FILM TRAILER EVALUATION QUESTION 1

1. How does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?I will be comparing my film trailer for ‘Loving You’ to other real film trailers in order to discuss how mine challenges or conforms to typical film trailer conventions. These film trailers will be of similar genre to mine, in order to accurately illustrate how I have conformed and subverted conventions and stereotypes.

‘Blue is The Warmest Colour’ 2013My trailer both subverts and conforms to its social realism conventions which are characterised as being gritty and raw. I decided to reduce the ‘gritty’ effects and focus on the ‘raw’ nature of love which is something prevalent in French social realist and romantic drama films. This is shown in ‘Loving You’ with soft focus shots and subtle inclinations to the love between the two girls.

‘Loving You’ conforms to the romantic drama and ‘Blue is The Warmest Colour’ convention of the primary characters interacting with each other while they are out of reach, physically and metaphorically, which highlights elements of tough love. For example, both film trailers include similar shots of the central protagonist moving away from their potential love interest.

‘Loving You’

‘Blue is The Warmest Colour’

Quotes from CriticsThe inclusion of quotes from critics is a convention that isn’t often replicated with high budget films, for example, in ‘Skyfall’ or ‘Black Mass’.The convention is primarily conformed to by lower budget and independent films because they require the extra weight of approval from film critics, like in ‘Blue is The Warmest Colour’ and ‘The Road Within’.

This critic quote is one of two in my film trailer. I researched independent magazines and found ‘INDIE’ magazine which is an independent magazine focalised around media ranging from Music, Photography and Film which I thought would be appropriate for our independent British film. I created a fake name, ‘Jake Burhart’, to increase the quotes validity and make it appear more realistic.

Quotes from Critics

In the top left is a screenshot of the quotes from critics in ‘Blue is The Warmest Colour’, bottom left is a screenshot of multiple awards for ‘The Road Within’ which again acts as a seal of approval for the low budget film, and top right is the fictional critical quotes from ‘Loving You’.

‘Skyfall’ 2012First meetings of the central protagonist and the love interest are a convention of most film trailers that have a element of romance, as shown in ‘Blue is The Warmest Colour’ and ‘Skyfall’.

‘Skyfall’ ‘Loving You’In ‘Skyfall’, there are multiple shots in the trailer which have a particularly warm and orange hue to them. These shots are then juxtaposed with other much more colder shots with more of a blue/green hue to them. This is something I wanted to replicate in ‘Loving You’ as I believed it to be very rich in connotation.

Lighting

I wanted to create artificial and orange hued lighting in ‘Loving You’ particularly in the shower scene because it could connote that there is something artificial and unnatural about the way Alice and her love interest feel which would subsequently reveal the interior conflict within both Alice and Maggie which is then explored throughout the film.

‘The First Girl I Loved’ 2016Both trailers for ‘Loving You’ and ‘The First Girl I Loved’ challenge the stereotype of there being a particularly feminine and masculine female in the lesbian relationship. ‘Blue is The Warmest Colour’ conforms to this stereotype, however, I though it would be interesting to challenge this common stereotype and present the characters Alice and Maggie as being similarly feminine.

Close Up Shots: Reaction Shots

I wanted to conform to the conventions of similar media products by replicating close up shots of the central protagonists which also act as reaction shot. This is shown in both ‘The First Girl I Loved’ and ‘Blue is the Warmest Colour’ which truly highlights its conventional quality.

Despite conforming to the convention of close up shots, I wanted to subvert the traditional convention by making the shot a Point Of View shot, instead of a close up, over the shoulder shot. This was effective as it placed the audience in the position of Maggie: the central protagonist’s love interest. This consequently makes the audience feel much more involved in the film which means that the issues explored will have an increased impact on them.

‘Cyberbully’ is an American television film from the television channel ABC and so the trailer doesn’t fit the standard film trailer conventions. However, my trailer does conform to similar conventions of ‘Cyberbully’s, due to it is also being a social realism drama, trailer with the inclusion of similar camera shots and subject matter.

‘Cyberbully’ 2011

‘Loving You’

Named ActorsI have conformed to my genres convention of not including actors names in the film trailer due to the low budget nature of ‘Loving You’. The fact that our film is a low budget independent movie explains why there aren’t any A list celebrity names which would act in themselves as advertising for our media product. This conforms to the conventions of independent films, however it subverts the conventions of larger budget films as they can afford to have popular ‘stars’ in their films for example, in ‘Mordecai’ 2015 (left) and ‘Lion’ 2017 (right).

‘Based on True Events’

I conformed to the conventions of introducing your storyline as being ‘based on a true story’. I liked this feature, particularly with social realism films and similar genres because it enhances the realist nature of the genre and makes the issues explored much more raw and hard hitting. This feature is replicated in ‘Lion’ (top left) and ‘Erin Brockovich’ (bottom left).

‘Loving You’