The results from my survey clearly showed me that when planning a Romantic Drama, my target audience will most likely be a Female dominated one, and therefore when thinking about where to focus my film on I must take into consideration that my core audience will be Female. However, other results from my survey showed that most of the men that took my survey had in fact seen some well-known Romantic movies, and their excuse for it was that they had been taken to see it by a woman. This is a niche audience that I must consider when trying to target a range of audiences.
The results from my survey regarding how people find out about upcoming films showed that the majority of people of today find out about films via television trailers, word of mouth, posters and billboards and online trailers. The one which I pay most attention to here is that of people being influenced by billboards and posters, considering I must make a poster for my film, I must pay particular attention to how I want my film to portrayed seeing as a poster is a key way to getting people to see your film.
This doughnut graph just heightens my feelings on the fact that my target audience for my film in this country will prefer my film to be low-budget and British. The percentage of people that took my survey that enjoy Indie film surprised me and maybe this will be something that I have to take into consideration when filming my camera shots and deciding on the mood of my film.
These results from my survey are key to deciding whether to say that my film is based on a novel. Having looked at other Romantic films I have seen that the majority of them have been based on best-selling novels and therefore when the film comes out, it will already have a niche audience of those who have read the novel. From this I can see that most females that took my survey do enjoy reading Romantic novels.
This final graph tells me when making my trailer what I must focus on to attract the biggest audience. For example, here it is clear that most of the people that took my survey are influenced most by camera shots, the mood of the film and the narrative. This reminds me that my trailer cannot just have nice shots and a relaxing soundtrack, it must also have a good narrative and a mood which will interest people.
• Young male emerges from Wandsworth Prison in grey tracksuit.
• Grey murky day, man looks up and surveys the streets, been in prison for 3 years so takes some time to take in the new environment of the outside world.
• Looks down to his hands where he is holding a cross, signifying his finding of faith in the prison, and in the other hand a picture of a young child.
• Graphics telling us about this film being based on a best-selling novel.
• Slow paced piece playing lightly.
Act Two
• Fade away to new scene; same character is walking up towards the door of a house, slowly.
• Soundtrack is changed with this scene, with a slow, building track.
• Woman comes to door and heated conversation between man and woman evolves.
• Conversation enlightens audience to a previous relationship between the two and we find out they have a child aged 3. Script such as “You’ve been away from our lives for three years, and you expect to walk straight back into it, we’ve coped well without you. Your child doesn’t even know who you are”………….. “I’m a changed man, please, just give me the chance”. Door slams shut! • Scene of main character and his old friend sitting on bench discussing whether his ex is really worth this and whether he should forget about her. This old friend is the one who means good for his friend but leads him back to his bad past.
Act Three
• Graphics are introduced as pace builds, adding to the storyline to help the audience understand what this film is about.
• Main character and old friend seated on sofa dealing drugs, this scene will be edited in black and white to signify this being in the past.
• Shots of man running in rain, pondering over broken relationships and thinking about ways in which he can prove to his ex and child that he deserves that second chance. As he runs past her house every day, he leaves a rose in her post.
• Dark scenes, setting a mood and atmosphere as graphic asks the audience “Can he hold off old traits and redeem himself”
• Montage of shots including main character holding a man up against a wall in a threatening manner, attempting to mug this man of his possessions. Yet this scene is in stark contrast to a scene of main character and ex-girlfriend emerging from a pub laughing and enjoying each other's company.
• New track, very fast paced, emotional and powerful ending.
• Final shot of ex-girlfriend seated on her stairs, head in hands, looking distressed over the re-appearance of the main character in her life.
• Trailer ends with graphics saying the release date and title of the film.
When it comes to making a film, it is the job of the distributors to set up a marketing campaign that will be appealing and will arouse interest from the general public or audience. The marketing campaign consists of a number of different techniques which will aim to attract a vast audience to go and see this film; posters offer the audience a vision of what this film may be like and radio adverts offer the audience an audio, but in the eyes of all the most powerful weapon in the marketing campaign, is that of a trailer or teaser trailer because it combines an audio and visual to give the audience a real idea of what this film is going to be like. The trailer will often consist of the most appealing aspects of a film, for instance in the trailer for ‘The Dark Knight’, the most notable part is a shot of a truck being flipped up into the air and onto its roof, this shot was probably the most expensive to shoot and is the most stunning, and therefore must be put into the trailer for this Hollywood Action Film.
Taking these conventions into consideration I had to pay special attention to choosing a genre for my film, I eventually came to the conclusion that I would be doing a trailer in the Drama Genre. First of all I had to look at the conventions of a Drama Film, then look at trailers in that genre and then finally decide whether I would want to place my trailer into a sub genre of a Drama Film. However, to start off with I looked up the common conventions and themes that are associated with my genre. A drama film is one that normally focuses on a character or characters struggle at a certain point in their lives and then shows how they deal with the emotional times that follow. Dramatic themes usually centre on things such as alcoholism, drug addiction, class divisions, poverty, racial prejudice or violence. Having looked at these common themes I came to the conclusion that none of them particularly fell in line with what I was trying to achieve and put across to the audience with my film. Therefore, I looked at the sub genres of a Drama Film and I paid particular attention to that of a Romantic Drama where the themes are more centred on the struggles of love between two people, with strong conventions of passion and emotion which usually lead to a very powerful narrative. This appealed to me more and consequently I have decided to create my film trailer in this genre.
Having now decided on my genre, I had to look at film trailers in this genre and gather ideas from them which I can then put into my own work. Examples of trailers that I looked at in this genre were ‘The Notebook’ (2004), ‘Another Year’ (2010), ‘One Day’ (2011), ‘Romeo + Juliet’ (1996), ‘The Time-Traveller’s Wife’ (2009), ‘Dear John’ (2010), ‘Message in a bottle’ (1999) and finally ‘Remember Me’ (2010). A common theme amongst romantic-drama films is that they are usually based on successful novels, specifically ‘The Notebook’ is based on a best-selling novel and therefore a niche audience of people that have read the book is established because they are more likely to be interested in going to see how the book has been transformed into a film.
When looking at the distributors and producers of these Romantic Dramas, they are commonly created by big Hollywood names such as with ‘Message in a bottle’ this was distributed by Warner Bros. Staying with this film, a fact that stands out is that of the release date, the 14th February otherwise known as Valentine’s day. Other films similar to this have been known to release their films on Valentine’s Day so that couples can be encouraged to go see it together on the day as a romantic occasion. When thinking about the release date for my film I will take this into consideration.
‘Another Year’ was the winner of three major film festival awards and the producers of the film decide to put that graphic right at the beginning of the trailer to make sure that audiences on the television don’t quickly change the channel, because automatically they are interested in learning more about this highly-acclaimed film. This is an example of ways in which producers heighten expectations.
I chose to include ‘One Day’ in my collection of trailers that I have looked at because not only is it based on a novel of 2009, it also has another good selling point in the choosing of the actors to play the two main roles: Anne Hathaway plays the main female role and she was well known before this film for roles in ‘Rachel Getting Married’ and ‘Love and Other Drugs’ where her performances got her nominated for a Golden Globe. This wealth of experience meant that the film now had a USP in the form of an established actress. The leading male role Jim Sturgess was a much lesser known actor than Hathaway before this film but the success of this film may bring about a platform to launch his acting career.
The narrative is established in a number of different ways, usually through images of the film and sound clips which help to enlighten the audience to what this film is about. However these are not the only ways that a trailer can establish its narrative. For instance, in ‘The Notebook’ the narrative is told through an actor reading a supposedly fairy tale of a couple and their lives together, however the fairy tale is later to be found to be real. ‘Romeo +Juliet’ also has a narrator describing the narrative but this is supported by the use of graphics which come up with a line or sentence that helps the audience to understand the narrative more, this is also evident in ‘Remember Me’.
Producers also like to establish the mood of their films in a number of different ways, most notably is the use of a backing track or tracks. For example; in ‘The Notebook’, a romantic piece played by an orchestra with violins and a piano sets an up-beat yet emotional atmosphere; in ‘Dear John’ it begins with a slow paced, relaxed acoustic guitar piece......as a complication is established the mood changes and an emotional well-known Snow Patrol track is used; in ‘Another Year’ a harp piece is used in the beginning to suit the mood of romance and sympathy, this is interrupted with a faster piano piece when the narrative quickens.
In conclusion, when it comes to my chosen genre there are a variety of ways that I can establish mood, expectations, narrative and the genre itself. To be specific, I believe it’s the powerful nature of the narrative and the strong use of emotions which attracts me to choosing this genre for my film. Especially when one can express these emotions through a number of different ways in a trailer such as the use of actors, music, images themselves, graphics, script, locations, props, camera angles and the mise-en-scene: this freedom to show powerful narratives, images, expressions and others through a trailer is what made me choose this genre.
