A Bourne Inspiration

After watching plenty more movie trailers, I had finalized the story for my trailer. It is going to be about a group of teenage kids that use their advanced skills to cause crimes. You can tell by the title of this blog post that I have the 2016 Jason Bourne movie trailer to thank for this. Watching this inspired me to make the movie seem a little more serious. It opened my eyes to bring in some scenes with some fast and dark shots to establish a moody and serious tone.

Trailer #2 Begins to Unfold

I'm not going to lie. I wouldn't exactly call it a burden to do research by watching multiple movie trailers. It is helping me find the difference between a trailer to purely attract the viewer and one to also add some background info and slight details to the characters shown. My second trailer will do just that. I will add some more dialogue between characters as well as a clear plot or at least the concept of the plot so that my viewer has an understanding of what is going on during the video. Names will soon come to me but I know that in one or both of my trailer I want to implement a scene where the main character is in a room where he is being asked questions or is just presented with a Rubix cube that is put on the table and as the interrogator looks or walks away. As he is looking away, we get a low angle of the main characters face and then a rack focus to the Rubix cube. He then takes the cube and proceeds to solve it in mere seconds. Of course, I will be implementing an effect to make it look like he solved it that fast, as I cannot solve as quick as that (my lowest time is 54 seconds which isn't that bad.) Anyway, maybe next week, I will be able to not only get a start on my Pre-Production category but who knows, I might get so good at solving the Rubix cube that I won't even need to use effects. Wishful thinking? I guess we'll find out.

It's about time!! Trailer #1 Idea Settled

After thinking about how my trailer will work out, I can now easily give an outline of it. I have decided to make a Sci-Fi/Thriller film trailer. It will be about a group of kids with "special" talents that are unknown to most people. One of the members will be in an interrogation room, which is where we will be presented with his talent. If you read my previous blog, you may know that I partially derived this idea from my Rubix cube. This is because not many people know how to solve a Rubix cube, and I think adding that into a scene will add creativity as I don't normally find Rubix cubes in movies.  I want my first trailer to be more of a promotional trailer to draw the viewer in and catch interest. I will do this by showing a lot of attractive shots and scenes as well as some interesting music. An example of this idea is during one of the "Now You See Me" trailers where they focused on the idea of a group of magicians robbing a bank. I can speak from experience that when I saw that trailer for the first time in the movie theater, I was ready to leave my movie and watch that one instead. I loved the concept, and they sold it with the trailer. I plan on doing the same with this one.  

Headway Begins!

I always seem to amaze myself with the many ways that I come up with ideas. So I was in my film class and got bored so decided to become one of those stuck up people by showing off my Rubix cube skills to those who didn't already know about them. As I was passing the time, trying to solve it at slower and slower times, my friend Anna jokingly noted that I could make my movie trailer about a, Rubix cube. Before hearing her out though, I thought to myself, "This is Anna, this can't be a good idea," but I thought about it again and realized that it might just work. For those looking for a film trailer on a Rubix cube speed competition, I'm afraid to inform you that you're out of luck. What I can say is that I have a great, solid idea for my trailer and I can't wait to have it come to life. I will have a case study to compare my idea to next blog.

Group Review

I'm gonna focus this post on what I learned during a group review in class the other day. As we all take turns discussing our ideas and concepts I'm reminded yet again, that I am one of the only few people that chose the film trailer.  Other than that though, I was impressed with the some of the creative ideas that some of the students had for their short films as well as a nice main idea for a documentary. I was definitely looking forward to getting some advice from the peers about some ideas for a genre. After the conversations, another two genres came up that I didn't think too deeply about. Both Drama and Romance may compete as a genre used in the trailer even though I don't really have a lot of knowledge about them. A problem that I might be having with these genres are the actor due to the fact that I would need a slightly more skilled cast. Other than that, I keep getting opened up to different options and I believe that this is the week where I can begin the Pre-Production stage.

More Editing Inspiration

As the title suggests, I continue to find crucial tips to help me during the post-production phase. The good this is that I found someone that took a different approach to the trailer. What he decided to do is create a movie trailer using just stock images and video clips. This helped me to realize that I might be thinking too deep into this trailer. Before watching this video, I was bent on trying to make a trailer that contained a full-fledged plot that left the viewer interested, while this man literally added some stock clips and added a voiceover. Of course, I don't plan on just adding some stock vids but this definitely opened my eyes to where I wanna take my trailer. Who knows, I might do a man v. nature concept because of this video. 

An Interesting Find: The Blockbuster Template

Ok. This is pretty huge. Imagine saying outloud, "Man. I wish I could just find the parent of all Action Movie Trailers." And then out of the multiple tabs that I have opened about trailer tutorials, I literally find the formula behind a "blockbuster smash hit." There are not a lot of times where I leave a like on a Youtube video, but it seemed mandatory to do so on this one. I laughed while watching the video but it's honestly scary how true it is. Almost every internet crashing trailer I could think of seemed to have taken notes from this video, I'm calling the "Blockbuster Template." The video really helped me to find... well a template on how action trailers present their trailers. I now have an understanding of the "norm" for these type of trailers.

Going to a Theater (Minus the Movie)

Continuosly watching movie trailers makes me feel like I'm in a loop. Like I'm never going to get to the end of something. I just keep watching the birth of plots but not being given the privilege to see it through. It almost feels like torment until I remember what I'm doing this for. I'm trying to find out what genre I wanna base my trailer off of, but unfortunately, it hasn't hit me yet. Let's check off the list:

• Horror/Thriller: These have never been my forte as I am terrible with scary movies. It also seems lazy to throw a group of clips together, introduce a "scary figure," and add in a couple of jump scares. NEXT
• Comedy: This feels like its the hardest one to make. Trying to create a reasoning and meaning in a comedy trailer seems difficult, and frankly, there's a chance that interest can shrink with every "funny" joke used. NEXT
• Action/Mystery: Although this was probably the most generic genre, it seems to make the most sense. All I would have to think about is an interesting plot to drag my viewer and hopefully, the rest will come to me. (...great process of elimination, I know.)

Like I said in my last post, I have watched many videos on the process of creating a trailer, and the Youtube Channel, Film Riot (my film bible), had a lot to talk about, specifically during post-production. You can see the video below:

Brainstorming

As I attempt to think of different ideas and concepts for my film trailer, I begin to notice a problem. Every thought that comes up gets stump by an equally strong counter-argument. It doesn't help that there are only a few film trailers that I can derive inspiration from. Our teacher warned us that a film trailer was hard, but I didn't expect everyone to have taken it completely off their radar. It seems I have a lot of research ahead of me. The best idea is to probably start off by getting myself accustomed to the techniques used in the making of trailers. This includes the type of shots, the overall time of the trailer, but what I think is most important, the editing used in the trailer as well as the music. Just from the handful of videos I've seen about Trailer creation, editing and music seem to be the driving force. These two categories can make or break your trailer. I will definitely be taking this into account throughout the post-production phase. Let me stop before I get ahead of myself, as I'm not even sure what my trailer is going to be about. I will hopefully have some more information on the route that I'll choose to take.

The Challenge Begins

Welcome back to the BTS Productions Blog! For those who do not know, I had made a previous blog that explained my Final Portfolio Project for my Aice Media Studies class. I now have been assigned a Portfolio Project for my Media Studies A Level class. I decided to do a Film Trailer. My reason for this is because I feel like it is playing to my strengths. When I made a Film Opening for my AS class, it seemed to be more of a trailer than an opening. Luckily that is what I am looking to do with this project. Although there are plenty of things to look out for when making a trailer, I am ready for the challenge and am excited for the opportunity to show what I can come up with. Please enjoy reading about my journey and prepare for the results.