Casting Shots

This is Lauren Firkins, our main character for our teaser trailer, playing Savannah McCoy.

Synopsis

A rebellious teenage girl called Savannah is sentenced to 20 hours of community service after committing a crime. Her punishment is to clean the ballet studios at the London School of Ballet, a prestigious dance school nearby. Whilst cleaning one of the studios Savannah comes across one of the students practicing a routine infront of the mirror. Savannah is amazed by the girl's talent and finds herself wanting to be able to dance like that as well. She begins to practice the girl's routine infront of the mirror at home but thinks she'll never be good enough to make it as a dancer. After cleaning the studio late one night, Savannah begins to practice dancing and is oblivious to the dance teacher watching her every move. The dance teacher befriends Savannah and coaches her to improve her dancing, inviting her to attend classes at the school which Savannah is flattered by and agrees to instantly. Savannah attends the class but the other students look down on her and so she walks out angrily. The community service ends, and Savannah begins to return to her rebellious ways but the dance teacher convinces her she has something special and tells her not to let the other girls put her down. Savannah auditions to earn a place at the London School of Ballet but the other dancers try to sabotage her chances of getting a place. Savannah ends her audition leaving the judges speechless, and earns a place at the London School of Ballet, and in the future finds a career in ballet dancing on stage.

Target Audience

Our film and teaser trailer will be mostly aged at females, however we do not think there will be an exact age range. We chose this gender because our film is a ballet-orientated dance film and we think it will be more enjoyed by younger aged women, as contemporary music will be used throughout the film to entice young viewers into seeing the film, as it seems modern and up to date. However, we also think that older women will want to see the film as there is nothing offensive in the film, and it has an interesting storyline and the music and dancing could be nostalgic.


I think the age rating for this film would be a 12A, as although there are not any scenes which are too disturbing, anyone younger than 12 should have a parent/guardian with them as the film contains some rare moderate swearing and some scenes of fairly discreet violence. However, there are no scenes of horror, drug misuse or nudity and therefore I think children aged 12 and over would enjoy the film.

Another way we came up with the age rating for our film was by using a similar film's user ratings' report. In this case I have used the ratings for 'Step Up' (2006). From the image to the right we can see that the age group that rated the film with the highest scores were females under 18 and females aged 18-29. However it also shows a lot of females aged 45+ have rated it fairly highly, which is why our film does not have a specific age range for our target audience, as we think women of all ages could see it and enjoy the dancing, drama and overall storyline.

Influences

Influences on Prezi

Black Swan

This teaser trailer opens with a shot of a girl dancing in a spotlight in a dark room. This is an effective way of introducing the main character and I really like the way the shot looks. Another influence from this trailer are the shots of the girls stretching infront of the mirror in the ballet sudio, as this immediatly tells the viewer the genre of the film and makes them want to see more. The music is used well, as the tempo changes as when we see the girl being abused, building up suspense and tension among viewers. Finally, the titles are displayed over 'black swan'-like feathers which connects to the title of the film, and creates immediate synergy for the film.

Billy Elliot

This trailer opens with a magazine's review written against a black background. This immediatly informs the viewer that it has good reviews, however we could also use the same style of scene with a famous dance/ballet quote, which would then tease the audience about the genre of the film. After this, there is a voiceover ontop of shots from the film, which we found to be a useful way of introducing the plot. Our most influential shot from this trailer is of Billy practicing his dancing infront of his bathroom mirror. We thought this because it is an idea we could use in our trailer, as it is also about a young person who's trying out a new style of dance. Finally, nearing the end, the music changes from a lighthearted tune into a more serious tempo, showing the seriousness of Billy's aspirations and efforts to become a dancer.

Save The Last Dance

This trailer opens with scenes of the main character in her past, then using short clips creates drama from her mother's car crash incident to set the scene to the audience. Throughout the trailer, titles are used to describe the plot of the film using a few words. Towards the end of this trailer, the shots swap from her ballet dancing to her street dancing simultaneously, and finally there is a montage of faster, shorter clips to create drama and build up towards the success gained at the end of the film.

Take The Lead

This film is about a group of troubled teenagers who are taught ballroom dancing. It is a similar plot to ours as it involves people from outside of a skill trying to fit in whilst learning the style of dance. This trailer clearly sets the plot of the film, in a lot more detail than we will be, using mostly clips from the order of which shown in the film. Finally, the trailer ends with the title appearing and the music stopping, so all eyes are on the name of the film. Straight after, there is about 10 seconds worth of footage with a comedic feel to leave the audience laughing and hopefully remembering the trailer.

Center Stage

This trailer opens with close ups of the ballet dancers stretching, focusing on the ballet shoes to set the scene to the audience. Throughout are many short clips from many different angles of the dancers practicing in the ballet studio. There is also conflict between the ballet dancers and instructors, which is unusual as they are seen to be such professionals, which interests the audience as they want to see what happens between the two characters. Fianlly, the trailer ends with a monatge with flashes between each short clip, and ends on the girl spinning on stage infront of a large audience.

Initial Ideas

Initially, Chloe, Mia and I were planning to create a teaser trailer based on a film about the 9/11 terrorist attack. We thought this would be a good story to base a film on as it is a true story so many of the audience would be able to relate to the different characters. We decided that it would also have a romantic twist to it because we wanted the main characters to be in love and then eventually get separated when the man goes to work in the World Trade Centre and gets killed in the attack. We were going to use footage from news reports to show the Twin Towers collapsing as the planes drove into them, we thought that this would be effective as there was no other way of us showing our audience what actually happened on that day. We looked at many different trailers for this idea, to get inspiration for this type of genre. This included Remember Me, The Lovely Bones, Flight 93 and United 93.

Eventually we decided against this plot as we found it difficult to even find a place that would be suitable to film and also because the subject is still very raw we did not think it would be appropriate for our A Level project as it is a serious matter.

Instead we started to think more along the lines of a dance film. We thought of this because one of our friends is a dancer and actress therefore we were able to use her for our trailer so we had to find a genre that would express her skills clearly. We also wanted to aim our trailer to a target market similar to our age, this was easy for us to do as we know which films are popular with this age group. We thought that the trailers that are used to advertise dance films tend to be exciting and fast paced which is the kind of trailer we were intending to create.

We then researched many films and trailers that we could use as influences to produce a dance film trailer. Some of these were: Center Stage, Billy Elliot, Step Up and The Black Swan. Watching these trailers gave us real inspiration and many ideas that we could incorporate into our own teaser trailer.

What is a Teaser Trailer?

A definition of teaser trailer:
a short trailer used to advertise an upcoming film, television program, video game, or product.

During the lesson we as a class, watched 5 very different teaser trailers. The aim of this was to identify what was successful in each trailer, and also what did not work quite as well, so that we could begin to think about what techniques we could use during our teaser trailer to make it look professional and to also make the audience want to go and watch the full length film when it comes out.

The first teaser trailer we watched was for 'Inception' (shown below). One of the first things I recognised about this trailer was that it was noticeably short; much shorter than I had first expected. I also noticed that there was no digetic sound used. The only sound throughout the trailer was to set the tense and action-packed mood, with a reoccurring heartbeat-like beat. By doing this, it keeps the audience involved in watching the trailer to try and figure out the storyline of the film, and doesn't give too much away. All the clips used are short and most display a lot of action, to clearly suggest the theme of this film.

I really liked the Inception trailer, as although it was short and had no digetic sound, it clearly displayed what the film was about and effectively made me want to see the film. One thing I could use from this trailer for my trailer, is the titles between scenes giving brief hints about what the storyline is, without giving too much away. I also thought that the name of the film: 'INCEPTION' at the end of the trailer was really well composed.

The second trailer we watched was 'Cemetery Junction'. This was an original idea for a trailer, as it was simply 3 of the cast members standing against a white backdrop and talking a little about the film. It does not use a lot of non-digetic apart from an upbeat tune playing with the voice-over man at the end of the trailer whilst talking about the details of the film, such as when it is released. It is also very short at just 1.01 minutes long.

Although this trailer is very different from many other trailers, it did not really grab my attention to go and see the film. I also think that they have made the film out to be a comedy in this trailer due to all the jokes made, but it is infact more of a drama. Another point, is that the trailer does not tell the viewer anything about the plot of the film, but is simply promoting it on the fact that it has famous cast members starring in it. All in all, this trailer does not work for me as it does not promote the film to its best, and I found it quite boring to watch.

Thirdly, we watched the teaser trailer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The first thing to notice is that this trailer is 1.36 mintues long, and this will be about the same length as the trailer I will be making in the upcoming months. The trailer starts with a Doctor from the film, speaking directly to the camera about their surgery to remove painful memories. This stands out when watching the trailer, as there are not usually direct narratives aimed at the audience in the trailers. It also helps to introduce you to some of the plot of the film. It then cuts to clips of the film, and an upbeat song starts to play in the background, whilst a montage starts to play on screen. They are all very short clips to match the mood of the music, and to express to the viewer that this is a comedy. The title scenes displaying the actors/actress' names are also very upbeat colours.

I think the teaser trailer for this film clearly gets across that it is a comedy film, and by showing short clips that do not make much sense when put together, makes the audience want to watch the film so that they can put the pieces together and figure out the real storyline.

Next, we watched the teaser trailer for Paranormal Activity. This trailer is very cleverly done, by inviting members of the public to go and watch the film for the first time in a cinema, whilst filing their reactions to it. This way, we at home can see true reactions from past audience members, and because this is a horror movie, the reactions are strong enough to make us consider going to watch the film, as strong reactions are what's wanted from a person going to see a horror film. The trailer cuts between showing clips of the film, to showing the audience's reaction, allowing us as an audience to get a feel for the plot of the film and also other people's thoughts on it.

I really like the way this trailer has been made, and from watching it I would want to go and see the film as the audience's reactions are so extreme. The non-digetic sound of horror slashing noises when displaying some titles at the end also presents the theme clearly, and I think the title of the film is simple yet works really well.

Finally we watched the teaser trailer to 'Live Free or Die Hard', which was 1.15 minutes long. From the start, the tense music immediately creates suspense, and the audience is waiting for something big to happen. The montage of images at this point are in slow-motion, showing fairly calm scenes. However, once the titles have named the film this completely changes, and the trailer shows action-packed scenes with no dialogue whatsoever, but simply the digetic sound of helicopters, guns and explosions. From this point onwards the theme of the film is clear, and it promotes the use of special effects throughout the film to the audience as it is probably a very strong selling point of the film. After this, the film title is displayed again, and it finishes with a comedic scene between two of the cast members, relating to previous 'Die Hard' films of which fans will relate to.

This trailer works well for an action film, as it does not show a lot of the plot, however the audience gets to see some of the special effects and scenes that will be in the film, giving them an immediate idea of the kinds of action used to attract them to view the film. I like the way it relates to previous films to keep fans interested, and i think the quick-cut scenes in the montage work really well for the action theme.

In conclusion, as stated in my definition at the beginning of this post, a teaser trailer needs to be short and needs to advertise. All these trailers have those things in common, they are between 1 and 2 minutes long, and are trying to invite the audience to come and watch their film. Most use a montage of clips from the film at some point, and many do not use a lot of digetic sound, but a background track which sets the mood, and clearly highlights the theme to the audience viewing the trailer.