2. In what ways does your media products use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
My poster follows the conventions of a real Action thriller move poster as we see both the victim and
the antagonist on the content. The audience are able to see the victim in a brighter light allowing
audience members to connote the idea of the actor on the right being the victim. This is emphasized
by the shadow that covers the right side of her face, implying the darkness from the antagonist on
the left of the poster. The antagonist on the left is in much darker light with the red stripe over her
face. This follows the conventions of the 2009 film “The Box” directed by Richard Kelly, also an
action thriller movie. Therefore, this allows my film poster to match a real, existing poster that has a
similar target audience to mine. The poster follows other conventions used from different real action
thriller movie posters because of the red colour that is consistent throughout the poster. The red
allows the audience to focus on the poster but also highlights a shock or surprise that film contains. I
chose to have the red stripe over the antagonists face as it shows this character is the enemy. The
stripe also covers a lot of the actor’s face, which with the darkness of the lighting used for the image
makes the character look mysterious, shadowy and secretive as the character portrays an image
that makes the audience imply she is hiding something. Other aspects used in my film poster that
follow the conventions of real media products are the credit block used at the bottom of the poster.
This credit block shows that my poster follows the conventional aspects of real film posters that
exist. The name of the actors at the top of the poster in a white, clear and simple font allows the
audience to see the famous, well-known actors that are in the film. The tag line also allows the
audience to get an idea about the concept of the film and what the film could be about. This links to
conventional aspects because it makes the audience question what action might occur in the film,
meaning they are more likely to watch the film, in order to find out the story. Finally, the establishing
shot at the bottom of the poster allows the audience to see the main setting of the film and creates a
3. Researching existing movie posters for action thriller movies enabled me to establish the
conventional concepts of this specific genre film posters. When researching I was able to
see lots of posters using red as the main colour within the colour scheme. The red was
usually against a darker background, allowing it to be conspicuous in comparison to the
rest of the poster. Therefore I used red for the title of my poster as this is the most central
feature on the poster.
Researching action thriller posters
TITLES ARE ALL RED
4. Linking to other film posters
The red stripe signifies the antagonist character. This feature is used on “The Box”
movie poster with the suspicious, secretive character at the foot of the stripe.
Therefore whilst creating my poster, I used this idea to heighten the antagonist
character and highlight the secrecy of the character on the left.
5. Magazine
My magazine cover follows the conventional fashion magazine cover for various different reasons. Firstly, the
masthead is a main focus for the reader and allows the reader to know the genre of magazine this is. Also, the cover
lines allow readers to know what is happening inside of the magazine and the main stories that are discussed in this
edition. The choice of colours I believe match the colours used on the main image of one of the actors from the new
film that is the main story in this edition. The typography used on the cover allows the readers to get a glimpse of the
different aspects of the film, with interviews with an actor from the film. The existing media product i chose to base
my ideas on for my magazine cover was the March 2009 edition of Fashion Magazine. I used this as a guideline when
creating my media product and i did this by using a similar colour scheme and pose for the actor for the main image
on the cover. In order to create a similar product to this edition I used different shades of blue font and a simple, clear
font for the sub-headings and the text used on the cover. This allows a direct and simple cover to be presented to the
readers enticing them to read the magazine. Moreover, the use of the barcode highlights the type of media product i
am aiming to create. The issue number and the price further follow the conventions of a real magazine because they
allow the reader to see what issue this is and the price of the magazine which would both be portrayed on a real
magazine.
6. Looking at other magazines
When looking a this “Fashion” magazine i was able to follow that blue colour scheme which I
believe worked well with the image on my poster. The Fashion magazine allowed me to have a
guideline and something that I could use to inspire the final magazine product. When choosing
which image I would use for my magazine cover, i decided to use the one that was the closest
match to that of the mid-shot used on the cover of Fashion of Mary-Kate Olsen. Also the use of
various different fonts that are used on the edition are a convention that i noticed in other
magazine covers and also decided to follow.
7. Trailer
The trailer for our movie Obsessed follows the conventional aspects of an action thriller trailer because of different
concepts used in our media product. Firstly, the use of the green band highlights the realistic concept of a film trailer
and by using this, we are allowing our trailer to come across as naturalistic and real as possible. Every film trailer has
a green band which allows the audience to see the age rating of the film and allows the preview to become a real as
possible trailer. More over, the trailer included inter-titles which follow the conventional aspects of trailers as they
allow the audience to get an idea of different things that happen in the film and allows them to get an idea of the
story line of the film. This therefore should entice audience’s to see the film so that they can see exactly what is
happening in the film. The use of the various jump cuts from different scenes also follow the conventions of an
action thriller film trailer because they create confusion and excitement to match the thrilling genre.
8. Other action thriller trailers
We researched a number of different action thriller film trailers in order to find the
main codes and conventions of a trailer in this genre. We then decided to base our
trailer and storyline of the film on “Taken” the 2008 film , directed by Pierre Morel.
We felt that this was a film that was best related to our target audience as it was
based around a young girl, a similar age to our target audience. We then watched
the different trailers and focused on the fast pace of the action in the trailer and the
continual movement of settings and shots in order to create disorder and
confusion for the audience. Therefore we decided that our trailer would consist of
lots of different shots at day and night time in order to again aim to create disorder
but also so that the audience are able to see the different atmosphere of the
characters during the day in comparison to the dark, thrilling aspects we aimed to
portray in the darker night time shots.
