Affiliation - Short Film - Teaser Trailer

Affiliation - Teaser Trailer - Evaluation

For this “Teaser Trailer”, which is around a minute long, I wanted to set the scene and mood for the film clearly in front of the audience, without giving away too much of the plot, which can prove difficult due to the nature of a short film not having as much footage as a feature length film for example. However, I feel as though I have achieved the appropriate level of information given away to the audience, which is mysterious in its presentation, yet still remains enticing.

As for the music which accompanies the trailer footage, this was sourced with properties such as “ambient” “dark” and “mysterious” in mind, on my behalf. This led to the discovery of this particular track, which I felt was a good fit for the mood and style of trailer I was going for. The slow rhythm of the music allowed me to input the footage so that it corresponded with the timing and beats, this allowed for a seamless flow which blends both the audio and visual components of the trailer together - which is hopefully appreciated by the audience.

I wanted to play out the first few seconds of footage naturally, to parallel the opening of the actual film; this eases the audience into the world being presented before them at a slow pace to start with. This pace then picks up slightly as the music develops, extracts of dialogue are introduced and elements of action are shown. Pete’s line “time of the bar lads” is very generic so does not give away any of the plot; however, it does help to further set the scene of a closing bar.

The format of the trailer is that it gradually introduces each character, although not necessarily in full view or detail, just to give the audience a taste of their personalities. As mentioned in my evaluation of my final continuity edit, the character of Benjamin is intended to be the most relatable character from the audience’s point of view. It is for this reason that it is his voiceover that the audience will hear upon watching the trailer, which is overlaid on top of the introduction of each other character - this is bookended with his reaction to Anthony’s entrance.

A striking yet vague tracking shot of Spencer’s shoes as he enters the bar seemed a wise choice for use in the trailer, due to the unique single camera technique employed for the shot, along with the mystery of the character’s identity from the audience’s point of view. Diegetic sound can be heard as his feet impact the floor, with the low tones appropriately accompanying the soundtrack which continues to play throughout the teaser trailer.

Once the characters of Pete, Benjamin and Spencer are established (however briefly) to the audience, I found it important that the introduction of the film’s antagonist should appear even more mysterious than that of the previous characters, due to the shock value of him finally making his appearance in the final film being a significant element to the plot.

For this reason, we first see the other characters’ reactions, followed by a looming silhouette, which is concluded when the character is very briefly seen placing something on the bar. Due to the dark tone that ensures, the audience can only assume that the character is bad news, and whatever he has placed upon the bar is of great significance - due to the aid of the other characters’ reactions also being impactful.

In regard to editing itself, a cross-fade effect was employed at the end of the trailer, in order to emphasise the somewhat dark nature of the item Anthony placed on the bar. This effect was keyframed at a particularly slow speed, in order to fit the slow tone of the film and the trailer’s music, which is slowly coming to a halt by this point. The logo shown was spaced out and simplistic in style, with shadows surrounding its edges, once again emphasising the mysterious and shadowy nature of the film as a whole. A cross-fade was once again used to phase the logo out, which coincided perfectly with the trailer’s music also coming to a slow close.