1. Question 1
In what ways does your media
product, use, develop or challenge
conventions of real media products?

2. My poster, out of all three pieces of media, challenges
conventions the most. I decided to challenge the conventions
of the horror genre after my first piece of audience research.
The people I had asked outlined ideas about having an
unconventional poster – but only if was done well, to me
that meant creating it in a unique way, but still having the
key features that a conventional poster would have, and
therefore doing what posters are meant to do; catching the
audience’s attention. From all the posters I analysed, I found
the Scream 4 and Saw posters to be most appealing. The
main image was of just one thing – an object of importance
in the films. I found that this looked more appealing than
having the character on the poster; the audience would see
the character in the trailer or magazine cover anyway. By
using an image of something relevant or important to the
film/trailer, my poster creates a real sense of enigma, more
so than maybe having the character on the poster. Creating
this convention was something that I wanted to stick by. I
also used the conventional colours black and red. Something
I had noticed when analysing the posters was that white
wasn’t used a lot. I decided to use white because firstly it
symbolises purity, something that is relatable to children, the
antagonist in Rosie Black is a teenager therefore it sticks
with the theme. Secondly, it is aesthetically pleasing and
when placed amongst other posters which use predominantly
darker colours, it will definitely stand out. I used
conventional things that are on posters; tagline, masthead,
date and institutional logo. By doing so, I balanced the
conventional with the unconventional and thus made the
poster recognisable for what it is rather than making it look
too different.

3. My magazine is quite unconventional, mainly due to the
image I used. Where in the magazines I analysed, there
was a clear, unedited image of the character, but instead I
chose to distort and edit my image. This was because I
wanted to represent the theme of the trailer; Rosie Black
has a split personality and she sometimes ‘loses her
mind’, and therefore has a warped outlook. By editing the
image so heavily, it creates a sense of distortion of reality
and fantasy. One convention that I stuck by was having
the character looking straight out at the audience; this
breaks the diegesis of the film and the characters ‘sphere
of action’. This allowed me to connect with the audience,
while still having conventional media language alongside
it. The conventions I used were masthead, cover lines,
flash button, barcode, issue number and date. To make
these conventions look different, or seem less
conventional I edited them in different, eye-catching
ways. All the typefaces were hand-drawn; not only does
this create continuity with the poster and trailer, it gives
the magazine an authentic look as by drawing the
typefaces in specific ways I could get the actual effect I
wanted rather than choose out of readymade fonts. I
developed the flash button to look more suited to the
horror genre, instead of using a simply circle which
wouldn’t look ‘edgy’ or scary enough, I drew a shape
which looks as though the page has been ripped, creating
a much more successful look than just having a normal
shape. Again, I used conventional colours; red and black,
creating a bigger continuity between the media texts.

4. The most unconventional thing about the trailer is that there is only one
character seen, Rosie Black – who is the antagonist and protagonist of the film.
Rather than having all the characters featured, by just having Rosie, the trailer
portrays and successfully represents the emotional aspects that – if the film
was made – would be extremely important. Like my magazine cover, at the
beginning of the trailer Rosie looks directly at the camera. By breaking the
diegesis in two of my media texts, I have not only created a sense of continuity
but also connected with the audience on a deeper level. While analysing the
magazine covers, I found that I was drawn to those where the characters were
looking at the audience, breaking their ‘sphere of action’. Therefore, this idea
was brought into the trailer. The hand drawn typeface is used again for the
inter titles and title of the film, in the trailers I analysed, they had simple
typefaces, but the one I made is quite elaborate. The main convention is the
face paced editing, done to resemble the racing heartbeat. The trailer wouldn’t
be as successful as a horror themed trailer without this.