Rough Narrative (trailer)

The first ‘act’ of the trailer will begin by laying out the premise. It will introduce the key characters and the area in focus through the use of pieces of footage and of sound bytes of interviews from the film. The primary theme of the film will not be revealed at this point (street tennis), it will seem as though the film is more concerned with the social issues and problems with youth in the area.

The second ‘act’ will introduce tennis as a pivotal part of the film, shots of gang members playing and watching tennis, interviews with gang member discussing street tennis and how it is significant or relevant to their group. The advert will show the violence inherent within the game of street tennis also through the use of shots and sound bytes.

The third ‘act’ will show a series of distressing images in a montage displaying how ‘difficult’ these gang members lives are (most importantly the two main characters) and how they are getting too deep into the seedy underworld of street tennis. This sequence will end with a shot of the primary main character falling to the ground in the distance (having been shot). This whole sequence will have an emotive piece of music over it and maybe a sound byte of a gang member discussing the hardships that they have been through and how street tennis affects their lives.

Rough Narrative (Whole Film)

The film would begin by introducing the area focussed on (fictional area of London) and its social history. It would then go on to discuss poverty in the area and problems involving crime that have arisen in the area due to this. During this time shots of the area and interviews with its inhabitants would be used to illustrate this introduction.

Attention would be turned towards the estates of the area and the various gangs that are known to ‘represent’ each one. Interviews with various gang members would be used with shots of violence and crime, creating an intimidating image of the gangs and their members. Various ‘key players’ would be introduced including the two primary gang leaders (‘main characters’), one of which seeming reserved and shrew while the other bawdy and violent. Slowly the audience will get to know these two characters and their communities more, and learn about their involvement in the phenomenon of ‘street tennis’.

Street tennis is a presented as a seedy underworld of wagers and unstable matches that are used to settle gang disputes and are effectively organised.

The documentary will learn from gang members of how the tradition evolved in their lifetimes and how its values are upheld strictly.

Once everything has been established the two main characters are shown developing separately as ‘street tennis’ players whilst never meeting in the film. The first of the two is seen to be maturing and learning whilst the other shown to be turning into a crazed beast of the street tennis court who wishes to challenge the first gang leader.

The game is organised by the powers at be overseeing street tennis and the date is set. The exposition of the film consists of a build up of tension as both characters prepare for this match. The film ends with the match taking place and the police arriving, shutting down the match, arresting the second gang leader and tragically killing the first.

We (as the documenters) would not have planned to latch on to such a heartbreaking tale purposefully but were more looking into the world of street tennis itself.

Costume

Audience Survey Results Analysis

Our surveys results show a widely younger response (primarily that of the age 17 to 20). Although this shows this age group as slightly more ‘conscious’, it does not necessarily mean that our primary audience is of that age group.

 The results show a balanced response from men and women as were to be expected.

Of these people, a wide range of mediums with which to receive the films they watched was roughly balanced between the categories of TV, on demand (Netflix, Lovefilm), illegal streaming and DVD, although admittedly people seemed to be more inclined to watch films illegally on the internet.

Those answering the survey said that they were most likely to learn about films through word of mouth, the Internet and YouTube. We are becoming more and more aware of the use of Internet as a vital advertising tool.

 A large portion of our survey group showed a preference of comedies and drama, with very few actually choosing documentaries. This information helped us narrow down our audience to a fairly niche one that is not primarily composed of the group that answered our survey (young, technologically minded people).

 To further this, our survey group nominated actors as the primary reason for wanting to see a film, whereas actors are not actually used in documentaries.

Most of our survey group viewed films in Picture House cinemas, which is a positive thing as documentaries are commonly screened in this chain of cinemas, as would be the case with our film.

The niche audience our film would attract would be of people interested in cinema, and so would follow film magazines, although the human interest our film delivers would help to attract a more general audience.

 The survey shows that although around half of our are ‘interested in film’, very few of them follow film magazines (20 people skipped the aforementioned question). Of our whole survey group over half of the subjects said that they were interested in film festivals, showing a degree of interest in film which is backed up by the amount of our survey group that purported to watch a film at least one film a week (19 out of 29).

Audience Survey Results

Certification

The BBFC classifies that films containing: strong violence, frequent strong language, portrayals of sexual activity, strong verbal references to sex, sexual nudity, brief scenes/references to sexual violence, discriminatory language/behaviour and drug use. Due to the content and nature of our film, it would be classified as a 15.








In order to have our trailer reach wider audiences, the more explicit content from the film will be excluded, dropping the trailer rating down to a 12.

Explore the genre and conventions of your chosen media text. How do you plan to adhere to or develop these conventions?

Documentaries act as a close study of supposedly real, unaltered events and people and provide insight into the these aforementioned topics. For this reason the primary audience of documentaries is that of the social integrative group. Trailers for documentaries are tailored in a certain way in order to draw in an audience, more specifically their target audience. This essay will be scrutinising the conventions and devices that are employed in documentary trailers. Within the genre of documentary there are two primary sub-genres; archive footage documentaries and original footage documentaries. The trailers for archive documentaries being used in this task are Downloaded (2013), Senna (2011) and Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp (2013). The original footage documentaries being used are The Act of Killing (2013), China Heavyweight (2013) and Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope (2013).

Both types of documentary begin their trailer in a fairly standardised way by introducing the studios and production companies that have collaborated to produce the film. Depending on the scale of the production, more or less well known and established companies will be involved. In general, documentaries will be funded and created by smaller studios due to the nature of their more niche audiences.

China Heavyweight

Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope 

Downloaded 

Senna 

The directors name will then be presented as they are usually the primary creative force behind documentaries as more often than not the topic of their film will be something that has personal meaning to them.

The Act of Killing

Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope

If the film has received any academy or film festival awards or nominations, then they will be presented following the idents and directors names.

The Act of Killing

Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp

Senna

A trailer of an archive documentary will usually begin with a piece of footage that establishes the themes of the film concisely and as with all trailers will try to draw in the viewer. This may be a strongly emotive or provocative piece of footage that concisely brings the attention of the viewer to the primary point of interest the documentary focusses on, more often than not this will be the key persona of the film. The sound bite layered over this footage will often elaborate on this persona's character and actions, which the film itself would further elaborate upon. This device is conventional of the genre and is part of the 'first act' of the trailer, helping to establish the premise.

Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp

Senna

In original footage documentary trailers the same device of establishing the main characters and themes is used although often this 'set up' is more ambiguous and indicative, leaving something to the imagination for the viewer. This is as an effective device as the more blatant establishing shots that are used for archive documentaries as the audience are left wanting to know more. Long pans over crowds and landscapes are effective at establishing the setting of original footage documentaries as more often than not the majority of these documentaries focus on events and people in a specific place or community. A sound bite layered over this will often further elaborate on the themes of the film and the music being played helps establish the cultural orientation of the film.

Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope (2013)

China Heavyweight

These opening seconds of documentary trailers begin the 'first act' of the trailer, which serves to set up the premise of the film through the use of sound and footage. Usually this will be the most light hearted section of the trailer, allowing the viewer to get to grips with the themes of the film. The trailer for our documentary will follow this same structure, using a 'first act' to establish our film in the same way, conforming to the genre conventions. Although this structure of documentary trailers, using the three act structure. This structure consists of the first act, which is used to establish the setting and premise of the film, the second act which is used to further push the story and often comes to a distressing climax and then the third act which often employs a montage of moving pieces of footage from the film which is accompanied by a strongly emotive piece of music to compliment these images. Furthermore, in documentary trailers there can often be a sound bite of an interview from the film layered over this montage to help increase the impact of this sequence.

Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope (2013)

Although this something that we will not be doing with our documentary trailer (as we intend to employ and conform to many of the conventions of the genre), the trailer for China Heavyweight (2013) completely abandons the conventions of the documentary trailer. Instead of prompting each segment of the trailer with a change in music, which in turn changes the tone of the advert, the trailer only uses one piece of music. This, however, does not in any way take away from the impact of the advert, due to the nature of the piece of music. Instead, as the piece develops, tension rises and rises to give a climactic and decisive ending to the trailer, leaving the viewer wanting more.

China Heavyweight