Group Storyboard.

This is something I and the group came up with towards the beginning of the whole production. We used this storyboard as a rough guide to how the narrative would flow in the trailer and how we would film it. However we have made many changes to the trailer to improve its overall quality, but we remained faithful to the core of this storyboard.

Textual Analysis of Film Trailer by Imelda D'Souza

This trailer begins by displaying the name of the Film Studio that is releasing the film, 'Universal' and the name of the production company 'MARV'. After this the audience is introduced to the protagonist, along with a group of his friends who are sitting in a cafe, and talking about what might happen to someone if they tried to be a superhero. At this point the pace of the trailer is slow and we are then shown a shot of a person dressed up as a superhero, trying to fly of a tall building but instead ends up hitting a car in the middle of their city. This tells us that the film is a superhero, action comedy and the plot is taking place in the city that these characters live in. About a few seconds after these shots are revealed, the pace of the trailer starts to speed up. This increases the viewers adrenaline because it makes them feel that the events are happening, this builds their excitement, their anticipation and their interest in the film. The fast cuts used in this trailer have a similar effect on the audience as well as provide them with lot of information but not too much to give the whole story of the film away. This type of editing is driven by the tempo of soundtrack used in the trailer. This prepares the audience, gets them ready to watch the film, helps change their mood and helps them relate to the characters and their emotions more. Sound effects such as bullets being fired, screams and CGI also change the audience's mood, keeps them interested and makes them feel more involved in the action which is depicted in the film. The variety of camera movements and shot sizes adds to the mood that the film, adds to their experience, and really improves the pace and continuity of the film. 

The film is also told by the protangonist, "Dave".  David "Dave" Lizewski / Kick-Ass, is a very sensitive teenager, and very unpopular in school, which is why he decides to adopt a whole different persona, a superhero identity. His life as 'Kick-Ass' is the complete opposite to the life of nerdy "Dave" Lizewski. He experiences so much drama, adventure, unlike his alter ego, he is confident and brave. The only thing they both have in common, is that they are not afraid to do something out of the ordinary. The advantage of him telling the story, is that the audience will feel as though they are being spoken to directly and that they have a relationship with the character. He also tells the story in chronological order, so the audience feel like they are being introduced to every aspect of his life. This draws them and keeps them engrossed in the film.

Other characters also keep the audience interested and engrossed in the film, such as, Damon Macready / Big Daddy. He was a police officer. He is now just the father of Mindy Macready/ Hit girl. Damon Macready does his job, raises her and together they kicks ass!

Mindy Macready/ Hit girl is an eleven year old girl, genuinely dangerous and genuinely mad. This is because she has been brought up in an environment where she has witnessed a lot of crime, her dad fighting against crime, she doesn't know anything different.

Last, but not the least, is Chris D'Amico / Red Mist, one the funniest superheros in this film, he is too loud and too obnoxious, making the film more entertaining for the audience.

Each of these characters have their own personalised costumes. Kick-ass has a costume with an odd mix of colours most of which are bright. The reason he is represented in this way is because Dave is a bright person and he is not a normal guy, he is partly a superhero and so he has many different qualities, also with this costume, he is eye-catching and therefore will get attention, and he is making his mark. In contrast, Big Daddy wears a full black costume similar to that of Batman's. This is because he's very bold and serious, so is Hit Girl.  However, Hit girl wears a purple costume as well as purple hair. This shows that she is a female, different to the other male superheros and she can look tough but fashionable at the same time. Without these characters the film would not be a massive success.

At the end of the trailer captions are used, for example, 'THIS YEAR- GET READY TO- KICK ASS' and also displayed is the month in which the film will be released.

Textual Analysis of a Film Magazine Cover By Imelda D'souza

Textual Analysis of a Film Poster By Imelda D'souza

This poster is successful due to the costumes, colours and poses associated with actors in the film. The cast are shown at the top of the poster; names such as Nicholas Cage, who has been in many films before, are mentioned. This is done to attract the target audience. In this poster all of the actors look very serious, however, they’re costumes do not connote that they are serious people. In fact, they’re outfits are pretty humorous, which is very ironic, as  superheros who are serious often look sophisticated, scary, dark and strict. 

The superheros in this film all wear different costumes and each one is made up of different colours. A variety of colours are therefore used in this poster, red, black, green etc. This represents that the film can be categorized into many genres and it also connotes that each of the characters in this film are original, they all have their own skills and style, making them quite different from one another. Usually posters only use one or two colours, whereas this one doesn’t. It denotes that this film is like no other.

The main character is positioned in the centre of the frame and his image is bigger than the images of other characters also in the film. This connotes that he is the leader, his pose, the way he is facing the camera and holding his weapons, makes him look strong and invincible. Other actors are positioned around him, but their image is smaller which makes them look like they are under his authority and as though they are on his side protecting him.

Yellow is used for the title of the film, which makes it stand out against the black background and does not take away the effect of characters on the poster, or the attention aimed to be given to them. I think the font used has been chosen because it is clear, neat and simple, it adds a little class to the poster. There is other text on the poster as well, for example, a catchy slogan- ‘Shut- Up. Kick-Ass.’ This conveys that the film is a comedy and because the filmmaker's attitude is reflected in the film as fun it will attract many people to watch it, as many people want to have a good time.

Also included on the poster is the release date of the film and the website to go on to get more information about the film.

Empire Magazine Analysis

Empiremagazineana from OliverBlacklight

Textual analysis of a film magazine cover/Poster/Trailer

Watchmen Trailer

In the trailer of watchmen we start with a fight scene, which instantly sets the pace for the rest of the trailer, instantly telling the audience that this is a fast paced action adventure film that is gritty and compelling, this is clear thought the brute force used by the characters and the brief audio we here for some of the main characters.

At the start a man is beaten very badly and is throw straight throw a plate glass window, which first shows the strength of the villain, it also sets out so form of narrative for the audience to follow.

The music behind the video also speaks to the audience and always keeps pace with the trailer the first song builds the trailer up and raises tension during the trailer which then brings us to the second song that ques the action and the main fighting in the middle of the trailer and finally butterflies and hurricanes by muse in brought in for about half the trailer, the editor chose specific parts for the song that highlight fighting and corruption in the system and counties at war.

We also have multiple points in the trailer where a ‘text frame’ is used which supplies us with important information about the film, and build up the audience’s anticipation the line below ‘they watch over us’ has a clear dual meaning that fits in very well with the political side to this film as well. Firstly it is the idea that we are being protected by a higher power than our own and secondly that the government is always watching us as this film mainly focuses of the government bring the earth to near destruction through their lust for power and knowledge.

 

Watchmen Poster

The poster for this film actually tells us very little but it does give us a brief insight to the characters, from left we have the protagonist we can see him here with his head bowed and he is the only one who has his entire face covered telling us he has lots of secrets, however he is still the least obvious looking out of all of them telling us also he is hiding in plain sight. The rest of the characters have more conventional costumes the girls showing off her legs and the guys making them look strong and menacing, however the character at the back is clearly separate, and even though he is at the back he is bigger than anyone and draws the eye of the viewer his location tells us he is disconnected and his height demonstrate his true powers.

The colors in the trailer are all relatively dark and gloomy which foreshadow what is to come. And the only real prop that can be seen is right at the front of the poster of the man in the far right holding a gun; this once again tells us that the film is violent.  

Watchmen Magazine  

The magazine above is pretty stereotypical of most magazines, it has information about the inside on either side of the main photo and the majority of the page is covered by the main subject of the magazine for that week. The photo here is of the protagonist and one of his tools he uses to help him fight crime; here he is holding almost as if it is a regular gun. This pose however is quite ironic as more often than not vigilantes would be fighting people who pose with guns like this, which lead us to think that the pose could be on purpose as a kind of joke or that he is merely just showing off his toy.

As is common the photo is also above and behind different layers of text, he is in front of the main masthead yet behind what is in this edition. This is done as people will know the title of the magazine yet they do not know what is inside the magazine each week, it also allows the magazine to show off as much of the main article as possible whilst given as little away as possible.

Conventions of Film Trailers

At the beginning of the Superhero movie trailer there is an image featuring classification advice, and this is usually relevant to the country the trailer is filmed and screened in. Soon after this the film production logo and the name of the film is displayed. This is evident in the film trailer for Captain America- The First Avenger and the film trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. Most film trailers feature voice-overs to help the audience understand the narrative. Some trailers use the main character as a voice-over to help convey the narrative; and this creates a connection with the audience and the protagonist as they can understand how they feel, and by what they say you can sometimes understand the character; and possibly sometimes relate to the character. Editing of the trailer is created specifically to reinforce the narrative, and to help the audience understand the central plot of the film, the clips on a film trailer are sometimes not in the order they're seen in the film and that is because the clips help convey the story. Editing includes the use of fast cuts to show different parts of the film within a short amount of time. This holds the audience’s attention and keeps them entertained.  These fast cuts are often driven by the music which is used, for example, these trailers begin with slow music in the background and then the first shot fades in slowly, but as soon as the music speeds up more fast cuts are shown on screen for a shorter amount of time. Another key convention of film trailers are the use of captions. This gives the audience more information about the film, including the stars this is done purely to attract the audience; especially if there are big stars in the film it makes the audience want to go and see them in the film. Other text gives information about the producers/directors, tagline, the title and release date which are often shown at the end of the trailer. The style of text is different according to the genre of film, the tone that is going to be used in the film and it is usually accompanied by a musical beat. Music is also essential in trailers as it can suggest the genre, style and plot of the film. 

Introduction-Snatch Productions

The reason why we chose this company name is to make us appear memorable, yet still conform to what you would expect a production company to be. Our production company specialises in action thrillers, however, we are having at go at producing our first superhero, action comedy film. A number of our team will be working together to make this movie a success.

Imelda D'souza will be acting as one of the characters in our trailer, the prop planner and costume designer. She will have to make sure that the props and costumes are there when needed and suit the style of the characters in our film trailer.

Billy Meehan will be the director who will work closely with Oliver Moran. He will make sure that we get a variety of shots such as close ups, medium close ups, wide shots and point of view shots as well as use the camera at different angles, for example, high and low angles. He will also make sure we use lightning to the best of our ability.

Oliver Moran is the lead story boarder in our film. He will make sure that we follow the script that we get every scene that we need in order to make sure that we can make a suitable trailer, a trailer that has substance and will explain what our film is about.

All of us will be finding locations in which we can shoot our trailer and help with the screenwriting. We will all help with editing the trailer, adding in the music and/or voice over. We will all have to frequently convene to make sure the story is of a good standard and is memorable.

Initial Planning Ideas

Genre- Action/Adventure/Comedy

Narrative- A teenager living in a world paralysed by crime, he takes it upon himself to fight crime. However this regular boy has very little effect on the world around him, until unknown to him he stumbles upon the strongest crime ring in the city, upon seeing this our young hero becomes the target of mob bosses and high ranking corrupt government officials day in day out, will he fight or run, or will he make absolutely no difference what so ever?

The film above is a superhero paraody similar to the likes of Kick-Ass however this film takes it self less serious this was originally the style we were going for however early in production we decided to go for a slightly more serious approach, however we still didnt want to move to the gritty style of Kick-Ass. We did still draw some inspriation from the film. such as our hero become a target of a strong gang. We also liked the idea of the character Red-Mist. Below we have a picture of Red-Mist standing on a dumpster this reminded me of a convention related to super-hero movies and that is of  the hero standing over the city looking down upon the innocent people. However this is more comical and when he jumps down he hurts himself from the 3 foot drop.



Avengers Film Poster analysis by Oliver Moran

Avengers poster anaylsis from OliverBlacklight

Textual Analysis of a film trailer by Oliver Moran

24/9/12

The Avengers trailer-  What makes it effective?

The Avengers trailer sells the movie primarily as a super hero movie which means it presents all the basic connotations and imagery associated with super heroism such as caped costumes and fast paced action. What makes this trailer so effective is how well it works the elements within it work with each other, for example the narrative and themes help establish and support the genre of the film. The narrative at the beginning  along with the quick cut to people running away from a oncoming threat establishes and fore shadows a fore boding and dark fate for Earth helps pave the way for the heroes to appear.  This also helps tell the audience that this is a action movie. Shortly after this one by one the super heroes are introduced. All should be either instantly recognizable to everyone, such as Iron Man and Hulk and some should be only familiar to those who know the comics well, such as Hawkeye. This instantly establishes the feature as a super hero film as well as an action film, showing that the movie is multi genred.

The fact that the trailer presents the film set in New York City also helps reinforce that this is an action film as well as a super hero one, as a city is an ideal place to have large scale epic battles. Some of the imagery used in the trailer also states that the film is science fiction as well. For example Iron Mans suit is a clear indicator of this. All these genres coming together in one trailer helps the trailer succeed selling itself to its audience because it’s providing what the target audience likes. Super heroes complimented with sci fi and action.

Another major factor which helps in this trailers success is the characters.  The main cast are all iconic well known comic book characters that are heavily ingrained into our culture. Examples include Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, and Captain America. The reason why this makes the trailer succeed is obvious. These are characters the audience all know and love and thus they resonate with them. Also the fact that these characters have been introduced in their own previous stand alone films also helps the trailer succeed because it won’t matter if the audience isn’t familiar with the source material (comic books).

The pacing of the film is definitely a critical factor in the trailers success. It starts off with a slow pace but intensified by the ominous music. As the trailer progresses the pace is intensified by the music and dialogue. It goes from slow but fore boding but then as it goes into detail of the purpose of a super hero group called “The Avengers” and the characters are introduced the pace gradually quickens to a crescendo. This generates excitement and interest amongst the audience in the film.

The camera work in the trailer helps make the film look even more exciting. Very often it makes sure to show how that the protagonists are powerful people as illustrated by the lower upper shots of the characters (this is a technique often used to show the importance or power of a character). Also the camera work never reveals too much. It shows an intriguing scene of a battle but only for a few seconds, making the audience want more and make it more likely that they will go out and see it. Thus the trailer is even more successful

The music and sound effects in the trailer also helps indicate that the film advertised is a science fiction action film. For example near the beginning of the trailer a street in New York is under attack signified by the exploding cars seen and heard. And the off screen sound effects of lasers being fired is also a good signifier that this is a sci fi action film.

In the editing & post production of the trailer certain sounds were added to make the trailer more exciting. For example whenever one shot cuts to another in the beginning of the trailer, a deep, loud and ominous sound effect is heard which increases the tension and excitement in the audience, increasing their interest in the film and making the trailer successful in its purpose.

-Oliver Moran