PRESENTATION
BRIEF Today we got a brief saying that we have been assigned to make a crime drama teaser trailer for a new show on Channel 4, this trailer cannot exceed one minute and can be filmed in any location and any time period of our choosing, the target audience is 18-35-year-olds and any gender, it cannot be based on just gore and they want it to be intelligent and gritty.
IDEAS 1. This trailer begins with some middle aged people reminiscing and its linked to when parents say 'back in my day' and it is followed up by a montage of events that happened in the 90's such as the trial of OJ Simpson, the L.A. riots, the fresh prince of Bel Air etc. We can't use this idea however because the idea actually has nothing to do with crime or drama, meaning it does not appropriately fit the brief, although this idea has links to crime in the 90's such as the OJ Simpson case, it is not directly based around crime, this idea also couldn't really be turned into anything without doing recreations of the events they're talking about - if we did do this however it could be quite educational to the people watching - although we're not doing this idea, I think it would appeal to the target audience.
The next idea is a teenage drug dealing story, it starts off with a teenager selling small quantities of hard drugs, such as cocaine, to some of his friends, this selling then starts growing as he's selling to more and more people, you can see him getting richer and richer as time goes by until he starts getting involved with gangs and maybe gets betrayed by a gang? This idea does relate to the brief because it is about crime and could definitely become a crime drama, this idea could also raise attention and awareness for teenage drug use and how it can consume lives, also, drugs are just generally interesting topics, everybody has an opinion on drugs, I also think that 18-35-year-olds have lived through the 90's where drugs we're becoming more popular, especially party drugs such as ecstasy. Everybody has either experienced drugs or knows someone who has so I think this could be quite an interesting idea. Everybody also knows about gangs and knows about the intimidation factor that they bring to society.
The final idea is about an underground fight business sort of thing going on after a kid starts boxing in his garage, possibly because of being bullied or something, anyway he starts getting into street fights and then forms this place where people can go to fight each over with gloves and everything. I think we could also link this idea in a way to the previous idea. This idea also links to the brief because organized fighting is illegal, I think this idea is probably the best one we've had so far and the one I would most likely watch this one if I had the choice. I think this idea is also relatable in a way to certain viewers, maybe not all of the target audience, I feel like this idea appeals to less on an audience than the second idea as this one would definitely be generally watched more by males.
FINAL IDEA Our final idea was to mix together the second idea and the third, we think this would make more story and just be better than on or the other.
We walked around for a while and asked a few people which idea they prefer and which one they would be more likely to watch. Nobody picked the first idea as they agreed its almost entirely not linked to the brief, 2 people picked the second idea, however, 4 people picked the third idea, meaning this was our most popular idea by double, a clear winner. I think we need to evolve the last idea though, I feel like we should definitely link the second and third idea to make one big thing, however, I think this would be difficult to fit into a one minute trailer if we did combine the ideas, I think it would make a good, gripping film or series though, I asked two people in my class and they agreed it would be a very enjoyable, tense series if I did combine the ideas. The people we asked all said the same sort of thing, that they wouldn't really just want to watch teenagers doing drugs as a series, they just don't think that would interest them, however, they think the third idea would be more entertaining and gripping, they think there are more places we could take it if it was to be made into a series. Next time we do audience data, I’ll do more into the research such as use a survey.
Research and script As research, we looked at some other crime drama trailers and chose what we liked and didn’t like about them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEyjCxDmnz4
WHAT DIDN’T GO WELL: The original actor that we planned to use dropped out about 2 hours before filming, then, our back up actor dropped out about 10 minutes before filming and so I had to act in it. There wasn’t enough footage and it was a struggle to even get to the 30 second mark. There wasn’t much shot diversity or charisma in the finished thing, there isn’t anything gripping about it – if I saw this trailer on TV I wouldn’t want to watch the program. There was no location changes either, it’s all at my house – next time we’ll have to plan quicker and get out filming sooner. It lacks story, we don’t learn anything about any characters, there’s no story in the trailer, the only thing you can see is cocaine and a drug dealer. I think just one scene from this show would be a better trailer for it than the actual trailer. We didn’t follow the script and couldn’t get everything from the storyboard.
What went well The saturation and colors is probably the only thing I like about this, and it’s not even good. The transition with the glitch effect is okay, not really relevant to the video though.
MOODBOARD AND STORYBOARD