Africa United Trailer

This trailer presents us with the feeling of pride and determination. It's focused around realism/truth/social issues and is a 'road trip' film. The reason I have looked into this trailer is because of the narrative theme it represents.

I'm Here Trailer

This is the trailer for 'I'm Here' by Spike Jonze. It is about the relationship between two robots and how love changes everything.

Across The Hall Trailers - Differences between Theatrical and Short

This is the short film trailer for Across the Hall.

This is the theatrical trailer for Across the Hall.

The theatrical version of the trailer differs from the short film trailer in many ways. The first difference I noticed was the theatrical trailer has a voice over which explains in very little detail what is happening and what to expect in the film. The voice was low and harsh which draws in the audience and makes them feel the tension. However, the short film trailer did not have a voice over and had just a little bit of writing at the end as the theatrical version did also. This allows the audience to know the film is going to be short as there isn't enough of the story to tell without giving it all away.

The second point I noticed was the lighting; in both trailers the lighting was low and sometimes ambient. The short film trailer had a green filter on every now and then which suggests an eerie and unnatural atmosphere. However in the theatrical trailer there was no filters used and low lighting was used throughout.

The sound effects build up the tension and this was used very carefully in the theatrical trailer. Most significantly at the end as they start to become more vast and louder, making us think something is going to happen at the end, but then it leaves us on a cliffhanger, making us want to see the film. In the short film trailer, there isn't as many sound effects as the whole trailer is the two men on the phone. Although, in the background we can hear a faint drumming and it does begin to get louder towards the end of the trailer.

The reason for looking at these trailers is to help me create my short film and to help me decide what genre will be most influential in attracting the largest size audience.

Narrative in Film

Narrative is usually accepted as possessing two components; the story presented and the process of telling a particular story. The narrative discourse is evident in strategies of presentation, especially the position of the camera, which offers a view of the action and emphaises the depth and perspective, but also allows the view to see the faces and movements of the number of people involved. Once we move beyond seeing film and television programmes as transparent representations of the world we need to consider some of the ways in which media texts mediate the world to us. One of the most important of these is through the codes and conventions of narrative. Such narratives may be extended and developed, as in film dramas or documentary programmes where the whole 'story' is told.
Why is narrative important to us?
Stories are very important in helping us make sense of our lives and the world around us. Bordwell and Thompson point out the ways in which we are surrounded by the story form;
1. As children we listen is fairy tales and myths. Reading materials as we progress become short stories, novels, history and biographies.
2. Religion is often presented through a collection of stories/moral tales e.g. the Bible/the Koran.

This is the poster I reproduced from the original poster of I'm Here. I used an original image for the background and then added my own text.

This is the original poster of the short film directed by Spike Jonze called 'I'm Here'. Looking at this poster helps me with my ideas for my own film poster that I need to create as one of my ancillary tasks. I can see how it relates to its genre and how my poster will have to reflect the genre that I choose to use for my short film.