Introduction
Promotion and visual representation play an essential role in the modern film industry. Indeed, in the age of YouTube, the most effective advertisement of a movie is a trailer because people have become accustomed to watching short videos on this platform (Grainge & Johnson, 2015). One of the films with an exciting and memorable title and trailer is Transformers: The Premake by Kevin B. Lee. Notably, the entire documentary occurs on the creator’s laptop screen. The opening title primarily targets the audience that planned to watch Transformers4. The main text, in this case, is surrounded by the paratext, providing additional explanation and giving some clues about the documentary (Gray, 2010). The design of the text does not seem to create any associations with the movie because it resembles a text message but not a classic Hollywood title. Moreover, it gives the spectators the idea that it is a plain desktop documentary devoid of any features of action films. The trailer and title sequence promote Transformers: The Premake to suggest to the audience that this documentary will show how the famous franchise was made.
Main body
Both the opening title sequence and trailer serve to advertise the film and promise that it is worth watching. The trailer serves the role of a short advertisement to convince the viewers that some exclusive information will be released. For instance, Kevin B. Lee presents his MacBook desktop with many files, including Transformers, on the poster’s background stating “Report Alien Activity” (International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015). The title is a simple technique of printed text with symbols frequently used in messaging. In fact, the word “Tr@n$f0rm3r$” uses the dollar symbol to depict the central purpose of the entire moviemaking industry. At the same time, the subtext “premake” was typed without numbers or symbols, indicating the author’s lack of financial interest. Both the opening title and trailer are dynamic, but the latter gives more information to the spectators than the former. In my opinion, the promises of these two promotional tools met my expectations because this documentary fulfilled its role of revealing how movies are made in the modern world.
The movie creator used this supporting technique since texts cannot exist without paratexts in advertisements and titles. According to Gray (2010), “the study of paratexts is the study of how meaning is created, and how texts begin” (26). In Transformers: The Premake, paratext is “the premake,” suggesting that the viewer is offered a documentary. The creator did not follow the marketing approach of erasing important information from the text (Gray, 2010). Instead, the opening title and its design seem to summarize the entire movie. Hollywood requires including credits and using specific text designs stated in contracts (Stanitzek, 2009). However, Kevin B. Lee did not include his name in the opening title but saved it until the end credits. The font of the text and paratext is large and bold to ensure that spectators can see and read them. Furthermore, the distinct contrast between the black text and white background of the notepad makes reading easy and informs the audience that the documentary will take place on a desktop computer.
It appears that Lee used the dynamic and partly allegorical opening to introduce the audience to the entire pace of the movie. He utilized such symbols of the digital world as the HTML code, messaging style, and “Remember Chicago: Report Alien Activity” poster (International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015). Since Transformers is a movie about alien robots, this subtext states that the documentary will present a report about this particular film, which occurs in Chicago. The trailer clarifies this message when a long list of video files is opened in the “Alien Activity” folder (International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015). The creator of The Pemake’s opening title and the trailer seemed to focus on surprising the audience with this desktop style. Indeed, it was an unconventional approach to telling the story of how this action movie was created.
Summary
In summary, the opening title and trailer of Transformers: The Premake served the function of presenting the text fascinatingly to show that this documentary would be informative and entertaining. Indeed, the importance of texts, subtexts, and trailers in movies cannot be overestimated because these techniques are considered to be valuable promotional tools. The authors of the assigned readings claimed that today’s generation prefers watching short YouTube videos; therefore, it is unwise not to utilize this platform to advertise movies. The trailer revealed some key moments of this desktop documentary, and the text emphasized it using messaging symbols to highlight that this franchise’s primary goal is to make money. Notably, the inclusion of the dollar symbols was a creative technique to reveal this aim, common to all Hollywood movies. Unlike them, the author Kevin B. Lee appears to lack financial interest; thus, his entire film was shot on the screen of his laptop. Overall, I think that the trailer’s and title’s promise to show the objective overview of Transformers was fulfilled in this film because every symbol and scene was untangled.
References
Grainge, Paul, and Catherine Johnson. 2015. “Movies: Trailers and the Infrastructure of Blockbuster Marketing.” In Promotional Screen Industries, 148-177. New York: Routledge.
Gray, Jonathan. 2010. “From Spoilers to Spinoffs: A Theory of Paratexts.” In Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts, 23-46. New York: NYU Press.
International Film Festival Rotterdam. 2015. “Transformers: The Premake – Trailer.” YouTube video. Web.
Stanitzek, Georg. 2009. “Reading the title sequence (Vorspann, Générique).” Cinema Journal, 48 (4): 44-58.