In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?

Using conventions – trailer. To make sure I followed the conventions of a horror trailer, I made

sure to do plenty research into the field on existing teaser and theatrical trailers.

I also looked at existing horror film posters and magazine covers, both professional and fan made, to get a wide range of conventions I could play off or challenge. By doing this I ended up with a clear idea of what I needed to produce.

A convention I followed is that I made sure my main character had the most screen time of everyone. This is a frequent convention as it shows the audience who they will be watching throughout the film.

Using conventions – trailer.

From my research into existing media products, I found the difference between teaser trailers and full length theatrical trailers, teaser being shorter around 30-60 seconds while theatrical being around 1.30-2.00.

Our trailer aimed to be a full length theatrical trailer, and ended up at 1.35.

Using conventions – trailer.

As seen in most trailers, specifically horror trailers, the editing pace starts off slow and slowly increases as the plot comes more into the light and it becomes faster.

We followed this conventions as our trailer starts off very slow, separated by black screens that last for around 1-2 seconds. Around half way through, the music picks up in pace and this is then reflected in the editing of footage which gets faster until it forms into a montage.

I think by following this convention, our trailer looks more authentic and professional compared to how it could have if the whole trailer was set in a slow pace.

Using conventions – trailer. A typical convention of a horror trailer is that a voice over is used,

we played off this convention and instead of using voice over we used a black screen and text on screen to add more to the plot of the trailer without giving too much away.

In addition to adding more to the trailer, we also chose to add texts such as ‘from the director of…’ to make the trailer more professional. Through doing this I think we succeeded in getting the audience involved with the trailer.

Using conventions – trailer.

The music we made also followed the conventions of a horror trailer, as we made it purposefully create more and more suspense as the trailer goes on and the plot becomes more obvious.

We created the soundtrack on Garageband and used many of the music from the sections ‘suspense’ and ‘dark’ to create the correct atmosphere for the plot of the trailer.

I think what we created works well in building up the tension for the louder music that goes over the montage.

Using conventions – trailer.

We made sure we featured our production companies at the start of the trailer and the name of the film and credits at the end, to follow one of the main conventions and in effect it made the trailer look more professional.

Using conventions – poster. I experimented with both an image of the main character of the

trailer and the location of the asylum and came to the conclusion that the building of the asylum looked better. By using this image, it gives the audience an insight into what will appear in the trailer.

I edited the image of the building on Photoshop to give it more of an old fashioned effect, which in effect made it look more scary and fitting for the time period as well as the genre.

Using conventions – poster. I followed the conventions needed on a film poster such as a

tagline, release date, website, the age rating and of course the title of the film.

Although I did not use the same font for each of these, I still established synergy by using colours black and grey.

Using conventions – magazine cover. After doing deep research into film magazine covers, I found

that there are many convention you can either follow or challenge.

I followed most of the conventions seen on Empire magazine covers, such as a synergy within colour scheme, a large focus image of the star of the film, cover lines and smaller things such as the date, issue number and the website.

Using conventions – magazine cover.

I created synergy through the blue of the text.

Again I included the title of the trailer, making itthe second largest text on the page after the Empire sign, to clearly show that this is important.

Developing conventions. Although I purposefully followed many conventions of typical

magazine covers and film posters, I think I still managed to create some individuality in my products. I did not directly challenge any conventions as I though it would have possibly made the final product look unprofessional, and by sticking to certain conventions I think my products look fairly professional.

I think instead of simply following certain conventions, I have developed conventions and made them my own.

Developing conventions. I feel like we developed conventions while editing on Final Cut

Pro with things like the editing of the colour scheme on the colour correction 3-way, to give the original footage more of an edgy look.

Challenging conventions. As well as following conventions, I also decided to challenge

some to give the production package a unique feel. An example of this is how we decided to switch the

stereotypical roles usually featured in trailers. By having the main character as a female instead of a male our trailer already has a different edge.

Although our character may be considered hegemonic in that she is scared and running away, she can still be seen a pluralistic as she could still be seen as the ‘hero’ of the story depending on which personality she is showing.

Another way our trailer challenges conventions is that there is no killer shown, therefore it keeps the audience in suspense on who the killer or the villain is.

Conclusion. I was able to create 3 products that fit in with the current horror

film market through using and challenging conventions. I also developed and changed them to make these products

individual and different from other films out right now.