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

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

Trailer

At the very beginning of the project I researched into the standard conventions of a film trailer and what was needed to make it successful. This alerted me to make different shots and different editing styles which were necessary to include, any copyright publication and crediting which must be involved and how to set out the narrative so that the product will become a success.

Following the research gathered from other trailers in the genre of what I am attempting to create (Action Adventure) I noticed how the plot reveals it's self slowly and packs the action in towards the end to create a stimulating climax adding suspense. This is exactly what to achieve within a trailer to entice the audience to view the full film. Because of this our trailer starts of slowly with longer shots with wider angles to lengthen the suspense and the action taking place. This was done using a wide establishing shot for the opening and moving to wider angles of hallways and long shots of our Protagonist able to capture the entire mis en scene. Some of these shots were taken at head level and others angling down this puts a slower negative light on the action happening, this was decided to decrease the excitement so that when the pacey ending comes nearer it seems more intense and exciting. The ending includes sharp fast cuts; busy action shots, low angled to represent authority within characters, shot revers shot to create suspense and sequence of close up shots to finish creating a dramatic ending.

Our chosen soundtrack is something we created ourselves using appropriate genres and melodies and merging them together. This included stereotypical action music for the sharp pace ending which syncs nicely with the appropriate action creating a strength together and also slower music which builds up to this at the beginning of the piece. This is all non-diegetic sound added for motivation of the action and suspense. We also found that several of the trailers we analysed included a voice over presented I a deep authortive voice as it hold authority over the trailer being the dominating voice and including this helped move the action in the trailer along in a swift motion.

This convention seemed appropriate to add as we haven't included any diagetic sound at all within our trailer, we did intend on including some to increase urgency during the lead up to the climax none the less time ran short and to achieve the most professional approach we could with the time limit left a voice over seemed to be the next best thing. I'm pleased with the outcome and feel that it really helps the narrative of the trailer develop flow fluently also adding in an equal amount of professionalism to our overall finished product.

We took allot of time editing moving around the shots and sound to make a sequence which flowed appropriately and successfully. This was done with several draft attempts and a check list of all codes and conventions we discussed must be included such as the strong establishing shot, powerful music, appropriate mis en scene, swift cuts and a flowing order portraying the action.

Following the codes and conventions it was necessary to we included a promotional logo for the production company we have created these are normally placed at the begging. most trailers include one of these a few seconds in so we decided it will help it flow by including one of the main production company logo at the begging to start off the trailer and another a small while in for reinforcement.
I'm pleased that our trailer follows the convention of suspense. We have created the trailer with enough of the plot that it is an understandable theme and nothing major is given away about the ending however it should intrigue the viewer to find out more.
We challenged the codes and conventions by extending our trailer by about 30 seconds longer than an ordinary teaser trailer would be. I'm not worried about this challenge as I feel it works in our favour. Although it is longer it is now able to include more vital information about the plot to make it understandable and also allowed us to show off extra technical and editing skills we included with cartoon ad-in's created on after effects our editing skills and also our impressive soundtrack construction.
The final convention we followed down to a tee with our trailer was the crediting screen. We constructed this in a copycat style which most if not all trailers have in a box of text featuring smaller and larger fonts for the major credits such as the stars and director and smaller for those such as costume and set. We followed the stereotype colours and followed the trend of a two to three second screen time cut at the very end of the trailer.


Magazine


Our magazine codes and conventions are extremely stereotypical. We felt it best to stick with what we knew works from our studies and finding from our magazine constructions last year.
Creating a catchy and appropriate Masthead :FLIX. We placed this in a bold font large at the top of the magazine to make it eye catching and also so that when it sits stacked in the shelves in it’s distributes in news agents it will be clearly visible above the rest of the magazines. We chose a vibrant red to symbolise power and also to give the magazine which is only featuring our film its own independent colour scheme and style. The remainder of the magazine is now themes around the colour scheme and genre of our move; yellow and blue for the Action Adventure genre film.
Looking at other film review magazines we see an action shot or a still of the lead characters in costume as the centre focus on the front cover, because of this Mel and I decided to use the still in the cartoon creation we made of our leading character as a main focus. To create an interactive 3D effect we placed out character over the Masthead, this symbolised importance of the film and also the authority and strength the character of the film holds.
The background also compliments our 3D effect with an subtle merge of colours, blue to stick to the colour scheme then allowing important text related to the film to be in a bold yellow. We found soon on that all our text looked better outlined in thick black. This effect was done to put a slight comic strip feel to the magazine which complements our superhero theme.
We felt it important to fill the sweet-spot with a eye-catching freebie which is still related to the film we are promoting so we took an iconic item from our character which can be manufactured cheap to then include as a free supplement inside the issue: the mask. This follows two conventions of a film magazine cover by placing the free mask advertisement in the second most popular subconscious eye catching section of the magazine after the masthead.
We included all the vital information which is needed such as a bar-code, date and issue number. Most importantly the price which is the most vital piece of information to the buyer, we chose an appropriate price which complimented the quality of the information the reader will gain and also affordable to the film viewing market which is commonly the BC1 British social grading scale, working class and teenagers. This meant we could give it a price slightly above average as teenagers are the population which own the most amount of disposable income and will be able to afford this magazine. We also compared our pricing to other magazines of the same concept and found that ours was priced 10p-£1 less than them on some levels which means ours is good value for money.
Lastly we included a film strip at the bottom of the page once again behind our over powering character which we placed other film advertisements and page numbers of which the reader can find information on to make it look like a believable film review magazine which includes other film reviews while mainly featuring our film.


Poster


We challenged the conventions of the film poster by making it extremely subtle. Instead of doing the standard main characters as the main feature we decided to differ away. Looking into other superhero posters most had the superhero characters on their however their personal logo is the main feature. From this information we gathered we decided that using the logo we created for our character will be a wise position. This supports the colour scheme and automatically tells the audience what this film is about as superhero logos are a commonly known symbol as general knowledge to the public.
We wrote the title in clock capitals sticking with the theme of outlining all text in a bold black supporting the comic strip superhero theme.
Following conventions we included the release date, age rating and production company logos for advertisement. This shows professionalism and gives the suppliers and viewers will all the important information available. We also decided our two main actors should gain a noticeable place on the poster to get there name heard for their acting skill and also their own promotion, for this we placed their names at the top of the poster to make them noticeable to the audience the moment they view the poster.
Finally like at the end of the film trailer where we included a block of credits to all the different teams, people and production company's involved with the making of the film we also included a smaller scale on of these at the bottom of the poster to show appreciation and also for customer information.