Initial Ideas & Planning - Spider Diagrams

The following photographs show our initial planning as we explored the different genre options and planned closely focusing on our chosen genre.

Romance & Action Genre Spider Diagrams

Action/Mystery/Thriller Genre Spider Diagram

Initial Ideas & Planning

When viewing existing teaser trailers of different genres, we immediately ruled out the Horror genre as the conventions would be extremely hard to replicate in a low-budget production.
We then ruled out the Rom-Com genre, as we realised that the standard of acting, and potentially un-comical footage could make our production un-effective. When analysing Action/Adventure teaser trailers, we firstly thought it would be a good genre to experiment with, and we would be able to challenge the expected conventions of this genre by using female protagonists. However, we then realised that our production would not be effective as we would not be able to produce a high standard of special effects that are required to make an Action/Adventure film successful.

We decided as a group to look at Romantic teaser trailers and found that this genre would be potentially easy to film as we would not need many special effects so this would be ideal to create a low-budget teaser trailer for. We set about creating spider diagrams containing potential locations, characters and existing films that would be an influence to us. However, after a few lessons where we tried to come up with a potential pitch, we realised we had not come up with a storyline we could all agree on, and we were using too much of out time.


After the release of “Angels & Demons”, we looked at teaser trailers of the same kind of genre. We decided to create our teaser trailer of the Mystery/Thriller genre.

We then researched five different trailers for our genre looking at conventions that we would need to include in our own trailer and also at styles and effects that we could try to incorporate into our own plot. When we had finally decided on our genre and had analysed existing trailers, we then set about creating our pitch. We would need to come up with a storyline with characters and possible shots.

Theatrical Trailers and Teaser Trailers

Before starting on our planning for our teaser trailer, we had to explore the differences between theatrical trailers and teaser trailers so that our production would meet the expected conventions and not fall outside of the 'teaser' category.



I analysed many teaser and theatrical trailers, as well as researching the differences, and these were my main findings:

• The main noticeable difference between the two is that teaser trailers tend to be a lot short in length, lasting for as little as 30 seconds, up to around 2 minutes. This is usually so that they do not give away too many plot elements in advance and will then be eagerly anticipating finding out more on the theatrical trailers' release which can be up to 4 or 5 mintues long.


• Another difference is that the teaser may be produced prior to the main films production. This is particularly noticeable in teasers such as the 2009 version of Star Trek (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAEme33ZQHI) in which footage is used that doesn't necessarily appear in the main feature; it is just the construction of the ship, which links to the text 'Under Construction' in place of the usual 'Coming Soon'.


• The teaser trailer also tends to have a lot less information on the production personnel, release dates and cast. It will usually include institutions and a website, but not touch on these things. This could be due to these things not being set in stone if it is a long time in advance of the release, but also to 'tease' in relation to it's name.


• As far as editing of a teaser trailer is concerned, the cuts used are often straight cuts and a lot faster than that of the actual film and theatrical trailer. A sense of ambiguity is created through this fast-paced effect which creates more of an impact on the audience.

When planning and creating our teaser trailer, we will take all of the conventions of a teaser trailer above into account and make sure that our production well reflects them.

A+Eee Production Company Logo + Name

Within our group it was rather hard to decide on a production name that we thought would be suitable for us, therefore we thought long and hard of what we all can relate to but we couldn't think of anything in paticuliar. To then resulting to writing all our names down trying to conduct another name within, this is where A+Eee come into place: 'A' being for 'Amy', 'E' for Emma, 'e' for Emily and another 'e' for elizabeth, all when said together sounding like 'A+E' being accident and emergency, an ambuluance as a logo would be very sufficent and symbolic for our productions.

The image above is our final overall logo for our group, we chose a comical version of an ambulance since we wanted to explore, using various graphics since when we start to use macromedia to animate the actual logo this will look more effective.

Venus Studio Distribution Company Logo

When reaserching filming distributor's such as; Warner Brothers, Universal Studios and many more, us as a group decided that our teaser trailer needed a film distributor. Therefore, we kept in consideration that trying to animate and produce a logo on the computer would be a challenge, which didn't suceed, since I tried to produce the logo on Macromedia Flash. The software was very useful but difficult to understand, we then resulted to designing and drawing it on paper. First of all, we had to decide on name for a distributor which resulted to 'Venus Studios' since our group being four girls we took a more feminine approach

Film Production Company Logo Research

Love the logo Liz, you've produced some very effective artwork in the planning for your production, well done.

Distribution Company Logo Research

All film companies consist of a logo either before or after there teaser trailers such as Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, Dreamworks and many more. This in particular might be a interest of some audiences since certain people only watch 'Warner Brothers' films or 'Dreamworks', by showing there logo within there trailer will make there audience want to watch the film once it premieres this means greater publicity and income of viewers. Therefore various filming companies create there logos to suit there viewers, so that it's understandable, readable and easily noticeable.





Nowadays, technology is so varst that film companies have decided to co-operate this within there logo's creating them to suit there genre of film by including colour, sound and different special effects to set the mood. For example; Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince



As you can see when the 'Warner Brothers' logo appears at the 0.26 second, it isn't displayed as the ordinary logo (shown below) its still 'Warner Brothers' but it appears to have a misty, black and white effect, with an added sudden eery sound this really engages us as the audience because were not familiar with these different SFX. On the other hand the use of the zooming transition to then focusing on a close up of the main character 'Harry Potter' really does give you fright. I think the way that Warner Brothers has constructed there logo for 'Harry Potter' in particular is really creative and effective since it fits in with the scenery, colouring, characters and also the theme of the film.

Below as shown are 3 logo's created by 'Warner Brothers'









Warner Brothers variety of logo's set the mood and tone of there film and have changed significantly through time, such as the first image which is still the 'Warner BrotherS' logo but was one the first logos that WB had created therefore that's why the image consists of of black and white. Whereas, the second image displays a more modern effect, being in colour

Film Production & Distribution Companies Research

As a group we decided early on that we would include different institutions within our teaser trailer to meet the expected conventions. We then set about discussing various ideas for our own companies. Once we had decided on the names of our companies, we discussed different ideas for logos that would symbolise our company and would create a visual link to our companies when displayed in our trailer.

Remembering research I had already taken out within my AS studies, I wanted to recognise “Working Title” in my A2 studies as an extremely successful UK film production company. Working Title works largely with the British film industry and has produced a large number of well-known films ranging from “Ali G Indahouse”, “Bridget Jones’ Diary” to “Shaun of the Dead” and “The Boat That Rocked”. We would have to come up with our own production company and create a coherent logo to display within our teaser trailer.

I then briefly researched existing film distribution companies to get an idea of the independent UK film distributing companies that are working to invest in the British film industry. I came across the company “Entertainment Film Distributors”. This UK distribution company had major success with the release of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and have recently worked on producing and distributing “St Trinian’s” and its newly released sequel “St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold”. Again, we would have to come up with our own distributing company and logo to use in our own teaser trailer.

Project Brief

The following is the brief that we were given for our production:



'A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following options:



• a website homepage for the film

• a film magazine front cover, featuring the film

• a poster for the film'



Alongside creating our teaser trailer, we will research all three parts of the promotion package and may produce something for all of the options given to form a well rounded advertising campaign. Creating all three will also mean that we have an extra piece to offer in case of circumstances such as a website being accidentally erased or other pieces of work being lost.

Welcome To Our A2 Media Blog

Our A2 Media Studies blog will display all of our research and planning in the lead up to producing our very own teaser trailer.

Our group consists of Amy Gallacher (3079), Elizabeth Boulamatsis (3026), Emma Cottee (3051) and Emily Wright (3234). We will label each post with the names of each group member who contributed to the work.

We will evaluate existing teaser trailers to look for conventions to explore and challenge, plan the different aspects of our trailer, and eventually post and evaluate the finished production.