Analysis of a rom-com trailer

We have been given the task to analyse either a slasher trailer or a romantic comedy trailer, and so I have chosen to analyse the rom-com Sleepless in Seattle from 1993 starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.

Opening: establishing setting, introducing characters

• Tom Hanks is a young ish - middle aged man living in Seattle with a young son and is grieving over the loss of his wife.
• Meg Ryan plays a young woman working in a busy office in Baltimore, engaged to someone who she doesn't really love.
• The little boy (Jonah) is trying to set up his Dad with a "new wife" so that he stops feeling so upset about losing the mother.

Build-up: relationships established, development of characters and their world

• Strong relationship between father and son - have to stick together and be strong now that the mother/wife isn't around. (In a rom-com there always seems to be one relationship that is always there and never disappears; whether that be one of best friends or a family relationship).
• Meg Ryan is in a relationship just for the sake of being in a relationship it seems, because she doesn't really love the man she is with - perhaps nothing better came along so she just stuck with it (until she heard about the man they call "Sleepless in Seattle" that is).
• Once Meg Ryan has heard about Tom Hanks on the radio her whole frame of mind about her relationship changes and she realises she really doesn't want to be with her fiance; she wants to be with this man from the radio.

Problem: a dilemma or series of complication; characters faced with an obstacle (or several) to overcome

• The radio phone in is at first the problem because Tom Hanks in furious at his son for calling in. But then as lots of interest comes in about the mysterious caller, all seems to be forgiven.
• The obstacle is that Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks live thousands of miles away from each other on opposite sides of the country.
• Meg Ryan has to decide whether to take the risk and try and find "Sleepless in Seattle" or stick with her boring fiance who she doesn't love.

Events:

• There is always some type of problem at the beginning of the film (in this case, Tom Hanks is grieving the loss of his wife) and then somebody always tries to fix it (the son in this case), which doesn't always go to plan and doesn't work out.
• Next there is something that happens that sparks a level of interest and a "should I or shouldn't I?" type of feeling for the characters (for example, "should I or shouldn't I travel thousand of miles to meet a man/woman whom I have never personally spoken to or met before?"
• If the characters decide to "take the plunge" and go for that crazy, wreckless thing they want to do, they have to get rid of any obstacles in their way which might hold them back (Meg Ryan's fiance for example).
• Finally, a romantic comedy more often than not has a happy ending and everything somehow miraculously works out so that the characters can live "happily ever after".

Conventions of a slasher trailer

As well as all of the conventions of a typical film trailer, there are some extra conventions that we discovered are common of slasher trailers. Through watching the trailers for Psycho, Friday the 13th, and Scream, we compiled another list suited to slasher trailers:

• Some kind of pain inflicted on the characters.
• Dark, mysterious setting (not a lot of colour).
• Screams follow by eerie silences.
• An iconic weapon.
• The trailer could start off happy to give the audience a false sense of security before scaring them to death.
• The killer is not revealed.
• There is some sort of music motif associated with the killer.
• A lot of the trailer is seen form the killer's viewpoint.
• There may be a red herring - you are lead to believe that the killer is someone they are not.

Structure and conventions of a film trailer

Every film trailer has a typical structure: An opening, a build up, a problem and a series of events.
As a class we discussed the different conventions of a typical film trailer and composed a list based on this:

• Should show the highlights of the film - either the important, dramatic or funny scenes.
• There should be a general overview of the film without giving too much away.
• The characters should be introduced alongside the names of the actors/actresses who play them.
• Montage editing - lots of different clips from the film, not necessarily in order.
• Male voiceover/narrative.
• There should be music from the soundtrack/the main theme tune.
• The main setting should be established.
• There should be a parting shot/cliffhanger at the end (especially so in slasher or horror film trailers).
• Credits.
• Titles.

We also discussed how films and film trailers are multimodal and how their features include:

• Written text on screen (such as names of directors, producers and actors, as well as the title of the film).
• Spoken language
• Moving images
• Sound effects (dependent on the genre of the film).
• Music (could be an original score or tracks which have already been released by artists/bands)

Tropes of music videos of different genres

In today's lesson we studied 3 different types of music video genre - rap, dance and indie - and discussed the different tropes common to each, discovering them to be very different to each other.

Rap - Dr Dre 'Still Dre'

• Lots of half-naked girls clearly put into the video for sexual content (camera angles focus especially on their boobs and bums).
• There tend to be lots of cars which the artists sit in and cruise round the neighbourhood in.
• The artists tend to wear baggy tops with lots of "bling".
• There is a lot of partying going on.
• The artist has a large entourage/gang.
• The video is quite threatening and "in-your-face".
• The video is much more masculine than those of other genres.
• There are certain arm gestures/movements that the rappers always do in videos.
• The video has very high production values and would have been very expensive to make.
• There is a very serious feel to it.

Dance - Calvin Harris 'Ready For The Weekend'

• Very colourful
• Women in leotards and exercise wear rather than the string bikinis you would find them in, in rap videos. This tends to make it a bit less obviously sexual.
• There tend to be a lot of images of records, which reflects the disco origin.
• Light, simple feel.
• There is the idea of going into another world.
• Much more feminine than in videos of genres such as rap.

Indie - The Kooks 'Naive' and 'She Moves In Her Own Way'

• The artist always looks/seems to be hungover and quite scruffy looking, as if they don't care about their appearance.
• The artist often seems to be wandering around aimlessly with nothing really to do.
• The artist usually seems quite depressed or not very happy and is looking for a way to escape from their usual life.
• There is an impression of self abuse in terms of the artists not looking after their bodies and consuming far too much alcohol.
• There is a "don't care" kind of attitude.
• The videos always seem to be quite cool and chilled out, despite their depressing kind of vibe.
• The videos are usually made on a much lower budget than typical pop or rap videos.
• There tends to be lots of hand-held, shaky camera work which makes the video a lot less focused than you would expect.

Literal Music Videos

We spent a lesson looking at videos which have been made into parodies/spoofs through people making literal versions of them. A literal video is either when everything in the video reflects the lyrics of the song or when the words of a song match everything in the video.

For example, 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' by Bonnie Tyler is probably one of the most random videos I have ever seen and doesn't seem to have very much relevance or any type of link to the song lyrics, so when somebody created the literal spoof version, the strangest lyrics ever were created and a whole new song with a total different meaning and feel was created (even though it didn't actually make sense!)

Although lots of music videos have some literal aspects in them, I have never seen one that makes a serious video which is literal because it's just unrealistic and the song ends up having no real meaning.

The slasher genre and 'Halloween'.

As part of the process of trying to decide what we want to pick to do for our A2 coursework, we have been studying and analysing the slasher genre within lessons; especially so by looking at the original version of the film 'Halloween'. We have covered the basic elements you would expect to find in a slasher film as well as the main ideologies and icons.
The slasher genre originated in the early 1960's when films such as Peeping Tom and Psyco were first released. Slasher films have fiercely evolved and developed since this time, and we often find that re-makes and sometimes more modern versions of the very first slasher films have been re-done since.
The slasher film theorist Carol J. Clover suggests that there are 5 main things that you would expect to find in every slasher film:
1. A weapon
2. A terrible place
3. A killer
4. Victims
5. A final girl

Leading on from this, Clover actually pitched a theory for slasher films called 'The Final Girl Theory'. The theory states that:

• There is always a 'final girl' who leads the narrative of the film.
• The 'final girl' usually has some sort of past history with the killer.
• The 'final girl' always avoids hedonistic activity such as sex, drug-taking, smoking or drinking alcohol, and is instead intelligent, curious and often virginal. She also tends to be quite masculine to make the audience believe she has the ability to get riid of the killer.
• The 'final girl' often ends up killing the killer with the original weapon.
• Attractive hedonistic girls are usually killed fairly early on in the film.

After watching John Carpenter's 'Halloween' from 1978, I have discovered a certain ideology and many codes and icons which are common to many slasher films.

Ideology/Codes:

• Use of multi-sex name for the final girl (Laurie)
• Eerie, spine chilling music and a specific sound motif for when the killer is present.
• Thunder and lighting (pathetic fallacy)
• Stereotypical, nice-looking surburban neighbourhood whoes residents turn a blind-eye to all of the strange goings-on and killings.
• The action always returns to the scene of the very first crime.
• The killer stalks the final girl.
• There is an avoidance of showing the killer's face.
• The more popular hedonistic girls aren't necessarily that nice to the sensible girl/'final girl' - they think she is a prude.
• There is a telephone call with the killer at one end and the victim at the other.
• The parents of the 'final girl' or the hedonistic girls are never home.
• Intertextuality - there was a film within the film which is a pre-telling of the plot/story.
• Phone line ends up being cut off so that the 'final girl' can't contact anybody.

Icons:

• Pumpkin - gives an immediate eerie, spooky feel to the film.
• Huge knife as the weapon
• Terrible place - killer's childhood home
• Car - the killer appears in the back of the car
• Telephone - there always seems to be a phone call.
• Creaking doors
• Cupboards - for the victims to hide from the killer in.

If I decide to create either a film trailer or a short film for my coursework piece, and I go on to pick the slasher genre, I will need to take all of these things into account during the production of it to make it successful and to create the right kind of mood/atmosphere.

Beginning to look at music videos...

In recent lesson, we have started talking about and studying music videos and we have come up with a list of common conventions that most of them comply to:

• Narrative - the majority of music videos tell some type of story in accordance to the song lyrics. They tend to interpret and convey the feel or themes of the song.
• They have multiple locations and situations.
• There are a lot of sexual images and physical attraction in performance.
• Artificial, non-naturalistic feel - the people starring in the video suddenly burst into song like a classic musical.
• Intertextuality - this can be broken down into 3 different types: Pastiche (copying the style of the original), Parody (mocking the original) and Homage (tribute to the original).
• All of the artists perform to the camera on purpose and break the "4th wall".
• A lot of videos include really fast editing (more commonly known as 'MTV cutting'). Montage editing is anchored by the music.
• Music videos are made for promotional purposes to help raise profit and "shift units" (selling albums and singles etc).
• LIP SYNCHING! It's very rare that music videos don't include any lip synching.
• Synergy in terms of product placement such as films and video games.

Of course, not all music videos follow these conventions (typically indie videos have their own aesthetic and don't follow these conventions), but the majority of them include at least a few of them.
In class, we looked at the music video "Tell Him" by The Exciters from 1962, to see how much these conventions applied to it. Here is what we found:

• The music video is set in a zoo and the artists are singing to a bear, which seemed really strange because it had no relevance to the song.
• Lip-synching is used.
• Classic ending - at the end of the video, the camera pans away from the main action to somewhere else (to a tree in this case). This is quite a cliche for music videos.
• There was choreography involved in the video for the artists to partake in.
• There were several different locations (very conventional).
• The cutting was a lot slower than it would be nowadays because in the 1960's, editing would involve physically cutting and sticking together the different parts of film that had been used.

We also watched the film "A Hard Day's Night" starring The Beatles to see how it influenced the music video. Whilst watching it, we could clearly identify some of the tropes that are included in music videos today. For example, a lot of the songs within the film were shown as if the band were actually performing them live, and this is a common feature of a lot of music videos nowadays. In addition to this, the film celebrates fame, which interlinks with the way in which some music videos seem to boast and have a level of arrogancy alongside their level of fame. We also see a consistent, united image of the band throughout, which is common to music videos of specific genres. For example, in a hip-hop video for a male artist, you would expect to see the artist wearing baggy clothing and lots of jewellery with "scantily-clad" women dancing either around him or in the background. In the case of The Beatles in "A Hard Day's Night", they all had "mop-top" hairstyles and are wearing suits throughout the entire film so as to in-keep with their aesthetic and style.