What is a teaser trailer

A teaser trailer plays a major role in the marketing side of the film industry as it allows a film/content creator to slightly "tease"/temp any movie goer to viewing the movie.
 The conventions of a teaser trailer are kept pretty simply, with the duration of the teaser trailer being a major practicality of of the conventions, film makers tend to produce a teaser trailer that varies between 60 seconds to 120 seconds in duration. The short duration of the teaser trailer is then used as an essential mechanisms when attract the right demographic as the viewers of the trailer would in turn be persuaded to wanting to watch the full feature length film.
 When creating a teaser trailer it is important the the content creator showcases the right amount of narrative and plot twist in the trailer, if the content creator was to showcase a small amount the attention of the demographic would barely be light thereby causing audiences to not be interested  to watch the film, in addition to this if the content creator was to showcase to  much of the narrative in the teaser audiences may believe that they would not need to watch the film because they believe that they already know the story line and wouldn't want to spend money to watch the actual film. If the content creator was to showcase just the right about to make the teaser ambiguous but still quite captivating to make audiences interested on watch the actual film then the content creator has achieved his goal of creating a successful teaser trailer. I am planning on using this technique of my teaser trailer to thereby increase the authenticity of my product.
Above is a teaser trailer for an up and coming horror movie to reach the cinemas. As we can see the teaser is only 137 seconds long which is close to the 120 seconds rule I had mentioned earlier in this post. From this 137 second long trailer we that audience are introduced to some of the themes are and narrative of the film, from the teaser we are introduced to enough of the narrative that we know the basic outline of the narrative whilst the teaser is still ambiguous as we are not informed of the events that lead up to the graphic scenes that are showcased near the end of the teaser.
 We can see that Todorov's theory on narrative has been applied to this trailer this is evident due to the beginning of the teaser portraying the equilibrium; the part of the narrative where the characters are living out their normal lives unaware of any of the danger they are about to face this is highlighted between the 0:00-0:29 of the teaser were we see our to main characters enjoying each others company whilst a peaceful backing track is played in the background to connote the sense of stability. This stability is disrupted at 0:46 were the disruption appears the characters are put in unrest by this disruptions and are now aware that they might be in danger, but that is as far as Todorov's theory of narrative is applied to this teaser; then rest of the teaser showcases different points of the disruption section in the film, this was done by the content creator as a way to ease the audience to watching the film in cinemas, as the ambiguity of the characters fate will then captivate the audience to sit through the entire film. As I had mentioned before this technique plays a major role in the marketing side of film making and would be the technique that I am applying to my teaser.

One shot perspective

One shot perspective is a visual technique that was popularized by acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick. This techniques refers to the center of the attention being in the middle of a grid. This type of technique has been acclaimed by many critics praising it stating that the one shot perspective is visually pleasing to the eye.

In the image above we can see an example of Kubrick's famous one shot perspective from the movie 2001: A space odyssey, from this image without knowing what the one shot perspective is it is obvious what the main focus of the image is the man in the middle, this is simply because our brains recognise that the subject is the most important part of the image straight away simply because it is placed in the middle. Many believe that this practice contradicts with the rule of Z; this can be disproved because the rule of Z is used whenever the content creator is trying to draw the attention of the viewer to the different subjects on the screen periodically whilst the one shot perspective is generally used when the surrounding objects are smaller than the main subject in the shot thereby making the viewer pay attention the subject first.

Rules of Thirds and Rule of Z

Introduction
The rules of thirds refers to a technique that is used mostly by photographers to establish and separate the center of attention from the surrounding objects, this technique as also been adapted by content creators as a technique that they go by to create an eye fulfilling shot were everything that is present of the shot.
   The technique is titled the rule of thirds because the guideline consist of a three by three grind with each grid being equal in size.

When using the rules of thirds it is important to strategically place each subject and its surroundings in a particular grid in the guide line. In the example above the exist to road is placed in the furthest right of the middle row of the gridline. It is evident that the photographer had placed it there to connote that it is not the subject of the picture, the  subject of the image being placed in the middle grid thereby attracting the viewers attentions first. To contradict this there is another technique called the rule of Z; this technique is quite similar to the rule of thirds as they both use the same grid guide line. The rules of Z is called this because it states that the attention of the viewer of the picture will firstly directed to the upper left grid of the image followed by the attention being directed to the upper right section of the image and then the center grid of the image, this then continues by the attention of the viewer being directed to the lower left section of the grid and finally the attention is directed to the lower right section of the grid. After following the rule of Z the viewers attention will then be directed to the section of the image that they had not viewed; these sections being the middle left and middle right section of the of the guideline.

Todorov narrative theory

 Introduction

Tzvetan Todorov is a Bulgarian-French philosopher who had lived in France since 1963 during his life span he had written a lot of essays and books detailed several theories of his. One of his most influential theory was his narrative theory. Todorovs narrative theory details the different sections of a given narrative in the films and multimedia content of today. Todorovs theory transcends past whether a film as a clear "beginning", "middle" and "end" but rather states a film consist of an "equilibrium", "a disruption", "realization", "restored order" and "equilibrium again".

Equilibrium

Equilibrium refers to stability, this is the beginning of the film, this is the part of the film where the characters are going around living their every day lives unaware of the events that are about to unfold before them. Content creators achieve a state of equilibrium by incorporating a lot of content that the audience at home are familiar with and can relate with into the scene, a fine example of this could be a middle aged woman returning home from work only to head off and pick her children from their primary school or a teenager having am argument with their parents. The content creator knows that these are part of the everyday scenery of an average person their by making the scene canny to the audience allowing them to make a mental link that this part of the story is the "normal/average" part or better yet the equilibrium.

Disruption and Realisation

Disruption refers to the part of the film that is uncanny to both the audience and the characters that exist in this diegesis world. This part of the film signifies the beginning of the adventure or even the beginning of the unrest as it "rips" the characters out of their everyday lives and violently tosses them into a "realm" of uncanniness, the audience is then also disrupted by this sections are they had already made a mental realisation that the events that occurred during the equilibrium of the film also transpire during their everyday lives but know are faced with an unsettling sense of uncanniness but cannot do anything but watch the events unfold before them through the eyes of the characters, because the audience had already made these links with characters their can project themselves onto the characters as they embarked on during the film.

Restored order

Restored order refers to the part of the film where the characters attempt to repair the disruption that had occurred earlier during the film. It is at this point that the audience see the characters begin to develop. The content creators used this point at the film to showcase the characters emotions are their different responses to each stimuli this allows the audience to further strengthen the link that they had made to the character most similar to them, as the audience once again make a canny link to the ways in which each character handles the position that they are in. Restored order is very crucial to the narrative of the film as not only does it showcase character development but it also ties each individual uncanny plot hole together thereby making the viewing experience canny for the audience again.

Return to equilibrium

Return to equilibrium refers to the "general" ending off the film as everything returns to "normal" and a state of canny that the audience is familiar with. This allows the audience of the film to evaluate the personal journey that they had taken during the film my projecting themselves into a canny character. The return to equilibrium also signifies the return to a state of stability and for the most part a happy ending.

Male Gaze Theory

Introduction 

In an earlier blog post I had posted a deep analysis of the audience feedback I had received from my questionnaire in my focus group. Overall the audience feedback was quite insightful as it had helped me develop my understanding of my chosen demographic. One of the questions I had featured in my questionnaire was "Would you prefer a female or male protagonist?" like I had stated before thee feedback I had received from this question was more female centric as five out of six of my participants stating that they would prefer a a female protagonist over a male protagonist whilst the remaining one participant had stated that they would prefer to have both a male and female protagonist in a horror film.I had also stated that the majority of my male participant wanted a female protagonist because of the Male gaze theory.

What is the Male gaze theory 

The male gaze theory was a theory mentioned in the controversial essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative cinema" by Laura Mulvey who strongly argued that when viewing a piece of media the audience is placed in the perspective of a heterosexual male, this is highlighted in the strong sexualisastion of females that are very common in modern music videos and films. The conventions of the male gaze theory goes as follows; scenes that focus souly of the curves and features of the female body, slow motion., deliberate sexual camera movements and cut aways.
    According to the male gaze theory female is usually seen through two different perspectives, the first being an erotic reward for the dominate male characters in the narrative whist the latter being seen as an erotic object for the spectator/viewer watching the film.
Mulvey's theory also states that the female gaze theory is more passive than the male gave theory further underlying unequal power symmetry between genders. Mulvey's essay also states that the male gaze theory applies to female themselves as they view themselves through the eyes of men.

The inclusion of a female in mainstream film/media is quite vital as the female characters tend not to have any real importance herself, but is rather the way she makes her male counterpart feel and act that is important, this mean that the female only exist in relation to the male protagonist.
The male gaze theory states that the gender roles of males in the media text are active whilst the female counterparts are seen as passive who in turn often slow the narrative down and act as sexual influence for the active roles, they are under control of the males gaze and are only there for viewing pleasure whilst the males in other hand push the narrative forward.
      The male gaze theory holds a majority of similarities to the ideology of voyeurism. Then term voyeurism comes from the French word voyeur which translates to "one who looks"; voyeurism is the sexual interest in or spying of someone in intimate scenarios. One key characteristic of voyeurism is that the voyeur does not practically have any direct interaction with the subject of his/her interest.