Evaluation Question 1

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

I found that my media product mainly uses the conventions of real and existing media products more than it challenges it, due to the already existing conventions that people had accepted and were familiar with. However, my media product does challenge and develop some conventions to make it noticeable from other existing productions. For the media product I was creating, I wanted to make sure that it was clearly recognisable for the genre it was designed to fit into and that it would be able to be understood by the target audience who would be viewing it.

The main convention that we wanted to stick to was Freytag's Triangle, with the rise, peak and fall in action all set in specific parts of the trailer. Our media product uses this convention by having background music that clearly changes tempo and pace at specific points in the trailer. It starts up slow mirroring a child's small music box, gradually getting louder and faster. This builds the ambience up to the first turning point in the trailer, which is signified by a sound effect of a bang on a door. As soon as this bang takes place, the background music immediately begins to speed up and includes other effects such as random heart beats and odd beats. This builds up so that footage is being cut with every beat so that shots are very fast, which is the peak of action in the trailer. Then the music cuts out and is replaced by the effect of a heartbeat, which has been done to show a contrast between the sets of music, as well as representing a traditional interpretation of fear. Freytag's Triangle is a convention or trailers as it slowly draws the audience in, and bombardes them with 'juicy' action shots, making the trailer very memorable for them. This is why this convention was used in our media product.

Another convention that our media product uses, as touched upon above, is a section of footage or sound that in one sense can define or interpret horror as a genre. In most cases long black screens, heartbeats, screams and whispering/wailing all get used in horror trailers to emphasize the type of genre it represents. In our media product we used a heartbeat sound effect at the end of the trailer as a convention that sums up a horror genre. The heartbeat was used because when an individual experiences intense fear they will often be very quiet, with only background noise and their heartbeat that can be heard. So by putting a prolific emphasis on the beating heart, we aim to give the audience the sense of how scary the actual film will be.

We also followed the convention that horror films have the presence of scenes unfolding during the night time. As this is commonly used in horror films, we thought that it would be fitting if we included this theme within the trailer to reinforce the theme of horror. By filming at day and night, it enabled us to get a contrast between the types of shots we were able to use. Most people associate horror films to some sort of night time event, as it is psychologically scarier when it is harder to see the surroundings around yourself. Therefore including the night-time shots ultimately helped us to make the trailer much more eerier and spooky than if it was all shot during the day. It's the scariness of the trailer that helps draw in the audience of the film.

A convention that our product challenged was having both male and female antagonists in the story-line. Most horror movies, if they aren't about monsters or un-human creatures, will include male antagonists in the story-line. Often due to the fact that they can over emphasize the power they possess or how strong they can be over their victims. So by unconventionally including both male and female antagonists, we are developing the view as to how people view the 'villains' in the movies. The trailer is showing that both male and female antagonists can be as strong and as over-powering as each other. The hope is that with such alterations in the common conventional views, we can in fact change people's opinions on how they view horror movies.

On the film magazine the convention of a pug on the front cover was used. However this convention was developed so that instead of 2D appearance, the pug would show white reflections of light from other features of the magazine, giving a 3D feel to it. The initial image was taken from the internet, of which I it cut out and cropped it on photoshop, but the white highlights, fades and rim were all added on photoshop. By doing this it made the pug stand out more from the background and made it look more professional. The redesign of the pug develops it beyond the tradition of 2D pugs that many magazines still use. Once placed on the front cover, the pug only had to be rotated so that it matched up with sources of the colour white so that the pug gave the effect of bouncing it back as a reflection.

Also on the film magazine, I have used the convention of a barcode. I followed this convention because barcodes are necessary on the front cover of any magazine so that they can be scanned for purchase in the retail stores. I also followed the normal convention of placing it in the bottom right hand corner of the page so that it would be easy to find when being scanned as well as making sure that any other key features on the page were getting obstructed by it. This convention wasn't challenged because it deemed to be an unnecessary change that could in fact complicate the process if it were moved from the usual place. If most magazines have their barcodes in that position, then I will follow in their lead so I don't cause any confusion when the magazine is getting scanned.

On the movie poster I followed the convention of having the image in the centre of the page and the main bodies of text above and below it. I decided that this wasn't going to be changed from the convention because firstly I already really liked the layout, and secondly because it was the best way at delivering the information to the audience who view it. Again - like the barcode explained above - I felt that the layout was not something that had to be changed, therefore it was decided that it would be kept the same in order to appeal to as many people as possible.