Evaluation 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

During the process of our media project, we followed and challenged forms and conventions of real media products. Through out the process and each stage of our project we had to look back at real media products for comparison and to start recognising what exactly we were doing differently to what's already out there. Without access to the same equipment and facilities as existing media products, many things would not be the same, but including conventions just not at such a high quality is still realistic and achieveable and so is challenging the forms and conventions.


We followed many of the forms and conventions of real media products within our trailer. We used a fast pace throughout (we used many jump cuts), which we knew was something that most trailers consisted of, this creates the suspense for the trailer, urging people to see the film, this is a technique which we found in all of our deconstructions of exiting film trailers. A trailers purpose is to only show a small part of the film, giving the audience a small insight into the film but not giving away too much at the same time. Ours did just this, following how most trailers are, we showed the most exciting clips from the film but did not explain exactly what was going to happen, making the audience still wonder what was going to happen within the film. To gain this fast pace, we used the speed duration tool on premier pro to make it look faster than what we originally filmed on the camera, this also allowed us to fit more into our trailer, as trailers are meant to be short, by speeding it up we were able to add more content into our trailer. 


Another aspect of our trailer which follows the forms and conventions of existing media and film trailers was the title clips. We put quite a few title clips into our trailer, we noticed that most trailers and all of our deconstructions of existing trailers showed that many title clips were included, this then allows the audience to see what the film is called, when it is released, who the production company is and who is starring in the film. These clips are fast but effective, the audience can then remember the film either by the name, actors or production company, making more people aware of the film as more people remember these points and talk about the film with associates. 


After caryying out some research, I found that it is also very common for high and low camera angles to be used within thriller films. We have used the low angle several times for our trailer, once again following the forms and conventions of existing thriller films. We used this for the shot of the 'detective' getting out of his car, this was used to show authority and give the effect that he is higher than the audience and the other characters. This is the same in many thrillers and other films/trailers.

The characters within our trailer also represent conventional characters for our genre. The representation of the characters is important and is key to demonstrate certain genre's and emotions. Our main character fits into the conventions and forms of existing thriller films. Commonly thriller films characters are either mentally unstable (such as ours), criminals, stalkers, police or army associated characters, spy's, strange/mysterious people or detectives (also like our film). This is how we have followed the conventions so that people can tell the genre of our project.


Our Magazine cover also follows the forms and conventions of existing media products. After doing the deconstructions of existing media products, we gained an insight into the way a magazine cover should be laid out and what should be included. The main image is typical of a magazine cover, the positioning is central and the main title of the magazine is at the top of the page, bold and striking. We included lines and small bits of writing which tell the reader what else is inside the magazine, so that they know what else they are paying for, but still our magazine cover lets the audience know that our film is the main feature of the magazine. We only included information of films, this is because our magazine cover was designed just for films rather than a mixture of topics. The short, snappy lines we included is typical of a film magazine, it grabs the reader in to want to know more about the film by buying the magazine. We included a price, bar code, date and the our company production, this is also what you expect to see on a magazine cover, showing how we followed the forms and conventions. 


After deconstructing existing posters, we found out the way in which a promotional poster differs depending on its purpose. We found several posters for each film that we were going to deconstruct, and each were produced for different reasons. This is why we chose to explain all of the posters we made rather than just the one, different promotional aspects such as for cinemas, for the side of buses, for billboards etc. We than decided that one of posters was most suited for our final poster as it contained more of the form of a film poster because it included the release date, the production company, who was involved in making the film, who stars in the film, popular poser quotes such as 'In theatres everywhere...' and so on, where as some of the others we made did not. We had a main focus on the image of our character on the poster and fitted everything around it. 


We did chose to challenge some forms and conventions particularly in the film trailer. We decided not to follow the usual form of having a voice over in our trailer. Most trailers that we came across had a voice over and it is almost expected in a trailer. We decided to go against this conventional aspect as we thought it would ruin the eerie feel we gave the trailer, it would take away the sense of 'mystery' and 'the unknown' as it would be given away by the voice over. We thought that also it would spoil the backing track we had added, we felt the music was very much effective by itself. This is a particular challenge as thriller trailers mostly do have voice overs, we noticed that all the thriller film trailers that we looked at had a talk over. The fact that it doesn't has a more shocking effect on the audience as it leaves them in silence almost rather than processing what the voice over is saying. 


We did not really challenge any of the conventions in our magazine cover or our poster. This is because we thought that they worked best the way that other magazine covers and posters are conventionally. The layout worked well, the information was familiar and the audience would be more likely to buy the magazine as they can clearly see what it is, what is inside etc. The poster however, we did develop various ideas to try and challenge the conventions within our poster, we produced different posters but we did decide that the final poster was the best one and that it does follow the forms and conventions of existing film posters.