Theory Of Trailers/Narrative
In my research, I looked at several different theorists and what they have to say about narrative. the ifrst of these theorists was Tzvetan Todorov. Tzvetan Todorov simplified the idea of narrative theory while also allowing a more complex interpretation of film texts with his theory of Equilibrium and Disequilibrium. The theory is simply this: * The fictional environment begins with a state of equilibrium (everything is as it should be in a state of equal balance between powers of any kind, where equality of importance or effect exists among the various parts of any complex unity). * It then suffers some disruption (disequilibrium). * New equilibrium is produced at the end of the narrative.

When applying this theory to trailers, I think only the first two stages are neccesary. This is because, when you think about it, the point of a trailer is to get the viewer to want to go and watch it by leaving them in suspense. Therefore, by revealing the fact that the story actually ends in equilibrium with everything being okay theo bjective of the trailer is defeated. My trailer fits with this theory in some ways but in other ways it challenges it. The fact that it begins at a slow pace and then becomes faster and more tense leading to the disequilibrium fits with this narrative theory. However, it could be argued that the trailer is in a constant state of disequilibrium because it begins with a clip of a wiji board with ‘blood’ on it and this isnt exactly what you would call equilibrium. Although when you think about it like this it doesnt fit with the theory, I do not think this is a negative thing. I feel like it is effective because it is constantly tense and frightening which makes it more hardhitting.

Compared to other trailers, it is clear that my trailer is challenging this theory and convention of the narrative of trailers. When looking at the trailer for ‘the strangers’ we can see that it begins with equilibrium with the couple getting engaged. Although this equilibrium only lasts a few seconds, it is still there.

A second theorist that i reserached was Vladimir Propp. Vladimir Propp (A Russian critic who examined 100s of examples of folk tales to see if they shared any structures). His book on this ‘Morphology of the Folk Tale’ was first published in 1928) Propp looked at 100s of folk tales and identified 8 character roles and 31 narrative functions.
The 8 character roles are
1. The villain(s)
2. The hero
3. The donor – who provides an object with some magic property.
4. The helper who aids the hero.
5. The princess (the sought for person) – reward for the hero and object of the
villain’s schemes.
6. Her father – who rewards the hero.
7. The dispatcher – who sends the hero on his way.
8. The false hero

The character roles and the functions identified by Propp can be applied to all
kinds of narrative. In TV news programmes we are often presented with
‘heroes’ and ‘villains’. Just think of the media portrayal of Saddam Hussein or
Princess Diana.

When looking at my trailer, I would say it doesnt really fit with this theory atall. I dont think it would be possible for any trailer to toally fit with this theory because It is extremely hard to integrate 8 characters into the space of just over 1 minute and to show the audience/viewer which character is which. It could be argued that their is a clear villian (the ghost – supernatural being) and a clear victim (although the victim is not one of the characters identified by Propp).

A third theorist that I researched was Claude Levis-Strauss. Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms
of binary oppositions. Binary oppositions are sets of opposite values which
reveal the structure of media texts. An example would be GOOD and EVIL – we
understand the concept of GOOD as being the opposite of EVIL. Levi -Strauss
was not so interested in looking at the order in which events were arranged in
the plot. He looked instead for deeper arrangements of themes. For example,
if we look at Science Fiction films we can identify a series of binary
oppositions which are created by the narrative:
Earth Space
Good Evil
Humans Aliens
Past Present
Normal Strange
Known Unknown

Claude-Levi strauss’ thery can be seen in my work. When looking at the underlying themes in the trailer, it is clear that there is a sense of good Vs. evil with the victim being my main character and the ‘evil’ being the supernatural/ghost. Hwever, this is the only clear theme that I have been able to identify. On the other hand it could be argued that the main theme in horror films/trailers is the theme of good and evil and so this is the only theme that needs to be apparent.

When considering how the texts work together; the way the constructions speaks to you is one of the most important thing (in my opinion). For example, these constructions have conotations of darkness and evil. This comes form the dark colours used in the poster and the way it is always dark in the trailer scenes. In the trailer this image is given off throught the weather. When it comes to the magazine cover, it is slightly different. The image of Daniel Radcliffe is him in character, however he is wearing a red jacket and white top which doesnt fit with the other constructions. However, this isnt really a problem because it doesnt need to fit. Even though it is advertising the film, it isnt doing it in the same way that the poster and trailer are. The magazine cover is more to do with further detail about the film and interviews with stars etc. Following this the magazine company are the ones producing the front cover and so it isnt designed by the same people as the trailer and the poster; which gives further explanation of why it is slightly different.

When considering my constructionwork in relation to this, I think that my poster and trailer link well and my magazine does link – but in a similar way to the Harry Potter one.

My trailer has fairly dark scenes/images and this is why i used dark colours in my poster too. I found it quite hard to decide what colours i would use on my poster and magazine – when looking through my trailer I thought the colour red would be good to make a link. At the end of my trailer the colour red plays quite a big part in the clips with my main character carrying a candle. This is where i got the idea of using red in my magazine cover for the colour of the title ‘total film’ and in my poster for the title of the film. I also used the colour red when editing her eyes on my poster. In all 3 versions of my magazine the colour red is apparent – in the images and the text. The useof the colour red, in terms of semiotics, also indicates danger and so this is good because it fits with my genre of horror.

The use of images of my main actress in 2 of the versions of my poster and my magazine cover allows mental links to be made between these ancillary texts and my trailer. By this I mean that when the audience see the actress on the poster and magazine they will immediately know that the film being advertised is ‘the haunting’. As well as this, the use of the same font for my text allows for fruther links to be made – especially with the title. If the title was not in the same font then the same effectiveness would not be gained. This is what I wanted from all of my three constructions – I wanted the audience to be able to make links between each construction to make the advertising better and more effective.

Release dates? What order will the come in?

Further detail on the use of the magazine cover…

When thinking about getting the film advertised through a magazine, several negotiations would have to be made. When considering this, I think thebest way to get the film advertised on the magazine cover would be to say that the image on the cover will be of the main actress. This is because (as long as she is a big star) this would appeal to the magazine company because it would benefit them as well. Film watchers might not like the film being advertised, but if they like the actress on the cover they might still pick up the magazine and buy it. therefore the magazine sales would rise, benefiting the magazine company. I chose the magazine ‘total film’ because this is a popular film magazine – this was my only reason. I think i should have made this decision based on knowledge of the target audience of the magazine instead of just the first one that came to mind. It is very important that the correct magazine is used to advertise a specfic film because if the two do not fit then neither the magazine company of the film company will be benefited and this may effect any future relations in terms of the magazine company saying they will advertise any more of the films from that particular film company.

How can you improve?

In terms of improvements, I think my trailer could link better with my ancillary texts. By this Imean the shots aren’t very horrific – I think they could be scarier. Although it is extremely difficult to get particularly scary shots and so maybe It was pretty impossible to get scarier shots. On the other hand, when you think about it, by not having the constructions too smilar – a wider audience can be attracte. For example if the trailer isnt really rwally scary but is till a horror then thisd will attract a certain audience; but if the poster seems quite dark and quite scary then this will attract a different group of people who prefer the really scary horror films. Therefore by having slight variation this allows for a wider range of people to be attracted which is beneficial.

For me, the most important thing is that my texts are all effective. From my audience feedback I get the impression that they arre all effective. I was pleased that in my feedback they all said that they could clearly establish the genre and the plot. They all said that my work was effective and So this makes me feel positive about my final constructions. Following this, they felt that the three constructions did fit well together and that my trailer and ancillary texts did work well together which again makes me feel positive.

Research and planning

I used my blog in my research and planning to post the trailers, posters and magazine covers I was looking at and to write about what I liked and didn’t like. My blog was pretty much the place that I posted all of my work; it made life easier to get things marked and to get work looked at by teachers because it meant that work didnt need to be saved in lots of different documents and printed off etc. The blog also allowed me to post links to websites that i had been referring to rather than copying and pasting or trying to explain what the site showed. I liked the fact that I was able to post my trailer/poster/magazine cover and then write about it underneath and explain changes etc and that this could all be seen in one post.

If I was to go back and do my coursework again I would make sure that my blogging was more regular and not all in one chunk as I found myself not doing any research for several days and then doing lots in one day. If I were to have spread my research and planning work out then I would have probably gone into more detail with each post and been a lot more thorough in my planning of my trailer.

Another blog that helped me with my research and planning and also with my construction work was www.mediachs.edublogs.org. This blog enabled me to look at other peoples blogs and see how i am doing compared to them. It helped me about 2 months into the course because at this time iw asnt posting much work and by seeing the amount of work some people were doing it allowed me to force myself to do more. It also helped me because there were some links to useful sites posted on here – for example links that are good for sound for trailers etc.

I started my research by using the internet site ‘YouTube’ to view existing trailers of all genres. After viewing these and coming up with ideas of my own I identified that I wanted to create a horror trailer. I chose the genre ‘horror’ because I felt that trailers and posters for horror films had a lot of conventions that I would be able to show in my construction work. After this I began to view horror trailers of all different kinds; then I decided on the type of horror trailer (supernatural) and looked at more specific existing horror trailers that I was going to base mine on: these were ‘An American Haunting’ and ‘Paranormal activity’. I chose to do a ‘supernatural horror’ because I felt like trying to create an image of a ‘monster’ would be very difficult to make it seem realistic; however if I were to do a film about ghosts and the supernatural then I would not have to create this image – it would be more about making things move about etc. I researched these films (supernatural horror’s) on sites such as IMDB to gain further information on them. The information I got off IMDB was just the basic storyline because I haven’t watched either of the 2 films (‘paranormal acitivty’ and ‘an American haunting’) and these were the two films I was looking at in relation to the specific horror trailer I was creating.

I used ‘Google’ to research posters and magazines. When researching poster and magazine covers I decided to take a broad view and research existing ones from horror films in general instead of just specific supernatural horror ones. I did this because I wanted to have a wide range of ideas to enable me to create the best piece of work possible. Reflecting on this now I feel like It might have been a good idea to do this but look a bit more at existing ones from the specific type of horror film I am doing because I’m not sure if my poster fits with my trailer as well as it could. I was planning on using the posters of the films ‘the skeleton key’ and ‘the eye’ to base mine on but when I attempted to get photographs to do this with I couldn’t get a photo that would be particularly effective.

I also found the website ‘Google’ useful in researching conventions of horror films when researching and planning my trailer because by typing in ‘forms and conventions of horror films’ it generated several websites, all with a slightly different view on what the typical conventions are; but not too different that it became confusing.

I thought the use of photography would be a good idea when planning my trailer – in particular my location. I thought it would be good to get an idea of which rooms look best and which rooms fit my genre best. I am glad I did this because it was good to get an idea of which angles were good in different rooms. I felt that from the images I got of rooms in my house, that the majority of the rooms looked good and that it would be the lighting that would affect the quality of the images and the impact they have.

This Is what gave me the idea of having a ‘night vision’ affect on the shots of my main character in bed and then her jumping up after the covers are tugged away from her. I planned to do this because I knew it would be difficult to film in the dark but I needed it to seem like it was night time because she was in bed. I got the idea from my research on the film paranormal activity – in this film it has the ‘CCTV shots’ where the shots are being recorded on a camera. I thought about doing this but I felt that this wouldn’t fit with my story and so I stuck with the night vision.

Construction

I Split my blog into categories when I began my work so that it would remain organized throughout. I felt that this was a good idea because last year it was irritating having to go through every post (as they were all uncategorized) and sort them out. As well as this it allowed me to go into my different categories to check the amount of work I had done on that particular section without having to go through all my pages of posts. Following this the categories allowed viewers to go straight to my construction as that would be the main reason for someone to view the blog; therefore this means that they didn’t have to trawl through all my posts to find it and so they were less likely to get bored or be unable to find it and not end up watching it.

In terms of my construction of my poster and magazine cover I have used my blog to post images of each so far and to post different versions of them to allow people to comment and say which they prefer (I used polls to gain feedback on them as well).

When considering what I feel like I could have done better; I feel that it would have been better if I posted updates on my trailer more regularly than I did to start with because I could have got feedback on the initial stages and shots before I started to develop the shots and add effects. If I had done this then it would be easier to delete a shot that people didn’t think was very good or effective; however when people are telling me this now it is a lot harder to use the feedback because by deleting shots they don’t think is good this leaves me having to do more filming and potentially having to re-order a lot of my trailer.

When considering the use of the internet in my construction work; I felt like I needed to be looking at the trailers I was using for inspiration on a regular basis so that I did not go off in a different direction that did not fit with the genre my trailer was supposed to fit into. I used the website ‘Youtube’ to do this.
As well as this, I created polls to gain further information. I thought this was a good idea because the people who would be looking on my blog the most would be students in my year and at my school – these people fit my target audience and so it is there opinion that I need.

Examples of my polls:

‘What is your favourite type of horror?’ (Psychological, torture, supernatural, gorey, monsters)
Results: Supernatural – 66.7% (highest). Although at first this result indicates that the type of trailer I am creating is the one that people prefer; when you look at the number of people that voted it doesn’t really show anything. The amount of people that voted was 3 and; thus the leaves the findings of the poll unrepresentative of my target audience and therefore ungeneralisable to my target audience.

‘Which style of poster do you prefer?’ (Messy or simplistic) – I put an image next to each to illustrate what I meant and to ensure there was no confusion over the meaning of the words.
Results: Messy – 50% & simplistic – 50%. These results came from a slightly higher number of respondents (8) but this is still not a high enough figure. The results of this poll indicate that there isn’t a particular style that people prefer – a poster can be good and effective in either style, it is more to do with the content and probably the image.

When considering the issue of response rates I think I might have gone about getting feedback the wrong way. It might have been better to create a questionnaire and give it to people – this would probably create a higher response rate because I could hand it out to students that don’t do media (because they don’t go on blogs) and the fact that I could stand by them whilst they fill it out (this would make them more likely to fill it out because I could just ask them to do it there and then). If I was to do this then I would need to consider the fact that lots of pieces of paper are easy to lose and so I would need to put the results onto the computer as soon as I had gotten them.

I found this difficult and I feel that I didn’t go about this in the right way. I thought the easiest ways to generate responses would be through the use of polls as discussed above. I thought this because people can give feedback through the click of a mouse and no large amount of effort is needed. However I never really got more than 10 responses per post. Thus, clearly this is not enough feedback to give me a huge amount of confidence about an idea or to help me decide between ideas etc. Reflecting on this I now feel like I should have use a variety of ways to get responses. This could include the use of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter as both of these are used regularly by my target audience and by myself and so I think I could have got a lot of good feedback this way. Although I did get a few comments on my work on my blog; this was mainly from my teachers and not fellow students. I would have preferred feedback from fellow students or people of a similar age to me as this would fit my target audience and it is their opinions that I want.

Evaluation

In terms of my evaluation, I tried to use as much technology as possible to ensure that my work was presented in a variet of different ways. I used video recording to get feedback on my work; however i did about 5 or 6 videos and was only able to post three (one of the files wouldnt upload and I cant find the camera that was used to record the other two). This is a problem with using technology because it is quite easy to lose work and not be able to get it back.

Following this, I used powerpoint to present some of my answers. I used it to present question 1 and some of question 4. I think powerpoint is a useful tool to use because it makes the work look much more exciting and colourful. As well as this, it is is easy to add pictures and exampled of your work to a powerpoint so that the viewer knows exactly what you are talking about.

I used video recording to do my evaluation question on feedback because i felt like this was one that would come across better through video. After recording this question i put the video into premiere elements and dropped pictures of my work into it to show examples of what I was talking about because I didnt have any examples whilst videoing it (I didnt have paper copies etc.) I used the internet (youtube) to upload my videos and then posted them onto my blog using the URL.

One technology that i could have made use of is sound recording. I did video myself talking and then remove the audio to place it in top of my video to create directors commentary; but I feel like I could have got some audience feedback through sound recording to add some more variety. Following this, I feel like it would have been a good idea to make use of social networking sites like facebook to gain feedback. This would have been good because all ot of my friends on facebook would be placed in my target audience group and therefore their opinions are vital. With more time and better time management this is what I would have done next/as well.