To what extent are trailers accurate to the film?

When it comes to trailers, they can either be misleading of the finished film, or completely spoil it. Both of these tend to lead in disappointed viewers either before or after the film's release. Here are some examples of a trailer that was too misleading of the film and a trailer that spoiled the whole film, and whilst they do not fall under the genre I am studying they are still interesting to analyse.

Misleading Trailer, Godzilla (2014)

Directed by Gareth Edwards and staring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen and Bryan Cranston. Godzilla was one of the biggest films of 2014, earning over $529 Million which was over three times it's production budget and getting all-round good reviews, kickstarting a franchise with a sequel coming out in 2019. Despite it's success it is notorious for it's misleading trailer. In which it is implied that Godzilla is the one wreaking havoc upon the world and is put forward as an antagonist. However, after watching the film you can see this isn't the case In fact the title character doesn't appear until about 40 minutes in and only has about 10 minutes of screentime in the 2 hour film. The main antagonists of the film were these 'MUTOs' which were a new kind of monster made for the film. The problem is they didn't even appear in the trailers for the film, except maybe for a frame or two. In fact one scene of Godzilla fighting one of them as doors closed on the battle was edited to just show him roaring forbiddingly at the camera. This could be justified however, as Edwards could have just wanted to avoid spoiling the story. Another misleading part was the excessive use of actor Bryan Cranston in the trailers. They set him up to be one of the main characters when in reality he was killed off quite early on, without doing too much for the story. This was a little more deceitful as they most likely did this because Cranston is a popular actor and this would have drawn audiences in.

Spoiler-Filled Trailer 

There have always been criticisms of spoiler filled trailers. They take away the fun from the film and leave no point in watching them. A notorious example of this is 2018's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom which, whilst doing very well at the box office, was critically panned worldwide. Universal released its first trailer in December of 2017, which was not too spoiler heavy, showing us mostly footage from the first half of the film. The second trailer however is where things went south. In just a minute and a half the entire plot of the film was revealed, this made the film less impactfull, for example the plot twist of the main characters being betrayed and left for dead on the island was supposed to be a big moment, but it was ruined by the trailers, meaning it meant nothing for viewers. It also spoiled the second act revealing that the new hybrid "Indoraptor" escapes and wreaks havoc on the manor was also spoiled, leaving most audiences waiting for them to get to that part rather than pay attention to what was going on in the film at that point. However, like the previously mentioned Godzilla, they did do a similar thing with actor Jeff Goldblum, reprising the role of his character Dr Ian Malcom, as they did with Bryan Cranston, implying they were both key players in the film when in reality were in it for hardly any of the film. Although I suppose you could count it as a spoiler as basically all we see of Goldblum in the film was shown in the trailers. 

Altogether I can see, by these trailers what percautions I should take when it comes to making my trailer, granted I'll be doing a different genre and there will not be a completed film to spoil, I should still take into conideration where these ones went wrong.

Narrative Theory in a trailer of my chosen genre.

Visme- Narrative Theory Presentation

The Codes and Conventions of Fantasy Epics.

Prezi- Codes and Conventions of Fantasy Stories

Genre of my Trailer

Genre of my Trailer- Link

The Evolution of Trailers.

The Evolution of Trailers

I recently made a blog about the history of film trailers and noticed that they are vastly different to what they are now. I found it fascinating to see how, over time they evolved to become what they are today.

As I mentioned in my history of trailers blog, originally trailers were displayed after the film. However they were soon used before films as it was much more effective from a marketing standpoint, as it drew more people in to watch the film. Most trailers were made by the NSS (National Screen Service) up until late on in the 50's. These trailers were made mostly up of clips from main scenes and were accompanied with loud voices and bold text, usually crediting the actors.

However, the arrival of "New Hollywood", the format for trailers changed. They became more like montages of the film, showing more, shorter clips. This was very popular and much more similar to the trailers that we have today. However many of these still contained voice-overs.

Trailers remained like this for a while, whilst still continuing to adapt slightly with the times. For example, during the 80's and the 90's, ominous or dramatic voice-overs were all the rage and every major blockbuster had one in it's trailer. However, nowadays people would find this cliched and in a modern context would only be used ironically.

Probably the most recent change in trailers is the effort in not revealing spoilers for the film. In the past trailers would often give away the ending of a film, take Castaway by Robert Zemekis. The trailer showed us Tom Hank's character off the island and back home, which straight away ruins the ending of the film. However nowadays, studios will go above and beyond in avoiding spoilers. Some studios go as far as to edit the trailers so they are different to the finished product and do not reveal too much.

Altogether, throughout the last century trailers have changed drastically, and with the increasing use of technology and the internet, they will probably go on to evolve even more.

A Brief History of Trailers.

History of Trailers Poster.

Trailer Breakdown and Analysis- Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Trailer Breakdown, Comparison and Analysis

What makes a good trailer? Survey.

Trailer Survey

Many different people have different preferences when it comes to trailers. To decide how I should make mine in order to appeal to most people, I sent a survey out to my media class to see what they think, that way I can see what would be best to do when I come to make mine.

Click here to see the results

Media Theory- Narrative

Narrative Theory in Film.

Narrative is the term used in Media Studies to describe the way in which a story is presented to an audience. For the most part different genres of film have the same narrative codes and conventions, however there are some that may be slightly different. Narrative is important as it gives the audience an engaging and enjoyable story.

There is usually a set structure when it comes to narrative, which could be applied to most media texts, but mainly film. Todorov's Narrative Theory is a great example: 

Equilibrium

Disruption of equilibrium

Recognition of disruption

Attempt to repair disruption

New equilibrium

Another good theorist for film narrative is French semiologist Roland Barthes. Barthes stated that narrative should use five different codes in order to remain appealing to the audience:

Action

Enigma

Symbolic

Semiotic 

Cultural

Binary opposition is another huge factor in media. It is putting two completely opposite factors together and set off against each other. Some examples are: Strong vs weak, old vs young, day vs night, big vs small, hero vs villain etc.

The differences between teaser and theatrical trailers.

The differences between teasers and trailers

Example of a teaser trailer- Captain Marvel.

The first teaser for Captain Marvel has dropped, lets break down the codes and conventions we see in it.

Yesterday, the much anticipated trailer for Marvel Studio's Captain Marvel was released globally. It is set to be released on the 8th of March 2019. It is the first film by Marvel Studios that has a female lead and ties in with the continuity of the already established Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise.

As we can see, the teaser uses many of the codes and conventions that a teaser trailer should have.

Lets start off with the structure.

A teaser should start off by establishing the setting and characters. As we see here, the first shot is of Brie Larson's Captain Marvel falling from the sky into a Blockbuster Video store.

This establishes the main character, as well as the setting, Captain Marvel crashes into a Blockbuster Video store, meaning that the film is set in the past, the 1990's. We continue to get establishing shots, with dramatic angles and we begin to hear a climactic score build up in the background. 

Throughout the beginning of the trailer we hear dialogue from Samuel L Jackson's character, Nick Fury, talking to Captain Marvel and eventually we see them meet. This ties in with the second main convention of a teaser trailer,  establishing character relationships. The only characters we hear interacting are these two, however we also see lots of other characters interact and therefore can begin to piece together pieces of the plot, which helps give the audience a clearer understanding of the film. 

We are the introduced to these green aliens, the Skrulls, which are set to be the film's antagonists, although very briefly, however it is as Fury is saying "We have no idea what threats are out there" which subliminally shows the audience that they are going to be the main antagonists. 

Another convention seen, or rather heard, is the use of a dramatic score a track called Luminous and Unstoppable by Aleksandar Dimitrijevic, which starts off with quiet piano music and throughout the trailer builds up into a grand orchestral climax at the end, this helps build audience hype and anticipation. 

Finally, we see the use of the title card at the end of the trailer. This is almost universally used as it also builds up audience hype.

View the teaser here. 

What is a film trailer?

What is a Film Trailer?

Every major Hollywood film releases trailers before it's release. This is to generate and increase audience anticipation in order to boost box sales. 

Trailers fall under two classes, theatrical trailers and teaser trailers. Teaser trailers are released prior to the theatrical trailers. They are shorter and often have climaxes that leave the audience wanting more. Theatrical trailers are similar to teaser trailers and have many of the codes and conventions of a teaser trailer, however they are longer and show more of the film's plot. 

The maximum length a trailer can be is 2 minutes and 30 seconds. However, the studio is able to make exceptions once a year.  This is one of the MPAA guidelines. The MPAA, or the Motion Pictures Association of America, is situated  in Washington DC and it represents the 6 largest film studios in Hollywood, whereas the UK has the BBFC. 

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