Media A2 studies

1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR
MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP
AND CHALLENGE FORMS OF
REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

2. In my coursework, I have researched the conventions of a general
Teaser Trailer, and then also one that was more specified on our genre,
which is Thriller. There were many common trends that appeared in all
of the films I analysed. The films I looked into were The Purge, Taken,
and Black Swan. The effect of fast paced and slow paced editing is
something that came up a lot in all of the films. This was because there
are commonly always some tense moments in films of the Thriller
genre. I also noticed that sound effects are also common conventions
in these films, drums and piano sounds come up quite a lot when
something exciting is about to happen. In Generic Horror films, creaky
and sharp sound effects are included in the trailers to also make the
scene seem tense.

3. Close ups are used a lot generically, because they are good at showing the emotion
on the faces of the characters. You can see the pain they are feeling and almost
feel it yourself as a viewer. The camera angles are done to either make the viewer
feel like there is power coming from the character, or that the character has no
power at all. This was done by the camera either being positioned in a high shot,
or in a low shot. The high shot is where the camera is being tilted down onto a
person or item, and a low shot is where the camera is facing upwards from a low
point. All these films have the similarity of the use of zoom; the zooming gives an
effect and can almost make the shot seem longer. This builds suspense and
apprehension for the audience. The films all include music at the beginning, and
some have it at the end as well. The non-diegetic music used throughout would be
put in to make the trailers flow better, as well as building tension at certain parts
where needed. The music could be easily changed or edited to be slower, faster or
even completely different at any time, which is an effective option to have. Where
characters were seen to be running or moving at a fast speed, tracking is used to
make the audience feel as if they are moving with the character.

4. From these points, I can conclude that my Teaser Trailer I have used a lot of
high shots, as I wanted the main character to be seen as powerless and not in
control of anything she does. I used a lot of fast paced editing because I
wanted to make the main character, Grace, look like she was having an
episode where she was struggling. I think this was portrayed well because of
the fast paced editing used. I included sound effects that I made on an app on
my laptop; these made the scenes seem apprehensive and tense.

5. At the very of the film, I have included a close up of Grace, which is showed for a very
short amount of time, played alongside is the creepy sound effect I have included at the
start, so the trailer comes full circle, and is complete.
When making the Film Poster, I had to do some research into posters for Thriller films. I
did this by analyzing three posters from films of the Thriller Genre. I used the same films I
chose for the analysis, as I thought they would all link well together and this gave me a head
start when analyzing the posters because I knew what the films were about so I could make
a link when looking at certain parts of the poster.
Depending on what happens in each film, the way the colours tend to fade matches the way
the events of the film follow. If it tends to be mysterious, like Taken, then colours will fade
into a darker colour. However if the events of the film are constant, the colour will tend to
be shown in a block, like in the Black Swan poster.

6. The way the title of all the film posters are shown in capitals, in a large and bold text in the
middle of the page or somewhere where it will look bold against the other features of the
posters. It ensures it stands out against the page and is the first thing the audience looks at
when it sees the poster. All the text for the titles of the films are coloured in colours which
stand out well against the rest of the page, they also don’t stray far away from the colour
scheme of each poster running throughout.
All posters feature smaller amounts of text, which give more information about the film.
This normally consists of the actors, the date in which it is released, and maybe some
quotes or clever lines from the film itself. Depending on the film and what the producer
and marketing director prefer, there will either be a lot of informative text, or hardly any
shown on the film poster. Important pieces of information, like the date is released are seen
to be presented in bold and in a text that stands out against the background, in order to
make it easier for the reader to identify.

7. In the Taken film poster, the use of the words 'HUNT', 'FIND' and 'KILL' presented tells
the reader that this film is of the thriller genre. This is a clever way of informing the public,
and attracting the target market. Throughout all the film posters, the texts and font sizes
change a lot throughout; this diverts the reader’s attention to all the different points
throughout the page, which is a very clever effect to show.
Medium shots or close up shots are commonly seen on film posters of my genre, there is
normally one main character in each film and these are pictured on the poster as they are
seen the most and the film tends to be based around them and what happens to them. Long
shots and group shots are rarely used unless there is a few people that the film is based
around, or these people pictured cause trouble for the main character. In my film, I have
used two medium shots to portray the two sides of my main character, Grace. I have only
pictured her as the film is based around her, and a large amount of the trailer is based
around her. We have used the convention of the different sized texts; we have decided to
keep the fonts the same throughout as we thought they all linked well together. We chose to
change the sizes to help divert the reader’s attention, as I thought this was a good idea
shown in professional posters.