The Last

Here is our trailer I think our trailer is quite successful in promoting our media product. It sums up the feel of what the film would be, a dystopian, post apocalyptic adventure movie. It also gives a good idea of what to expect from the plot. It includes inserts claiming it comes from “best selling”, “award winning” and “acclaimed” producers, which is often used in mainstream film trailers. It has a nice blend of action and atmosphere, the first half of the trailer is a series of disappearing sequences we called “ghosting” in which the main character fades in and out of shot. The middle of the trailer becomes confusing, the radio sounds become distorted and interrupted. Immediately after this, action and conflict begins, and the cannibals begin chasing the main character to kill her.

We took inspiration from several post apocalyptic media products before planning and making our trailer. I Am Legend trailer – This trailer has a similar structure, and themes to our trailer. The first half is his voice over, the mid section is spooky and ominous as he faces danger of the unknown, and the rest is made up of action and excitement. I Am Legend trailer The Road Trailer – This trailer has empty, desolate establishing shots similar to (but a lot better than) our trailer, and has some similar themes too, like cannibalism and survival. The Road Trailer

Voice over – A voice over is common for trailers, they aren’t genre specific, almost any film can include a voiceover in it’s trailer. Character shots – Trailers often have character shots, to identify the subjects of the film, on the right are two of the character shots from our trailer. Establishing shots – Our trailer has 2 establishing shots, and a few more if you include the “ghost” shots. These are often used in trailers to give a setting and a vague background story to a film’s trailer. These conventions will help the trailer to appeal to our target audiences.

Our film is clearly not for children, as one of it’s main themes is cannibalism and generally killing other people just to stay alive. Out of the ratings on the left, our film leans towards the “15” certificate, it has a decent amount of violence and dark themes to it, but isn’t quite violent or adult enough to be given an “18” certificate. I think our film caters most to a teenage audience. Teenagers love violence, and post apocalyptic & dystopian themes. They are also probably the biggest target audience of independent films, but this doesn’t mean adults can’t enjoy them too. Our film is aimed at anyone over the age of 15, and is most appropriate for teenagers, but not exclusively them.

I think our trailer would be best release later in the year, it doesn’t really fit the summer movie blockbuster type of stuff which often releases around July-September. Another reason I think it’s best released later in the year is because of the public attention it could potentially gain. People love independent films, especially hipsters, if it comes out later on in the year, separate from the big blockbuster media grabbing films, it is more likely to be noticed by indie filmgoers. I’m unsure whether it would be the kind of film to be released in mainstream cinemas or not. It’s plot structure is typical enough of the mainstream type of film, but it’s production, casting and everything else is quite different. It would be better off released in independent cinemas owned by Picture House, they don’t usually exhibit mainstream films and are more interested in independent films like ours.

The Trailer, as summed up earlier, I think it is a good preview for the whole film. Magazine cover – We decided to do one for the magazine called “Little White Lies” – a film magazine aimed at artsy, hipster film lovers. This should help to further enforce the independent film event feel of the product. Film poster – Looking online at indie film posters, it seems that indie films don’t follow the conventions of posters as much as mainstream films do. Whilst mainstream films typically have the character’s face as the focus of their poster, indie films will sometimes, but not all the time have something completely different.

Indie film poster examples This one on the left for a film called “pink” doesn’t have any people in it at all, it’s just some graphic design. It’s a mixture of stencils/silhouettes and a photo of space. This is for a film called “Lost Angel” about some actresses who go to LA to pursue acting but don’t have a very good time. This poster doesn’t identify a character, it just shows a naked woman’s back, is in black and white and has a very loose looking font to it.