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

Evaluation Task 1 by Daniel Wilcox - Media 4D

Poster There are various conventions of mainstream film posters that we have

included within our own. Firstly, we have emulated the structure of an independent film poster which includes Title, Tagline, various film / festival awards, Reviews in both quote and star form, billing block

and main subject in the poster. To relate to a real example, ‘Drive’ has a similarly

structured poster when compared to ours. Another mainstream example would also be the poster for ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, where the poster has a minimal composition in which we wanted to capture as well. For

the main subject, in both posters, the main subject is a visually distorted image suspended within a dark background. We emulated the disturbing image by using a

slow shutter speed and making the character shake his head violently to

show the psychological and surreal side of the film that we wanted to create.

Structure comparisons between mine and ‘Drive’, next slide.

Original poster for ‘Jacob's Ladder’, 1990

Title

Tagline

Reviews

Billing block

Main Subject

Film Awards/ Festivals

Structure Comparisons

Conventions | Film Teaser Trailer A main influence during the production of the main teaser trailer was another film called ‘Foxcatcher’ (2014). A film that is not similar in genre but conventions that are included in its trailer can also be seen within my trailer. Foxcatcher is biographical sports film about professional wrestlers Mark and Dave Schultz being approached and promoted by Schizophrenic entrepreneur John Du Pont who slowly becomes manipulative and violent towards both wrestlers and his team. A convention that we have already applied to is the similar duration as Foxcatcher is 65 seconds long and the trailer for Delirium is 57 seconds long. A traditional, mainstream trailer is within this range of 50 to 70 seconds so this is the first convention that can be seen in ours.

Teaser - Text & Graphics For our idents, we kept to the similar structure and duration of Foxcatchers as they are at the beginning of the trailer with about a second long for each film company. Throughout, brand identity can be seen in both of our trailers as both trailers include the same font and effects for all text included in the trailers. We have made our logo recognisable by including it in every product that we have done including the poster and magazine cover; notice how Foxcatcher does the same with its poster.

Teaser - Music and Sound To compare similar music and sound conventions to a real example, I have decided to use the teaser trailer for the upcoming Annabelle 2. Even though Annabelle’s trailer only has music for the build up / climax for the title reveal, our trailer has consistent music that is low key but has build similar, but shorter, to Annabelle's trailer. For both trailers, a reverse cymbal can be heard along with a violent rise of bass and noise that creates a tense atmosphere for the trailer. This is used for a cliffhanger ending, making audiences anticipate for what is to come next.

Teaser - Editing Style A brilliant mainstream example to compare my trailer would be Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’. As we have included a montage in our trailer to show the surreal and atonal thoughts that our character is going through with this mysterious psychological illness that he is suffering. Similar to ‘The Shining’, the movie has scenes where short juxtapositional and almost subliminal shots are included in the film to show the surreal nature of the story, setting (the hotel) and effects on the characters especially Danny. Also, in some of our own shots, we have deliberately tinted the hue to a dark red to reflect the blood and foreshadowing events of violence that haunt the main character throughout the trailer.

Magazine Cover For our magazine cover, we decided to emulate to format of the BFI’s Sight & Sound Film magazine. This is because we can relate to the independent nature of both of our film and the actual magazine, main using the magazine and its structure can relate to the underground world of independently made films and promotion.

Border

Name / logo of magazine

Main subject (centered)

Main subject of magazine issue

Including (plus)Features or other

articles inside

Barcode

Film Company (Publisher)

Genre Conventions In our trailer, my camerawork is very expressive and not natural in some cases including the montage. There are closeups and shots that centre on a character that captures the emotion or even thought process of the character. Point of View shots are a common theme in horror films and we have decided to combine it with another convention which is the climax until title reveal at the end of every horror trailer. Surreal imagery is also used in both our film and other horror films, a brilliant example would be other psychological horrors such as David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’ and ‘Donnie Darko’.

Donnie Darko Eraserhead

A infamous point of view shot from ‘Silence of The Lambs’