1. Codes and Conventions of a Film Trailer

2. What is a Film Trailer? A film trailer is a technique that film productions use in order to promote their film, its a advertising tool that is used to attract audiences and raise awareness about their upcoming movie. This helps distribute the film at different distribution institutions such as cinemas. A generic film trailer consists of many scenes of the narrative of the movie, establishing the main locations , the actors who play the characters, the purpose of the characters in the narrative and the main plot which links to the type of genre. This is all shown in short segments in order not to give away the films narrative so audience can go a watch the films to find out more, this is way many trailers end in a climactic ending to entice the audiences. This why many of the shots are not in chronological order in order to attract the target audiences, for example many cut shots of guns shots shows the action genre aimed at males. This is used in order to build up more curiosity and attention to the films narrative and the characters, this is called narrative enigmas as it provides a puzzle for the audiences to solve and find out. As well as major narrative scenes the trailer also consists if the production studios and the team who is involved in the process. Many trailers are now shown in social interactive websites which audiences can comment and rate the trailer such as YouTube and IMDB. Many trailers are now even shown at the cinemas before a film is shown to attract the similar audiences , they are also shown on television and social networking sites such as Facebook in order to keep up with the development of technology within the media. 3. Conventions of Film Trailers THE PRODUCTION HOUSE LOGO: In many trailers the production house logo appears either at the beginning or at the end, this is significant as the audiences can link the two together. For example is a production house has a good reputation of making amazing drama British films many audiences will want to see their films released as it links to the reputation of the genre such as Working Title with their historical, period films. This will help benefit the trailer as it raises more interest of the film to audiences. 4. Film Title Important as it relates to the narrative and genre of the film and audiences know what the type of film it is. 5. BBFC Age specification This is important as it signifies what types of audiences are allowed to watch the film by their age, this is used in order to control what scenes or content in the film is suitable for certain types if age groups. For example gory, slasher horror films are aimed at the 18 rated age group. In the UK every film is given this classification by the British Board of film association. 6. Music/ Voice overs and Editing Music is important as it builds up suspense of the audience as it gives an important aspect in establishing the genre of the film. Also by the pace of the music can set the mood of the audiences and can also give a journey towards the narrative for example the voice over of the narration by the characters can signify which of the characters is the protagonist. Such as in the Great Gatsby the narration of the character of Nick Garraway adds the pace to the narrative in the trailer. The editing of the trailer is the most significant as it makes the narrative realistic to the audiences by the contrapuntal editing and the cinematography. The editing of the trailer also establishes the pace of the narrative such as in the Great Gatsby trailer the pace starts off slow as the establish the setting and gradually becomes faster and builds up a climax as the cut shots are quicker and the mood of the trailer changes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN183rJltNM 7. Social Media Social media is another way that is used to enable the audiences to find out more information about the film in order to comment and rate the trailer. This helps production houses recognise is their marketing strategies are successful and if the awareness of the film is widespread, this is another type of advertising promotion of the film as it gains more popularity of the film as many audiences use social networking sties and also can gain more demographics for the trailer. 8. Time/ Release Date Time is important as a generic trailer is only up to 3 minutes so its very important to establish the main points and to gain the audience interest. This means every shot has to have a journey to significant of the narrative and build up suspense. The release date is important as it shown at the end to the trailer in order to gain the audiences interest to go at see the film and to fond out more and researching, such as online reviews.