The first print screen is the first shot of our film. We decided on this shot specifically as we didn’t want our trailer to be telling the story of the film, also it automatically creates obscurity. We added the chess straight away so the audience would know how the chess fits in with our film, after reading the title checkmate. The shot shows our actress Megan waking up to find the chess in her room and looking confused as to why it’s there. We decided to put the chess was very close to the camera as we wanted it to be as if it was the same size as Megan and therefore implying that the chess was going to have an impact on her life. I think the red light coming through the curtain is effective as it makes the scene look quite eerie. I also like how the chess is quite translucent creating a sort of ghost like feel to the shot. The chess is on a tilt as we knew from watching many different trailers and TV shows that if a camera is on a tilt it creates a sense of uneasiness within the audience.
The next print screen is a quick shot of Megan coming out of the door. I personally like this shot a lot as we filmed the leafs in front of the camera to make the audience feel as if someone is watching her and doesn’t want to be seen. From the thriller trailers we researched we found that some had shots where it was from a characters point of view, and we thought it would be a good idea to add this. In this shot you can see the costume Megan was wearing, we wanted the audience to be able to relate to her as our target audience is 15-20. We thought by having her wearing he current fashion it would be easier for the audience to relate.
We originally thought of using a split screen in our trailer after watching the trailer that inspired us, Disturbia. We liked how it was a four way split screen showing different parts of the movie and helping the audience understand the trailer better. We thought this shot, of Megan acting crazed and the camera walking around her was a good shot to make into a split screen. We had trouble deciding what to put in the other half of the split screen and in the end we thought we could just use the same shot, but change it by reversing it. I think it worked quite well however I think it would have been better if it was a completely different clip all together.
The next print screen of our trailer is Megan in the corner looking very distressed. This was part of many short shots we added towards the end showing how Megan is slowly breaking down. We decided to film this shot in the corner as we thought it was a stereotypical shot of how to show someone breaking down; they rock in the corner. We decided to have a mid tilted down shot to show the vulnerability of Megan, it is also on a tilt to show apprehension again. I think this shot worked well because of how we filmed it and the inclusion of the chess (in her hand) shows that it is finally affecting her and displays the change between her confusion in the beginning of the trailer to now.
This is our title to our film. At the beginning when we were doing the storyboards to our film we had some trouble thinking of a way of displaying our titles so it looks interesting and not just a black screen with ‘Checkmate’ appearing. I thought of maybe having smoke as the background and then ‘Checkmate’ appearing but then my group questioned ‘what has that got to do with the film’. We did however like the idea of smoke and began thinking of ways of incorporating it into the trailer. We came up with having smoke appear and then having it fade until there is a shape of chess in the smoke. We also realised it had could mirror our trailer; a lot of havoc and then it turns into chess mirroring how it always comes back to the chess. We stuck to the convention of having the titles at the end of the trailer as most of the trailers had the titles at the end. We also left the font of the titles quite simple as most trailers did this; also we thought it would look a bit busy if we had an extravagant title and the smoke GIF behind it. We had sort of messages through our trailer to help move the story along but also stay with the theme of chess. One of the messages was ‘one wrong move’; we made sure the font of this was the same as the titles so there was some continuity. We chose this font because it was bold and easy to read. I am very proud of our titles I think it sums up our trailer perfectly and keeps in the theme of chess, the only criticism I have for it was that I wished the smoke would travel into a chess shape more smoothly and not just fade into it.
This is one of many shots we have of a chess board. We decided to have many different shots of these all the way through the trailer as it uses the main prop for our trailer, the queen chess piece. We have seen in other thriller trailers how one prop makes more than one appearance in a trailer and is important to the plot. We liked that idea and because our film is called checkmate we thought by adding this it would show that the chess somewhat determines how Megan’s life turns out. This shot is at the end of the trailer and shows a checkmate move taking place. We added a light to create a disconcerting image to the scene. In this scene one of the pieces is being knocked over by the queen. We decided to slow this scene down to show how dramatic it is, but also keep the sound of the chess hitting the chess board to show the impact. I think this scene works well as it shows how the trailer has reached its climax and adds to the mystery of ‘what’s going to happen next?’.
The next two print screens of Megan in the bath and a close up of Megan looking in the trailer are the pinnacle parts of our trailer; they are an important part of the film showing how Megan has completely broken down. We used a bird’s eye view for the shot so we could see all most of Megan’s body and see the emotions in her face. I have seen in psychological films how a character becomes so crazed by something and goes to drown themselves they stay in their clothes. We decided to stay with this convention firstly because it would be less awkward for our actress to do and secondly to show the audience how much this one small thing has affected her life so hugely. I think this shot works well; we also kept the sounds and dialogue to a minimum in this shot to show how shocking it is for the audience. The shot of Megan looking into the camera is right at the end of the trailer. We saw in films like ‘Paranormal Activity’ they have a fast clip at the end to shock the audience. We decided to stick to this convention and I think it paid off as comments from our audience show that they liked that part of the trailer. We decided to use a extreme close up of Megan’s face to the audience could see the emotion in her face, w also made Megan look into the camera so it would be more personal to the audience.
As we wanted to make our trailer as similar to real trailers we added a billing block and the date to the end of our trailer. We used a simple black and white colour scheme as so many trailers use this. We added all of the production companies to the bottom of the billing block and all the main people that had connections to our trailer. We have tried and made the billing block the same shape and size as ones in trailers.
All in all I think our trailer does follow man conventions of thriller trailers but also some of our own ideas that we think help the trailer be successful.
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