1 - Genre
Within every genre there are conventions which most real media texts will follow, such things that are easily definable and allow the audience to determine the genre themselves. Editing plays a huge role in determining both the narrative of the trailer, as well as the genre, as thrillers are commonly represented by cross cutting between the protagonist and the antagonist. A clear example of which is seen in Welcome to the Punch, as the lead protagonist is commonly cut to after the shot of the antagonist Jason Statham. in our own product we were keen to conform to many conventions of the thriller genre, as we also conformed to the trope of a variety of colour schemes and balances, commonly being dark, such as Welcome to the Punch which was blue, and The Disappearance of Alice Creed. We hoped this would give our product a high budget feel, as well as creating an outline feel for the film which the audience can decode through Barthes theory. As well as cross cutting, we presented the genre as being thriller through the common conventions of having a montage in the final act, as the lead protagonist and antagonist come together after the cross cutting to create the tension commonly seen in the final act of thriller trailers.
Another common trop we conformed to within our media product was the use of an opening teaser shot which would grab the audiences attention from the outset. In films such as 7 Minutes, Hummingbird and the town, they too all use dramatic opening shots, often including or suggesting violence which gets the audience at the edge of their seats. This use of an opening violent scene before returning to the main development of the plot all within the first fifteen seconds is used as to grab attention before explaining the rest of the film, something which is seen across all thriller trailers. However, one convention which we did not conform to was the use of a similar shot at the beginning and end of our product, as to create a sense of tension, as though it is that moment which the decision within our narrative relies on. This idea is not typical of other thrillers, but is one which we felt worked well within our product.
2 - Location
When deciding upon the locations within our trailer, we deliberately wanted to convey the social realistic, urban aspect of the thriller trope. We wanted to avoid using any noticeable landmarks in order to gain an anonymity within our trailer and therefore not have to place our setting in any one place.We also wanted to challenge typical conventions by juxtaposing the urban environment with more open and green locations. In doing so our trailer conforms to conventions of British social realism, such as Shifty, but it also challenges the very same convention. This draws upon Barthes Cultural code, in which an active audience is targeted to develop further tension within the film. This allows for the audiences focus to remain on the characters, as the locations suggest hints towards the plot, which can be decoded by each individual audience. As seen in image 2, the contrast of the urban environment with the open woodland allows for tension to build, as such derelict and quiet land is suggestive of no hope for the protagonist girl who is captured, which could be decoded so that the audience questions her death, and are left wanting to know more. Examples within our trailer can be found in real media texts such as The Disappearance of Alice Creed, and reservoir dogs, as seen by the images below respectively. The use of woods and a warehouse develops upon the conventions of real media products as stated.
3 - Sound
In all real media texts there is commonly a large amount of layers when the sound is edited. We followed this style, using layers including the soundtrack, foley sound, dialogue and sound from the filming itself. We adhered closely to the conventions of a thriller trailer in these aspects, particularly with the soundtrack where we used a pulsing beat to create suspense. This is a common trope of thriller trailers, and we used this as we could quicken and add to the beat in order to pick up the pace of the trailer and slow it down. This was layered with foley sound, such as cinematic booms, gun shots, and the noise of a car. This was mixed in with ambient sound such as footsteps, the shovel digging up earth, or the girl crying as seen in image 3. We found and recorded the ambient and foley sounds, whereas our soundtrack was created by our friend who fine tuned the soundtrack to fit our trailer. We were clear in specifying which times need to increase in tension and the times where we wanted the soundtrack to contrast the suspenseful, upbeat music. As for the montage, we were clear that we wanted to build tension with layered sounds, and so used an electric guitar to make a memorable ending to our trailer, as well as an eery feel to specify the thriller genre.
4 - Narrative and Structure
The narrative structure of our trailer conforms to the conventions, which are commonly used throughout thriller trailers. This is seen easiest through the three-act structure which our product follows closely. Our narrative follows the conventions of Todorov's narrative theory as well as the action thriller genre. We use the Redemption theory as our protagonist, as played by Robert Whyte, looks to correct the mistake he made, acting as the moral compass. The three-act structure allowed us to follow the conventions of a thriller trailer precisely. The equilibrium and disruption are shown in Act 1, and the realisation of the distribution shown in Act 2. The restoration of the equilibrium is hinted at during the montage in Act 3. We felt that the three-act structure was essential as all of our main film influences incorporated it, such as The Disappearance of Alice Creed, 7 minutes and the town.
The structure is key as it allows for simplistic interpretations of the trailer, as it follows the general tropes of a thriller trailer so precisely that the audience could grasp the main idea of the trailer without seeing it all. This is something that focuses purely upon the marketing of the film product. Commonly there is a voiceover to present the narrative of the trailer, yet we decided not to use this trope as we wished to build tension with the soundtrack from the very beginning. What we did use are sound bridges, and small patches of dialogue to reveal the narrative, as commonly seen in The Disappearance of Alice Creed. Our product adheres to Barthes Semic and Action codes, which give the audience a clear understanding of the plot and characters. Our product uses the three act structure commonly seen within thriller trailers, and follows many other conventions to create a product targeted at a mainstream audience.
5 - Characters and Actors
In order to ensure that our product would have an audience, and appeal to a mainstream audience, we used characters and actors which followed the typical tropes of a thriller. We used three main male characters, one playing the protagonist, the other two playing the antagonists. We wanted to clearly represent the characters, and showed this through the divide between the protagonist and the antagonists, as the protagonist acts as the moral compass fighting against the ‘villains’. This idea is seen in many of our researched media products, including Reservoir Dogs, and The Disappearance of Alice Creed where the characters are presented as morally ambiguous to start, before the protagonist changes his mind. We followed other typical thriller conventions such as separating the protagonist and the antagonist throughout act 2, while using editing, such a cross cutting to present the two characters in some sort of dual. They are then brought together again in the final act to further build tension as though the audience is aware there will be some sort of final clash between the characters. The leader of the group is shown through the use of an older looking actor, and his control within the narrative. We used low angle shots, emphasised by his height, which made him stand out and seem powerful. The smaller, softer looking protagonist, who is often positioned to one side of the frame and separate form other characters, contrasts this. This is in order to show the development of characters as well as emphasis the overall plot of the trailer.
The conventions of the genre are further enhanced with the casting of Robbie Whyte as the protagonist, reflecting the lead actors of many thriller films such as James McAvoy (Welcome to the Punch), Luke Mitchell (7 Minutes), Christian Bale (The Dark Knight). For our antagonist we cast Charlie Fox, who we chose because he was based of Mr Blonde (Reservoir Dogs), as you don't immediately know that his is villainous by looking at him, but you become aware because of his actions. Our female character was inspired by Amanda Seyfield (Gone) and Gemma Artenton (The Disappearance of Alice Creed), throughout planning we were keen to follow the trope of the blonde damsel in distress. The tropes that we associated with each character allows Barthes Action code to take effect, playing with ideals of expectations and representations within class, age and power all within the action/thriller genres conventions.
6 - Colour and Style
Lighting tropes were essential to our trailer, as commonly lighting and stylistic tones are associated with high budget films and large production companies. We were keen to use similar styles to the real media products, which we studied, yet this was difficult to achieve due to the difference in quality of equipment as well as budget. We wanted to create an aesthetically pleasing set of shots to include in our trailer, meaning we played around with both yellow and white lighting, as well as natural lighting to create our product. We wanted to create a product that looked similar to the high budget trailers we had been influenced by. We used the contrasting times of day, such as night time, as well as day time to create a larger scale of colour, often using white light during indoor locations to emphasis the colder, darker feel of the location. We wanted to create dramatic chiaroscuro, further creating the stylised colour we wanted, as well as an increasing sense of tension. We wanted to contrast the night time shots with well lit, yellow and warm light to further increase the suspense. As for the wood shots, the brown and green of the woods was overpowering, hence we dimmed and dulled the colour to create a darker more sinister feel to the shot. In the montage the use of a wide range of colours is seen, a technique, which is used by our influences such as The Disappearance of Alice Creed, 7 minutes and The Town. This showed us how successful and important the ranges of colours used are. The style of our trailer is conventional to fans of other thriller films such as the big budget film Nightcrawler, where the low key lighting and blue tinted colour creates a colder tone. Using tropes of the action/thriller genre reveal conventions such as the fight between good and evil, the captured girl in distress and the building of tension. These are all encoded through the colour and style and can be seen in virtually all action/thriller films such as blockbuster Inception. We were keen to uphold this trope trying our hardest to develop the colour and style within our product.
7 - Editing
The editing within our trailer was done as it was as to build tension, a key requirement in all thriller trailers. There needs to be a sense of urgency as to sell it to the audience viewing the trailer to make them want to go and see it. A common editing skill we used was the fade to black at key moments, which was used within Final Cut Pro X, as to leave the audience uncertain as to the outcome of the event they have partially seen. We took influence from Welcome to the Punch, as well as The Disappearance of Alice Creed, where they both successfully contrasted the quicker paced action scenes with moments of fade to black, held for a set time to draw out the suspense. Another important convention which we conformed to is the use of contrasting speeds of cuts, as commonly we would use slow editing straight cuts which would lowly build to a miniature montage where high speed editing was used, before returning to slower speed editing and building it back up again. The idea behind this is to create tension, the build up more tension in another form, as seen in many thrillers trailers such as The Town and 7 Minutes. Typically within thriller trailers there entire trailer pivots around one moment, the decision. We wanted to create this moment by building up to it with high speed editing and as the moment came we quickly cut away into the third act to have the montage to leave the audience in a state of tension and query.
8 - Graphics
Within our trailer, we worked hard on textures and fonts within the narrative graphics as well as the reviews. The largest influence was from The Disappearance of Alice Creed, who used blue font on a black background, which had some form of grungy effect over the top whilst it flickered in beat to the music. We used this style in our reviews, as the texture applied to the text hints at dirt and blood, allowing the audience to decode what sort of film our product is, as well as a possible conclusion to out film. We used a strobe effect, which flickers on and off in beat to the music as inspired by 7 minutes, as we felt this built and kept the suspense even during the graphics being on screen. This style of graphics appeals to a mass market as it follows key conventions of the thriller genre, those being large bold sans serif font, as well as block colour with texture over the top. The graphic for the reviews fitted into the thriller conventions as far as graphics go, consisting of the large clean font which allows for an interesting break between acts and scenes.
The graphics used for the narrative graphics were very different, as we decided not to use the same idea as the reviews, but instead create synergy between the title and narrative graphics by incorporating the ideas of the ink and blood into them. The over all effect created a darker feeling, with the red contrasting the deep black to seem more suspenseful, as well as cary the connotations of blood and danger. The idea of using a moving image behind text came from Welcome to the Punch, but instead of electric blue, we wanted to use the red and its connotations of blood. Where the blue carries more connotations of police thriller, we did not include any police in our product so contrasted this with the red. The flowing red ink behind the text is something common of a horror film, and so we wanted to make it clear that our trailer was not part of the horror genre by using a clean modern font, which contrasts the typical tropes of horror as a genre. This style and technique is interesting to watch, and the motion of the ink behind the text is far greater than still text, which allows for the tension to continue building whilst the narrative graphics are on screen.
9 - Title
We wanted o create something that was visually pleasing for out title so that it would stand out form other titles seen in our influences. The end title leaves a moment of suspense for the audience, so we created a slow moving title, which held on screen for a long period of time to create that last bit of tension. The general thriller title is block text on either a white or black background, but we wanted to differ from this and play with what the audience was expecting from the film by suggesting something happens. In our case we use red ink running through water, which was slow and twisting as the white title appeared in the centre. This differed from film such as Taken, or 7 minutes, and so we wanted to create the strong image of blood dripping which we could later use in our poster, creating synergy between them. There are several horror films which use this idea, such as Oculus, which too carries connotations of blood. However we felt it was important to not get caught in the horror genre, and so worked hard on picking a font which differed the horror feel, thus presenting the genre as something in between horror and thriller. We hope this would bring a larger audience to our film, and create an aesthetic that is both memorable and aesthertically pleasing.
EL
