Individual research into radio trailers

A radio trailer is a short audio advertisement that promotes a product, in our case a film, usually lasting around 25 seconds long. A radio trailer follows several conventions. It will include a voice over - with hints of sound and speech from the film. A voice over is important as it guides the listener through what is being portrayed. It will contain sound effects and music where appropriate. The purpose of music in a radio trailer is to gain the audience's attention and set the atmosphere for the film. However, is it important that it does not interfere with the audience's ability to hear and comprhend the information provided by the voiceover. Sound effects also add atmosphere. For example, I watched an advert for an old Italian Grand Prix and it therefore featured the sound of tyres screeching to add pace and excitement. A radio trailer should contain the slogan of the film and information about viewing and the certificate of the film. Radio trailers are not typically used to advertise short films, however, we wish to create one as we believe that they are an important aspect of the process of a film. They may also attract a wider demographic, however, short films do not typically have the budget to afford a radio trailer.

We listened to various radio trailers in order to enhance our understanding of them and to provide inspiration for our own. A radio advertisement for 'The Conjuring' began with a voice over and stated 'From the director of Saw and Insidious comes the horror event of the year'. Then follows is dialogue from the film 'I see the dark entity that haunts your house'. Tense music plays throughout to connote the genre of the movie and create suspense. The voice over then advertises the film saying that 'critics have called it a masterclass in absolute terror'. There is then dialogue from the film 'what we have here is something inhuman'. The voice over again advertises the film 'genuinely frightening, sensationally entertaining'. This process changes interchangeably until the voice over concludes the radio trailer with information about the film's certificate and availability 'the conjuring, in cinemas now, rated 15'. The radio trailer for the action film 'Pacific Rim' followed the same process of content from the film and voice overs, for example 'from director Guillermo del Toro' and 'to fight monsters, we had to create monsters of our own'. However, this radio trailer contains a seperate advertisement in the form of a 'tie in', the voice over states 'for your chance to win the ultimate football experience with tickets to five of the biggest European derbies, go to Facebook.com/pacificrimmovie'. This is mutually beneficial for the film and the partner who is giving away the tickets as they are both gaining advertisement for their products.

Radio trailers for The Conjuring and Pacific Rim

Research into film influence

 Research into Film Influences

One of the main influences for our film is the 1999 Comedy 'Office Space'. This is basis for the whole setting of 'The Fall and Rise of a White Collar Worker' as the vast majority films significant events take place in an office environment. The boss in 'Office Space', Bill Lumbergh (played by Gary Cole), is an passively authorative, egotistical and smug character, and a character who we have taken great influence in creating the boss in our ofiice comedy, Gareth Hooper (played by Matthew Senior). More than just taking influence from particular characters, we have tried to capture a similar tone and mood from the movie 'Office Space'. The mundane nature of boring offfice work and the resentment towards a job are core themes of our film, and a fundamental bases of the narrative. We feel with have used this film as a template, but created a unqiue and totally different story that employs an overall darker form of comedy.

In our film, we have recreated similar scenes from existing films. One of these scenes is from 'Fight Club' in where The Narrator (played by Edward Norton) punches himself in the face to blackmail his boss. This happens in our own, with the difference being this is something our main character, Ross (played by Liam Bailey) does an attempt to get his boss fired as part of a revenge scene. Fight Club - Office Scene


Another large influence on our film was the directing of Edgar Wright ('Shaun of the Dead', 'Hot Fuzz', 'The World's End'). After watching a video analysing his style - Edgar Wright - How to Do Visual Comedy - this inspired us to try and employing similar editing and cinematography. The main thing we took from the video was realising how to create comedy whilst simultaneously telling a story through purely specific shots and editing techniques. As our film has a train journey at the very beginning, we are going to attempt a similar style of scene to the train journey in 'Hot Fuzz', which uses a range of quick shots to make an otherwise mundane scene entertaining, as well highlighting the personality of our main character and creating a comedic tone. We also decided to take another element of Edgar Wright's comedic style which is to introduce objects into a scene in a odd fashion. In the video analysing his style we were introduced to this when one character slowly lowers cake in front of Simon Pegg's character's face and offers him it, which he rejects. We have taken this idea and reformulated it, our character, Ross, is sat on the train looking annoyed, a person coughs through the gap in the chairs, Ross is visibily perturbed. Later, a protruding hand appears through the gap offering Ross some sweets as compensation for coughing on him.

We have been generally inspired by the films of Joel and Ethan Coen and have directly taken the catchphrase 'Yah, you betcha!' from their widely celebrated dark comedy 'Fargo'. However, we have left out the Minnesota accent.

We have been inspired by Tarantino's use of extreme close ups of people's face to create tension and suspense. Tarantino was in turn inspired by Sergio Leone and contrasting a long shot and then an extreme close up. This technique is itself visually striking as well as adept in creating suspense. For example, in the iconic final duel between the three main characters.

We have also been directly inspired by the 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' 'lancelot running' scene. The two castle guards look at a man running towards them it then cuts to the same shot of the man running and then cuts back to the individual faces of the guards. This process continues for a few more shots before the man arrives at the gates and kills the guards. In our film Dr Parkes runs up the stairs it cuts to Ross awaiting his arrival, this process continues interchangeably for a few more shots before Dr Parkes arrives on the roof and talks to Ross.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Sir Lancelot running scene

Individual film poster

This is my idea for our film poster. The poster features all of the main characters, the title, the billing block and four individual stills from the film. Given the title and that half of our film occurs in an office environment I thought it would be most suitable for the poster to be set in an office. The poster highlights the abstract character of Dr Parkes as he peers into Ross' work office. The poster also demonstrates the alienation of Ross and the domination that his boss, Hooper, has over him. I think that this combined with the four stills from the film will effectively showcase that our film is a black comedy drama.

This is the image that I used for my poster.

Halfway through the editing process of my poster on photoshop

This is my completed poster.

Film Poster Research

Film: Office Space
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1999
Plot Summary: Satire of the everyday work life of a typical mid-to-late-1990s software company, focusing on a handful of individuals fed up with their jobs.
Analysis: This poster is simple and understated, which is an accurate representation of style of the fim. The sentence 'Work sucks' highlights the mundane nature of office work that the movie focuses on satrising. This is a poster we ourselves could take influence from, as our own film is set in largely wihin an office environment and has a similar tone and mood.






Film: Fight Club
Genre: Drama
Released: 1999
Plot Summary: An unnamed protagonist, referred to as the narrator, is discontented with his white-collar job. He forms a "fight club" with soap maker Tyler Durden and they are joined by men who also want to fight recreationally. The narrator becomes embroiled in a relationship with Durden and a dissolute woman, Marla Singer.
Analysis: This is a poster which is equally simple (albeit considerably more stylish) that is highly effective in subtly alluding to the big twist in the film. This is so subtly done that this fact would not become apparent until after viewing the film. From this we can take the idea of carefully revealing elements to our film on our poster.




Film: Clockwork Orange
Genre: Science Fiction/Thriller
Released: 1971
Plot Summary: Alex, is a charismatic, sociopathic delinquent whose interests include classical music, rape, and what is termed "ultra-violence". He leads a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie, and Dim), whom he calls his droogs. The film chronicles the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via controversial psychological conditioning.
Analysis: This poster too provides insight into the film, but in a rather more obvious way. Unlike the 'Fight Club' or 'Office Space' posters, a small paragraph is gives providing information of the films content. This is an unusual method, but it fits the bizzare surrealist tone of the movie. Surrealism is also conveyed through the image and font. Alluding to the tone and style of our film is something we would also like to do in our poster.


Film: Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Action
Released: 2015
Plot Summary: The film is set in a future desert wasteland where gasoline and water are scarce commodities. It follows Max Rockatansky, who joins forces with Imperator Furiosa to flee from cult leader Immortan Joe and his army in an armoured tanker truck, which leads to a lengthy road battle.
Analysis: Like the 'Clockwork Orange' poster, the poster for 'Mad Max: Fury Road' also conveys the genre of the movie through its image and font, in this case being an action film. The image particulary, in conjunction with the use of vivid colour effectively captures the chaotic and spectacular nature of the movie. Although this a very complex poster and is a different genre to our own film, we still casn take influence from this and try to employ similar ideas in our poster.

Research into film posters

Film Poster

 Film Name: Jurrassic Park

 Date of Release : 1993

 Genre : Action Sci-Fi

 Plot: A selected group of scientists are chosen to verify the safety of a new theme park that includes cloned dinosaurs. After a number of encounters the island is rocked by a storm which leads to chaos with staff leaving for the mainland. The dinosaurs run loose and it leads to trouble with the main characters in  danger from all types of dinosaurs.

This example of a film poster is effective in showing the audience what the storyline is and what it includes. The simple image on a dark background does not complicate the theme. Including the tag line " An adventure 65 million years in the making" This suggests a link to the image of the dinosaur.


Film Name: The Hangover
Date of Release : 2009
Genre : Dark Comedy
Plot: 4 men go to vegas on a batchelor party for their friend Doug, arriving in one of Las Vegas' best hotels the four start on the roof and have a drink. They wake up the next morning a man down, without remembering what had happened they had lost the man who was about to get married on that day. The film goes over what had happened in the night in Las Vegas and how they find Doug.

This poster includes the location of the film 'Vegas' as well as showing the shiny glamour which the 4 encounter on their trip to Las Vegas. The three main characters who look for Doug and the baby which tags along throughout the film. The charcters show pain, tiredness and calmness this can imply the chjarcters are different in their own way.


 Film Name : Shaun of The Dead
Date of Release : 2004
Genre: Dark Comedy
Plot: A man lives his everyday life with his best friend in his favourite pub The Winchester. After his Girlfriend dumps him a zombie apocalypse effects his community, as he gathers friends and family, they take rufuge in The pub. The apocalypse gets the better of Shauns friends and leads to them all being killed or made into a zombie apart from his ex girlfriend who are saved by the army.

This poster is very topical in terms of the film and has a clever way of portraying the plot from one image. The multiple zombies included in the poster is an accurate representation of the film as Shaun loses almost everyone in the film while the flowers he holds present life and prosperity but stuck inbetween zombies in a small space. The Tag line of "Ever Felt surounded by zombies"  This implies the apocalypse goes off under the nose of Shaun the film title also links to the zombie theme where the a is of a typical zombie hand rising from a grave.

Individual research into film posters

This film poster for the film 'Moonrise Kingdom' epitomises the director's cinematic style. It is instantly striking due to the large cast and vibrant colours. Anderson tends to use a limited but vibrant colour pallette. Moreover, whilst films typically use the main character for their poster Anderson tends to use the majority of the ensemble cast in his posters. This being unusual in itself, as well as  the characters' individual personas being stressed through their body language, adds to the quirky feel of a Wes Anderson film. Also, the font of the cast, title and billing block hint that the film will be set in the past.

This teaser poster for the Guy Ritchie British gangster flick 'Snatch' is visually striking for a variety of reasons. The poster is minimalist and as it only features four icons from the film it allows the audience to focus all their attention on them. This type of minimalist poster is very effective to a specific target audience. They may attempt to piece together the story using the four images of a diamond, caravan, dog and a pig.

This film poster is striking and instantly captures the audience's imagination despite only using two colours. However, fiery orange and black are effective colours to use as black connotes mystery whilst the fiery orange suggests danger. The film enhances this by making the trapped woman with a shocked expression the centrepiece of the poster and by only showing her outline that is covered in all black. This, along with the the borders of the poster being mostly black, adds to the mystery.

This is a film poster for the independent film 'Four Lions'. The poster is meant to appeal to its specific target audience. This is exemplified by the surreal image of a bomb strapped to a crow. It is also exemplified by distinguishing that it is a film by Chris Morris which is directly above the centrepiece of the image. Many fans of Chris Morris will watch the film simply because he has made it. Moreover, the four black silhouettes stress the individuality, jovial and hapless nature of the 'four lions'.

This is a film poster for the independent short film 'We Keep on Dancing'. The poster effectively sets the scene of the feature that it will take place in a rugged garage. The poster's billing block identifies the film's success, for example at a short film festival, as well as introducing the people who had a key role in the construction of the film. The centrepiece of the poster is two men embracing each other who work in manual labour jobs who are visibly unclean due to this. The poster is instantly striking because it juxtaposes two ideas that society thinks are mutually exclusive - men in manual labour showing emotion. The feel of the film is complemented by the review that states that the film is 'lovely, moving and surprising'. The concise review allows the audience to further grasp that the film will challenge some misconceptions within society in a way that is non visual.

This is a film poster for the independent short film 'Long Distance Information'. The film is set as Christmas day is ending and in the hope of connecting with his distant father, the protagonist, Alex, calls home. The film has the clever synopsis of 'Dad always said not to talk to strangers. But you've got to phone home sometimes'. Despite the sombre background the film is actually a black comedy like our film although it does not convey this effectively in the poster. The genre of black comedy can be difficult to translate into a film poster. Despite being made and released in 2011 the film poster has a vintage poster that is reminscent of a 1950's Hitchcock film. The poster has the main character within a phone. The film's block colours of black and red suggest that the film has a dark nature. The poster also features the billing block which consists of the key people involved in the film as well as awards that the short film has been nominated for or won.