she drove herself mad helps to intrigue the audience more as these questions regarding this mystery are never resolved, which is the main aim of a trailer
Since there was only one character within our trailer, the theory written by Propp cannot be applied as he speaks about the multiple stock characters that a film must include in order to follow a direct narrative and use the right codes and conventions to be able to portray a story correctly to viewers. In order to successfully be able to say next time that I have included this theory in my trailer, we will add in more characters to help signify the story in a clearer way, and also, so that each member of the audience has a character they are able to relate to; which helps the film become more personal and realistic.
In addition, the theory created by Pam Cook, who talks about the linearity of a film and the classical Hollywood narrative, can be applied to my trailer since trailers are all about a nonlinear structure that is not supposed to make sense, which is what our trailer successfully does. When watching our trailer, especially in conjunction to the edited in text we used on screen, it leaves the audience with many questions as to what the film is about, who is this person, why is she going crazy and so on, therefore, it follows the narrative structure even though cook's idea has been twisted this is what trailers are supposed to do.
Lastly, Levi Strauss created the narrative theory about binary opposites, which involves the idea of having characters or themes within a film completely opposite, to be able to portray the story much easier to audiences. In our trailer, we wanted to try and convey the idea of the good vs evil within our main character however, in order to make this completely clear, we must show a distinct change in her character and also her appearance; which we unfortunately did not quite accomplish within
At the beginning of my college year I did not have many creative skills to use towards my first college magazine which I produced myself with no extra help. I had already had experience in creativity with using cameras of smart phones but apps such as indesign and photoshop I was not very advanced at. For the college magazine also I did jot do any research ans planning of textual analysis and drafting, which effected the end result massively as I was not aware of the conventional layouts or colouring therefore it did not match existing college magazines. Also, since I did not do any drafting my first draft was my final draft and I had no practice so the magazine was not professional looking. However, for my music magazine there was a bit of research and planning completed so, I was able to gather conventional components that I could include/copy to make the magazine more recognisable to the chosen genre which was pop. For example, pop music magazines have bright and bold colours, the
"Within a trailer there must be a sense of narrative that allows the audience to catch and understand what the film being advertised will be about. Therefore, without it, a story is not built up and is not as effective on its viewers. " (P) HOW does this apply to Teaser trailers which are much shorter - do they give a strong sense of story?
ReplyDelete"r example, a trailer must be a mintage of clips from within the movie, this is so that the audience is left with questions, which watching the full film will then answer. So, in order to do this, it must not follow the set three steps a normal film would, (equilibrium, disequilibrium and resolution) and due to the fact that these cannot be clearly identified in my summer trailer, I believe I have successfully achieved including this theory. " (P) WHICH sections are identified? (E) WHAT does this look like on screen? HOW did you edit the MONTAGE and which section is this? (A) HOW far does T apply to making a Teaser Trailer and WHY? (A) WHY dont you have equilibrium and resolution in a Teaser Trailer - WHAT is the effect?
"igma codes within our trailer, through the use of dolls, blood, a knife, jump cuts, etc. people would immediately be able to identify our trailer as a part of the horror genre in cinema; since each of these codes have a specific and dark meaning to them that help portray this idea. " (P) HOW does this relate to making sense of the story of the film and NOT just the genre (wrong essay) (E) WHAT was your enigma and HOW did you construct this onscreen? (A) WHY do Teaser Trailers rely on Enigma codes?
"Propp cannot be applied as he speaks about the multiple stock characters - NO, ARCHETYPES - that a film must include in order to follow a direct narrative and use the right codes and conventions to be able to portray a story correctly to viewers. In order to successfully be able to say next time that I have included this theory in my trailer, we will add in more characters to help signify the story in a clearer way, and also, so that each member of the audience has a character they are able to relate to; which helps the film become more personal and realistic. "(P) WHAT is the purpose of Proppian ARCHETYPES? (E) WHO and HOW have you show the VILLAIN on screen MES, CAM etc? WHAT does it suggest about your effectiveness if you have no villain in a Horror Trailer?