Editing

Editing is one of the most significant parts of making a teaser trailer. Because they are conventionally short (1 minute 30 seconds and under), a lot of fast paced editing is required, in order to show a range of shots throughout the movie.

Here is a list of editing techniques we have used in our trailer:

Straight cuts

These are used in almost every type of film and are a simple, effective way of changing to another shot.

Fades

This is a fade to black which we have used to separate the trailer into two halves, before and after the drug. The concept of day turning into night is often used in films to create a sense of foreboding- something is going to occur now that it is night as this provides a more sinister, mysterious environment.

Layering Shots

A theme in our Teaser Trailer, is that the protagonist almost transforms into a whole other person when she is under the influence of the drugs, which is why we used layering. More than one image of the protagonist on the screen not only created a visually distorted shot, it also depicted the sense that something sinister was occurring- and that both sides of this character can't co-exist forever.

Montages

A convention of a teaser trailer is fast paced montage editing- to allow a variation of shots to be included. The two main montages are the one at the beginning, representing the protagonist's life before, and the next one is when the bass drops in the non diegetic song and the protagonist's life spirals out of control. There is a juxtaposition between the two and they highlight the effect drugs can have.

Vignette

When  filming in the Theatre, we realised the light was best placed, if it was behind Bethan, creating a red outline around her silhouette. However there were items in the background that we needed to remove so the vignette tool was very useful on Final Cut Pro. We were able to darken the edges around the shot, without making the entire shot darker thus fading the vibrant colour.

Cutting shots and changing the order, to create a jittery effect- causing an effect of distortion was another Post-Production technique we used. Rather than a simple shot of the protagonist putting the drug into her mouth, we experimented with moving frames around and the final result was something that we believed worked well with the theme of addiction.