The document discusses conventions of real media products and how the student's media products utilize or challenge these conventions. It examines conventions for teaser trailers, posters/magazine covers, and thriller genres. For teaser trailers, it focuses on length, editing techniques, and use of sound/company logos. For posters/magazine covers, it analyzes visual elements like character placement and title design. And for thrillers, it explores common settings, narratives, and visual iconography like lighting. The student aims to adhere to these conventions to create realistic and believable media products while putting their own spin on certain elements.

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

2. Teaser Trailer : Conventions
Teaser trailers are a lot different to general trailers, however there purpose
is still to promote a film. Teaser trailers do not reveal much about the plot
at all, instead they communicate basic information to audiences like, the
genre, narrative, style and factual information like time of release and age
rating.
When producing our teaser trailer we wanted to produce something as
realistic and believable as we could, which is why we researched existing
trailers and noticed similarities between them all.

3. Duration and editing
The duration of a teaser trailer is significantly important to ensure the conventions are the same.
Teaser trailers are usually around 30-40 seconds long showing a mixture of clips put together at a
fast pace. Commonly, montage editing is used, creating a sense of time passing by which is exactly
what the teaser trailers purpose as it outlines the film's entirety to the audience.
The duration of our teaser trailer exceeds the average of 30-40 seconds, it was after adding the
company ident and titles that the duration became longer however we feel like this is justifiable
considering it is only by 15 seconds and the content we have in the trailer is relevant, we haven't
dragged it on.
Our trailer ‘300’ trailer

4. Duration and editing
Our teaser trailer followed the conventions of a psychological teaser trailer, as much as the
shots were edited together at a pace, it was not as fast and tense as an action thriller. Our aim
was to portray a loss and leave it open for discussion and questions to be unanswered in hope
this would drive the audience to want to find out more. A common technique we used to suggest
a sense of uncertainty and loss was the cross fading of shots overlapping each other, this was
also in the teaser trailers we watched and this gave us the inspiration.

5. Sound
Sound was researched into before we had even filmed, we wanted to
know what diegetic and non diegetic sound was being used for
psychological thrillers so that we could act on existing examples.
Commonly, trailers would start of with slow, non diegetic music that
would slowly introduce the characters and basic plot. This would then
change after an event or sudden action evolves which changes the
course of the story and then faster paced music would be in place
alongside a faster edited sequence.
Our teaser trailer followed the conventions of change in sound after an
event unfolds, however due to our plot we adapted this convention
slightly to be more tailored to our trailer. After the incident in our
trailer, ours being the crash, we kept the same sound, however we
changed it to echo more and sound almost broken. We didn’t want a
different piece or to speed it up because it wouldn’t reflect the message
we wanted, our aim was to just suggest a change in theme from positive
to negative.
Free sound was used to import
sound.
This shows the layering and
adding we did to ensure the
sound fitted conventions

6. Company Ident
We included an animated company ident as idents are used in every teaser trailer we researched.
They feature at the beginning and last up to a few seconds. The name of our production company
was ‘BHG Film’ we ensured it was animated not static as it it showed a level of sophistication and
made it slightly more professional..
Our company ident, taking inspiration
from existing ones, dark background with
text over the top.

7. Poster and Magazine Cover : Conventions
Typically, magazine covers have the
masthead at the top of the page,
followed by images of the main
characters beneath, usually fitting
with a colour scheme that conveys a
theme. The title of the film doesn't
necessarily cover the page, it varies.
The font and colour of the title of the
film doesn't always remain the same
as what is featured on the poster.
Other conventions are other key
features in the magazine and how
they are presented.

8. We kept the masthead at the
top.
Colour theme of black, red and
white.
Main characters similar to
positioning on poster.
Other features highlighted.
Poster and Magazine Cover : Conventions

9. Poster and Magazine Cover : Conventions
This analysis outlines the common conventions of a
poster, the title, an image that indicates the narrative,
bill block and taglines.
Film
Posters
title
actor
image
billing block

10. Poster and Magazine Cover : Conventions
Title blends in with the sky, same
colours. Same font used as on
teaser trailer, follows the same
theme. Helps brand identity.
Characters back to back, suggests
immediately they are main
characters. The other image of the
ambulance also suggests the
narrative of a death or tragedy.
Actors names, if well
known can attract
audiences as they have
see films previously they
have been in. Brings
positive outlook.
Tagline, audience read it as a
question which urges them to
want to answer it, involving
watching the film.
Billing block allows everybody to
be credited appropriately.
Rating allows audience to
see how the film has been
acknowledged and
approved by others.

11. Genre Conventions : Setting
The setting of a thriller depends on the sub-genre. For example a psychological thriller and a crime
thriller could have completely different settings. Many crime thrillers are based a lot around offices,
hotel rooms and other buildings. This brings it back to the fact it is an investigation and a job for the
characters involved.
The screenshot is from the film 'Se7en' which is about detectives following a series of murders. You can
see from a subtle clues like the windows, that this particular scene is filmed up high in offices. Many
supernatural thrillers are based in houses in a neighbourhood. They are set in places like this to show
normality and how life can be fine and then dramatically change. In comparison, our psychological
thriller is based in an everyday environment to show elements of normality.

12. Genre Conventions : Narrative
Depending on the genre will depend on the narrative of the film. These are some
comparisons:
A psychological thriller usually entails a character going through a traumatic experience
and being left mentally unstable and leading themselves into dangerous and unlikely
situations, this is what we used and the conventions we followed, in comparison there are
other conventions of different thrillers:
A supernatural thriller involves either a family experiencing ghost encounters within
their home that usually ends up with a form of exorcism or cleansing.
A crime thriller begins with the crime being committed and then detectives and police
begin their journey on ending the investigation.

13. This is the narrative structure my teaser followed outlining the main stages.
The same structure is used in psychological thriller, ‘the perfect guy’ which is a film we were
inspired by.

14. Genre Conventions : Iconography
Visual elements that are recognised as predominantly linked to a thriller would mainly be
the lighting used. Thrillers usually have a low key lighting highlighting shadows and
creating a sinister atmosphere. Cinematography also plays a big part in recognising a
thriller film due to the consistent amount of close ups used to portray the feelings and
expressions of the character. We see this in the trailer for ‘The Purge’ where the lighting is
low key throughout.

15. Genre Conventions
We incorporated all of these conventions together to produce three media
products and we feel that through each product we have stuck to the
conventions to create as realistic and useful media products as possible.