Purpose & History of a Trailer

History

The first movie trailer was released in 1913 for a film called "The Pleasure Seekers" and was created by the Lowes Cinemas company. This was a short promotional video that played before the film. This was so well received by the audience that it was adopted in all other theatres they owned. The company most well known for making these trailers was the National Screen Service

These early trailers consisted of  important scenes from a film with a bit of text.

Purpose

The purpose of a film trailer is to create hype for the film, making people want to see the  rest of the film by getting them interested in small fragments of the narrative. A successful trailer will catch and hold the audiences attention for the limited amount of time it has before another film starts or between a programme on the television.

What has become very popular now after being introduced in the 1960's is the stylised trailers, that includes a montage of different scenes, that are not in any narrative order. This was due to the change of who was in charge of the trailer, which moved away from the Marketing department and to the directors who became more involved.

A trailer must also be memorable and it can do this in many different ways. A popular way this is done is through music and the music does not need to be popular for it to be effective, just as long as it is distinctive and stands out it can be from any genre and any time period. This sometimes very useful as it means you do not need to pay large amounts of money in royalties. This is a very important aspect of any film trailer as it helps set the tone and gets an instant emotional reaction from the viewer.

Ideas for Focus Group

To get more of an idea of our target audiences likes and dislikes on the British Film Drama we have decided to hold a focus group of candidates from the ages 18 - 25.

The reason we decided on this age range is because the content involved in these types of films can be very explicit and inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18, and we were doubtful that any parents would give consent for their child to watch the trailers we plan to show to the focus group as examples. Since the year 13's are all at the bottom of the age range boundary we have decided to use candidates from our media class in the focus group and I have thought about designing a questionnaire to give to people in the middle to high area of our age range and will decide after we have held our focus group.

Audience Profile

Relevant Audience Theories

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Poster Analysis

Green Street Hooligans Trailer analysis

Instantly, Green Street Hooligans puts a different spin on the British Film Drama which does not follow the typical conventions and instead has the main charcter as an American University drop out who originally went to Harvard, an extremely prestigious college in the USA. The trailer opens with a long, static, follow shot of a plane taking off from an airport suggesting that a character has traveled a great distance, which is then reinforced by the next medium shot of the main character "Matt Buckner" walking through a terminal with luggage. The trailer uses a non diegetic, monlogue given by Elijah Wood ,which tells us he is the main character and explains what he is doing so far away from  
the USA. Although this is not used throuhgout the film or trailer it is a good way of introducing an important character without having to add more shots and scenes lengthening the time of the trailer.




Although the production companies are not metioned in this trailer they do show Universals name as it is a much larger well known company that people associate good films with. Oddlot Entertainment on the other hand is not as well known. They also only show the Universal Studios logo for 3 seconds in order to keep the trailer as breef as possible.

The dialogue between the two British characters shows the prejudice of lower, working class footbal supporters toward foreign people when the man in the coat says " I can't take a Yank to football". The slang used and the way they talk presents them as being less educated becuase of the area they are from and you see a lot of this stereotyping in British Film Dramas. However, the trailer goes against this convention slightly by showing one of the men with a large stack of cash ,which suggests he is a successful business man and quite intelligent.

Although, the next shot shows the trailer sliding back into the genre conventions as its a high angle, long shot of the main character and his friend walking down the street also show the lines of terraced houses with really cramped parking for cars. This housing area is typical of a British Film Drama as the houses are small and low cost, another typical setting for these films is on councils estates. One reason people live in these houses is that they cannot generate enough income to move to a new larger area and the majority of people that live in these areas may be or have been involved in crime. Ironically there is a pub at the end of the street in the bottome right corner of the shot ,which is where most of the violence and lack of money comes from that gets them trapped in these areas. The lighting used  is natural and low key giving the area a gloomy and depressing feeling which would explain why the people distract themselves from the scenery by doing other things. The lighting also represents the typical British weather at that time of year being quite damp and dark early.

Additionally, this next mid shot shows how close and bonded together these football supporters are walking shoulder to shoulder down a street with Matt in the foreground next to hsi family friend, followed by other friends in the background. This is fitting because at this point some dialogue from another scene is played where Matt friends calls him "practically family" which is synchronous with their behaviuor in the shot.

Again this tralier shows how the film is following the British Film Drama convention of viloence for violence sake and this can be backed up by what one of the charcters says to Matt about taking his anger about other things out on the other football suporters. As the fighting starts some non diegetic music starts to play that has a very agressive guitar playing along with the punches he throws. Sound effects are also used to fade the voice of his friend out as he tells him to think of someone he hates representing them as irrational and unjustifiably violent.

The Trailer ends by showing the awards it has won from acclaimed festivals that will tell people that the film must be high quality if a body of experienced film addicts have voted on it. This is also true for the short, snappy and memorable reviews that have been given on the film giving more of an insight into what the film is like ,which a reward can't do as effectively. The trailer ends with the films title in a style of font and colour that is aesthetically identical to the environment in which the film takes place, a light grey, warn tarmac looking colour. This leaves the audience with the narrative idea in their head. Lastly, this trailer uses a well known alternative rock groups music which will build hype for the fans of the group to watch the film and listen to new music and get people talking about the film and sharing the trailer.

Green Street Hooligans Poster analysis