We decided to target a wide range of people and our target audience was families. We therefore included jokes for both children and adults. We thought that having a variety of themes, would appeal to the different family members, so the film would be suitable for all ages, both genders and all interests. We also included the main people doing the voice—over at the end because they are very well knows so people would be attracted to watch the film because they know the people.
We generally followed the normal structure for a trailer but changed some parts. At first, we showed the Dreamworks logo like in most trailers however; we changed it a bit by adding and exciting clip of the film just before the logo to grab the audience’s attention. The opening is also very loud with Shrek screaming, this grabs the audience’s attention as well. After the beginning, we started with the equilibrium with Lord Faarquard choosing princess Fiona then briefly explained the quest that Shrek (the hero) was about to go on; this was the complication. The third section is a speedy, quick—cut montage of action scenes with some exciting music. A few slow, romantic clips followed the action. Throughout the whole trailers there are jokes that would appeal to all ages. We included equilibrium and a complication at the beginning, closely following Todorov’s story structure however, we made sure not to include a resolution and that would give the film away.
Our narrative section was just after the Dreamworks logo and it told the audience what the play was about.. To explain the narrative, we included Shrek saying “what kind of quest?” to Lord Faarquard and then the donkey summing up what Shrek had to do. We used dialogue from the film to explain the narrative because we thought it would be more effective than having a voice—over or having written it on a title frame. When we included dialogue, we faded the music to a lower volume to allow the characters to talk then increased the volume again once they had finished. We could establish who the characters were quite easily because they were typical for a fairytale and they matched Propps’s character types exactly. The fact that Shrek is going on a quest indicates that he is the hero and because in the trailer we see the donkey going with him, the donkey is the helper. Lord Faarquard however is an odd character because he is a villain, a dispatcher, and a false hero. However, in our trailer, he is just seen as the dispatcher because we didn’t want to give too much away to the audience.
The action clips had fast music and were quick—cut to make the audience more excited. These were followed by slow music for the romantic scenes. We used juxtaposition in our montage section when showing the action scenes and the romantic scenes because they were very different so it emphasized both of them. To cross over from one section to another (eg action clips to romantic clips) we used cross—fading to fade from the action shots to a title page, followed by the romantic scenes. We also faded the music out and then faded in slower music for the romantic clips. The sound was completely muted at during the title because it sounded odd to have a sudden change in the music.
I think our beginning was good because it really grabs the audience’s attention and if anyone isn’t watching the screen, the loud screaming sound makes them look at the screen and watch the rest of the trailer. The trailer ends with a joke and funny scene in which the donkey is laughing. This is memorable and leaves the audience with a happy thought, making them want to watch the film.
We learnt to use Adobe Premier and edit clips by separating the video and the sound. We also learnt to use different tracks so we could play around with the video and sound and we didn’t have to stick to using the effects used in the making of the film. Please see the snapshot of the screen that we were working with and our timeline with annotations of the various sections of our trailer.