The Boat That Rocked Trailer Comparison

The boat that rocked is a British film about a group of eight men who created a radio station in the sixties in order to play rock music and the government wanted this banned. There are two trailers made for the film so that it can be sold to audiences in different territories. The two trailers are different and this is because the two different audiences would be attracted to different things. The first difference between the two trailers is that the film has a different name in each trailer. Pirate Radio is a more literal meaning and tells American audiences what the film is about. Whereas the film industry are implying that British audiences are more sophisticated and do not need this. The boat that rocked is directed by British director Richard Curtis. In the U.K version of the trailer this is the prominent first title and this would be because he is a well known director and so would appeal to people who liked his other film. However, in the U.S.A version of the trailer he is not mentioned because Americans would not know who he was and so this has no significance to them. Also in the U.K version other films directed by Richard Curtis are mentioned but as captions, whereas in the American one they are mentioned in the voiceover. The voiceover is more of a key part in the American one rather than the English one. A voiceover was slightly used in the U.K version but a British accent was used. The voiceover in the U.S.A version was more prominent.  Also, in the U.S.A version of the trailer it is glorified that one of the DJ’s are American. It also gives the idea that the American is superior to everyone else and that the film is mainly about him. Whereas in the U.K version there is more emphasis on the ensemble. Another difference in the two trailers is that the American version has more of a harder edge to it. For example when the man is thrown overboard it looks more playful in the U.K version whereas in the other trailer it looks as though they are being more violent. Where the film is British, in the U.K version it is not necessary to focus on landmarks, but in the U.S.A version it is needed so that they can familiarise with the setting. Another example of this is where in the U.K trailer the man says “This goes to Erika, in Wolverhampton” whereas in the U.S.A version he does not mention Wolverhampton. This is because the British audience would be familiar with the place, whereas the American audience would not be. The final difference is that at the end of the trailer the U.K one says “Arriving in April” whereas the U.S.A one says “Coming this fall”. This could be that because it is a British film, the British audience will receive it first. But also it could be because the film industry wants to show it to the British audience so that if it does not work, they can change the strategy and hopefully make it sell better in other territories.

Generic Conventions of a Romance Film.

Narrative
The couple meet and fall in love, but there is someone who disagrees. There is a typical feud, and they break up.

Stock Characters
A boy and a girl. Usually the boy isn’t ‘good enough’ for the girl. The parents who generally disagree. The girl is usually the one who is well off.

Themes
Love

Settings
Somewhere romantic at some point. Always in well off areas.

Iconography

Dresses, the stream. Birds and flowers. Relaxing music

Filmic Techniques

High key lighting, when things are good. Low-key lighting when things go wrong. Bright colours are used in the girl’s clothes, and the boy has dull colours. Lots of close up to show the expressions of their faces. A lot of 2 shots are used.

Analysis of ‘Transylmainia’

A convention is something that we associate with a specific genre of films. Vampire films also have conventions. The vampire trailer that I studied was called Transylmainia, a recent film that uses humor to capture its audience. It is about  a group of college kids who went on vacation to Transylvania and have to defeat vampires whilst they are there.

The filmic techniques used are the tradition low key lighting and dark music. These are often used because it makes the film seem more sinister and scary. Also, the techniques used are similar to that of other vampire films and a wide range of camera shots have been used. Such as close ups, long shots, medium shots and reaction shots.

Iconography is also very important in films, in vampire films they generally use coffins, fangs, pale faces, full moons, lightning and more often that not it is set in a dark castle. Transylmainia is no different and still uses all of this. Also in this trailer they use steam trains and a horse and carriage, this has been lifted from the Dracula film. As this film uses humor, they have made a joke about the vampire having no reflection, which again, has been lifted from the film Dracula.

However,  in order to keep people interested, the film maker must change certain aspects of the film so you are not just watching the same film over and over again. But at the same time must keep some things the same so that people recognize what genre it belongs too.  In this film the difference is that the vampires did not fly and also did not turn into bats, so there is a slight twist to the film.

The narrative of the film is the plot and structure, it also is any predictable situation that occurs. A predictable situation in this film is that the vampires try to kill people and a vampire slayer tries to defeat them. The conflicts and resolution also seem the same as any other vampire film from what we can see in the trailer. We can not tell if the whole narrative is the same as the trailer only picks out the best bits to show.

Stock characters are similar types of characters in certain genre of films. In this film the stock characters are the vampires, the vampire slayer and the victims. Most of these are portrayed in the same way, except from the victims. As they are college kids they give off the impression of being ‘unpure’.

Transylmainia is a hybrid film as it is two genres in one, and the plots have been mixed. In this film the main themes are sex and humor. The element of sex is generally used in a vampire film. Whereas, usually they are out to scare the audience, this film aims to make people laugh.

Like many other vampire films this is set mainly at night, because as we know vampires can not face the daylight or they die.  Also, it is set at Halloween which adds to the creepy feel. Also it is set in Transylvania, which is generally where vampire films are set, as vampires originate from Eastern Europe.

Star Wars V Swede Evaluation

For our Film Studies project we had to remake a film, the film we chose was Star Wars V.  Considering the time limit we had to complete this, I think we done a reasonably good job as one of us had ever made a swede before and so could not anticipate how difficult this was going to be. We thought it was a simple matter of writing a script and then just filming it. Although, we had to get the actors together and take so many different shots from different angles so we had the ones we needed. We then started to make the film and were faced with many problems.

First of all, nobody in our group had ever acted before and because we had such little time, we just had to make do with using ourselves as the actors. To overcome this problem we only had two main characters so the others in the group could work the camera and direct the film. Also, it was easier  to control what two people were doing and get them in the shot, rather than having lots of people.

Lighting in our film also could have worked out better. Because we were filming over the series of a few days, the weather changed and where we were filming outside, the shots do not quite match up. Also, we were meant to be in space and the lighting was very bright which didn’t really work. If we were to do it again, I would make sure that we filmed the shots outside on the same day so that the lighting was the same and maybe found somewhere that looked more like where we were meant to be.

Also, the sound in our film was incredibly hard to do, because of course we were not on earth. Also, sometimes we forgot to use the external microphone and so some unwanted sound was picked up on the internal one. Finding sounds to dub over our film was also hard as we had to make them ourselves.

Costume and props was also a really hard part of making our film, before we chose what film we were going to make, we should have thought about how easy it would be to find the things we need. Although, I think we manages quite well with what we had, and in the time span we had as well.

When we were trying to edit the film the camera we begun filming with would not connect to the computer. Then we thought it would just be simple as we could remove the tape from that camera and put it into another one and connect that one to the computer. However, the tape was stuck in the camera and so we could not get the data onto the computer in order to edit it.

By making this film I have realized that it is not as easy as it seems, and also that you need a plan before you start. If we were to do it again, I would sort out a better plan, and use our time wisely.

My Media

Newspapers – I don’t really read the papers, unless i’m bored and theres one lying around. This would usually be the Evening News.

Magazines – Real life stories interest me more than most, magazines like heat and ok are the usual ones that I read. Occasionally i’ll read Kerrang or NME.

Books – I love reading. Again, real life stories are interesting. But I also love really girly books such as P.s I Love You. Cecelia Ahern is my favourite author. I like reading when i’m on holiday and this year I read I Heart New York by lindsey kelk, it was an amazing book.

TV: I don’t really watch much TV, but when I do its either X factor or Skins mainly. I also like shows such as Americas Next Top Model. Or reality shows such as ten years younger.

Radio: I only really listen to the radio when i’m in the car. This would usually be Galaxy or Radio 1. I don’t like talking on the radio, i’d much rather just listen to music.

Ads: Some adverts are funny but when any tv show has a commercial break, i’ll channel hop through the adverts. I hate them.