Teaching plan

Teachers’ notes
These activities are based on Film Education’s free CD-ROM teaching resource,
Teaching Trailers Interactive. The outlines here are designed to build students’
knowledge, understanding and skills in relation to the moving image over the course
of four sessions. The approach explores film trailers and film marketing campaigns,
with hands-on tasks developing research, analysis, teamwork, and presentation
skills. Students will also develop technical and creative skills as they learn how to cut
a trailer using simple editing software. Team work, timing and effective
communication will be essential for the tasks, as well as an understanding of key
concepts including persuasive language, target audience and film genre.

Required resources
Desktop or laptop computers and IWB/projector
Internet access
Teaching Trailers Interactive (order your free copy online at www.filmeducation.org)
Additional teachers’ notes/student worksheets (see individual activities)
You may also find Film Education’s Film Industry Pack useful (available through our
online shop)

Curriculum areas and learning objectives

These activities link to National Curriculum guidelines for learning in English; they
can also be used as part of a Media course at GCSE or equivalent.

The tasks are also designed to develop learners’ functional skills in English, ICT and
Maths.

Activities enable students to work on the following aspects of the Personal Learning
and Thinking skills:
• Teamwork;
• Independent enquiry;
• Creative thought;
• Time management
• Communication and presentation

In addition, the tasks relate to the following Cross-Curriculum Dimensions:

• Creativity and critical thinking
• Technology and the Media
• Enterprise

What follows is a suggested sequence of activities which is accompanied by a series

of student worksheets. These tasks are designed to be flexible, rather than
prescriptive, and could take place over a single day, or over a series of lessons.
Students should keep a careful record of their work on these activities

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Session 1: exploring film trailers

Introduction
Inform students they are going to complete a series of activities relating to
advertising and the film industry. They will be required to develop and draw on a
range of skills across the activities (you may wish to share these or withhold them
until the tasks are completed).

Students will need to be familiar with the basic concepts of advertising and marketing
in general, and of film advertising in particular. The PDF resources within the
Trailers: the theory section of the Teaching Trailers disc provides useful
background information on these areas, particularly helpful if you or your students
are new to this subject matter. It is also available to download from the website under
the heading Contextualising Trailers.

Whole-class activity
Show your students a trailer for one of this season’s cinema releases (choose from
those available on the Teaching Trailers disc). Ideally, the students should watch the
trailer closely at least twice.

Now ask students to complete Activity Sheet 1: Analysing a Trailer in as much detail
as possible, ensuring they understand the different features of the trailer as
described on the worksheet.

Group task
Students move into groups to research a range of trailer campaigns for the summer’s
film releases, taking careful notes on their findings. Their research should establish
the summer’s major UK releases, their release dates, genre, target audience and
Unique Selling Point. They can use Activity Sheet 2: investigating Film releases to
record their findings.

Each group should have access to the Teaching Trailers disc on a computer, as well
as some means of recording their findings. You may also want them to access online
sources, such as IMDB, Film Distributor’s Association website or Apple Movie
Trailers.

Each group feeds back three key points from their findings to the class.

Extension: if there are several trailers for the same film, students could consider the
different aspects of the film each trailer focuses on, and whether each seems to
appeal to a different audience.

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Session 2: Exploring the market

Introduction
Re-cap key findings from previous session: what are the key summer film releases
this year? What different genres do these films represent? Who does the target
audiences seem to be?

Teamwork: number crunching

Now that students have an understanding of the different films that will be released
over the summer, they need to do some more research into film marketing by
completing Activity sheet 3: number crunching. This task sheet examines cinema
attendance figures throughout the course of the year, making comparisons between
last year’s figures (2009) and figures from five years earlier. Students should work on
these activities in small groups, producing a short presentation on their findings.

An informed choice
The Make a Trailer task on the disc enables students to create trailers for two very
different films: Warner Bros. Inception and Universal’s Despicable Me

Groups must make a decision about which of these two films they will choose to work
on in the Make a Trailer editing task, which leads to their final presentation to the rest
of the class. They should base their decision on the synopses for the two films, their
research into other films released over the summer and any ideas they have about
appealing to their target audience.

Synopsis for Despicable Me

In a happy suburban neighborhood surrounded by white picket fences with flowering
rose bushes, sits a black house with a dead lawn. Unbeknownst to the neighbors,
hidden beneath this home is a vast secret hideout. Surrounded by a small army of
minions, we discover Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), planning the biggest heist in the
history of the world. He is going to steal the moon (Yes, the moon!) in Universal’s
new 3—D CGI feature, Despicable Me. Gru delights in all things wicked. Armed with
his arsenal of shrink rays, freeze rays, and battle—ready vehicles for land and air, he
vanquishes all who stand in his way. Until the day he encounters the immense will of
three little orphaned girls who look at him and see something that no one else has
ever seen: a potential Dad. The world’s greatest villain has just met his greatest
challenge: three little girls named Margo, Edith and Agnes.

Synopsis for Inception

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous
art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during
the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has
made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage,
but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has
ever loved.

Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his
life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible: inception. Instead of the

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perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task
is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime.
But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the
dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb
could have seen coming. This summer, your mind is the scene of the crime.

Session 3: trailer making

In this session students will use their growing knowledge of film marketing to produce
their own trailers using the Make a Trailer facility on the Teaching Trailers Interactive
disc.

Modelling the process

Using a projector or IWB, demonstrate the basic functions of the Make a Trailer
screen: how to view clips and place them on the timeline; how to choose music and
how to create titles.

Student Worksheet 3: Making a Trailer provides simple instructions which you may
wish to use as a guide; this worksheet should be given to students for the group task,
below.

Can you cut it? Group task

Groups use the Teaching Trailers Interactive disc to produce a one minute thirty
second theatrical trailer for either Despicable Me or Inception (as per group choice).
You may wish to split groups into pairs depending on availability of computers.

Each trailer must:

-Be one and a half minutes in duration
-Feature a range of clips
-Include a choice of soundtrack
-Include credits naming the students who produced it

After they have completed and saved this, they must then produce a 30 second ‘cut’
of this trailer to be used as a TV spot.

Make sure groups have access to Student Worksheet 3: Making a Trailer

Evaluation task: Students produce a written evaluation of both the theatrical trailer
and the TV spot, explaining their choices and making use of correct vocabulary.
Students should include comments on target audience, USP, narrative, genre, shot
choice, music etc.

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Session 4:
final challenge and presentation
You may wish to recap key learning and key terms at the start of this session.

For the final task, groups will use all their knowledge to create a persuasive
presentation on their work. Each group’s presentation must consist of the following
elements:

1) An overview of the season’s film releases that explores similarities and

differences with the chosen film (Despicable Me or Inception) that groups are
working with.
2) An exploration of the chosen film’s key features: genre; USP target audience
etc.
3) A persuasive pitch explaining how their trailer campaign will be the most
effective in ‘selling’ the film to audiences. The pitch should include technical
terms that students have learnt during the process including an awareness of
the high cinema attendance figures during the summer months.
4) Screening of the 30 second ‘TV spot’ trailer produced by the group.

Groups should allocate roles to ensure all tasks are completed, and the presentation
has been rehearsed, before the end of the session. Team work and time
management are essential to completing the task.

Allow enough time in the session for each group to give their presentation, using
peer evaluation if appropriate.

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Trailers: the theory –
Activity sheet 1: analysing a trailer

Film trailers are a form of advertising. Trailers are structured to include the best bits
of a film to encourage as many people as possible to see the film at the cinema.

Complete the following table for one film trailer. Include as much detail as possible.

Feature Comments
Genre

Narrative

Unique Selling Point

Target audience

Music

Shot types/camera angles

Pace

Dialogue

Voiceover

Special effects

Credits and intertitles

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DEFINITIONS
Genre: a type or category of film, e.g. horror, romantic comedy
Narrative: the ‘story’ or plot structure of a film or trailer
Unique Selling Point: what makes a particular film unique and ‘sellable’
Target audience: the group of people a film or other product is aimed at
Music: the choice of music can have a huge impact on the ‘mood’ of a film
Shot types/camera angles: for example, close-up, medium shot or long shot
Pace: how quickly or slowly the shots within the trailer play
Dialogue: any conversations between characters
Voiceover: a voice recorded over the top of the trailer to give information to the
audience
Special effects: includes computer-generated graphics, stunts and explosions
Credits and intertitles: these are words on screen that give information to the
audience

Group presentation task

Choose two trailers to compare and contrast, highlighting the similarities and
differences. Use the points you have noted in the grid to shape your response, and
aim for a lively and informative presentation style.

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 Trailers: the theory
Activity sheet 2: investigating film releases

Your task is to research this season’s upcoming film releases using a range of
sources. Record your findings in the table below:

Film title Genre USP Target audience UK

(gender, age, etc) release
date

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Trailers: the theory
Activity sheet 3: number crunching

As you’ve already heard, commercial feature films are very costly to produce. The
people who put money into a film’s production are keen that as many people go to
see the film in the cinema as possible, with trailers being an essential aspect of this
process.

The Film Distributors Association publishes monthly figures that reveal how many
people attend the cinema in the UK. Read through the figures from 2004 and 2009
then discuss the questions that follow.

UK monthly cinema admissions – a sample

Month Cinema admissions 2009 Cinema admissions 2004

January 14,504,588 15,303,296
February 14,967,291 13,298,604
March 11,904,734 10,757,356
April 13,830,360 14,468,602
May 15,775,945 13,106,760
June 12,476,548 14,710,928
July 20,039,500 18,425,276
August 15,542,650 17,365,901
September 9,703,035 10,161,933
October 13,538,178 14,500,055
November 14,913,426 14,559,551
December 16,265,079 14,593,805
Total 173,461,335 171,252,066

Reading the numbers

1. Which two months have the highest cinema attendance figures in 2009?
What reasons could you suggest for this?

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 2. What do you think might account for the steady rise in attendance from
September to December 2009?
3. By how much have total admissions increased in the five years from 2004 to
2009? Can you think of any reasons for this?
4. Can you spot similarities or patterns in the figures, month by month, between
2004 and 2009?
5. Why do you think the summer is such a popular time for cinemagoers?

Showing the trends

Construct a visual model to illustrate the trends in cinema attendance in the years
2004 and 2009.

You can present this as a bar chart, a graph or a pie chart; you can use more than
one diagram if you wish. Consider the best, and clearest ways of showing the
information.

Working in small groups, put together a brief presentation in which you show these
visual models, describe what patterns you noticed and suggest your theories for the
reasons behind these trends.

Trailers: the theory

Activity sheet 4: making a trailer

How to make a trailer: planning

Go to the Make a Trailer section on the disc, and choose your film. First, view all the
available assets for your chosen film – that means, the clips and the soundtrack. You
can play the clips on the ‘Make a trailer’ screen by hovering the mouse over, or by
double-clicking on each clip. You may want to take notes so you are clear about
which parts of the film are available to work with, as well as how long each clip is.

Once you have a sense of what footage is available, you then need to consider the
soundtrack. Listening to the different soundtracks will also give you an idea of the
different moods you might want to create in the trailer. What effects might each of
these soundtracks achieve?

Making a trailer: for the cinema

A theatrical trailer is one that will be shown in cinemas in advance of the film’s
release. Your task here is to create a theatrical trailer that is one minute and thirty
seconds long to ‘sell’ the film to a particular audience.
Follow these steps:

1) Select your chosen clips and create a ‘rough edit’ by placing your choice of clips
on the timeline in an order that makes sense to you.

2) Watch your sequence of clips through once, thinking about which clips might need
moving, adding or deleting.

3) Make adjustments as necessary

4) Add in your chosen soundtrack and play the sequence through again. Make any
further adjustments on the basis of how the sound ‘fits’ with your chosen clips,
thinking especially about timing and rhythm.

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5) Once you’re happy with your sequence, you can create titles (text which appears
on a black background) if you want to convey further ideas or information in text
form, or add your own credits to the end of the trailer.

6) Finally, save your work carefully.

Making a trailer: for television

Now that you have completed your theatrical trailer (and saved it carefully) your next
task is to cut it down from its current length to just 30 seconds – the length of a TV
spot (a short trailer suitable for television).

In order to do this, you will need to watch your existing trailer carefully, taking notes
about which of your chosen shots, titles and sequences are essential to convey the
best of the film to a television audience.

You may want to change the emphasis of your trailer for a TV audience, in which
case think carefully about what time of day the trailer would air, what channels it
would be shown on and what audiences you could appeal to (for example, if the TV
spot is later at night, action scenes are more acceptable than if you are going to
show it during the day or before a children’s programme).

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