This is our final magazine front cover because we're not allowed to use copyright images we have replaced the original images with posters from other A2 Media production's and our own AS Media production Lost in Love and War as a feature in the magazine.
After collecting audience feedback for our magazine front cover that we developed we decided to improve it in several different ways.
Below is a draft of the new magazine front cover. This is what the magazine would look like if we were able to use copyright images and these are the films that would feature in the magazine:
It was useful to look at the 500 Days Of Summer trailer as it was a teaser trailer so therefore more similar to what we were trying to achieve than The Time Traveler's Wife trailer. There were aspects of the teaser trailer that we have tried to incorporate into our teaser trailer although there were also aspects that wouldn't work in our trailer due to the difference in genres - our film is a period drama and 500 Days of Summer has aspects of comedy.
We decided that we wanted to adapt the original beginning of our teaser trailer with a variety of different shots, we found inspiration from this teaser trailer. At the beginning of the trailer the audience sees the two main protagonists however there is a shot from the viewers right hand side (the male protagonists point of view) then this is followed by a shot from the viewers left hand side (the female protagonists point of view.) The shot is of the same senario but just from different angles. We liked how this worked as it signified to the audience that they were seeing the situation from both characters points of veiw. We incorporated this strategy into the beginning of our teaser trailer as be believed it worked well.
The main inspiration we got from this teaser trailer was to incorporate a split screen into our teaser trailer. We wanted to do this as we believed it would add something different and unique to it and also let the audience see a situation (in this case the main male protagonist with his fiancee) and the reaction the main female protagonist has to it, side by side. This is what has been done in the 500 Days Of Summer trailer.
We also liked one of the shots in this trailer of the main female protagonist. She is in the background and there is an object in the foreground. The camera focuses on her then slowly focuses on the object in the foreground, meaning the background (the female protagonist) is blurred. We wanted to incorporate this into the first shot through the tree branches however after research we discovered it had to be done with the camcorder not the editing process. We therefore used two shots of the same scene and just used a filter on FinalCut Express to blur the first shot and then leave the second shot clear. This created a similar look.
Although, as mentioned previously, there were aspects of this teaser trailer that wouldn't work for our teaser trailer. One of these is the titles. In this trailer the titles are brightly coloured and eye catching, this wouldn't suit our trailer due to the traditional/classic style of it. Also, although effective, this trailer uses cartoon graphics. This again wouldn't be suitable for our teaser trailer because of the time setting.
However this teaser trailer did reassure us that we could produce an effective trailer with enough anchorage without having diegetic dialogue, which was a concern of ours before viewing this trailer.
Although The Time Traveler's Wife trailer isn't a teaser trailer we still gained inspiration from it when we were looking at how to improve our original teaser trailer. We decided to look at this trailer as the genre is similar to the genres of our film (except for period drama) it is a romantic drama.
One aspect of the trailer we liked was how one location appears throughout the trailer. It appears to be a meadow that links all the scenes into the trailer. This is what we have tried to do towards the end of our trailer with the running scene and the rotating shot in the same location.
The trailer also uses two soundtracks which is what we have incorporated into our trailer. However it is slightly different on this trailer as the first soundtrack isn't music it is more of a 'twinkling' affect which ties in with the genre of magic time traveling theme.
We also gained inspiration from the way the titles are presented in The Time Traveler's trailer. The main titles are shown over a moving background. This is what we have done with a moving background of tree branches in the wind. We have also used the idea of having the actors names over an individual shot of the actors themselves.
The main part of this trailer that inspired us was one of the last scenes seen in the trailer. This is where the two main protagonists are running into each others arms. We have incorporated this kind of setup into our teaser trailer, however we have broken it up into two separate scenes and distributed them separately towards the end of the trailer.
We kept most of the scenes from the original and incorporated them into the new trailer. So the GhyllRoyd School and the woods are still featured. However for the new footage we had to use two other locations. These were: Lawn at the front of Ilkley Grammar School - we used the lawn here as we could film without there being any modern day features in the background. The trees in the background also helped to signify a country garden and the tree branches were used for affective framing of one of the shots.
Path to Ilkley Moor - we used a path that leads to Ilkley Moor for filming the running scenes. This location was useful as again there were no modern day features and the trees added to the scene. By the path there was a small hill which meant we were able to stand on the hill and film them running so we could get a high angle shot.
We filmed at these two additional locations on the same day and we were lucky that it had snowed on that day. We believe that the snow scenes work really well as snow is sometimes seen as a signifier of romance.
This podcast below has information about all the locations that feature in the teaser trailer.
After feedback we decided that the original non-diegetic music we chose, Clair de Lunes played on the flute, didn't have enough depth to add emotion at specific points in the trailer. We therefore chose another soundtrack for the new trailer. Also after research we identified that many teaser trailers use two different pieces of music to signify different heights of emotion. So we decided to choose two different soundtracks that complemented each other from a copyright free website: http://freeplaymusic.com/
We chose to use a dramatic piano piece called 'pathfinder.' This piece had a clear beginning, middle and end. We therefore used the beginning and the end of 'pathfinder' for out improved trailer as we believe it added drama to it. We then chose to use a piece of music called 'facing twilight' which is a gentle flute and string piece which is described as 'peaceful with a hint of sadness'. This worked well for the middle part of our trailer as it created binary oppositions in terms of the non-deigetic music and how it created a calm romantic feeling before the dramatic feeling of 'pathfinder'. These two different soundtracks help to signify the feelings of the main female protagonist throughout the trailer.
We chose three people to view and give us feedback on our teaser trailer so far. We chose these three teenage girls as we believe they are part of our target audience.
This draft of our teaser trailer includes transitions. We plan to include our production logo after the first clip. We now have to include the voice over, soundtrack and titles.
We have pieced together the clips for our trailer. The clips are new ones we have filmed incorporated with clips from the previous trailer. This is obviously the 1st stage of our editing process as we still have to include transitions, voice overs and the soundtrack. We also hope to include a split screen clip and zoom in on some of the clips due to modern objects being in the mise-en-scene.
After analysing our audience feedback we decided we we needed to make some improvements to the trailer. We felt we had to address issues that were picked up on by the feedback such as there were too few setups to understand the plot of the film, also that there needed to be more anchorage to the background of each character.
There were also more technical issues with the trailer that were picked up on. One suggestion was that we needed more shot variations so the audience could see a situation from all points of views. Also the length of the trailer was an issue. The original length was about 2 minutes this therefore represents an average trailer rather than a teaser trailer so we have decided we have to address this by making the trailer shorter. This could be a problem due to the fact that we need to add more setups so this would obviously make the trailer longer. We plan however to address this by cutting the original shots so there shorter and also drop some of the scenes that don't necessarily give enough anchorage to the viewer.
Another criticism of the original trailer was the soundtrack. As it was just a flute the non-diegetic music lacked depth so therefore failed to influence the viewer. We therefore plan to use copyright free music with more depth and hopefully incorporate 2 pieces of music into the teaser trailer to add more emotion to the piece.
We're also hoping to improve our trailer through framing shots more effectively. One idea is to film a shot through branches of the gentleman with his fiancee to provide a signifier to the viewer that they are seeing someones point of view who is on the outside of this relationship. We also plan to add more pace to the teaser trailer towards the end by using faster editing and faster paced non-diegetic music. We're hoping this will keep the viewer in suspense and encourage them to see the film at the cinema. After looking at the codes and conventions of teaser trailers this is a technique they tend to use so therefore we should be considering using it too.
Also through audience feedback we found out that on average peoples views were that the title text doesn't work effectively. They pointed out that the description text is too lengthy and slows the trailer down too much. We therefore plan to drop these and use more creative ways of introducing our actor/actress's names and the title of the film.
Also mentioned earlier we also need to highlight the binary oppositions in terms of class differences in the trailer. For example we need to use stereotypes and signifiers to make the main female protagonist appear a lower class to the other 2 characters who feature in the trailer. We plan to do this by using stereotypes in terms of costume (a maids hat).
There are however aspects of the original trailer we do plan to keep. We had positive feedback about the last close-up shot of the main female protagonist and how the titles follow it so we therefore plan to incorporate this into the improved trailer. There was also positive feedback about the non-diegetic voice over so we plan to put this over the new trailer where appropriate. Most of the old shots we will still use but probably cut the length of each shot and add new shots of further set ups between the 3 characters.
After uploading the previous final piece we realised that the audio levels were too quiet so we have increased the volume levels so that the voice over can be heard more clearly.