1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE
FORMS AN CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA
PRODUCTS?
Question 1

2. Film Trailer
For all of my final media products I had to do an in-depth research into the target
audience that relates to our horror genre. We then had to analyse horror trailers,
magazines and posters. When we completed this research we developed a trailer
that was best suited for our audience. We intended to follow the typical conventions
of a film trailer however we wanted to challenge these conventions of a real media
product at the same time. This then proves that we are willing to create a film
trailer that takes us out of a zone where we are most at ease. Hopefully by doing this,
we are creating an effective trailer and so it engages our target audience in even
more so.

3. To be able to find out what a typical horror trailer convention was we had to thoroughly
analyse a variety of different trailers. I specifically looked at The Uninvited, The Sixth
Sense and 1408.
When analysing these trailers I noticed a similar structure in all of them, these
typical conventions were:
 You start of with a non-scary/happy scene, so the audience get a bit of background
from the film.
 The location is most likely to be in a dark, isolated place.
 An eerie soundtrack to build tension, with not much dialogue.
 Most have some text on the screen , making the audience think about the storyline.
 This is followed by short takes and fast paced editing , this then starts to build up
suspense.
 We have a couple of fade to black transitions that are used in all horror trailers.
 The film title, left with a shot leaving a cliff-hanger.
 Most victims are the females rather than the males as they are much more vulnerable.

4. In our trailer, we all decided to keep to the stereotypical conventions of a horror trailer
so we included a slow soundtrack which created an eerie effect to our trailer and we
had fast paced editing towards the end of our trailer. These conventions added a sense
of fear to the trailer. When I picked what our characters were going to wear, I tried my
best to make sure that the location we filmed in would contrast what they were both
wearing. This is why I decided to put our main actress in a pink jumper. We all choose
to stick to the convention of including happy scenes at the beginning of the trailer, then
it would turn to conform to the genre of the trailer. In between most of the scenes, we
decided as a group to insert a few text slides, when I had done this I included the
release date, film title. Also we had fade to black transitions between each scene, the
text on this transition gave a brief introduction of what the film is about. However, we
didn't include a scene where someone is being killed, we came to a group decision that
we wouldn't have been able to make that particular scene look as effective and
professional as we would want it to. We used a sound effect as well in our trailer this is
used in many trailers. Another convention we used was at the end of the trailer we
included a scare shot building the suspense.

5. Film Poster
Throughout my research and planning, I analysed several film posters which showed
common conventions of the horror genre. Most of the film posters I analysed had a
dark colour scheme, this included the colours red and black. The dark red
symbolises danger, blood and death and relates well with the horror genre. All film
posters had a main image in the middle of the page, with a billing block central and at
the bottom of the page. Most film posters include a film tagline and they sometimes
have a star rating that has been given to them by a well known newspaper or magazine.
My film poster doesn't follow the convention of having a central image, I have placed it
over to the left as I think it makes the poster look more effective. I stuck to the
convention of having a dark colour scheme, this is because it wouldn't have had the
same effect on the audience if it was lighter. From looking at my film poster you can
instantly tell that it has the conventions of a horror film poster. As I changed the
brightness of this photo to be very dark, I realised that the colour red stood out much
more. Most of all, the main convention that challenges the horror genre is having the
victim on the front of this poster and not the villain.

6. Magazine Front Cover
Creating a magazine front cover was much harder to do as there was a lack of
conventions they had that related to the horror genre. Most film magazines cover a
range of different genres. I looked at specific film magazines but I noticed that most
film magazines tend to stick to one colour scheme. I came across a couple of
magazines that based the colour scheme on their models costume. Most front covers
have their masthead either on the left hand side or central. The cover lines usually
match with the colour of the image. Then most magazines have the main cover line as
the biggest cover line on the front cover, this is usually placed over the image or in the
centre.
My final magazine front cover sticks to most of these common conventions, as I have
my masthead in the top left hand corner. My main image take up most of the page, as
well as my cover lines. This is because I wanted these two conventions to be my
audiences main focus. My main cover line has been situated over the top of the image
and is in a bigger font size than all the rest. When creating this magazine I decided to
keep the horror colour scheme because I choose to do this I have now challenged a
convention as most magazines keep their colour schemes general.

7. To conclude I definitely think that all of my final media
products conform to most typical conventions. I think if I
didn’t use these conventions then it wouldn't have looked
effective. However, I have challenged many conventional
ideas and included them in my final products as I didn’t just
want them to be a typical horror trailer, film poster and
magazine front cover. Without following most of the
conventions I wouldn’t have been able to create my media
products to the best standard.