1. Q1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Sophie Potter 2. GENRE CONVENTIONS 3. When we discovered that the genre of our film was horror we immediately decided to research the conventions of a horror. After researching the conventions of a horror we decided on what conventions we wanted to base our products on and which we didnt. The first convention that we decided to base our film on was the isolation of our main character. Although our film is based on a form of therapy within our trailer our protagonist is often seen alone. We decided to use this convention as we believe that it emphasizes the vulnerability of our protagonist which is another convention that we wanted to use (vulnerable female). Vulnerable female leads are commonly seen within horror films as they are it is believed that the audience feels more sympathy for a female character as females are commonly seen as the weaker gender. We also used this convention on our magazine cover as the focal image that we used was a single image of our character. We chose to do this as we believed that it reinforces the isolation of the character, the image that we chose to use was also taken against a black background which emphasizes her the mental block that she has put in place to hide her past. 4. In addition to the isolation of our protagonist we also decided to use the themes. The first theme that we used was good vs evil, although this convention isnt one of the main focal points of our trailer it is apparent in the two different sides of the protagonist. We chose to use this convention as we believe that it creates more suspense and mystery in our trailer. Alongside good and evil we also used the theme of dream vs reality. We chose to use this theme as it makes the audience question their judgment of the character more and in turn make the film fit the horror genre more as many horrors use the process of making the audience question themselves to scare them. 5. However, although we used some conventions of the horror genre we also used some conventions which are more specific to our chosen sub-genre of horror; Psychological. One convention of a psychological horror is that the killer does not often appear as harmful. Although our film is not a slasher it does have a killer, our main character, and alike other psychological horrors our main character doesnt appear to be able to commit such an act due to her state within the trailer. Furthermore, another convention that we used from psychological horrors is that the events in which occur within the films are realistic and can/could happen within the real world. I believe that we used this convention within our trailer as the events in which happen are events that could happen in the real world as grief affects different people in many ways. 6. On the other hand, in our trailer we also challenged one of the conventions of the horror genre. One convention that we didnt use is dark and eerie settings. We chose not to use dark and eerie settings as the film is set within our protagonists mind where although her thoughts may be dark the worlds are brighter, because of this the majority of our settings are light to enhance this dream state. However when we edited our trailer we did add a variety of effects to darken the scenes we did still keep them mainly bright in order to keep the realism of the dream state that our character is in. Alternatively on the poster and magazine cover we chose to make both images black and white to enhance the two sides of our character and her loss of sanity. On our magazine cover we used the black and white filter to enhance the isolation and makeup on our character which in turn helped us portray her insanity whereas on our poster we used the black and white filter to create a more eerie atmosphere surrounding the metronome. 7. Furthermore, another convention that we did not stick to is the colour scheme which is usually associated with horrors, red and black. Within our trailer, magazine cover and poster we used the colour scheme, black and green. We chose to use the colour black to stick to one part of this convention however we then chose to use the colour green. We chose to use the colour green as it stands out from other posters and it also has a variety of different meanings some of which include; Disgrace which is a Chinese meaning and Corruption which is a North African meaning. However the most prominent reason for us choosing the colour green is for its connection to therapy, in therapy the colour green is used to relax the patient and has been proven to help people with depression and anxiety which our main character deals with. Because of these annotations we decided to use the colour green throughout our products. 8. In conclusion we mainly used the conventions of the horror genre to ensure that our films genre was shown across the trailer, magazine and poster. We stuck to the conventions of our genre as we believe that if we hadnt it would be difficult for our audience to identify our products as being from the horror genre. The one convention that we challenged within our trailer although a main convention of our genre helped us to exaggerate a convention within our sub-genre. 9. TRAILER CONVENTIONS 10. When creating our trailer we first looked at the conventions of a trailer. After researching trailer conventions in September we moved on and discussed what conventions we wanted to use within our trailer. We first decided that we definitely wanted to use titles within our trailer, we decided this as we believe that the titles help to guide and assist the audience when watching the trailer so that they have a better understanding what the film is going to about. We also chose to use titles as we believe that they allow us to grab the attention of the audience through the tagline, alongside this the titles also allow us to present the audience with information about the film such as the release date. Within our trailer we used seven titles which included information such as; tagline, actors, production company. We used these titles as we believe they gave the audience enough information about our film without giving away the whole plot of the film. However if I could recreate the trailer I would go back and change the titles in our film by adding additional information such as other actors as I do not think there was enough titles for the length of out trailer which meant some clips within the trailer where longer than they needed to be making the trailer slower paced. 11. Alongside titles we also stuck to the convention of key moments within our trailer. In our trailer we have a variety of key scenes some of which include the beginning scene in the car which establishes the relationship with the audience and the rocking scene of our main character on the bed which makes the audience wonder what happened to her in comparison to the first scene. We used key scenes as we believe that it allowed us to connect with the audience and grab their attention. We also believed that using the key scenes would help us to present the plot to our audience, which we believe allows them to understand the film more and in turn be more interested in watching it. When editing the trailer I also made the key moments quite short as I didnt want to give away too much of the plot however some of the clips are extended as we didnt film enough scenes to create a long enough period of time between titles. If I could remake our trailer I would film for scenes so that we had a longer and faster paced trailer as I believe the trailer we have created is slow in comparison to professional/real life trailers. Within the titles we used another convention which was showing the release date of our film. We chose to show the release date of our film as we believe that it worked within our trailer as it is at the high point of the suspicion. We put the release date at the end of our trailer as we believe that putting a release date at the end of a trailer makes it more memorable to the audience. 12. Furthermore, another convention of trailers that we used was a voice over, we used a voiceover in our trailer as it gave more of a background to our main character which allowed the audience to connect with our character more. We believed that it was important to have the voice over as it does present more information to our audience but also as it allowed us to add additional shots to our trailer. One of the shots that we were able to add to our trailer was the metronome shots, we were able to add these shots as the voice over gave them a meaning and in turn made the audience understand them more. Alongside this I believe that the voiceover added more of a realism to the trailer which made the events in which occur more shocking. I believe that the voiceover makes the trailer seem more real as it is an account of the events in which have happened to our main character from a doctor. Alongside making the trailer more realistic the voiceover also helps to create a connection with the audience through the doctor as it makes the audience feel sympathy for the girl and also for the doctor. However, I do think that more information could have been added to the voiceover so that it would have had a stronger meaning and this is what I would change if I could re-create the trailer. 13. Finally, within our trailer we use a combination of out of sequence and sequenced shots. Towards the beginning and end of the trailer there are two identical scenes of a metronome which symbolize the beginning and end of a therapy session, we chose to go against trailer conventions and do this as we believe that it creates more suspicion within the audience. However the rest of our trailer is out of sequence and alike the sequenced shots we chose to alter the placements of the shots to create suspicion within to audience to grab their attention more. We believe that making the audience question what happened to our protagonist will help us make them more interested and engaged in the trailer as she is portrayed as innocent and vulnerable in the first scene. Furthermore, if I could re-create the trailer I would- add more of a variety within the scenes and add different time settings such as right after the accident, during and possibly after the last therapy session such as a scene of her opening her eyes which we did initially decide to do however we decided against it due to timing issues. 14. In conclusion, our trailer mainly uses/ conforms to the conventions of a typical trailer as we conformed to a selection of the conventions of a trailer. However within our trailer we do have a few scenes that challenge the conventions of a trailer as our main aim when creating the trailer was to make it grab and maintain the attention of our audience. To reach this aim we challenged some of the conventions such as the out of sequence scenes as we believe that it helped us reach/achieve our aim. 15. MAGAZINE CONVENTIONS 16. Alike our trailer, before we began creating our magazine cover we looked at the conventions of a typical magazine cover. After looking at the conventions we chose a selected few that we wanted to use within our cover one of these includes having the focal image on the magazine as a picture of our protagonist. We chose to use the image of our protagonist as we believe that it both portrays her vulnerability which is apparent at the start of the film but also gives the audience an insight into what happened to her. Furthermore, we also chose to use a picture of our protagonist as we believe that it will catch the attention of the audience because of its appearance as the image that we used has exaggerated makeup and strong shadows which emphasize the vulnerability of the character. 17. Additionally, we also used the convention of using other films on the cover of our magazine. When planning our magazine we were first going to make the magazine exclusive to just our film however we decided to add additional articles and images onto the cover so that our magazine could target more than just our target audience. We also chose to use other films on the cover as we believe that the audience may be initially interested in that specific part of the cover but then become interested in our film. The films that we mentioned on the front of our magazine include films such as; The Fault in Our Stars and Divergent which have a large target audience and fan base which would make our magazine more popular due to the demand of their audience. 18. Alongside other films we also used the convention of buzz words and chose variety of buzz words to be on our cover. We chose to use buzz words as we believe that they help to make the articles on the cover more prominent. Some of the buzz words that we chose to use included; Exclusive and First look. We chose to use these kinds of buzz words as we believe that they stand out most when on the cover of a magazine. However we didnt want to overload our magazine cover so we didnt use too many buzz words as we believe that if there is too much text on the cover it causes it to look over crowded and in turn unprofessional. However, if I could re-create the cover I would have added more articles as I believe that it had too little text and seemed quite empty. 19. However, we did challenge the conventions of magazine covers by adding additional images alongside our focal image. We decided to do this as we believe that it adds more variety to the cover and makes it appear more professional as although additional images are not a convention of a magazine cover they are commonly used by big film magazine companies such as Empire Magazine and Total Film. The images that we chose to use are all from films that have been produced within our college these included; NUMB3RS a film created by an AS group and Vindictive a film created by our peers in our A2 class. We decided to use films within our school as we found it to make the magazine more realistic and also images from other films could not be used due to copyright issues. 20. In addition to images we also added two main titles to our magazine. We decided to use this convention as we believe that the titles are needed on a cover to both address the name of the magazine and film but also to present additional information. On our cover we used a main title at the top of the cover which says the magazines name and then added an additional title which says the name of our film. We chose to do this so that all three of our products would link together. Alongside making our products together we believe that addressing our film was important as it informs the audience of what the film is and also hints at the plot of the film. 21. In conclusion, we both used and challenged the conventions of a magazine cover. We conformed to the conventions by using a selection on our cover such as buzz words and a focal image as we believe that both of these conventions where needed on our cover to grab the attention of the audience however we challenged the conventions of a magazine by adding additional images on our magazine which we believe contributed positively to the final product as it makes the magazine appear more professional whilst also giving us the opportunity to reach other target audiences. 22. POSTER CONVENTIONS 23. Finally, when we began looking at creating our poster we first researched the conventions of posters and chose the ones that we wanted to use. The first convention that we used was having a focal image. The focal image that we chose to use is an image of a metronome, we chose to use this image as it gives the audience an insight into the plot without giving away too much information. We also chose to edit the image to make it black and white as we believe that it made the image appear more suspicious and in turn more eye-catching. After making the image black and white we also made its have a faded black border we chose to use this as it makes the focus of the poster the metronome but it also makes the metronome appear more eerie. 24. Another convention that we chose to use was an eye-catching font for our title. The font that we chose to use for our title is called An Unfortunate Event (Warped) we chose to use the warped version as it makes the title more eye-catching. We also chose to make the title green, we did this to not only make it match the poster and magazine but also because it stands out more against the background. We finally made the title 3D in adobe Photoshop which created a black border which separated it from the background. We chose to do this as it made the title appear larger and in turn made it more of a focus on the poster. 25. Furthermore, we also put our release date on the poster which is another convention of posters. We chose to put our release date in the middle of the credits as it both made it stand out more and drew the audiences attention to the credits. We also chose to put the release date at the bottom of the poster which is another convention of posters. We chose to use this as the release date will then be the last thing that the audience reads which will make it stay in their minds. However, we also challenged a convention of horror posters by doing this as it is common for horror posters to have coming soon on instead of the actual release date. 26. Another convention that we chose to use is the use of a tagline on the poster. We chose to use this convention as it helps gives the audience more of an insight into our film and also makes them question our focal image more as the image that we have used is quite vague. We also chose to use this convention as it allowed us to add another aspect to all three of our products as we have used our tagline on both our magazine and in our trailer. 27. In conclusion, we used a variety of conventions instead of challenging them as we believe that using them has allowed us to promote our film through the poster without giving away too much of our films plot. However, if I could re-create the poster I would add more information to the poster such as reviews and quotes to add more of a variety to the poster as I believe that it appears very empty and spaced out.