Evaluation Question One

Q1- In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products?
Sophie Potter

When we discovered that the genre of our film was horror
we immediately decided to research the conventions of a
horror. After researching the conventions of a horror we
decided on what conventions we wanted to base our
products on and which we didn’t. The first convention that
we decided to base our film on was the isolation of our main
character. Although our film is based on a form of therapy
within our trailer our protagonist is often seen alone. We
decided to use this convention as we believe that it
emphasizes the vulnerability of our protagonist which is
another convention that we wanted to use (vulnerable
female). Vulnerable female leads are commonly seen within
horror films as they are it is believed that the audience feels
more sympathy for a female character as females are
commonly seen as the weaker gender. We also used this
convention on our magazine cover as the focal image that
we used was a single image of our character. We chose to
do this as we believed that it reinforces the isolation of the
character, the image that we chose to use was also taken
against a black background which emphasizes her the
mental block that she has put in place to hide her past.

In addition to the isolation of our protagonist
we also decided to use the themes. The first
theme that we used was good vs evil,
although this convention isn’t one of the main
focal points of our trailer it is apparent in the
two different sides of the protagonist. We
chose to use this convention as we believe
that it creates more suspense and mystery in
our trailer. Alongside good and evil we also
used the theme of dream vs reality. We chose
to use this theme as it makes the audience
question their judgment of the character more
and in turn make the film fit the horror genre
more as many horrors use the process of
making the audience question themselves to
scare them.

However, although we used some conventions of
the horror genre we also used some conventions
which are more specific to our chosen sub-genre
of horror; Psychological. One convention of a
psychological horror is that the killer does not
often appear as harmful. Although our film is not a
slasher it does have a killer, our main character,
and alike other psychological horrors our main
character doesn’t appear to be able to commit
such an act due to her state within the trailer.
Furthermore, another convention that we used
from psychological horrors is that the events in
which occur within the films are realistic and
can/could happen within the real world. I believe
that we used this convention within our trailer as
the events in which happen are events that could
happen in the real world as grief affects different
people in many ways.

On the other hand, in our trailer we also challenged one
of the conventions of the horror genre. One convention
that we didn’t use is dark and eerie settings. We chose
not to use dark and eerie settings as the film is set
within our protagonists mind where although her
thoughts may be dark the worlds are brighter, because
of this the majority of our settings are light to enhance
this ‘dream’ state. However when we edited our trailer
we did add a variety of effects to darken the scenes we
did still keep them mainly bright in order to keep the
realism of the ‘dream’ state that our character is in.
Alternatively on the poster and magazine cover we
chose to make both images black and white to enhance
the two sides of our character and her loss of sanity. On
our magazine cover we used the black and white filter to
enhance the isolation and makeup on our character
which in turn helped us portray her insanity whereas on
our poster we used the black and white filter to create a
more eerie atmosphere surrounding the metronome.

Furthermore, another convention that we did not stick to
is the colour scheme which is usually associated with
horrors, red and black. Within our trailer, magazine
cover and poster we used the colour scheme, black and
green. We chose to use the colour black to stick to one
part of this convention however we then chose to use
the colour green. We chose to use the colour green as
it stands out from other posters and it also has a variety
of different meanings some of which include; Disgrace
which is a Chinese meaning and Corruption which is a
North African meaning. However the most prominent
reason for us choosing the colour green is for its
connection to therapy, in therapy the colour green is
used to relax the patient and has been proven to help
people with depression and anxiety which our main
character deals with. Because of these annotations we
decided to use the colour green throughout our
products.

In conclusion we mainly used the conventions of the
horror genre to ensure that our films genre was shown
across the trailer, magazine and poster. We stuck to the
conventions of our genre as we believe that if we hadn’t it
would be difficult for our audience to identify our products
as being from the horror genre. The one convention that
we challenged within our trailer although a main
convention of our genre helped us to exaggerate a
convention within our sub-genre.

When creating our trailer we first looked at the conventions of a
trailer. After researching trailer conventions in September we moved
on and discussed what conventions we wanted to use within our
trailer. We first decided that we definitely wanted to use titles within
our trailer, we decided this as we believe that the titles help to guide
and assist the audience when watching the trailer so that they have
a better understanding what the film is going to about. We also
chose to use titles as we believe that they allow us to grab the
attention of the audience through the tagline, alongside this the titles
also allow us to present the audience with information about the film
such as the release date. Within our trailer we used seven titles
which included information such as; tagline, actors, production
company. We used these titles as we believe they gave the
audience enough information about our film without giving away the
whole plot of the film. However if I could recreate the trailer I would
go back and change the titles in our film by adding additional
information such as other actors as I do not think there was enough
titles for the length of out trailer which meant some clips within the
trailer where longer than they needed to be making the trailer slower
paced.

Alongside titles we also stuck to the convention of key moments
within our trailer. In our trailer we have a variety of key scenes some
of which include the beginning scene in the car which establishes the
relationship with the audience and the rocking scene of our main
character on the bed which makes the audience wonder what
happened to her in comparison to the first scene. We used key scenes
as we believe that it allowed us to connect with the audience and
grab their attention. We also believed that using the key scenes
would help us to present the plot to our audience, which we believe
allows them to understand the film more and in turn be more
interested in watching it. When editing the trailer I also made the key
moments quite short as I didn’t want to give away too much of the
plot however some of the clips are extended as we didn’t film enough
scenes to create a long enough period of time between titles. If I
could remake our trailer I would film for scenes so that we had a
longer and faster paced trailer as I believe the trailer we have
created is slow in comparison to professional/real life trailers. Within
the titles we used another convention which was showing the release
date of our film. We chose to show the release date of our film as we
believe that it worked within our trailer as it is at the high point of
the suspicion. We put the release date at the end of our trailer as we
believe that putting a release date at the end of a trailer makes it
more memorable to the audience.

Furthermore, another convention of trailers that we used was a voice over, we used a voiceover in
our trailer as it gave more of a background to our main character which allowed the audience to
connect with our character more. We believed that it was important to have the voice over as it
does present more information to our audience but also as it allowed us to add additional shots to
our trailer. One of the shots that we were able to add to our trailer was the metronome shots, we
were able to add these shots as the voice over gave them a meaning and in turn made the
audience understand them more. Alongside this I believe that the voiceover added more of a
realism to the trailer which made the events in which occur more shocking. I believe that the
voiceover makes the trailer seem more real as it is an account of the events in which have
happened to our main character from a doctor. Alongside making the trailer more realistic the
voiceover also helps to create a connection with the audience through the doctor as it makes the
audience feel sympathy for the girl and also for the doctor. However, I do think that more
information could have been added to the voiceover so that it would have had a stronger meaning
and this is what I would change if I could re-create the trailer.

Finally, within our trailer we use a combination of out of sequence and
sequenced shots. Towards the beginning and end of the trailer there are
two identical scenes of a metronome which symbolize the beginning and
end of a therapy session, we chose to go against trailer conventions and do
this as we believe that it creates more suspicion within the audience.
However the rest of our trailer is out of sequence and alike the sequenced
shots we chose to alter the placements of the shots to create suspicion
within to audience to grab their attention more. We believe that making the
audience question what happened to our protagonist will help us make
them more interested and engaged in the trailer as she is portrayed as
innocent and vulnerable in the first scene. Furthermore, if I could re-create
the trailer I would- add more of a variety within the scenes and add different
time settings such as right after the accident, during and possibly after the
last therapy session such as a scene of her opening her eyes which we did
initially decide to do however we decided against it due to timing issues.

In conclusion, our trailer mainly uses/ conforms to the
conventions of a typical trailer as we conformed to a selection
of the conventions of a trailer. However within our trailer we
do have a few scenes that challenge the conventions of a
trailer as our main aim when creating the trailer was to make
it grab and maintain the attention of our audience. To reach
this aim we challenged some of the conventions such as the
out of sequence scenes as we believe that it helped us
reach/achieve our aim.
•

Alike our trailer, before we began creating our magazine
cover we looked at the conventions of a typical
magazine cover. After looking at the conventions we
chose a selected few that we wanted to use within our
cover one of these includes having the focal image on
the magazine as a picture of our protagonist. We chose
to use the image of our protagonist as we believe that it
both portrays her vulnerability which is apparent at the
start of the film but also gives the audience an insight
into what happened to her. Furthermore, we also chose
to use a picture of our protagonist as we believe that it
will catch the attention of the audience because of its
appearance as the image that we used has
exaggerated makeup and strong shadows which
emphasize the vulnerability of the character.

Additionally, we also used the convention of using
other films on the cover of our magazine. When
planning our magazine we were first going to make
the magazine exclusive to just our film however we
decided to add additional articles and images onto
the cover so that our magazine could target more
than just our target audience. We also chose to use
other films on the cover as we believe that the
audience may be initially interested in that specific
part of the cover but then become interested in our
film. The films that we mentioned on the front of our
magazine include films such as; The Fault in Our
Stars and Divergent which have a large target
audience and fan base which would make our
magazine more popular due to the demand of their
audience.

Alongside other films we also used the convention of
buzz words and chose variety of buzz words to be
on our cover. We chose to use buzz words as we
believe that they help to make the articles on the
cover more prominent. Some of the buzz words that
we chose to use included; Exclusive and First look.
We chose to use these kinds of buzz words as we
believe that they stand out most when on the cover
of a magazine. However we didn’t want to overload
our magazine cover so we didn’t use too many buzz
words as we believe that if there is too much text on
the cover it causes it to look over crowded and in
turn unprofessional. However, if I could re-create the
cover I would have added more articles as I believe
that it had too little text and seemed quite empty.

However, we did challenge the conventions of
magazine covers by adding additional images
alongside our focal image. We decided to do this as
we believe that it adds more variety to the cover and
makes it appear more professional as although
additional images are not a convention of a
magazine cover they are commonly used by big film
magazine companies such as Empire Magazine and
Total Film. The images that we chose to use are all
from films that have been produced within our
college these included; NUMB3RS a film created by
an AS group and Vindictive a film created by our
peers in our A2 class. We decided to use films
within our school as we found it to make the
magazine more realistic and also images from other
films could not be used due to copyright issues.

In addition to images we also added two main titles to our
magazine. We decided to use this convention as we
believe that the titles are needed on a cover to both
address the name of the magazine and film but also to
present additional information. On our cover we used a
main title at the top of the cover which says the magazines
name and then added an additional title which says the
name of our film. We chose to do this so that all three of
our products would link together. Alongside making our
products together we believe that addressing our film was
important as it informs the audience of what the film is and
also hints at the plot of the film.

In conclusion, we both used and challenged the conventions of a
magazine cover. We conformed to the conventions by using a selection
on our cover such as buzz words and a focal image as we believe that
both of these conventions where needed on our cover to grab the
attention of the audience however we challenged the conventions of a
magazine by adding additional images on our magazine which we
believe contributed positively to the final product as it makes the
magazine appear more professional whilst also giving us the opportunity
to reach other target audiences.

Finally, when we began looking at creating our
poster we first researched the conventions of
posters and chose the ones that we wanted to use.
The first convention that we used was having a focal
image. The focal image that we chose to use is an
image of a metronome, we chose to use this image
as it gives the audience an insight into the plot
without giving away too much information. We also
chose to edit the image to make it black and white
as we believe that it made the image appear more
suspicious and in turn more eye-catching. After
making the image black and white we also made its
have a faded black border we chose to use this as it
makes the focus of the poster the metronome but it
also makes the metronome appear more eerie.

Another convention that we chose to use was
an eye-catching font for our title. The font that
we chose to use for our title is called An
Unfortunate Event (Warped) we chose to use
the warped version as it makes the title more
eye-catching. We also chose to make the title
green, we did this to not only make it match
the poster and magazine but also because it
stands out more against the background. We
finally made the title 3D in adobe Photoshop
which created a black border which
separated it from the background. We chose
to do this as it made the title appear larger
and in turn made it more of a focus on the
poster.

Furthermore, we also put our release date on
the poster which is another convention of
posters. We chose to put our release date in the
middle of the credits as it both made it stand
out more and drew the audiences’ attention to
the credits. We also chose to put the release
date at the bottom of the poster which is
another convention of posters. We chose to use
this as the release date will then be the last
thing that the audience reads which will make
it stay in their minds. However, we also
challenged a convention of horror posters by
doing this as it is common for horror posters to
have ‘coming soon’ on instead of the actual
release date.

Another convention that we chose to use is
the use of a tagline on the poster. We
chose to use this convention as it helps
gives the audience more of an insight into
our film and also makes them question our
focal image more as the image that we
have used is quite vague. We also chose to
use this convention as it allowed us to add
another aspect to all three of our products
as we have used our tagline on both our
magazine and in our trailer.

In conclusion, we used a variety of conventions instead of
challenging them as we believe that using them has allowed us to
promote our film through the poster without giving away too much
of our films plot. However, if I could re-create the poster I would add
more information to the poster such as reviews and quotes to add
more of a variety to the poster as I believe that it appears very
empty and spaced out.

Evaluation Question One

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Evaluation Question One