The document discusses how the media product uses and develops conventions of real media products. It analyzes horror movie posters and their common elements, such as featuring scared characters. It describes choosing to use an image of a necklace from the film rather than a character. Research on other horror films informed design choices for the poster, such as a plain background and focusing the image. The trailer was influenced by films like Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch Project that used a documentary style with handheld cameras. Characters introduce themselves and react to their surroundings on camera.

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

2. POSTER
The poster title is in a
white bold font to help it
stand out and make it
more eye catching, this
would help as when the
audience looks at the
title they are more likely
to remember the
posters name. They are
not on the same line as
I felt that it made the
rest of the poster plain
and this helped to fill up
space of the poster.
Same font as the
title it shows more of
a link between them
rather than having
different fonts
making the poster
look too busy and
not blending
together well,
making it look
sloppy.
I felt as though the
image helped to create
mystery on the poster
as the audience would
question what
relevance the necklace
would have to the film
and make them want to
watch the film to find
out, also it is quite dark
showing that it that the
story is not a happy
one.

3. RESEARCH
 For the poster many other different posters of the
horror genre were looked at to try and make it look
a realistic as possible, I wanted to try to use some
similar ideas but also make it my own product and
keep it original. The first step of creating the poster
was looking at the codes and conventions of other
posters and what I wanted to keep the same,
develop or change I had to do this by looking at
many of posters with the same style of our filming
as we decided to create a horror film in the form of
a documentary as we felt that this was a good way
of having more angles to shoot from the view of
the character. While analyzing the posters the
main thing that they had in common was that the
picture was of a screen shot from a scene in the
film where the character is either looking scared
other something is happening they have edited the
picture to be in night vision, an example of this is
The Blair Witch Project where the character is
filming herself, which is a scene from the film she
looks scared and cold, you can only see half her
face with the camera light shining on her and in the
background you can see trees, making clear to the
audience that she is in the woods, but instead of
editing to look as though it is night vision it is black
and white.

4.  Another example I looked at was
paranormal activity 1-5, they had the
same layout for each poster, I focused
on paranormal activity 1. The image that
they choose was from an actual scene
they had chosen one with both the main
characters in bed with the women
pointing to the door where there is a
large shadow with no one standing
there, she seemed petrified its looks as
though she has moved all the way over
from the other side of the bed to be
closer to her partner in the image as
though she is seeking comfort. In the
right hand corner there is a time
showing which show the audience that it
is being recorded, the time is at
3.08.26AM this time represents that it is
being films but it also represents
witching hour which is stereotypically
used in films.

5.  Although I liked both posters as they had the same
genre and style of film when taking the picture for
the poster I felt that having a picture of a character
didn’t look like as professional as the other posters,
so after taking the pictures and editing them I felt
that it would be more appropriate to choose a
different image. Deciding that I wouldn’t use a
picture of a character and a scene from the trailer I
expanded my research to films of the same genre
but different filming styles. After looking at some I
noticed a reoccurring theme where the poster is
kept quite plain with white writing and a dark
background to make the writing stand out and
contrast with the background. And the image was
of an object that had relevance to the film and
linked with the trailer. I preferred the idea of having
a picture of an image rather than a character of
them film as I could have a better focus of the
object. While filming for the trailer we used a
characters necklace and recorded a scene of
necklace so we decided that it would be a good
idea to use this as the picture for the poster, the
picture came out very clear and very focused. The
picture was taken during the day so the picture of
the necklace seemed very bright and wouldn’t
seem as though it was for a horror film, so during
editing I had to make it darker and less of an
ordinary picture.

6.  The film poster that helped me to
decide that an image of an object
would look better was the poster of
the film Hatchet, it had a plan black
background with plain white writing
at the top or the bottom, and had a
picture of an axe in the middle which
had a small shine around it, which
brought more attention to it. I liked
that it wasn’t too busy and it gave the
audience something to focus on.
Although I did like this Idea I
preferred that our poster did have a
background to show the location of
where the necklace was found, as in
the image used for the poster it has
woodland scenery in the
background.

7.  The layout of the film poster seems to have been kept quite
simple, and still portraying a dark and gloomy atmosphere.
It is dark and cloudy, not showing much light. The main
focus in this poster is the young boy in the centre, he has a
blank yet disturbing expression on his face all of these
features instantly tells the audience that the genre of this
film is horror. He seems to be dressed in red stripped pj’s,
red is associated with danger, so this shows that the plot
could have to do with this boy being in danger, although as
innocent as he may seem in pj’s. Also there seems to be
an odd glaze in both of his eyes which seem almost super
natural, as though he is not in the right frame of mind, or
that he is possessed, this could be foreshadowing the
events that are to happen in the film. The house in the
background is also a focus in the poster, which shows the
plot also revolves around the house. It seems like a normal
house but the gap in the top curtain could show that there
is someone else in the house watching the boy, as all the
other curtains are closed apart from one, which makes it
seem odd and unusual.
 The colour scheme of this poster is red and white, this
could represent the struggle between evil and good, so it
could show that there is an evil that could be in this film. In
the film title, ‘INSIDIOUS’ is in capitals to stand out and
also in the middle if the page rather than at the top, the ‘SI’
is the only letters in red while the rest being white so
attention to is drawn straight to the title. While the rest of
the text is smaller than the title the title is also on a 90
degree angle and is the only thing that is compared to the
other text. On top of the title in smaller writing show that the
creators who made this film had also mad other well-known
films, such as Saw and Paranormal Activity. This is to show
to the audience that have enjoyed the other films that they
will most definitely find this one enjoyable as well. Below
the title at the bottom of the poster is the release date
amongst other writing but it stands out the most as it is in
capitals.

8. FONT
 While making creating the poster
our group had decided to use the
font chiller for the title, but while
piecing the poster together I felt
that it didn't look like a suitable font
for the poster. So I tried to find a
font from online, I came across a
font that stood out to me and I
decided that it would be an
effective font to help make the title
stand out on our poster, but I
thought that it was too thin and
hard to read on the actual poster,
so I edited it on paint making it
thicker and also changed the
colour of the text to white instead
of black this way it would contrast
with the dark background meaning
that title would stand out.

9. LOCATION
 The location we used to take
our image was Warley woods,
we felt that it was a condensed
place full of trees and bushes
so that buildings wouldn't get in
the way or in the background of
our shot, although it was shot
during the day while editing I
was able to make the scenery
look darker than it actually was.

10. MAGAZINE
 This was the first mock up of the magazine,
which has similarities to the final due to
positive feedback during a group discussion
with our other peers. The main difference was
the image has been changed, due to the fact
that the genre of our trailer was a horror the
image on the front of the magazine didn't give
the audience that feel as the actor seemed
happy and the background was quite bright.
Whereas with the final magazine cover the
actor was in costume and in a darker, remote
environment.
 The colour scheme was also changed in
hopes of it being more eye catching for the
audience, rather than this darker blue, which
deems dull it was change to a brighter blue.
 The colour of title ‘The 16th’ was changed
from black to red to once again catch the
audience’s attention and symbolize dear and
blood as the genre of the film is horror.
 More side headings were added as the
magazine cover seemed plan and lacked
writing.

11. FINAL
The title ‘Premiere’ is
written in bold and
capitals to draw in the
audiences attention
and it also obvious
that is a magazine
title, the colour
scheme of the
magazine is blue and
red, the genre was
horror, so the red is a
representation of
blood and fear.
The poster title is in a
white bold font to help
it stand out and make
it more eye catching,
this would help as
when the audience
looks at the title they
are more likely to
remember the films
name.
Similar to other
magazines a review
of the film from a
reliable source.
The image itself links
to both the poster and
trailer as it is the
same location of most
of the trailer and the
location of the image
of the poster.
Inspiration for the film
poster

12. TRAILER INFLUENCES
 Before making the trailer we decided on
the genre of our trailer to be horror in
form of a documentary, so when we
started our research we already had 3
trailers that we had seen before in our
mind, as the fit into our category. The
first was Paranormal activity 1-5, having
us all watched the film and the trailer
beforehand we decided that this was
similar to how we wanted to film to in
forms of having a handheld camera and
while film have someone talking while
filming asking question and occasionally
turning the camera on themselves, a
more relaxed approach as well as a
more realistic one. Also small things that
we picked up on was that when they first
started filming they asked for the person
in front of the camera to introduce
themselves, we also did the same in our
trailer as we felt that it was a good way
of the characters presenting themselves.
Paranormal activity had more than one
camera but we felt that in our trailer we
only needed on, as with the storyline
being a group of college kids, we felt it
would be more realistic if they had one
as they wouldn’t be able to afford many
cameras.

13.  Another film trailer we looked at was
Grave Encounters, this was again a
horror but in terms of a documentary,
we felt that his was a good trailer but
it didn’t link as well to ours in terms of
how they film as they were filming
with night vision and the camera’s
were set up for some of the film. But
one thing that we did pick up on was
the fact that they talk to the camera
about stuff that was going on, if they
heard a sound or if they were lost or
they would show their facial
expressions as well as them walking
and talking. And also after a
character has put the camera down in
a certain place and the camera would
pick up something that they did not
see, we did this with our trailer at the
end with the tree moving.

14.  The Blair Witch trailer was
particularly similar to ours as it
linked not only without our genre
and style of filming but also our
storyline. As a group of kids go
to the woods so they can do
some research on a murder
case study that was never
solved and after researching
they decided to go themselves
in search of clues. After
camping they notice strange
things happening around them
and they are able to catch this
on camera, in fear of their lives
they decide they shouldn’t
separate until a friend goes
missing. We tried to link our to
this trailer as they have a similar
storyline and filming techniques.
We tried to use ideas such as
turning the camera back on
ourselves so that we could talk
to the camera and show our
reactions to the environment
around us.