ADVANCED PRODUCTION: TRAILERS

For groups tackling the Film Promo Package

2018 A2 blogs HERE

1. You will be making two trailers (a teaser and a full theatrical trailer) as well as an individual film website and individual film poster. We start with the trailers. As usual, the work flow is: research, planning, construction and evaluation in that order. Separate marks are awarded for each stage as well as for each element of the production. The whole makes up 50% of this year's work and thus 25% of the whole AL. It is harder than the Foundation Production as you have more to create in order to achieve the same marks, which is why we start as soon as your Foundation Production is completed and this is why it is vital to complete your first year production work promptly. If you have anything to do on your first year's work, you should be doing this in your holidays now.

THERE ARE USEFUL RESOURCES BOTH IN THE FDA MATERIAL AND THE TEACHING TRAILERS RESOURCES: USE BOTH!

Start your research into trailers by working systematically though each element from the Teaching Trailers resource and The Film Distributors' Association(FDA) educational resources.

2. Start with THEORY pages and make a separate post for each of the What? Why? Who? How? Where? When? ( seven posts) plus The Role of the Distributor. Titles for each post: 
RESEARCH: THE ROLE OF THE DISTRIBUTOR
RESEARCH: WHY IS THE TRAILER MADE? WHAT IS A TRAILER?
RESEARCH: DIFFERENT KINDS OF TRAILERS Teaser, main trailer, TV spots, using graphics,  trailers in the digital age
RESEARCH: WHAT ARE THE FILM'S SELLING POINTS? DAN SKINNER ON USP
RESEARCH: WHO ARE THE TARGET AUDIENCE? There are several tasks to complete in this post, including Reaching You, Genre and Audience, The Hook and the Audience, Reaching the Target Audience, Marketability and Playability. Open the link & give an account of what you learn from Kezia William's presentation; complete & screenshot the questionnaire then complete all the tasks. You need only to pick 2 of the films (not all five) in task 4. LINK
RESEARCH: WHERE WILL THE FILM BE RELEASED? WHERE ARE TRAILERS SHOWN & HOW ARE THEY ADAPTED TO DIGITAL PLATFORMS?
RESEARCH: WHEN DO TRAILERS APPEAR? TEACHING TRAILERS LINK HERE
RESEARCH: HOW IS THE FILM MARKETED & PROMOTED? TEACHING TRAILERS LINK HERE

3. Ensure that you write fully on each of the questions, such as those below.

Why is the film trailer made?

4. Ensure that you introduce your analysis, by explaining what you watched and what you are trying to analyse. Remember the needs of your readers (the examiner and moderator). So when you are tackling the answer to the question below, write 'Before watching the actual trailers, I looked at the titles of three trailers in order to test my assumptions about films'. You are responding here to the questions "Based on just the titles, what clues are there about the content of the film? Try to say what exactly you are basing your ideas on. Is it the associations of a particular word or phrase? Is it knowledge of other films?"

5. Illustrate your analysis clearly, using screenshots:

6. Now move on to the next batch of 5 posts from the ANALYSIS section. Answer all questions thoughtfully. Illustrate clearly. You can use your own initiative to write fully and answer from your own experience. The aim is show 'articulate reflection'.

Titles of posts: RESEARCH: GENRE

RESEARCH: TRAILER CONVENTIONS

RESEARCH: TRAILER STRUCTURE

RESEARCH: SOUND IN TRAILERS

7. The next step is research into NARRATIVE with posts on introduction to narrative image, purpose and style. 

Post titles RESEARCH: NARRATIVE IMAGE

RESEARCH: PURPOSE & STYLE

8. Included here is a downloadable chart to assist you in the comparison of two trailers. 

Do this with your group, picking two trailers that are in the same genre that you yourselves would like to make, so that research is made as relevant as possible. Add hyperlinks and a screenshot of each trailer. Present the research on your blog in a separate post.

The definitions are included on the second page.