Improved teaser trailer - influenced by 500 Days of Summer teaser trailer

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.

Improved teaser trailer - influenced by The Time Traveller's Wife 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.

Locations for improved teaser trailer

We kept most of the scenes from the original and incorporated them into the new trailer. So the Ghyll Royd 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.

Soundtrack for improved 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.

Final teaser trailer

Updated storyboard

Updated production schedule

Media, For All I Know Production Schedule

Improved transcript

For All I Know, Transcript Updated Version