Trailer Conventions:
A typical movie trailer normally follows certain conventions to allow the audience watching the trailer to gain some information on the film at hand, but not all of it. Firstly they don't give away any plot, or enough information for the person or persons watching the trailer to gain enough knowledge to construct the films narrative before they have even seen it. The trailer is normally not in chronological order, or any order at all, but more just very short clips of the film that contain a minut amount of speech, but enough to give enough to allow the audience to want to know more. For example in this trailer Leonardo DiCaprio says, "I specialise in a very specific type of security... subconscious security." In which the other character replies "your talking about dreams?" This short dialogue between these two characters gives some narrative to the watching audience, that the film is something to do with "dreams" but doesn't give the audience a full overview of the movie. Teaser trailers are a great advertising tool for the cinema industry. They can even be released upto 18 months before the movie release day and normally end the trailer with coming soon or a date or year depending on the date of release. In summary teaser trailers follow these general conventions
- Normally 30-60 seconds long, as they don't want to show the audience to much of the film.
- Pace of the editing is normally fast, but if not, starts slow and quickens throughout the teaser trailer.
- The trailer is normally released long before the film is out to put the movie into peoples minds, for the near future.
- If applicable, famous actors or directors are imprinted into the trailer. This is something which is being introduced more and more in trailers in contemporary times.
Inception Trailer 2.24 (trailer not a teaser trailer).
The trailer starts off with an quick establishing shot of the ocean, which quickly changes to a close up of the main protagonists face. This is a common convention of a trailer, both in teaser and normal trailer, when starting the trailer. It gives the audience some context to what the film is about, and as you can see the ocean is given to us, as a audience with the unconventional medium shot, instead of a long shot or extreme long shot for an establishing shot.
Something I have realised in watching movie trailers, is the solid conventions of, a soundtrack in the background - depending on the film and genre. The fast paced montage editing and quick cuts and the length of the teaser trailer itself. I also noticed something which is becoming increasingly new in trailers and teaser trailers in particular, which is the reference to famous actors or directors.
In the case of this trailer It names the director and links it to a well known popular contemporary film - The Dark Knight, which won a number of awards including best actor and best film at the BAFTAS. This gives the film the edge in its trailer as people link The Dark Knight and all its awards with the the current film in the teaser and how it should live up to its predecessor.
This is the teaser trailer for Inception and has a few factors which differ from the full trailer shown above. The first being its length, it is sufficiently shorter than the trailer and contains less shots, but edited at a faster pace. They include different shots as well, more with action rather than a narrative approach like the full trailer for the film. The start of this trailer starts off with a long establishing shot, of the city the film is set in, New York.
This is dissimilar to the full trailer as the establishing shot is a medium or a close up shot of the ocean, which is misleading to the film in some manner. However as the trailer progresses the narrative starts to form, and the audience can build a picture of what the film is generally about. This teaser trailer also uses a lot more computer generated images or CGI, than the full trailer. This is because the director of the trailer wanted to make sure that the audience remembered a "slogan" or "tagline" for the audience, and they remembered the trailer examples of this are:
The teaser trailer also ends with a time period unlike the full trailer with "Summer 2010" which gives the film a time stamp in terms of release. This enables viewers to keep in mind the release of the film, and thus making personal research and researching current public relations on the film.
The trailer doesn't opens with the conventional establishing shot, but more of a montage of scenes from the gruesome tasks which are within the film. It then moves onto the establishing shot of a busy urban city, setting the scene for the next part of the trailer.
The teaser trailer itself is also only 57 seconds long which follows the approximate 1 minute mark for a teaser trailer. This doesn't give too much away but still gives a glimpse of what the film consists of. The start of the teaser trailer also starts with some 3D text, referring back to past prequels, which shows reference to a franchise story.
It also contains a clip with a cameo role from Chester Bennington the lead singer of Linkin park, a world renowned band. This adds a factor to the trailer showing cameo roles from a popular artist and entices more people to find out more about the film.
