Q1 A2 Media Evaluation

2. The title of our trailer ‘The Agent’ is very
stereotypical of that of a thriller. It indicates
what occupation our main character has, an
agent, which fits in with the forms and
conventions of the thriller genre as it brings
across the convention of the stereotypical
thriller character being a spy, hit man etc.
Furthermore, it is short and snappy and
contained the name of the occupation of
our main character. We decided upon this
idea from looking at similar thriller films
such as ‘The American’ and ‘The
Interpreter’ who use the job or role of their
main character as a title.

3. The location of our trailer was in an urban environment comprising of streets, a bar and
a car park. this is typical and fits in with the forms and conventions of the thriller genre.
As if we take a look at most thriller films such as ‘I,Robot’ and the ‘Taken’ trilogy they
are set within an urban environment.
Furthermore we chose to shoot in locations that are quite public, such as a restaurant
and a car park, we chose these locations so that we can relate to peoples everyday lives
but to also show that these areas aren’t safe. This picks up on a further theme of thriller
films, paranoia, this further links in with the contemporary fear of terrorism which is
increasing taking place in public places (Boston Bombings, Lee Rigby etc.).

4. Our main props were very stereotypical of a thriller genre, as we used a gun and car. A
gun is a favoured weapon across the thriller genre and can be seen as a key iconographic
element in most thriller films such as Bourne and Kingsman and in the majority of
thriller posters. Cars are also perceived as being typical of a thriller, if we look at the
James Bond films they are known for their Aston Martin cars, and car chases are a typical
thriller narrative element. This both are typical pieces of iconography, as you can see
above in the new Sean Penn film ‘The Gunman which uses a gun on its poster.
The costume our main character had throughout the film is also stereotypical of a thriller
character, he is dressed smartly, with a tie and trousers although not the full suit we
might stereotypically expect. . Other examples would be the sort of characters Liam
Neeson plays, for instance in A Walk Among The Tombstones. However, the crew neck
style of jumper that our main character is wearing has links with the army, which could
further insinuate that he is highly skilled and trained, another further convention of
thriller characters (e.g. the Bourne or Taken central characters).

5. Our trailer shares typical conventions with other thriller trailers. For instance we used
close up shots so that the attention of the audience is on a specific part of the framing,
this is so that the audience can see the point of the shot immediately so the shot can
move onto the next as soon as possible, this aids in the pace of the trailer being fast. For
instance in the two shots above the attention is focused on our main character and then in
the second shot the gun.
Furthermore each shot is there for a reason, I chose to explain the shot on the right as it
does seem out of place, but its there to provide an enigma of why our main character
would fall, and if he actually does fall. All our shots are in our trailer to help fit it in with
the three part structure.

6. Our trailer fits in with the 3 part structure, which is a typical convention of trailers. The 3
part structure firstly introduces character traits, then comes the peak (this is a series
of fast paced action shots to get the audience interested in seeing the film) and then
ending on some enigmas. Our trailer follows this convention of trailer: the first 20
seconds of our trailer is introducing our two characters, and establishing their traits,
Rahys as being physically fit, focused and determined, and Zahra as being shy and a
stereotypical vulnerable female victim. This is then followed up by our peak which
contains fast paced shots, before ending on the last part of our trailer the enigmas.
This is typical in trailers and meets the forms and conventions of one.
Our continuity in our film is created partly through the chronological structure but also
through using captions, which also helps to break up the structure of our trailer. This
technique is also used in other trailers such as A Walk Among The Tombstones.

7. A typical convention of a thriller and a trailer is to have captions that link in with
the rest of film’s campaign. We have followed this convention and have used
the same font style used on our poster and magazine cover for our captions and
title in the trailer.
Our captions, furthermore, help with the continuity of the trailer as they help to
split up the sections of the three part structure. So after our characters are
established there will be a caption, then the peak, followed by another caption,
and then the engima of the film is in the middle of our title and ‘Coming soon’
caption.

8. The genre of our trailer is thriller, which is mainly perceived through the themes
and narratives . For example typical narrative themes within our trailer are
violence and paranoia and the narrative is mainly brought across through fight
scenes, car chases, characters on the run etc. These are all typical of thriller films
and they contain these narrative and themes.
For example with the thriller film ‘The Town’s’ trailer, we see these sort of themes
and narratives bought across, similar to ours, we see the fight scene and
furthermore a shot of them running.

9. Our character traits are presented within the first few shots of our trailer, in the first
section of our third part structure. These are typically shown within these
sections and we followed this convention. We see at the start our two main
characters meeting at a bar where they introduce themselves, after this we see
our main male character jogging, furthermore creating the character trait that he
is physically fit. This trait is a convention of male thriller characters as they are
normally fit individuals. We also get the impression that our main female
character is a damsel in distress, through the shot seen above on the right, this
again is typical of thriller characters, as the female is often the damsel in distress.

10. We haven’t used as many special effects throughout our trailer as other mainstream
trailers would use. For example in the trailer for ‘I,Robot’ they use a lot of
dissolves to go from shot to shot. With our trailer we use a few fades at the start
and that’s about it. We went against the conventions of thriller trailers for
special effects as we wanted ours to be simplistic and have focus on each shot
and their meaning to create some enigmas.

11. Our trailer is 49 seconds long, this fits in with the conventions of teaser trailers as
they are generally between 30 seconds and a minute and a half. We wanted our
trailer to be as short as possible to keep with the convention of the fast paced
editing of the trailer. Furthermore the length and the shots provided in the
trailer are only supposed to be there to tease the audience, so each shot is only
on screen for a short amount of time.

12. Masthead
Pug
Main Cover Line
Banner
Main Image
Cover Line

13. One of the main conventions of a
magazine cover is its iconic rule of
thirds structure. There are two
orientations that the rule of thirds
could fit, these are horizontal and
vertical. What it does is it splits up the
cover and makes sections easier to
assimilate for the audience. For
example our magazine cover to the
left, follows the horizontal rule of
thirds, the top section contains the
title of the magazine and all of the
magazine companies information. The
second section contains our main
image and our main cover line, the
middle section is the part that
audiences will most likely look at first
so it is important that this is where the
main cover line and image is placed.
The last part of the third contains the
other cover lines that the magazine
contains alongside the pug.

14. When it came to making our
Empire magazine cover, we
thought it would be best if we
looked at an existing cover so we
can try and get all of the content
and conventions over from an
actual cover to our own one. We
were influenced by the
Quantum of Solace cover as
firstly the film matched our
trailer and furthermore it has the
same strucure that we were
looking for.

15. One typical convention that Empire magazine contains is its iconic red EMPIRE
masthead, and we decided to use this in our magazine cover too.
The main use of the masthead is to make it instantly recognisable to the viewers, so
to change this wouldn't be a smart move and may make our own magazine cover
unrecognisable as a brand.

16. The main image is also very important
when it comes to an Empire magazine
cover, as it must fit in with a certain
dramatic style, shot and framing. We
used a shot similar to the one of James
Bond where we show a mid to long
shot of our main character and
contains a gun as a prop. This fits in
perfectly with both the genre of our
project and an Empire magazines front
cover, although what is unusual is
having the central ‘star’ facing away
from the camera. Empire is a
mainstream film magazine and the star
on the cover is a major selling point, so
not seeing the star’s face would go
against its own well established norm.
However, I also felt that the pose itself
is quite ‘iconic’ with major stars across
several genres including thrillers using
it- e.g. Clint Eastwood’s ‘Unforgiven’
where the star is so well known we
don’t need to see his face.

17. Another element of our poster which follows the
typical forms and conventions of a magazine cover is a
pug. As you can see with our one below we have gave
it a border effect which is against the typical norm of
an Empire pug.
Included in our pug is a free audiobook of another
thriller film, this content however is very typical of
Empire as we they have often given away free posters,
audiobooks etc. with their magazine covers.

18. Title TaglineMain Image Release Date
Reviews

19. Our poster went against the typical
conventions of a poster as they are
normally portrait (as seen with the Skyfall
one below). However with the image we
wanted to use wouldn’t work as a portrait
poster, so we did some research and
found that landscape posters for thriller
films do exist for some films, such as A
Walk Among The Tombstones.

20. Our main image also goes against a
typical teaser poster convention. Where
our main image is off centre, as opposed
to the norm of the image being in a
central position. This leaves the audience
of the poster feeling paranoid as they
suspect something to appear in the empty
space to the side of our character. This is
often used within horror films where it
leaves the viewers constantly expecting
something to jump out to the side
furthermore leaving them constantly
paranoid.

21. Our poster also follows another typical
convention of a poster with its reviews.
Reviews are used to try and entice the
audience into seeing our film as it has
been given good reviews, furthermore we
used reviews from Empire and The Sun
which also shows they are reliable.
An example of another thriller film poster
which uses reviews in their poster is ‘The
Manchurian Candidate’.

22. We decided to include a tagline in our
poster after seeing the ‘Safe House’ poster
seen below. A tagline is also a typical
convention for a teaser poster as it
provides the audience with a little bit of
insight into the character or the narrative
of the film. So for instance with our
tagline ‘Just Another Case’ it provides the
audience with an idea as to what the
occupation of our protagonist is.