Trailer Conventions

There are many ways to advertise your film to the world, but one of the easiest is to put it into a trailer. This is the most popular way to show your film the world as it can be seen on the internet, television and even heard on the radio.
A trailer has many different purposes, for example, it informs people of when the film is out and what the certificate is. It also gives us a taster of the film and what the plot of the story may be to attract the target audience and  instantly people will be deciding if this is the type of movie they would want to see.
An effective way to attract the audience is to show the best bits of the film in order for it to seem as exciting or scary or romantic as it can, depending on the genre of the film. This can also be done by the use of music that fits in with the atmosphere of the trailer. For example, if the trailer was advertising a horror film there would need to be music that creates suspense and makes your heart race.
As well as the genre and music attracting an audience there are other ways to get their attention. A trailer and film always needs a Unique Selling Point (USP). This could be the use of 3D in the film as this is much more popular now than it used to be. However, a USP could also be the cast and crew of the film. For example, many people go to see films just for the actors that appear on screen, this is very good for films such as 'Harry Potter' as they already have a huge fan base so the audience will already be attracted to the films, however people that have not seen all the films will be attracted to the green light actors that are already very famous. People may also be interested in the film because of the cast. For example, many people wanted to see 'Avatar', not just because of the graphics or the many famous faces featured in it or the fact that it was in 3D but because of the Director 'James Cameron'. Many people wanted to see if this film would be as big a success as 'Titanic' was.

I recently watched the trailer for 'Piranha 3D' to how they have made it attract such a big audience. Here is a link to the trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkF5VMRJGek

The genre of this film is a horror, we can tell this by many things. Firstly the music, it sounds a lot like a heartbeat and it creates suspense, making the viewer wonder what is going to happen next. We can also see that it is a horror by the images being frozen on screen in red, implying that there is going to be blood. The narrative of the film is another clue to the audience that it is a horror, as it is told by one of the characters who is explaining about these killer fish. This is a poster for the film, making it obvious that it might be a horror as there seems to be something swimming towards the girl.

     Another clue to the genre of this film is the fact that there is a party on the beach where all the kids ignore the threats of potential danger. As well as the certificate being 18, the characters in the party scene give us a good idea of what kind of target audience this film is looking for. This being mostly teens to adults as they will appreciate the gore throughout the film.

The Unique Selling Points in this film are obviously the 3D factor as many people are very interested in seeing 3D films, however, another USP is one of the main stars Kelly Brook. As she already has a huge fan base a lot of people would like to see her on the big screen.

The pace of this trailer starts off slower like a heartbeat, matching the music, it then speeds when we see all people attenting the beach party, until finally slowing down to the heartbeat again to create the tension of the climax of the trailer. These are backed up by the camera angles and shots. There is an establishing shot showing the setting of the film, however there is a lot of close ups of the characters and the piranha's showing the expressions and horror.

There is a brief voiceover saying the title but most of the dialogue is from the characters describing the piranhas.

Finally, the last factor that shows us that this film is a horror is the slogan and title of the film. These are almost thrown at the screen keeping in tone with the rising tension. The slogan saying "How Fast Can You Swim?" this seems to be quite a threatening quite in context of the images on screen.

All of these factors mentioned are important to the success of a trailer as they are the things that draw the audience in making them want to see the rest of the film.