When an audience views a film trailer they automatically start to analyse and interpret what they see and hear to establish the films genre.
Film trailer conventions and genre themes are intertwined in order to portray these different genres to the audience; for example: one of the main themes of a romance is the love story between the two main characters. A film trailer convention such as the use of a soundtrack; would help to produce the right atmosphere in order to emphasise the relationship and evoke the feeling of 'fear' upon the audience.
The genre of our film - Romantic Tragedy with elements of Psychological Thriller, this means that we had to research into the themes of the individual aspects of our genre, enabling us to gain a higher depth of knowledge of the themes associated with each aspect of our genre; therefore our group will then be able to select themes associated with each of the individual aspects of our genre in order for us to portray our chosen genre to the audience in our film trailer successfully.
Below are the themes associated with the Romance genre:
Themes:
- Typical Happy ending (Pathetic Fallacy)
- Love story
- Usually triangulation - romance is being challenged by person or problem
- Told from point of view of both lovers
- Miscommunication - characters hate each other, then love each other
- Emotional appeal - audience participate in the character’s lives, they are privy to their inner feelings and thoughts
- Main characters are the two romantically involved
Tragedy
Themes:
- The main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances,
- A narrative that portrays or depicts calamitous events and has an unhappy but meaningful ending,
- A disastrous event - especially one involving distressing loss or injury to life,
- A tragic aspect or element.
Psychological Thriller Themes:
- Reality - the quality of realism, characters often try to determine what is true and what is not within the narrative,
- Perception - a person's own interpretation of the world around him through his senses. Often characters misperceive the world around them, or their perceptions are altered by outside factors within the narrative,
- Mind - the human consciousness; the location for personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. The mind is often used as a location for narrative conflict, where characters battle their own minds to reach a new level of understanding or perception,
- Existence/Purpose - the object for which something exists; an aim or a goal humans strive towards to understand their reason for existence. Characters often try to discover what their purpose is in their lives and the narrative's conflict often is a way for the characters to discover this purpose,
- Identity - the definition of one's self. Characters often are confused about or doubt who they are and try to discover their true identity,
- Death - the cessation of life. Characters either fear or have a fascination with death.
Film trailers tend to have recognisable conventions in which an audience would establish that they were watching a film trailer. Some of the more recognisable conventions for film trailers are listed below:
Conventions:
- Voice overs are used to tell the story and give credit information
- The stars of the film are showcased
- Key points are sometimes conveyed through titles,
- Conversations between characters often consist of one-liners,
- Dramatic camera angles may be chosen to show events or characters,
- Action is interspersed with actor or director credits on screen,
- Music plays an important role in creating atmosphere,
- The film's title may not appear until the end,
- The trailer builds to a climax where it ends,
- Montage (a series of shorts from different points in the film , edited together) is often used to highlight the most dramatic, humorous or fast paced aspects of the film.
Structural Conventions:
- Structured around the most appealing aspects of a film without taking conventional narrative order into consideration,
- A selection of clips are chosen to attract the widest possible audience,
- Aim to provide a basic narrative structure in order to guide an audience through the film's storyline.
Opening: establishes setting and introduces the characters.
Build-up: Relationships are established, development of characters and their world.
Problem: A dilemma or series of complications, characters faced with an obstacle (or several) to overcome.
Events: A series of events as characters try to overcome obstacles and solve problems. Further complications may arise in the process.
Our Conclusion:
After researching into film trailer conventions and genre themes, it has become apparent to our group that we need a varied mixture of themes associated with each aspect of our genre, to be intertwined with the appropriate film trailer conventions in order to produce a successful film trailer that can be compared to existing products in the film industry.
