Media By Lili Phillips

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

2. Teaser Trailer Conventions
The teaser trailer is all about giving the very basics of what the
film is going to be about. Titles often ask questions or hint
clues as to what the plot is without giving too much
information away. They are often distributed during editing, so
they can start to generate a word of mouth and a buzz to the
potential audience. The usual pace of the teaser trailer starts
off slow with title breaks, but then soon picks up the pace
towards the end when they reveal the main plot. This
information is enough to tease the audience in to wanting to
view the full film when released. The duration of a teaser
trailer usually lasts around 1:00 – 1:40.
Below you can see the comparison between our duration time
compared to gone girl. As you can see we have a slightly
shorter teaser trailer but it still falls into the average time.
What are typical conventions in all teaser trailers?
I used Prezi.com to arrange my
research into our Genre;
drama. I needed to be more
specific with my research as
we had specified our genre
and needed to be more
accurate with information.

3. Ident
Our Ident Lasted 4 seconds ( 0:02
– 0:06 )
Fantastic Four Ident ( 0:03 –
0:06 )
Idents are the first thing you see before a film. It is a clip which informs
you of the production company behind the film. One of the most famous
Idents is the 20th Century Fox. The clip lasts for 27 seconds and contains
dramatic music, and animated 3D text. However all teaser trailers have a
shortened down version of their original Ident and we have followed this
convention in our own teaser trailer.
In all of the teaser trailers I studied in my research and planning, the
Idents were always found at the start of the teaser. As a group we
decided to follow this convention as it made our film look professional
and flow better.
We used Final Cut Pro to create our Ident and used YouTube for tutorials
so we could familiarise ourselves with some key shortcuts and basic
skills.

4. Characters
The Protagonist! The Antagonist!
As you can see from my
research, we have stuck to
these typical character
conventions. The antagonist
is male, greedy, breaking the
law, and has little empathy
towards any other character.
We have also slightly
challenged the conventions
by aging the antagonist to be
19 years old, however he still
creates drama as well as
power.
JamesAmanda
During our planning, we
looked at this slide I made
from Prezi.com to help
develop our characters.
Although generally, the
protagonist is male, we
challenged this and used a
female to represent the main
character. However, we
definitely did stick to the
characters personality,
making her the one who the
audience feels sympathy for.

5. Titles
For out titles we looked at many different Drama teaser trailers to gain inspiration and techniques from
major and independent films. Here I have taken screenshots of 3 different teasers which we looked at
before deciding our own titles.
Major Independent Major
When researching into titles, it was common to have the titles on its own against a
block colour. As we had a voice over throughout the majority of our teaser trailer,
it became clear to us that the titles needed to follow this convention as it started
to become distracting with animated titles, voice over, and the clip itself being
played at the same time. It was far to busy and made it difficult to pay full
attention. We used a black background and the font ‘Minimal’ which we found on
Final Cut Pro X.
The font itself was similar to what we can see in ‘Gone Girl’. The tracking is widely
spaced apart and looks airy and mysterious, relating to our genre; Drama. We also
placed it in the center, similar to ‘Shifty’ as we found in our research this was
successful, and again, did not take away too much attention from the voice over.
Here is a
screenshot from
Final Cut Pro X
of our attempt of
titles over the
clip, which we
felt did not work
and became
distracting.

6. Our Final Titles
Here are our titles which last around 3 seconds each. As you
can see they are all placed in the center, are short and to the
point, and are placed onto a black screen. We wanted our
transitions, font, colour choices and placement all to be the
same so there was consistency throughout our teaser trailer.
Not only did this turn out very professional but as the colours
contrast, it draws the full attention to the text and almost
tells the audience where you should be paying attention to.
So in this case, we have stuck to some typical conventions
which titles in Dramas stick to. They are very stripped back,
sophisticated and have very soft transitions to flow and to
not distract the audience of anything they might miss.

7. Editing
When doing research and planning, I found
that at the beginning of most Dramas such
as Gone Girl, and Shifty, it was quite a slow
and relaxed pace. Around 40 seconds in,
the pace picks up, music changes, and
there are clear signs which indicate
something bad has or is going to happen.
In our teaser trailer our music changes at
46 seconds when she picks up the phone.
The slow guitar instrumental quickly fades
out and we are left with a dramatic base
line. It lets the audience know that
something is about to cause drama and
tension between the two characters. As the
base fades in, we have paired this with the
line:
‘I never thought James would break the law,
just for a bit more money.’.
The voice over accompanied with the
Dramatic music works really well and
makes the audience want to find out more
about the film.
Change of music/pace
- 0:46
The Unfinished Business
(Our teaser)
Change of music/pace
- 0:42
Gone Girl
(Major)

8. Editing
To the left we can see clips from our teaser
trailer, The Unfinished Business, and to the
right we can see the comparison between
ours and The Pursuit Of Happyness.
When doing research into editing
techniques and styles within Drama films,
it was very clear that things needed to
flow well and stay stripped back with no
distracting editing. This allows the
audience to get a feel for each character
without jumping quickly to different shots,
similar to a Horrors conventions. We also
used continuity as well as montage in our
trailer as Drama films are always using this
method in their teasers as the aim is to
give the audience an idea of the narrative
without giving too much away.Hand held
Fading out
Panning
The Unfinished Business
(Our Teaser)
Hand held
Fading out
The Pursuit Of Happyness
(Major)
Panning

9. ShotsHere I have collected shots of our own teaser trailer, as well as one major and one independent. These include a two mid shot, a close up of a
character, and a two shot/over the shoulder. During my research and planning into Drama teasers, I noticed that they used a lot of medium to
close up shots that clearly shot characters expressions and emotions as well as a bit of body language. I feel that although we did match this, we
also challenged conventions as we used a much wider variety. We used shots like match on action and the 180 degree rule to emphasise certain
situations such as the paper being thrown into the bin so that the audience realise that the character is not only annoyed, but also in control.
Our Teaser
Trailer
The Unfinished
Business
The Pursuit Of
Happyness
(Major)
Shifty
(Independent)

10. Poster Research
• Must be eye catching and
captivating
• There must be a focal picture that
will draw in the audiences eye
• The title is displayed in a large clear
font
• It clearly defines the film genre
• The poster should be designed to
attract the largest target audience
as possible
• There is usually an indication of
when the film is going to be
released – either a date of ‘coming
soon’, although they are sometime
less specific, for example they may
say ‘In cinemas this summer’
• Information on the directors and
production company is also often
displayed in a billing block at the
bottom of the poster
• There could be reviews or titles of
other films that the company has
made
Conventions Of A Poster

11. Poster So as you can see, our film poster followed
many conventions. For example, the two
main characters, The billing block, Film
title in a large clear font, and some sort of
a release date. We studied this particular
Drama as we loved the text down the
middle. As our characters were completely
contrasting, we felt that the position of
the characters along with the text, divides
the two characters and signifies the
distance between them. The text we
chose was a line from our script. It was a
powerful phrase which we all agreed
would capture attention. For our title, we
placed it towards the bottom of the
poster. We thought that the text and the
two characters were the main impact of
the poster and would end up looking busy
if it were any bigger. I also added a
shadow behind the title of our film, so it
could stand out against the white top. One
conventions we also followed was placing
the main actors/actresses names at the
very top of the poster. This will
automatically draw attention to existing
fans of certain actors/actresses. One thing
we did do slightly differently was to not
use the whole characters face. We agreed
that the unidentifiable faces look very
mysterious and questioning, paired with
the colour balance of blue, cold tones. It
also represents that there could be
another side to the characters.
Our Final
Poster -The
Unfinished
Business
The Social
Network Poster

12. Comparisons
Text to give
impact
Our Poster -
The Unfinished Business The Social Network
Our Poster -
The Unfinished Business
Gone Girl Billing block
containing directors,
actors/actresses,
producers, etc.
Two main characters,
showing division in
personalities.
Our Poster -
The Unfinished Business
Shifty

13. Magazine
Our Final Magazine -
The Unfinished
Business
Here is our final magazine. We
decided to create our magazine
cover to feature of the ‘EMPIRE’
magazine as we felt it suited our
genre the best out of the three
potential magazines which we
looked at, including Little White
Lies, Empire, and Total Film. The
magazines conventions were
smart and allowed us to include
images of our main characters in
the most realistic way. Empire
magazine is aimed at the mass
market. It focuses on Hollywood
blockbusters and big hit movies.
Most Empire magazines involve
a lot of red and white text, along
with the red logo, the film title
which is featured on the cover,
and some sort of competition or
free item advertised on the
front. I decided to place this red
circle somewhere where it
would stand out. As you can see
it stands alone and you are
instantly drawn into the word
‘Win’. This is a technique most
magazines use to engage and
attract all audiences.
Existing Empire Magazine
Covers

14. Comparisons
Our Magazine
The Unfinished
Business
Existing Empire Magazine
Covers
• Date inside of the letter ‘M’
• Face layered over part of the magazine title
Existing
Empire
Magazine
Covers
Our Magazine
The
Unfinished
Business
• Some sort of competition or
giveaway advertised along the
side
• Information on page, what to
expect
• Actors/ Actresses names
Our Magazine
The Unfinished
Business
Existing Empire Magazine
Covers
• Red circle. Captures attention to reveal some sort of
information
• Red and white text inside