Sidewalk Magazine

http://sidewalk.mpora.com/

The worlds biggest skateboarding magazine 'Sidewalk' uses a very simple layout for their front cover, I like this idea because there is hardly anything on the cover, it doesnt take away from the photo, the photo on the front cover of Sidewalk will always have a skateboarding doing a trick, so this makes it very different to music magazines that fill the front cover with ads and loads of text to try and grab your attention. Another thing i noticed was that sometimes the title 'Sidewalk' would only be outlined instead of being a block colour, this shows how much they care about their target market seeing the picture on the front if they are willing to not make their title stand out.

The conventions for the front cover of skateboard magazines is that it is always very simple, they use a very artistic photo and usually very pale colours, never use a variety of bright colours e.g electric blues and neon greens. They tend to stick to blues, whites and greys. however and exception to this rule is that they will use a bright colour if they are advertising something that comes free in the magazine, like a poster.

Shaun White Skateboarding trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwMWmCn9jpg

This is a trailer for a new skateboarding game set for release in fall 2010
The trailer is probably the biggest step, editing wise, skateboarding has ever taken and it worked out really well. All the effects are perfect and it doesnt seem to overdone, however the only part about this trailer i did not enjoy was the start, people who are not familiar with skateboarding will have no idea what the people are doing, so here is a quick run down; whenever a skateboarding lands an impressive trick, fellow skateboarders who are watching will hit their board against something(usually the coping on the ramp) to make loud noises, kind of like clapping, its a skateboarders way of showing respect and giving 'props' to the rider.

The idea behind this trailer is that skateboarders make the best of the terrain around them and try and turn something simple, into something skate-able. whether its just putting a piece of wood up against a wall, or skating a set of stairs.

This trailer really grabs the attention of skateboarders(The games target market) and really appeals to them because of how they represent skateboarders and what they are all about, creativity.

Proposal

I'm going to be doing the teaser trailer brief, this is because i feel i will be able to produce a high standard piece of work from this brief compared to the others, the reason being is that i have a good knowledge of editing techniques, especially montage editing(used in trailers 99% of the time)

For research i will be watching a few trailers for highly anticipated films, this is so that i can look at what builds up the anticipation from watching the trailer. Another ting i will be watching is skateboard documentaries. There has only ever been one famous, realistic skateboard film 'Lords of Dogtown' which i will be doing a case study on soon. Another important thing for me to watch is skateboard companies promos, this is so i can learn what style of editing suites skateboard footage, also the type of atmosphere it creates while watching.

For filming and taking photos will be the local skateparks and skate spots, we have the UKs biggest skatepark within a 15 minute drive, a little ramp in the village where i live and a meduim size park about 5 minute drive away.

Also i'm considering going to Milton Keynes because it has some of the best street spots so i could get some really good photos from places like outside the art gallery.

Criteria problem?

after looking through the criteria i noticed that it says i have to produce a 'Teaser trailer' so i decided to do some research into what is actually included in a teaser trailer. The definition said that it is a very short trailer (around 30-60 seconds) and usually contains little or no actually footage.

so i think maybe the writer made a mistake while writing the brief or just did it to try and trick the students. Therefore i am going to just make a standard trailer for the film (usually around 60-120 seconds) included details about release date and maybe actors name.

Initial thoughts...

For this years course work i want to do the teaser trailer choice, with a poster and a front cover of a magazine advertising the film.
So my first idea for the trailer was a skateboard story because there has only ever been one really good skatebord film; lords of dogtown, which i will do a study on sometime in the near future. The next best thing to Lords of dogtown are skateboard documentaries, usually these are on a professional skateboarders career and how it all got started.
For insipiration i'm going to watch skateboard companies promotional videos, which are basically tricks perform by their sponsered players and edited to a song in a simple montage style of clips.

i have a few other ideas but i want to talk to my teachers first before i post anything else.