Freytag's Triangle

If i look at Freytag's triangle i will be able to relate it to films and how they follow this structure and this will enable me to relate to this whilst producing my film trailer.

The Descent trailer

The trailer starts off with the MPAA Green rating screen and the film company logo (Liongate). There’s a series of introduction shots that introduce the characters, the first being a medium shot of a photo being taken of the 5 main girls. There are dramatic sound effects when the shot changes, sounds like a swooping noise with dialogue in between. There’s no background music yet. A location shot shortly follows, a birdseye view of the woods and the girls driving in the car. It’s daytime, the sky is bright which sets a happy mood, the girls are all smiling also. The cuts are sharp between the different clips. The clips are a series of medium shots and close ups – they all need to be different to keep the viewer interested.

An interesting shot is of the climbing harness fastening, there’s a crash zoom and a sound effect. I feel like it represents the finality of their trip.

The captions start the first one saying ‘Claustrophobia’ in small white font. It fades in and out with the dialogue continuing in the background. The shots fade into each other very well as they’re all based in the dark and mostly ‘black’, with just a hint of light coming from the girls helmets.

The next shots are all particularly similar, they tell a story. The girls have become trapped in a cave, there’s lots of close ups so we can see their expression and read the horror on their faces. The lighting is very clever, picking out key areas - you have to concentrate watching this video. Still, the only sound is the dialogue and heavy breathing which creates the ambience of panic. The shots are extended because of the dialogue.

The next caption shot is different from the ones before. It reads ‘fear’ and shakes. An insect noise is layered over the top, it’s very eerie. We then hear a girl scream, it makes you jump as the rest of the trailer, there hasn’t been any shouting/raised voices. We know the trailer is going to turn at this point.

The trailer turns very quickly. The clips are much shorter, again still of different varieties, there’s lots of close ups and long shots each cutting quickly into one another. The sound is of things happening – torches dropping, water dripping, flares being lit etc. Each clip is around 2 seconds and then speeds up to around a second each. Black still being the main element – the dark. Not conforming to the conventions of horror film trailers, the critic reviews are not over a plain background. They are layered over trailer footage. They’re kept short and striking so they’re quick to read and the interest is not lost from the trailer.

Nearing the end, there’s a simple title screen that says the film name, ‘The Descent’. In the same font as the captions used throughout the trailer. After, there’s the most memorable shot of the trailer that occurs in most horror trailers. It’s the shot people remember and talk about as it’s the last thing you’ve seen whilst watching the trailer. The little logos and the website are right at the end on the last screen. It lasts long enough to read the website, but not too long so that it’s boring.

I think this is a very successful film trailer as the action builds up throughout – it makes me want to see the film.

The Crazies Trailer

The MPAA green screen starts the trailer and the first few clips are establishing long shots and pans of the village the film is set in. Soft calm piano music is used in the background – represents the kind of town it is. A very small, calm, homely town. Each shot slowly fades into one another.

The feel of the trailer changes quickly as a man with a shotgun appears at a safe town event (like a baseball game) with a gun. There’s a few close ups/medium close ups of peoples faces, we can see how they change. This is where the scratchy high pitch sound effects start. A series of over the shoulder shots follows, keeping camera angles different and interesting. The sound effects increase and intensify as the risk does. As David shoots the man, there’s a loud gun shot then a sharp bang as the screen cuts to black.

The film company screen fades in (Overture films). Sound effect and dialogue used, throughout the next few shots. There are establishing shots so we remember it’s a small calm tranquil town where trouble does not often happen. The caption screens start, the first one, in simple font reading ‘your NEIGHBORS’, a breathing sound effect in the background. Clever shots flicker through, they’re less than a second each with the noise of a running insect/instrument over the top. With every caption screen – the same breathing noise followed by the flickering shots happens.

At 57seconds, the noise intensifies, the violin sounds increase as the build up of tension does then it goes silent as a small boy says ‘he has a knife’ and we cut to an interesting close up of a shoe going up the stairs and a ‘bmm’ noise. Buzzing shots start to occur, buzzing in and out of eachother like a light that doesn’t work properly, there is a series of around 10 of these, the noise increasing. Dialogue is used throughout over the top of the music and sound effects.

At 1minute 28seconds is the real turning point of the trailer happens, a zombie tries to escape out of his cage, a clever side angle shot is used so we just see his arms shoot out of the cage. This would make most of the audience jump. Quick cuts now follow not fades. There’s no longer a calm feel about the trailer.

A very busy feel is present, lots of noises, gunshots, effects, music, footsteps and talking are used. A very busy style trailer but every now and again, there is dead silence. One important scene is of the girl hiding somewhere in a house. There is no noise except man walking along dragging knife along the wall, we don’t see his face – his identity is a secret, it’s a very uncomfortable squeaking noise. It allows the viewer to hear what she hears which is clever.

The scene is followed by a big beat of noise and a sharp cut to a black screen.
The next part of the trailer is significantly different to the rest of it. The next shot is a long shot pan of a wrecked town with the song ‘Mad world’ by ‘Gary Jules’ in the background, it’s a minor piano song. This challenges conventions of a horror trailer as normally they build up and music intensifies towards the end, it gives the film more of an emotional feeling to it.

The music continues for around 10 seconds, accompanying quick 2 second shots cutting into each other showing panic and destruction. Most of the shots are unsteady, handheld medium to long shots. Then, the noises start, more violin/scratchy music starts and intensifies, the dialogue gets introduced, footsteps, gasps, and breathing until a lot of layers are on top of one another.

A big beat of noise and the trailer cuts to the title ‘The Crazies’, in the same font as the captions. As it cuts to the title, all music and sound effects stops except the original Gary Jules song is left. This then fades into the final shot of a bloody pitchfork being dragged around in a hospital type place with a man going to stab a woman with it but cuts just before it does. The last screen contains the website, film logos etc. A simple black background is used.

The Devils Rejects trailer

The MPPA green screen starts the trailer, shortly followed by the ‘Lionsgate’ film logo, which is the company who produced the film. A police clip follows with a reporter describing a crime scene as ‘words can’t describe it’, there’s also a strong underlying rumbling type sound effect with a woman’s voice singing. The screen then fades to black and then to a slow motion close up of one of the main characters ‘Baby’ laughing and smiling in a sunny field. It looks like a home video.
Another 3/4second clip of a man speaking is shown as again, it fades into black and fades back into another home movie style clip of the two other main characters. Again, it looks sunny and they look happy. At this point of the trailer, we don’t feel scared.
The first sound effect is a door being kicked in and a medium long shot of police running through it with guns, this clip is again in slow motion, the clips are still fading into one another.

The sound of a heartbeat increases from the background as we switch from a long shot of the three man characters walking towards the camera with guns, to a policeman with a gun. The heartbeat gets stopped suddenly by a gunshot closely followed with a screaming shot of a maid.

For around 15 seconds of the trailer, we see flashing clips of numerous scenes in the film. Most of the shots are close ups or medium shots so we get to know the characters before we even watch the film. The desert is included in quite a few of the backgrounds so we know the film will be set in a hot climate, possibly a small town as the ‘cops’ are wearing cowboy sheriff hats.

At 57 seconds, ‘A TALE OF’ flashes up in bold red writing, the black background it’s on fades into a birdseye view of a long winding road in the desert. The camera follows up this winding road at high speed, the camera angle getting lower and lower as it continues to flash ‘MURDER, MADNESS & REVENGE’ with sound effects every time a word changes into another. The letters are bold and appear from far away, get closer then fade.

‘The Devil’s Rejects’ appears at the end of the road in the same red style font as the captions, this time it’s organised in a triangle kind of shape and it stays up a few seconds. Underneath we can hear dialogue of (probably) a policeman speaking on his radio, it’s quite muffled and again we can hear the heartbeat like we heard earlier in the trailer. The ongoing theme is good, it helps everything to link together.

‘A film by Rob Zombie’ is the next caption screen, this time the background is black and the font is white. The font used is the same as the earlier red font however this screen is obviously less important as it’s less interesting and possibly irrelevant to the viewer.

As this is a successful trailer and this is good at representing the main conventions of a horror trailer – we can safely say that a theme is a good thing. I’ll take note of this when I record my own teaser film trailer.

Creep Grid of 9

Inglorious Bastards - Grid of 9

Introduction

For our A2 coursework, we had a choice of either making a promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music video, with a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package) and a magazine advert for the digipak. Or we had the choice of a promotion package but for a new film, to include a trailer, a film magazine cover and a film poster.

I havechosen to create a film trailer in a group of three with Leanne and Jessica. We are going to have to plan every detail of our film trailer including the location, actors and props that we will use. Our group have decided to shoot a horror film trailer, we will be analysing professional past and present film trailers to help us understand the conventions and gain experience within the industry.

This years coursework will allow me to use the skills i learnt from last years AS coursework where we designed a magazine front cover, double page spread and a contents page. It improved my photoshop skills and i can use these this year to create the Film Magazine front cover and the Film poster.

I already know the basic selling points of a magazine, it will be similar in the film area of the industry.