This document discusses the genres, codes, and conventions used in the media product "VERSES". It examines how the film draws from the genres of social realism and coming-of-age films through its focus on working class characters and themes of growing up. While the teaser trailer follows many conventions like using unknown actors and montage editing, it challenges some conventions by omitting a voiceover and focusing less on sex, drugs, and rebellion typical of the genres. The target audience is identified as males and females aged 16-24 who can relate to the teenage protagonist navigating career decisions.

1. Q1) In what ways does your
media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions
of real media products?

2. Codes & Conventions of our film
‘VERSES’ - genre
Social Realism Coming Of Age
Film examples

3. Social Realism & Coming of Age
 Social Realism is a realistic portrayal of British
Society; a genre of film that refers to topical issues
alive in the Modern Society which is represented by
different ideologies. This genre uses unknown actors
with usually a heavy focus on social class and the
urban areas of the characters living state.
 It refers to our film 'VERSES' because the supporting
role, Adam McKenzie's background is a lower class
compared to other characters. The focus of our film
is that of people aged 17, which is commonly used
in Social Realist films.
 We researched into Social Realist films such as This is
England, Billy Elliot, Trainspotting, Fish tank and
Kidulthood. All helped us understand the typical
codes and conventions of the social realist genre.
 Coming of Age focuses on psychological and
moral growth of a protagonist who is growing
from youth to adulthood. Personal growth is the
most important characteristic in this genre as it
relies on emotional responses and dialogue,
rather than action.
 The roll of a Coming of Age film is usually based
on a story of a typical teen, which relates well to
our film and shows that we have used the
conventions that the audience would expect to
find in a coming of age film. In ‘VERSES’ our main
character is a teenager called Declan Mulligan
who is deciding what to do with his future.
 We researched into Coming of Age films such as
Submarine, The Breakfast Club, Tomboy and
Toast. All helped us understand the typical codes
and conventions of the coming of age genre.

4. Teaser Trailer as a Genre
 Short sequence of
clips or just one clip
 Time limit between
30-90 seconds
 Made whilst a film is
finishing being
created. Aim is to
‘Tease’ people, by
releasing them
months before the
actual film.
 Normally only made
for big-budget and
popular themed films
Convention Why
Montage Many images from a film (or in some cases, ones that don’t make it to the full
length movie) are shown rapidly to the audience so they can see a glimpse of
the film and decide if they want to watch it.
Studios As a teaser trailer isn’t very long, certain things are definitely shown. The film
studio will make sure that the companies involved in the film are mentioned,
some times more than once, and that the title is shown.
Anti-Narrative A lot of teaser trailers don’t show a storyline that the audience piece together.
It’s usually a montage of shots and details of actors and studios involved, to
tease the audience for the full length trailer. Gives a very brief insight of what
the film is about, choosing the best parts to grab the audience.
Open Meaning Like the anti-narrative, a teaser trailer is usually full of enigma codes and leaves
the audience wondering what happened and they want to know what happens
in the film.
Voiceover Usually done by a deep male voice telling the audience what the film consists
of. Some times done by the main character to make the film feel more realistic.
For a teaser trailer, they tend to only inform, telling you it’s ‘coming soon’.
Experimental As there isn’t any need for a proper narrative, teaser trailers can be completely
different, whatever they want to attract an audience.

5. Challenging
the
conventions
Our teaser trailer predominantly follows the codes and
conventions of our genres (social realism and coming of
age), but there are some areas that we changed...
As we had multiple genres to think about
(social realism, coming of age and teaser
trailer), there is a possibility of conventions
clashing.
In our teaser trailer, we followed the
important conventions: Unknown actors;
teenagers; day to day life; school setting;
career issues; within the time frame;
montage.
There are some conventions that we
didn’t follow: there was no voiceover; the
focus isn’t on sex, drugs and alcohol;
there’s no true rebellion; no violence is in
the film.
By having some of the conventions not
shown in our teaser trailer, we show how
all can’t be used in a teaser trailer as it’s
only on average a minute long.

6. Target Audience
Our film 'Verses' is aimed at young adults, both male and female aged 16 to 24. We have chosen this age
range because the characters in our film are similar ages, which means that the audience can relate to them
more due to having similarities throughout their life and same interests. The majority of the characters in our film
are males, which will attract the male audience because they will be able to see similarities to at least one of
our male characters to themselves. Our film will also attract females, as the film’s emotional side makes them
sympathise with the characters and girls tend to like ‘tear-jerkers’.
Male Female

7. Young teens 
Age 16 - 24 Target
Audience for
‘VERSES’
We took these
photos of our target
audience. Showing
both male and
females from the
ages of 16. These
people are all at
college which is the
same for our
protagonist Declan.
Our Target Audience

8. Overall throughout the whole process of our teaser trailer for ‘VERSES’ we feel that we
have generally obeyed the forms, codes and conventions of a real media product. We
have produced a teaser trailer that is a little over a minute long; showing a montage of
images that would attract our target audience as they can relate to our protagonist's
situations and has shared UK production companies. Having social realism and coming
of age genres, we used urban areas for our film’s setting, unknown actors to play the
characters, day to day life to keep the realism and career issues that may effect our
protagonist’s life. Our media product used and developed the conventions of a real
media product throughout the stages for production (research and planning, filming,
editing and evaluation). It also challenged the conventions as we didn’t stick to all the
codes and conventions of the genres because we felt not all were relevant to our film.
To Conclude...