Josh's Research Into Thriller Teaser Conventions

Thriller Teaser Conventions After finalising our genre and storyline choice I researched into thriller teaser conventions, looking at previous products - both succesful and unsuccesful teasers - and a future release that have only released teasers for the film. Firstly, I looked at Inception - a previously released succesful film - which made a worldwide gross of $820 million by 14th Novemeber 2010. Watching the teaser i discovered that the film clearly identify the genre of the film as being a thriller using orchestral music creating the tense feel and also incorporate a lot of varied shots, including very unusual shots showing the films spectacular creation of weird and wonderful pictures and scenes. Secondly, i watched the teaser trailer for Buried - a previously released unsuccesful film - which made a gross of just $3 million. The teaser itself is of a very interesting concept, showing very little actual footage or video and only playing audio of a man talking on the phone. I personally believe it to be a very weak teaser in terms of attracting the audience which is its aim, and as a result the film was a flop, making a gross of only $3 million. In comparison, the better teaser - Inception - was the better product in terms of marketing the film and encouraging the audience to pay for the ticket to see the film making a massive gross in contrast to that of Buried. Finaly, Super 8 - a film set to release August 2011 - that has what i believe to be a very good teaser trailer. Conventions used in this teaser include: rapid cuts for quick build up of tension, low key lighting to make certain objects less visible creating a more ambiguous teaser without giving the audience too much of the plot and enabling the audience to clearly see the genre and ideology of the film.