The document discusses a student group's creation of a horror film trailer, poster, and magazine for a coursework project. They researched conventions in real horror media products to influence their own work. For the trailer, they studied trailers like Chucky and House of Wax to incorporate conventional aspects like camera work, editing, and music. They added age ratings and close-up shots of dolls, the main character, following conventions. The poster features the antagonist looking at the audience as is typical, along with credits and tagline. The magazine cover mimics real publications with masthead, cover lines, and film title in large font.

2. We choose to create a poster, trailer and a film magazine for our
coursework. We believe our 3 media products both follows, develops
and challenges conventions of real media products in todays horror
film industry. We had to produce a trailer that was around 1-2 minutes
long which was based around the horror genre, we choose to create a
supernatural/possession trailer based on the doll style specifically. Our
2 ancillary texts being a teaser poster and a film magazine, these 2
products had to link with one another and also our trailer. We used
research and planning into existing real media products similar to our
idea to influence our production. As well as following conventional
horror products we also challenged and developed ideas, this
PowerPoint will show how we did this in our own 3 media products.

3. When coming up with ideas for our coursework as a group we decided
to first research into our main product which is our trailer. We all firstly
choose a popular horror film in the media. We choose trailers such as
Chucky and House Of Wax as these a similar sub genre and story line
to our doll idea. We started to deconstruct the trailers and looked at
camera work, sound, editing, characters and mise-en-scene in
particular. We needed to see how real media products created
effective trailers so we could take aspects of their work to embed into
ours so it follows conventions of real horror trailers. Throughout our
trailer we used conventional aspects from the shots and music box
sound we choose to our editing.

4. As a group we decided we needed our trailer to look as professional and real as
we possibly could. We started to look at how conventional horror trailers did this.
To create this we choice to add a shot of an age restricting note, which is common
in horror films as they are mostly at least certificated 15/18 due to the violence
and fear element which is unsuitable for children. When deconstructing the
chucky trailer we found out that in fact although many horror trailers can be
suitable for all audience and therefore have a green restriction shot instead of a
red one, as shown in the chucky trailer we noticed that our trailer could also be
suitable for all audience as ours is suggestive to our story rather than violent or
overly scary. We used this as it is conventional and also looks professional.
THE CHUCKY TRAILER

5. We also looked into effective shots that existing horror trailers use, our trailer is based around
a toy china doll. When researching real trailers we spotted an effective close up of a doll in the
trailer for The women in black. We choose to also use a similar shot in our work also, this is
going with the conventions as it is typical to have close ups of significant objects in horror
films, ours being the doll. I think this slightly challenge the conventions as these ‘toy’ shots in
other trailers are there to show child are involved who are thought to be vulnerable. Although
in our trailer the doll is our main character so this is also the reasoning for using the close up.
We also noticed looking into real trailers was that the pace and transitions between shots is
very quick, snappy and short shot lengths. We decided to use this in our work. We choose to
start the trailer typically using more fluid transitions and longer shots and when the action and
trailer builds the shots speed up and become much more snappy.
WOMEN IN BLACK TRAILER

6. MAGAZINE COVER
We tried to create a magazine cover that looked very professional
and fit in with today's real film magazines. We took inspiration
from film magazines such as Empire and Total film. As we wanted
to attract the broad audience they do although our magazine is
specifically aimed at the horror genre. We believe our product
follows conventions as we have stuck with the layout and features
of real film magazines in the media. This included insuring our
magazine had the following conventions;
-Big masthead
-Various cover lines
-Film featured on cover in large font
-Tagline
-Barcode
We also decided after researching into existing magazine covers
to use a banner also, using ideas for other magazines like the
image to the left. We ensured our font on our magazine cover
synergised with our trailer and film poster also. We challenged
conventions slightly by adding a free poster inside, which not big
film companies would usually do although we believe this would
help sell our film magazine as this draws the audience in.

7. FILM POSTERWhen coming up with ideas for our film poster we
looked into posters we thought were effective in similar
genres. We concluded as a group that the main aspect of
a horror film poster is a strong image usually of the
antagonist. We decided also before shooting our main
character needed to be looking straight towards the
audience as this is also convention to horror film posters
as it both draws the audience as well as frightening
them as it feels like the character is looking at the
audience. We stuck with conventions when deciding
what features and text must go on the poster. To make
the poster look real we chose to use the conventions;
Large film title, tag line, date, production credits and
staring. This simplicity is typically seen in film posters as
it is all usually focused on the main image to draw the
target audience in. All film posters must have a catchy
tagline, ours we believe is strong and follows the
conventions as its enticing and links directly to our
trailer and story line. Slightly challenging conventions we
chose to stick with black, white and grey instead of red
as we believe our horror film unlike most isn't based on
blood and killing so using red which is very conventional
wouldn't work as well as traditional neutral colours. We
chose to use a very typical date for our release which is
October, this is conventional as that is when usually in
the media horror films are released due to Halloween
coming.