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

Throughout our media production we have not only used a number of forms and conventions that real media products use, but we have also tried to challenge and develop them. Before we could begin the planning and developing of our trailer it was crucial that we did a vast amount of research into thrillers and supernatural thrillers so that we were completely aware of the forms and conventions of this genre. This meant researching conventions such as; lighting, sound, camera shots, camera angles, costumes and casts. Almost all of the trailers that we analysed during our research used a certain type of music. For example the music began calm and mellow before breaking into fast paced, high energy movement. This technique builds tension and helps build towards a final climax.

The screen shot of our music above emphasises the different levels of pitch used throughout our trailer. It is obvious to see that towards the end of the trailer, when the shots become fast and tense, the music is significantly louder and faster.

Another convention of a supernatural thriller movie is the use of dark sombre colours. We needed the colours to be dark in order to create an atmosphere. Below are two screen shots, one taken from the trailer for Paranormal Activity and the other from our trailer.

The two shots emphasise the dark/grey colours that are used in paranormal thrillers in order to create a sense of danger and evoke fear into the audience. One of the most obvious forms and conventions that we used in our trailer was conforming to the Longacre's theory and using these stages to develop our own trailer. However, Longacre's theory is specifically designed to help define the stages of a film, but as we were only using it for a trailer it meant that we had to alter it slightly by only using the first few stages rather than all 8 of them. We incorporated several of the stages into our trailer such as the aperture, exposition, inciting moment, developing conflict and the denouement. This theory is used in several real media products such as "The Shining" and "Paranormal Activity" and we wanted to mimic this in our trailer. This is why we began our trailer with the "once upon a time" opening where the group of girls are excited and preparing for their holiday, this is a common technique and we used it so that the audience would be unaware of the events about to occur.

This is used in almost all trailers but one in particular that I had used in my research is the psychological thriller "The Shining" (1980 Stanley Kubrick) were a couple and their young son are planning to stay in a hotel. The trailer begins by creating a completely different atmosphere; the lighting is bright, the music is mellow and the story line at this point is completely innocent, and this is what we wanted to achieve in our trailer.

Above is a screen shot taken from the trailer of "The Shining", here the colours are bright, the establishing shot is attractive and the setting appears completely innocent.

Giving the illusion that all is calm and well also links to Tristan Todorovs theory that most narratives start with a state of equilibrium in which life is normal and protagonist happy. This convention is used in the film trailer of "Shrooms". Although the film Shrooms does not fall directly into the category of the supernatural thriller genre it does have a similar story line to our trailer, in the fact that a group of young teenage friends are going on holiday together. At the beginning of this trailer the friends are excited and looking forward to their holiday, which is the same technique we used at the for the opening of our trailer.

Another formal convention that we wanted to include in our trailer was the use of "found footage". This style has only recently become more popular due to films such as "The Blair Witch Project", "Clover Field" and "Paranormal Activity" and is based on the narrative premise that the characters in the film are real people who have been shooting the footage themselves. This changes the way the audience reacts to the film as potentially they see the protagonist's as real people like them, which should ultimately make it more frightening for themselves as it is easier for them to relate to the characters.

We decided that as a group we wanted to go against the norms when it came to the decision of the cast members. Propp's theory is that it is possible to define characters and actions into clearly defined roles and functions, however this is not obvious in our trailer. We decided not to make this obvious because we wanted to leave a sense of mystery to our trailer and this is also the reason why we didnt show the villains identity. This concept is of not showing the killers identity is used in the trailer of thriller film "Prom Night" and we wanted to mimick this in ours as the fear of the unknown can evoke a real sense off panick for the audience and also leave them intrigued and aching to find out who the "killer" is.

When deciding who we wanted to use for our cast we also decided that we wanted to conform to the theory of feminism, this is why we decided to keep all of our cast females. This is similar to the film "Sorority Row" where the main characters are young female girls.

However, I felt that the girls used in Sorority Row are unrealistic and audience viewers would not relate to them as a character. This is why we spent a particularly long period of time deciding on what girls to use and what clothes they should wear as we wanted to ensure that the audience were able to relate to them therefore making the trailer more realistic. Although we wanted the girls to fit the conventions of film stars and draw people in, we didnt want to sexualise them in the same way sorority row did, by dressing them in short dresses and revealing tops. This is why we decided to dress them in "normal" clothes such as jeans, cardigans etc. When it came to the film poster we decided to conform to the conventions of real media products in order to create the most realistic poster we posibly could.

We decided to use the film poster for "Dead End" as an example for our own poster. The main aspect from this that we wanted to take was the colour scheme of red/black and white. This is the scheme that we decided to use throughout all of our tasks.

Release Date: we included our release date at the bottom of the poster along with the line "Coming Soon". This is also used in the film poster for Paranormal Activity.

Block buster draws: commonly the stars names are shown ast the top of the film poster, this is to attract more viewers and draw them in to the film. This is also used in the film poster for Dead End.

Billing block: this is shown at the bottom of the film poster and contains information such as production team, people involved and actors names. This is used in the film poster for The Box

Tagline: We also wanted to include a tagline for our poster that would be recognisable, catchy and also relate to the film. Examples of taglines from real media projects include "Because someone is dead, doesnt mean they're gone"-Gothika or "Oh yes...there will be blood"-Saw

We also decided to keep to the same theme when it came to the magazine front cover by keeping to the conventions of a film magazine front cover. The reason for this is because once again we wanted to ensure that the cover was as realistic as we could make it, and in order to achieve this it was crucial that we followed the forms and conventions of a real magazine front cover.

We wanted to ensure that our magazine title was bold and stood out from the page in order for it to be immediately eye catching. This is why, like the real film magazine "EMPIRE" we kept all of our letters in block capitals, we also wanted our name to relate to the genre of the magazine.

As well as this other aspects that we have used in our magazine front cover that mirror real media products are factors such as; a barcode, a reasonable price tag, a website adress and special features included. We also included exclusive story lines and interviews, these act as a feature in order to entice readers to buy the magazine ultimately attracting more buyers. As this is a film magazine all of our special features are related to the film genre, this maintains a theme and also conforms to the forms and conventions of a real film magazine.

We kept the colour scheme by using monotonous, dark colours which were also used in the film poster. Not only does this relate to the genre of the film but also links the media products together, which is essential for a successful marketing campaign.