Teaser Trailer

When coming to promoting a documentary, one of the major key elements is the teaser trailer or trailers that come with it. Traditionally, they are released prior to the actual documentary release and contain short image and sound clips paired with music. The trailers are designed to  entice the audience to view the full documentary and get them excited or intrigued to see it. To persuade them and there are a number of techniques to do this by the way the trailer is constructed to what the trailers content is. 

The editing of a teaser trailer is very important and also very difficult as you want to fit everything that will persuade the audience in a short amount of time. So they could start slow paced but end up fast paced to excite the audience. The choice of music, how long the shots length are, what sound clips to use all are essential to a teaser trailer. The content of the trailer is also important because the filmaker would not want to give too much away as the audience would not want to watch the documentary as they feel they have already watched the short version. You would want the audience left wanting more and to be genuinely intrigued so you feed them the basics of what it is about and what the documentary will contain (and what they expect) and then show things that they would not normally expect. Leave with a bit of ambiguity and mystery so it leaves the audience wondering.

Teaser trailers for documentaries and surprisingly very similar to feature film trailers and follow a similar structure in the style and content. These things obviously depend on other variables such as genre of the documentary/film and so on but the same rules apply with either and all trailers fight for the common goal: to persuade the audience to watch their film/documentary.

I have researched into many different documentary trailers to see how they are constructed but more about how they differ from each other depending on the issue, mode or genre. One of them being a American documentary called Weather Wars. Now why the title of the video may be called 'Weather Wars Documentary Promo', it does not seem to really come across as one. Technically, it ticks all the boxes with music, information, still shots, relevant footage and thats fine but there is a lot it does wrong mainly to do with pacing and content.

Having the director speaking on camera to the audience to introduce his documentary film is something that I would expect to see in a Hollywood films DVD extras but not on a trailer. He literally explains everything that the documentary is going to include and what interviews are in there and what questions it will try to answer. There is a sincere lack of persuasion through this technique and just because the director says "watch it, this is something you don't want to miss", it doesn't make me want to watch it at all, instead it does the exact opposite. The shots of the sky with clouds using a fast forward technique by changing the speed duration is such a cliche technique to put in a promo. In this case, it is overdone and the stills that cut with the music while initially is a good idea get a bit repetitive as well. They seem more like filler footage to fill up the time it takes for the director to explain his documentary. I appreciate the fact that there is only so much you can do with shots of the sky without it not becoming interesting but at least use a different variety of shots such as landscape shots. Not just pointing the camera up to the sky and waiting for clouds to move around. 

''First Position' is a documentary trailer that is very good. This is a huge difference to the trailer mentioned before and blends text, footage, music and audio very well. Clearly from this trailer we can see that it follows the journey of 5 different people and this is shown by them being introduced with their name and age shown in text as they each give a brief insight into their life. All the people chosen are from very different backgrounds so the documentary has a bit of diversity. In terms of how the trailer is constructed, it starts with an introduction to what the documentary is about. This is simply done by showing the boy holding his BB gun (shows typically boisterous young boy) but then holds his foot stretcher (shows he takes ballet). The slow music starts which is like ballet music and plays over with audio from different interviews overlapping to continue the introduction. The first text we see is actually the Loral’s the documentary has won which is obviously a great technique because immediately people are wondering why it has won them so will want to see it. There are wide a variety of shots with cuts, fades and cross fades which is what you would expect with a trailer. This is interrupted only with texts appearing (in relevant font) to show information about the story of the documentary. One of the most important things about the trailer is how the images and the audio clips link together so when they speak about how tough ballet is, they show ballet dancers on the floor or looking in despair.

It has story arcs mentioned like the hardship of the training, the acceptance for boys and how their parents frown upon it. This continues with the introductions of the characters so the audience automatically becomes attached to them just from the trailer. It contains opinion from the hopeful ballet dancers, the family, the professionals as the music gradually picks up pace to reach the climax. It shows us what the documentary leads up to with the ballet competition so the audience gets a sense of purpose with the documentary. There is a journey and we would want to know what the ending results would be. As the music picks up pace, the trailer is then carried by the images and music and we see a collage of what to expect before the title is shown. Overall, this documentary trailer does its job and that is to convince the audience to watch the full-length documentary.

By Dale Stewart.

Money Advertising

I came up with the idea of printing fake money with the production name and information of our documentary. Perhaps the website, Facebook and twitter links so all the information on these small 'money' can make the people that pick them up research further into the documentary. Once the design has been finalised and created with multiple paper printed, we could go to a public place like a high street. We would drop the money around (maybe from a high place) and because everyone will initially think that it is money, they will pick it up. While a few people may just discard these advertisements, it will stick in their minds of the unique style that the advertisements have come to them. It will spread the word and create a buzz which is just what we need to get our documentary promoted. 

Obviously the result we would want is for people to be talking about us and the documentary itself as well as researching further into the project with the information that we have provided. There could be a few problems with the cleaners and the council so we may have to clear it with them before we were able to perform this stunt and clean it up afterwards. As far as my research goes, nothing has really been done before like this in terms of promoting a documentary or piece of media. In that respect, I think that this is a unique idea and because of that, it will create more interest and buzz. People are interested in things they have not seen before and how things are brought to them. This is exactly what this method of promotion does. 

By Dale Stewart.

Leaflet 

There are variety of ways in which you can advertise your documentary or production. The leaflet also known as the flyer is a form of paper advertisement specifically for a wide range of distribution mainly situated around public places near night clubs or popular areas also typically used for postage. Flyers may be used in all kind of circumstances individually, for business and finally for organisations. There main aim and objective to promote their business they are working for or own especially with nightclubs, they hand you one with an advantage to draw you in even more which the group should take into consideration. Another way is to persuade the public to attend social events, religious gatherings or political messages however flyers used negatively can cause a major upset especially with the happenings in 'Syria' previously, linking flyers with social networking sites promoting a code and finally to advertise an event such as a music concert or after via nightclub appearance or a festival. 

Flyers, like postcards and small posters cost very cheap. They are cheap form of mass marketing or general communication, however the formats of a flyer are all different keeping a specific purpose for each size, they range from A4, A5, DL and A6. 

Flyers are handed out mainly in the public, this technique practice is known as 'Flyering' or 'Leafleting. They are generally found posted on bulletin boards in local business publicly or privately limited but also given away at social events which are situated round student campasses, cafes and finally community meetings. 

Looking at various flyers/leaflets for local business and they specify in keeping them very colour coordinated, bold title making it eye grabbing for the audience. Pictures are included but accurately to the subject they're advertising about, the size of them are not to extensive but not packing up the content around the flyer. The text is very clear, most importantly complimenting the backing layer with the colours. 

Flyers for gigs and festivals revolve around the idea of the band itself. I was looking at the flyer to do with 'SCOPYONS', where their leaflet consisted of linking it to their social networking sites with the title being forced upon you however underneath a brief description about them. The background was a picture of a gig with the stage, fans and lights symbolising their job title and what they do.

I was thinking to go that step further advertising throughflyers, using a suit (Morph suit?) where I will stick numerous amount of leaflets on myself everywhere covering my entire body giving the chance for the public to take it off me in their own free will in the middle of towns such as Winchester, Southampton, Eastleigh and Reading. Advantage is getting the audience to interact with us instead of originally handing them a flyer and move on, gives us a chance to speak with the public notifying them about the event U-DOC festival. 

by Joe Taphouse. 

 T-Shirts

One effective form of promotion that isn’t necessarily utilised by all the production companies is that of selling T-Shirts. T-Shirts have long been used by musicians and even sports teams to sell to their huge fan base and making a huge profit from it. But for the fans who wear them they are constantly promoting that product, artist or team wherever they go. Unlike a poster that is rooted to one place and unlike a leaflet that can be ignored or go unnoticed a T-Shirt is something that, if done correctly, can stand out in a crowd which helps raise people’s awareness of the product.

Designing your own T-Shirt is really quite straightforward. Just type it into Google and there are a wide range of links to website that help you design your own shirt, offering various options and then delivers the finished result to your door (for a fixed sum of course). Or there are many shops around the country that can help you create your own design on a blank shirt. Or you could even do it yourself if you were any good at textiles in school.
Obviously when using T-Shirts as a promotional tool you have to consider the type of design you want because if you were to walk past a person wearing a promotional shirt you would see it so briefly and quickly you may not be able to absorb it. Having a cluttered design with way too much text is not a good way to make a promotional T-Shirt as it doesn’t give people enough time to understand what the promotion is all about. This is often the case with a few bands, especially heavy metal bands, that have complicated and complex designs that appeal to their fans (http://www.loudclothing.com/black-dahlia-murder-wolfman-t-shirt.html). But it’s a different dynamic with music bands as they already have a well-established group of fans that are certain to buy their merchandise even if they aren’t promoting anything. We don’t have that luxury with our own production. Yet there are many, many bands that use simplistic design coupled with a good use of semiotics on their T-Shirts. This makes it easily recognisable as a brand and therefore better for promotional purposes. Examples of this being Nirvana’s ‘stoned face’ logo: http://www.truffleshuffle.co.uk/store/mens-black-nirvana-smiley-tshirt-p-7772.html or Rolling Stones ‘lips and tongue’ logo http://www.truffleshuffle.co.uk/store/mens-distressed-rolling-stones-tongue-tshirt-p-9002.html. It’s this type of basic design and use of symbols that we would use for our own T-Shirts. 

Though many movies and various media productions do incorporate the use of T-Shirts as a form merchandise our use would be far more promotional and almost like an advertisement. We would wear the shirt around the University and whenever we were doing any work that’s related to our documentary. At the U-Doc festival we would wear our shirts with the specific logos on them so it sticks in people’s minds even after we’ve left the stage.

By Daniel Ashfield.

Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites have now become one of the major ways in which films and companies raise awareness and build up hype about their films. Social media promotion enables multimedia on a global scale, with many networking sites interlinking with each other. An example of this is the networking sites Facebook and Twitter that work very well together, offering the user the ability to use both sites simultaneously. The sites are user friendly, making it easy for multimedia to go viral, quickly gaining Likes, Shares and Tweets to gain audience awareness as well as a fan base.

Facebook is the largest social networking site in the world hosting over 700 million users visiting each month, which is almost triple the amount of the population in the whole of the United States. Making it an extremely useful site to use for promotion.

Posters 

Posters occupy a space between art and advertising. They have a clear commercial purpose to promote and to spread the message about a product with their artistic value. With images, taglines, slogans and graphics posters are created for film companies to market and advertise their productions. It is also very important that a well-designed poster has its target audience, the target audience which the film makers have decided to mainly target their film/product to.

Using posters to advertise is the less expensive way than TV adverts and trailer campaigns to help a company reach the interest of the public. Advertising posters are commonly placed on magazines, streets walls, billboards, Bus Stops, or any other form of Outdoor advertising such as Mobile Billboards, Taxi's, Buses, Telephone Box's, Train Stations, Cinema's etc… People will also buy them to hang on their walls and museums have whole galleries devoted to poster art. 

Lower budget independent film companies use smaller ways of advertising through poster like the ones posted around street walls, telephone boxes and very commonly on social networking sites because it is a brilliant way of advertising a poster without cost and in today's society. Using networking sites to promote a film is a very reliable way of the audience attracting audience through a new way of word of mouth but liking post, sharing posts and creating fan pages for the film being advertised.  Bigger budget main stream film companies use many ways of poster advertising from the cheeper way of advertising like in street walls and telephone boxes, to the much more expensive ways of advertising the posters such as at train stations, in magazines, bus stops, cinemas, big billboards and on busses. 

Posters advertised on busses are the most commonly used this is the UK especially in big cities because of how many people use this form of transport day in and day out and how many people the busses drive past each day, advertising and passing around the message of the film releases. It was recorded that in "2007, 23.8 million trips were made by bus in London on an average day  These figures increased to 24.4 million trips in 2008", this shows the potential amount of people that could be influenced but the poster adverting on busses.(http://togetherfortransport.org/content/how-many-people-use-public-transport-london).

Image source http://whotalking.com/flickr/On+Sight

 By Monica Gameiro.