Conventions In Trailers –Text, Animation and Fonts Used

Silent House trailer showed how they included a critics quote from a famous source within their trailer. This is something I found effective and wanted to use this convention within my own trailer. If a positive comment has been made about the trailer this will reflect on the audiences opinion and make them more inclined to focus on the content of the trailer.

Including a critics quote that is positive will show someone else's opinion ( someone who is famous) to the audience. This will suggest the trailer/film is successful if a famous company is critiquing their opinion. This is why I decided to include something similar.

A convention that I found effective in the trailer ‘The Descent’ were simple transitions that include very few words. Including fewer words makes a bigger impact and stops the audience from getting distracted and bored. E.g. If they have to read long words and sentences they may become dis-interested.

Within my trailer I then decided to include shots with text on in-between shots where my characters were found. These text transitions were simple in moving scenes along and adding suspense to the audience. This is an effective convention that I have witnessed in many horror and thriller genre trailers.

Conventions In Trailers –Text, Animation and Fonts UsedThe last scene is common in including the title of the trailer, therefore this has

to be the bit that is eye catching and simple enough for the audience to

remember and understand. I researched many horror and thriller trailers to find out the best text font,

size, colour, positioning and animation to use.

This is the outcome of my chosen font, size, positioning and animation. I decided

to keep it simple like the two examples above. I used a range of fonts and

repeated the name of my trailer continuously so it would stand out and so the audience would easily remember

the name. It looks simply effective.

Many of the trailers I previewed did not include the date of release

on the text scene including the name. I have challenged

conventions by including the date of release as I believe this is

important in showing when the film is in cinema. Trailers are

aimed to get people to watch them at cinemas therefore the release date should be acknowledgeable

and stand out clearly for the audience.

Existing media products also tended to use animation within

their text scenes, especially when advertising the name of

their trailer. Although animation looks effective, I decided to

challenge this convention and add no animation to my text.

This is simply so it stands out and the audience can focus on

the name.

Conventions Within Posters – Text Used

How I have developed conventions of other posters. The text and format of my poster is similar to the poster of ‘Amityville Horror’. Although I have developed these conventions by making my text more bolder e.g. Making it white, bolder and bigger. Personally I think this is more effective as it stands out and makes the text a lot clearer to read. This is important as the audience need to be attracted to what they are viewing. The poster will be key in making people watch the trailer. I have developed the inspiration I originally gained from ‘The Amityville Horror’ poster and based the position of the text and picture the same. I believe the positioning is also important. If the text and image are too close together this may not make the poster look not as clear as it could be.

Conventions Within Posters – Colour Schemes Used

How I have used conventions of other posters.

I have used conventions of the ‘Friday The 13th’ poster by using a similar colour scheme. The colour scheme I have used within all three of my media products is red and black. As soon as I saw the Friday The 13th poster I knew it was of the horror genre. The colours work well in showing the villain and also showing the setting. Although I did not want to fully show my villain therefore I made the contrast darker to simply show him as a dark figure holding a weapon. Both posters look effective in advertising the trailer and showing the genre clearly.

Conventions Within Magazines – Text Used

How I have used and developed conventions of other magazines. The original idea for the name of my magazine came from the popular movie magazine – ‘Total Films’ Although I decided to use a similar font – Showcard Gothic, I decided to keep with the horror genre and call it ‘Twist Films’. The title suggests it is of a gothic genre, more so than keeping the name ‘Total Film’. The reason why I decided to use this font and design for my own title is because of how eye catching it is and how it stand out effectively. The main focus is on the title so this has to be eye catching for the audience.

Conventions Within Magazines – Colour Scheme Used

How I have used conventions of other magazines. I also gained inspiration from ‘Empire’ magazine. The colour scheme used effectively makes the focus on both the title and the character. This is something I wanted to achieve and I had already followed the black and red colour scheme in my previous media products. Black and red both suggest thriller and horror genre films. This is something I wanted to convey just by looking at the cover of my magazine without focusing on the writing. Empire magazine stands out well and it is bold and eye catching. These are the conventions I wanted my magazine to follow.