Wednesday, 26 April 2017

Evaluation 1

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


I chose to create a teaser trailer focusing on the genre thriller/horror for my main task, this included making a film poster and also a movie magazine front cover in order to promote the film. When doing these tasks, I have challenged forms and conventions of real media products by developing what I learnt from research.

I have found out through research that there are many conventions used to make a horror/thriller trailer and the mise-en-scene, camera angles, editing and sound, such as diegetic and non diegetic sound, all contribute to building the suspense for the audience. This shown me that every convention has a purpose.

Style Models I used:

After looking at many real media product trailers, it is clear a range of camera angles along with editing are used in order to create the dramatic effects of a thriller/horror movie. Close up shots, over the shoulder shots and point of view shots are some of the camera angles that caught my eye when viewing style models on YouTube as I felt they played a massive part in creating suspense and drawing attention to certain characters or scenery in the trailers. I wanted to include these features in my own trailer to make it appear as professional as possible and show every detail of the expressions from the actors in my trailer to the audience. 
However, I challenged these real media trailers by interpreting my own ideas so that it shows my ability when completing the tasks set. These types of shots allow the audience to become engaged in the trailer as though they are apart of it themselves as they can visualise the image fully and have a good understanding of different points of view. As well as different camera angles I also used transitions. The main transition I used was ‘Cross Dissolve’ as I felt it allowed the trailer to run smoothly from clip to clip. I also slowed down the main action clips, (for example, when the victim first gets captured in the park and when the victim is trying to escape the basement). I feel this increases the intensity of the trailer by slowly dragging out these action clips and builds up tension for the audience watching as they are able to observe everything in the scene. I believe this will exaggerate the extreme moments in the trailer and give it a sense of reality, developing ideas I have learnt from real media products.

Over the shoulder shot example:                         

Style Model
My Trailer

Point of view shot example:
Style Model
My Trailer

It was important for me to consider every aspect of mise-en-scene in order to make the trailer seem realistic and relate to the audience in every possible way. This included thinking about arrangements of the location, props, costumes and everything visible in the frame. I decided to keep costumes casual in my trailer as I wanted it to seem like an ordinary day gone wrong. The victims costume consisted of casual day to day clothing such as jeans, shirt and trainers which shows the audience the young girl was only having a normal day out. For the stalker the costume was all black with a hooded coat to hide his identity to the audience. The colour black represents many signs, in this case I used it to imply evilness, darkness, and danger. All the costumes I chose were influenced by the style models I had researched, however, I changed ideas to fit in with my trailer.


When researching style models, I noticed many trailers consisted of the typical graveyard or forest scenery. However, I decided to challenge this stereotypical idea of horror and came across the trailers of ‘The Pact and The Call’. This encouraged me to think of other suspense gripping locations and I finally decided on my trailer being based mainly in the night time showing many different locations such as a park and the streets using the street lights as the only light source. This low key lighting enhanced shadows giving the action of the stalking in the trailer an eerie, dramatic effect to the audience. These locations are suitable to match the causal everyday life effect I have purposely created.

I did not use many props in my trailer as I feel without special effects and professional actors it can look unrealistic and ruin the outcome impression on the audience. However, one prop used was a mobile phone showing the stalker viewing the victims Facebook pictures. Mobile phones are very popular in todays society so this shows a possible real life scenario as many people are effected by online stalking. I challenged style models I have looked at when not using the typical props such as knives and guns etc. In the trailers I viewed they all used many props in order to create tension. I feel I have still been able to create tension without using props so this is a big achievement.

In the process of making my trailer, non diegetic sound was a big part of it as I decided I did not want any speaking to take place in my trailer. Instead I placed a sound track called ‘Epic Cinematic Movie Trailer’ and included clips with black backgrounds and white text to get the audience asking themselves questions as the trailer plays out so they are not watching in silence. This would be unprofessional. Again, I went against style models I had viewed and challenged their conventions as I felt ‘Wirral/Liverpool’ accent would not go well with the effect I am trying to make on the audience. I also placed in sound effects from iMovie itself, ‘Heartbeat’ and ‘Police Car Siren Passing’. Diegetic sound is used when the stalker is taping the victim onto the chair, I had muted most of the clips to get rid of any unwanted sound within my trailer, however, I feel this was appropriate to keep in.

My movie magazine front cover was inspired by many style models but i focused on style models from the magazine 'Empire' as this is a very popular magazine. The masthead is the largest text on the magazine along with the title of the film featured which is slightly smaller, although it does not show it on this style model, i have viewed this in others. I found the empire font on google and placed it into my own movie magazine to make it as realistic as possible. As you can see i have also used a similar layout of text used on this style model. Also, on most of the style models i viewed they all contain a close up shot of the main character of the movie featured, i have used this idea in my own work.

For the style model of the poster i created, i mainly focused on the features of the film poster of 'Shutter Island'. This was mostly using ideas of the text that is shown at the bottom of the page including institutions used and interpreting these ideas into my own work. However, i also liked the shadowed aspect of the image in this poster and thats where i got the idea of blacking the face completely out of the hooded figure on my poster. Another feature i used from this style model is the release date at the bottom of the page, this important information so it is crucial to have it big and bold so it is easy to be seen.




Overall, my media product uses, developes and challenges many forms and conventions of real media products and style models I have viewed have contributed a lot to my work. Without referring to real media products my trailer would not be at a good standard.