Genre Decision

When I was deciding on a genre my initial thoughts were that I was going to do either a horror type trailer, like Paranormal Activity or the Blair Witch Project or an action movie with lots of explosives and high speed chases. With a quick brainstorm weight up the pros and cons of each genre I did narrow it down to just 3 genres shown below:

·         Horror

·         Action

·         Comedy

For each of these genres I would analyse a teaser trailer and from the overview of each of the different trailers and my preferences I would make my final decision and then onwards start preparation towards my storyline.

Below is the trailer for The Expendables, my analysis of an action trailer where I have looked at the codes and conventions of this trailer:

After watching this film trailer the important thing about the trailer is that I know after viewing it that it is an action film which is what the trailer needs to deliver, an understanding to the audience that if they come and see this film they are guaranteed all the conventions of an action film; car chases, explosives, fire, guns, fighting which is all necessary in an action film. This positive of the trailer reflects as a negative for my film making though, this is because the explosions and car chases all are made with lots of money and professional filming, in these two aspects I am limited. Also, the fighting and drama from certain scenes, for example when the Asian man is fighting someone this will be extremely hard to replicate at an amateur level where if I attempted to re-in-act this sort of action the fighting would most likely look very fake and would look very unprofessional, however a way to prevent this sloppiness is with quick cuts so that there is enough action to see yet the takes are so quick the action doesn’t look too fake.

Although the film fits into the action genre, certain aspects of the trailer include humour, this shows that although you have to specify to a certain genre you can use other genres at a lesser extent as “The Expendables” does with the “4 and a half men” joke.

To sum up I have learnt that because of limited funds and a lack of professionalism and high-tech equipment an action film would be too hard to film and therefore is ruled out as one of the possible genre I initially decided I may want to use.

The comedy film I am going to review and weigh up is the film Step Brothers, the trailer shown below.

Step Brothers is the trailer I am going analyse as my comedy trailer. My initial thoughts of this genre are that it would be very hard to try and produce a trailer with because it is extremely difficult to fulfil the audience’s needs by making them laugh. However the real problem with the comedy genre is that from the real comedy films that have made them the vast majority have big name actors in the film which is a real bonus over films which don’t have these actors/actresses in their films. For instance in Step Brothers will Ferrell is commonly known and is an established name, as well as Seth Rogen and Steve Carrel in “The 40 year old virgin”. Without being able to host big names in my trailer it will be hard to attract the large audiences perhaps that horror films or action films can without the big names, for example lower budget films with lesser known actors/actresses include Paranormal Activity, The Ring and The Hills Have Eyes.

 The final genre I am going to analyse and weigh up the benefits and drawbacks of portraying this in my trailer is the horror genre.
Below is the trailer followed by analysis of the film

In this trailer I really like the opening with establishing shots, firstly of the sky scrapers of Tokyo City to set the scene so that we know where this is taking place, the second is of the civilians in Tokyo City giving the film a sense of reality and applicabilty to the real world and thirdly of the house where all the drama is set to unfold and where there is a "Grudge". Another feature I really like about this trailer is the way the text swings in with the white and black backdrop which really adds to the darkness of the film. I feel however this may be difficult to replicate and I wouldn't want t copy the technique too much so could be a possibilty in attempting to the same thing in a different way. What makes this trailer so good is the quick cuts of gripping, horrific things with the young boy in the elevator, the fire and with the CCTV footage, which kind of serves up a mixture of horrific scenes which really lures the audience into thinking; why is there fire? Why do the younger children seek revenge? etc.
This feature that the trailer, using fast shots of little bits and pieces, can really grip the audience and attract them in a way that perhaps the comedy trailer could not, with the action film this is possible but the takes seem very hard to take and modify with car chases and explosives. This is why I have decided to film my trailer using the horror genre, with quick takes, lots of black and darkness I should be able to lure my targer audience and create a good trailer.