2. Our Project
For our A2 Media Coursework, as a group, we decided to create a film
trailer. Along with this film trailer, we decided that our two ancillary tasks
would be a magazine front cover and a poster, which will advertise the
film.
We felt that by choosing to create a film trailer, it would be more of a
challenge than a music video or a documentary. We also had much better
ideas for a film trailer, we also asked a small group of people, which genre
of film they prefer to watch.
3. Our Results Show…
What genre of film do you prefer to
watch?
4%
13%
4%
22%
26%
31%
Thriller
Horror
Romance
Comedy
Family
Other
4. Genre & Research
Since deciding that we are going to create a romantic film, we have
completed lots of research about romantic films. We put together
lots of ideas based on a number of romantic film trailers we
watched. All of these examples have given us lots of information on
what should be included in a romantic film trailer, which will
hopefully make the creation of our film trailer much more effective
based on the research we discovered.
5. My Sisters Keeper
Although it is not a romantic film between a couple, we chose this film
trailer to research because it is emotional and has an effect on the
audience by the end which is what we want with our media product. Also
from this trailer we learnt that voiceovers in this genre of film are
effective, especially with an emotional story as it informs the audience of
parts they may be unsure on.
6. The Notebook
This trailers storyline is the most similar to the one we are going to
create. It features a typical storyline of the ‘couple falling in love’
but get split up but find each other in the end. From this trailer we
learnt that with a romantic drama it should have calm classical
music which sets the calm scene and only plays gently in the
background.
7. What have you learnt from your
initial audience feedback?
The type of characters expected to be seen in a romantic film would be a
typical boy and girl, quite attractive and young, who fall in love with each
other, usually at first sight or becoming friends and seeing their romance
grow throughout the film. Also, maybe show the opposition of their love
with an interesting story to their love. The genre of music to hear in a
romantic film would be pop, soft mellow, classical music as it’s lighthearted, emotional and links into the tone of the film. The features in the
trailer that entice the audience to watch the film are the type of music
and type of characters shown in the trailer and some of the best parts of
the film. Features that should not be seen in a film trailer would be
features that don’t link into the theme of the film (romance) so not too
much action and gory scenes. The average duration for a film trailer
would be two and a half minutes long.
8. Our First Idea
For our groups film trailer, I had the idea of two main characters (Beth and
Ryan) living two separate lives, with their own separate group of friends
but the similarity of both of their parents have passed away. They get to
know each other at the party, meet up many times with friends and on
their own and fall in love over a period of a year. Then Beths parents tell
Beth that they have to move to America for her dads work so she has to
leave Ryan. Ryan tries to persuade Beth to stay but she has no choice but
to leave. It shows the characters individually living on their own. Then the
problem is slowly resolved by Ryan tracking Beth down and travelling to
America to see her and start their new life again.
The trailer will include quick shots of exciting parts of the story without
giving it all away. The music will be sad and slow and will reach an exciting
part when they have to part each other, This will show when the problem
occurs. The music will then drift back into slow where it shows happiness
and them in love. There will be a voice over of a few words so the
audience knows what is going on.
9. Our Second Idea
Our romantic film trailer will be based on a young boy and girl (James and
Lucy), who meet at a young age in a foster home, soon becoming the very
best of friends, planning to go on adventures together and travelling the
world. James has been fostered and moves away from Lucy with his new
foster parents. James and Lucy promise to keep in contact and begin to
write letters to each other. Lucy stops hearing from James after only 4
months of staying in contact, so Lucy runs away from the foster home in
fright that James is in trouble. After no luck and soon being caught by the
social workers, she slowly gives up hope looking for James. Lucy begins to
realise that she needs to move on and understands that James has stopped
talking to her. She is being bullied by other children in the foster home and
feels completely alone. Years on, Lucy turns 18 and sets off to College to
fulfill her dream of becoming a Teacher, leaving all of her horrible
memories of the foster home behind her. Soon to find out that she is only
around the corner from her best friend, but will their friendship ever be
the same as it was 8 years ago?
10. Our Third Idea
Finally, our last idea was to base the film trailer on a young boy and a girl
(Sam and Victoria) who fall in love, they cannot face being out of each
other’s sight, until one day Victoria dies after being involved in tragic car
accident, just on her way to her boyfriend’s home to meet his parents for
the very first time. Sam is struggling to come to terms with what has
happened and suffers from a severe form of depression, causing him to
almost become suicidal. Sam decides he wants to take his own life at the
top of the mountains, which was place Victoria and Sam used to love, until
Victoria’s spirit forces him to not go through with this decision, move on
with his life and be happy. Sam is so overwhelmed by this and decides to
take her advice and begins to move on. Everyday, he travels to the same
place he saw Victoria so that he could see her and talk to her about his life
and how he is coping. Until one day, Sam meets another girl at his new
high school. However, he still travels to the same place everyday to meet
Victoria, but she doesn’t show. Is this because she is jealous? Or because
she has decided that now Sam has met someone else, she doesn’t want to
get in the way?
11. We chose…
We chose to go with our second idea, the reason for this is because we felt
that it would be more interesting and appealing to our target audience who
enjoy watching romantic films. As a group, we felt that by going with our
second idea, it will be more challenging and exciting to create a film trailer
for. The story of our second idea is also different, as we felt that our first
and third idea may be too similar to other well-known films.
This idea fits in with out genre, this is because we felt that it is a different
type of romantic film, by going forward in time, which makes the film
trailer more enticing, causing the audience to be interested in seeing the
film after it being released. The film idea relates to the genre of romance
because it is based on the idea of a boy and a girl falling in love, but their
love for each other being taken away and trying to solve this, resulting in a
happy ending, but with a twist.