Course work

1. In what ways does your media
product, develop or challenge and
conventions of real media products
The Phoenix trailer had a key theme about time and this was denoted through
the digital clock seen within jump cuts in the trailer. The clock counting down
connotes that time is running out and the suspects who may have harmed the
female protagonist realise that they can’t run anymore because time is nearly
out, according to zeitgeist this offers a ‘window into the world’ for the
audience because they’re ‘educated’ (Katz) they can’t run away from their
troubles, eventually karma will come back around. The EastEnders Kat and
Alfie trailer I analysed prior to producing my own trailer had a Western theme,
I ‘exploited’ this theme by using the idea of conflict between the male and
female protagonist. In the EastEnders trailer there were ‘signifiers’ (De
Saussure) that connoted battle between Kat and Alife, in my trailer I
incorporated this by having 3 male suspects having some sort of
confrontation with the female protagonist. An example of this would be when
one of the male characters has an argument with the female protagonist in
the kitchen and male character decides to pick up a knife due to his
frustration in the situation and what happened after is left to be a mystery.
The trailer I produced also ‘exploited’ the key theme “misandry” from the
EastEnders Kat and Alfie trailer and an example of this was when Kat was
staring at Alfie in disgust when he first made an appearance in the trailer,
which just denoted that she wasn’t very fond of Alfie and their relationship
wasn’t at its best. On the other hand in my trailer the female protagonist
showed ‘signs’ of hatred towards the opposite gender when she found out
that one of the suspects which happened to be her boyfriend was cheating on
her. This was denoted by the way she shoved him and stormed off in anger
because of the text that she saw which was from another. The use of this
theme emphasises how females can dislike feminists and this is connoted by
the way she pushed him away and this is effective because a ‘female’ (Hartley)
house wife can ‘personally identify’ (Katz) themselves with this situation
because they would’ve experienced similar situations and they can relate to
the frustration that the female protagonist feels, caused by her boyfriend.
Throughout my media text there were clear ‘signifiers’ (De Saussure) which
indicated that a bad event has occurred, these ‘enigma clues’ (Barthes) leave
the audience to work out what has happened. An example of ‘enigma clues’ in
my trailer was the dark non-verbal code of the red blood on the female
protagonists face seen in short frames at the end of every encounter she has
with one of the suspects. In the existing EastEnders soap opera trailer I
analysed, the ‘enigma clue’ was the scared/worried facial expressions on the
characters that saw Kat had arrived at the Queen Vic. The connotations of the

2. facial expressions on the rest of the characters faces when they realise that Kat
has arrived imply that Kat is dangerous character and everyone who lives in
that area knows it because everyone had a look of worry and despair on their
face. This is a theme that I ‘exploited’ from the EastEnders trailer, as the
enigma code in my trailer was the red blood dripping on the female
protagonists face and the EastEnders trailer used the non-verbal code facial
expression on the characters faces to suggest that something was wrong. The
convention in my trailer was used because it leaves the scene on a cliff-hanger
leaving the audience to think that the female protagonist has been harmed.
Although the media product that I produced represented the female
protagonist as ‘strong woman’ there was a scene, which represented her as
the typical ‘stereotype’ woman in soap operas. During her encounter with one
of the three suspects she cries and sobs because she just finds out that
boyfriend has just been cheating on her and this conforms to the
representation that “men act women appear”, which is shown by her emotions
and she gets upset; this is what usually happens in soap opera’s. In the
EastEnders soap opera trailer the female protagonist Kat didn’t show any sign
of weakness when she arrived at the Queen Vic, in fact she faced up to Alfie
and the non-verbal code of her facial expression denoted no fear in her and
she was ready to have a battle with Alfie. The trailer that I produced
‘challenged’ the ideology that women are just as emotionally stable as men
because there were certain points in the trailer which represented the female
gender emotionally helpless. However the EastEnders trailer represents the
female to be emotionally fearless however the scene in my trailer represents
them to be emotionally weaker than men.
The combined use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound in my trailer was a
form and convention that was ‘exploited’ from an existing Hollyoaks soap
opera trailer. In the Hollyoaks trailer the non-diegetic up beat music plays
continuously throughout which sounds someone is being chased. The intense
tempo of the music correlates the quick surprises of action that is present in
the trailer. In my trailer I used non-diegetic music, which wasn’t, copy righted
for the soundtrack that played throughout. Using a non-diegetic music for my
soap opera trailer added the affect to the trailers storyline; it gave a sense that
time is running out as the audience can reflect on the content easier because
the music relates to what’s going on in the trailer. Also the Hollyoaks trailer
had diegetic sound, which was heard through dialogue, and this allows the
characters to show how they fell in a particular situation. This was a
convention that I ‘repeated’ in my trailer, I made sure that there was the
diegetic sound of dialogue, which enabled the female protagonist to reach to
the ‘female’ gender who have been t=in similar situations.
The trailer that I produced consisted of a multi-stranded narrative was all
affected the final outcome at the end. This was a form and convention that
was ‘repeated’ (Neale) from Hollyoaks trailer and in my trailer there were
three different situations, which involved three different male protagonists,
having different encounters with the female protagonist. These encounters
were different in their own and affected the outcome at the end of the trailer

3. this is effective because it keep the audience on the edge of their seats as
they try to figure out what’s going to happen in the end. The existing media
text that I watched which was Eastenders and it was the opposite the to my
trailer, it didn’t have many different storylines to that change what happen the
end, it focused one storyline didn’t have involved three different situations
where the female protagonist encountered three different male protagonists;
this affected the trailers storyline because it left the audience trying to work
out what was going to happen next. In contrast to this the Hollyoaks trailer
has a linear narrative
Towards the end of the trailer there is a scene with a low angle shot of the
camera looking at the 3 male suspects through the female protagonists legs.
Even though the protagonist is represented as a victim of a murder
throughout the trailer in this scene she is ‘signified’ to be “strong woman”
(Feasey) in this camera shot because the camera angle connotes her
dominance as she is positioned directly in front of the camera and the
majority of her body covers most of the camera in that scene; on the other
hand the denotation of the facial expressions on the suspects face is of worry
and guilt because they realise that they’re suspects for a girls murder and she
has come back to haunt them. Similarly the convention was ‘repeated’ (Steve
Neale) from the EastEnders trailer when the camera was looking at Alfie
through Kats legs representing her as the alpha female which is the binary
opposite to “men act women appear” (John Berger).