EVALUATION QUESTION ONE: IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

USING CONVENTIONS

FROM REAL MEDIA

PRODUCTSTHE TRAILER

Whilst researching the film noir genre, we came across a film called ‘American Gangster’ which is a subgenre from film-noir called ‘neo-noir’. In the trailer we noticed a few things that we thought would work really well in our own trailer for ‘FREEZE’. Firstly, there was a voiceover in American Gangster where the main character explains what he has to do as part of the job which we thought worked effectively. So we used this in our own trailer when there is a voiceover of the character Selina saying ‘murder, extortion, bribery and conspiracy. Its all part of what I do.’ This worked effectively in our trailer as we didn’t want to give away what Selina’s job was within the trailer and so by listing some of the things she does, it gives the audience an idea of how ruthless her character is.

We used the same concept that was in the film ‘Inception’. In inception, there was a shift in pace and music after a fade to black had appeared. This meant that the audience would be left wondering what was going to happen next and so they would be in suspense. Inception had a building falling down in slow motion, then a black screen and then a man talking explaining what was happening.

In our trailer, we used a fast paced pan around the back of Selina, then the fade to black, and then a close up of her eyes which introduced the audience to who she was.

DEVELOPING

CONVENTIONS FROM REAL

MEDIA PRODUCTS

THE TRAILER

FILM TITLEWe developed out final film title from the film ‘American Gangster’. In American Gangster, they have put a silhouette of American buildings over the films name. As we created a British film, we decided to instead put a silhouette of London over the title ‘FREEZE’. This worked extremely well as it allowed the audience to realise that the film was set in London, just by watching the trailer.

CHALLENGING

CONVENTIONS FROM REAL

MEDIA PRODUCTS

THE TRAILER

When researching film-noir trailers, it occurred to me that there was never a lead female character who was strong-minded, determined and assertive. In ‘The Black Dahlia’ the main character is a male detective, in ‘Public Enemies’ the main character is a male gang leader and in ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ the main character is a male reporter who tries to expose the corruption of president.

So, in our film ‘FREEZE’ we challenged this idea and instead made our main character a female who had all the strong qualities of a male and she managed to run her own drug business.

USING CONVENTIONS

FROM REAL MEDIA

PRODUCTSFILM POSTER

FILM POSTERWe decided to create a film poster that was similar to the movie Lawless’ poster as we liked the design and shape of it and believed that it would represent our film well. In our poster we feature the three main characters, a quote from the film and film awards that our film has won.

SIMILAR FILM POSTERS

On our film poster we wanted to use the same idea as the film ‘Lawless’ as we wanted to have all our main characters featured, and we wanted our main character to be at the front.

We placed the character of Selina in the middle in order to highlight her dominant role that she has within the film. We then had the other two characters, Jacob and Vincent, holding different poses and further behind Selina to show that they work for her.

We again used conventions from the film Lawless’ poster when we created the three words at the top of our poster. Lawless used the words ‘Brothers. Gangsters. Heroes.’ and we used the words ‘Murder. Extortion. Bribery.’

We chose those words as they are a quote from our film and we wanted to create a link between the trailer and the poster, and we really liked how Lawless had set their poster out and so we that’s why we used their layout.

DEVELOPING

CONVENTIONS FROM REAL

MEDIA PRODUCTS

FILM POSTER

In film posters, a new way of printing actors and actresses names is to have their surname either in capitals or significantly bigger than their first name. This is because most actors are more commonly recognised by their surnames. The main actors name is also usually printed in a much larger font so that the film can be easily linked with that actor.For our film poster, we originally tried making the actresses name ‘Verity Penny’ bigger, however when it was placed next to the other actors names it just looked out of place and the whole layout was changed. So, we developed this idea by instead just placing Verity’s name first so that she is the first name you read and then the audience can recognise she is the main character.

CHALLENGING

CONVENTIONS FROM REAL

MEDIA PRODUCTS

FILM POSTER

STEREOTYPICAL FILM-NOIRStereotypical film-noir pictures show that the woman needs to be looked after by the male figure and that she asserts no dominance as she is gripping onto the male.

We wanted to challenge that role of the female, and so in our film we made the female the ruthless leader of a drug scandal. This came across in our poster as we positioned her at the front with the men behind her showing that her role is more important than the men's.

USING CONVENTIONS

FROM REAL MEDIA

PRODUCTSMAGAZINE COVER

MAGAZINE COVER

We decided to use ‘W’ magazine as the brand to use for promoting our film.

‘W’ magazine is a fashion magazine which talks about high-end fashion and usually uses a celebrity on their front cover.

EXAMPLES OF ‘W’ MAGAZINE

We decided that in order to keep continuity over all magazines, we should keep the magazines ‘W’ logo in the same place and font.

To the side of the main ‘W’ masthead, there is a phrasethat all the magazines use saying ‘Who, what, where, when and why in the world of style’ and so we also decided to keep that the same in our magazine to show we are marketing the brand too.

In one ‘W’ magazine cover featuring Tilda Swinton, the anchorage on the magazine says ‘the style icon talks about her most controversial role yet’. We wanted to use a similar idea on our magazine and we wanted to incorporate both the marketing of our film as well as the interview with our films main character ‘Verity Penny’. In order to do this, we too created an anchorage saying ‘in her most daring role yet’.

Original Our magazine

In many ‘W’ magazines, we noticed that the actress on the front cover is posing in a modelling photo shoot which has been stylised with full make-up and there is usually a seductive element to it.So, for our magazine, we used the same idea and made our actress Verity wear full make-up and look over her shoulder, directly into the camera in order to create the seductiveness.

ORIGINALOUR MAGAZINE

CHANLLENGING

CONVENTIONS FROM REAL

MEDIA PRODUCTS

MAGAZINE COVER

A lot of magazine covers that we researched focused mainly on the actress herself and the headlines weren’t about a new movie, but instead a personal issue. For example, in one cover of ‘Vogue’ magazine, there is an article on the actress Kristen Stewart and the flash simply says ‘on love and living dangerously’ which doesn’t promote her new film.We therefore challenged this convention and made sure that every flash we created had something to do with the movie such as ‘how to revamp your work-look’ as Verity’s character owns her own business and women may be able to relate to her. We also kept our films name ‘FREEZE’ in the same font that is used on the other marketing products in order to create continuity.

BY KATIE CHARMAN