Poster : Conventions of a Teaser Poster

A Teaser Poster must always contain a few things, otherwise it will not appear so much as a teaser trailer, as a mess of images. Teaser trailers often have a textured or dark background, with an image in front. The reason for this is, unlike actual movie posters, they are made during production and their aim is to make something that gives away little, and so thus, they do not show a screenshot of a movie or something clear. For Example the poster below is for a movie called Exam, a low budget Mystery Thriller (thus perfect to use to help with my Poster) :

There are no actors shown in this poster.

Only a 'high concept' idea of a plot

It also chooses to highlight that it was on the 'Official Selection' for Edinburgh Film Festival

In fact, many teaser posters don't show actors, just mere symbols representing the characters or plot points. The Black Box itself is the central image of my poster, what it does is highlight the fact that the Black Box is a mysterious object. Below are a few posters that use objects to connote certain things

This poster for Conan (yet to be made) , for example contain a giant sword, which would suggest a great warrior or hero, in the same way that the Black Box would suggest mystery. However as well as this...

There are posters that lure you in with a brand, for example, this new up-to-date 'Batman' poster which shows the painted nails and tattoo associated with the character Harley Quinn, whilst my poster cannot quite do this, it can at least advertise using it's name. The name 'Black Box' and the image 'Black Box' are easy to associate.

Here are a list of conventions that I believe that my poster sticks to:

1)There is a general colour code throughout the poster, of greys, blacks and reds

2)Bold title in a colour that contrasts the background colour, and compliments the look of the poster, whilst standing out.

3) One dominating central image, either representing Mystery (in mine), Action, Conflict or Love

4) A particular font that re-occurs all over the poster. In my case 'Faith Collapsing'

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products : trailer pt. 1

The final basic convention of a trailer is that of the narrative, the narrative of my trailer is that of a kidnapping and the potential revenge. My trailer is shot in a low key way, in which the real action of the film is not shown, this being a convention of film that I am personally not keen on, I found that personally it would intrigue me more, if the ‘hook’ were a little more subtle. In terms of subtlety, I think that what I would have done, if it were allowed by the Exam Board, I would have gone for a trailer with a copyrighted song and the finished product would have more of a minimalist art-house feel such as the ‘Confessions’ Trailer , which even Hollywood Films like ‘The Social Network’ are aiming to mimic. However, my narrative is presented through intercutting to violent flashbacks like in the trailer for (and the movie itself) ‘Memento’, other aspects that are similar to that trailer are the displacement of narrative and the fact that nothing is in its natural order. The narrative also has a undetermined briefcase which is left as a mystery, both the films ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Ronin’ used a briefcase as a crucial MacGuffin in their narrative.

Finally, as per usual, the links to the films mentioned above are below.

The Social Network http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB95KLmpLR4

Memento: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq9eM4ZXRgs

Confessions (Japanese, No subtitles): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1gBAbI8UQQ

Pulp Fiction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFhadqrMPiU

Ronin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFhadqrMPiU

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products : trailer pt. 2

The next convention in a trailer is to establish a leading character/s. I believe that I did this well. Whilst my trailer is meant to be short, we are meant to get the impression that the Father is a ‘no-nonsense’ character, he is out to protect his daughter from those who have kidnapped her. This character is reminiscent of Liam Neeson’s character in ‘Taken’, however unlike Neeson’s character, he, from the trailer, appears to call assistance which would suggest he may be taking the law into his own hands similar to Michael Caine’s character in ‘Harry Brown’. The character archetype is deeply rooted in many 70s Vigilante/Crime movies such as Charles Bronson in ‘Death Wish’ and Clint Eastwood in ‘Dirty Harry’, hopefully an audience will recognise an attempt to hark back to this rapidly disappearing genre of movie (However, the various resurgences of this genre e.g. ‘Taken’ and ‘Old Boy’ have been wildly successful). The other aspect that he fits in with characters of this type is in his age, the character is meant to be around 40 - 55.The daughter, on the other hand, is tightly in-line with kidnapping victims in movies, she is blonde and wears clothes that denote that she is probably wealthy, films with characters similar to this are ‘Man on Fire’ and ‘Ransom’. However, my character is older than the usual character in a kidnap movie, usually the daughter is around 5-9 years old, whilst the daughter in my film is 15.

Once again, the links to all the film trailers mentioned above are below...

Taken: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvUxdQ4q-Lg

Harry Brown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2S3SraFmI0

Death Wish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GieK_55uyY

Dirty Harry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Ro0Wiq6v0

Old Boy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLn1y9v6yno

Man on Fire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4kLizDXLY0

Ransom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL4fNkypfdU

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products : trailer pt. 1

Certain conventions and clichés embed themselves in the collective mind of the audience, and in the following piece of writing, I will explain how my trailer strives to become reminiscent of, whilst not mimicking, trailers of the same genre.

Beyond the mere genre of the trailer, my trailer keeps to many of the key structural points of a trailer. Throughout the trailer, certain important aspects are established. In general, a trailer must simply outline the location, in my trailer, the location is established through the clearly British accents and the recognisable London suburbs. I chose not to really turn the fact that it is based in London, due to the fact that the plot is not really affected by the fact that it is set in London, in my trailer the location is apparent and not actively demonstrated. To be honest, whilst it is Film Convention to establish setting, in Thrillers, the concept behind them often needs to be strong enough that you could set the film anywhere. Due to the fact that Thrillers, Horrors and Action Movies are in their nature, High Concept e.g. The U.S. Remake of British TV Show, ‘State of Play’ as a Political Thriller movie and the (often line-for-line) remaking of Asian thrillers such as Korean romantic Thriller ‘Siworae’ as ‘the Lakehouse’ and Chinese Crime Thriller ‘Infernal Affairs’ as the ‘the Departed’. These are all examples of a plot transcending cultural barriers, and proof that the plot of a thriller far exceeds the necessity to associate a particular culture to it. Very often in thrillers, there is some form of criticism of certain social status, for example there is often criticism of Bourgeois culture which is an area of society that appears internationally and thus the criticism retains its strength worldwide. However in certain films, such as ‘127 Hours’, the setting does essentially define the film, it provides the real centre-point of the plot. There are also films that are specifically made to portray or critique a particular culture e.g. ‘City of God’, ‘Kidulthood’ and so-called American ‘Hood Films’. My product is aimed not to be specific to British culture, it is meant to create a plot that is recognisable to a multi-national audience.

This will be continued in another blog post. Links to all forementioned trailers are below.

1. State of Play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ME87tEX9Qw
2. Siworae/Il Mare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRe7E5GIq_M
3. The Lake House: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V02lqEpbk2Y
4. Infernal Affairs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO4RLrNVbd4
5. The Departed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGWvwjZ0eDc
6. 127 Hours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlhLOWTnVoQ
7. City of God: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJdW1TevoyA
8. Kidulthood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vliupa-zi8