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Question 1 In what ways did your media project develop, challenge or use conventions of real media products? Trailer Evaluation Contents
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A2 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 1

Dec 21, 2014

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Page 1: A2 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 1

Question 1

In what ways did your media project develop, challenge or use conventions of real media products?

Trailer

Evaluation

Contents

Page 2: A2 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 1

Contents

Trailer conventions

How my trailer follows conventions

How my trailer subverts conventions

Best known trailer conventions

Page 3: A2 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 1

What are the conventions of my genre of trailer?Chosen genre; Romance/drama

Conventions;

- a film in which the central plot revolves around the romantic involvement of the story’s protagonists (main characters)

- Moving/cliché story line

- up beat, but mellow/reflective music

- diegetic sound (sound created within the scene)

- non diegetic sound (such as their thoughts, or a saying from a different scene)

- at times funny, but not intentional

- ‘feel good’ film – created by the music and story line

- ‘dramatic reality of the emotions expressed by the characters’

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Page 4: A2 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 1

How are the conventions achieved?

-Feel good, but reflective/mellow music helps create the sense of romance. Quite often a piece of music is a piece of instrumental music (instruments such as piano and acoustic guitar) with the addition of voice later on in the trailer and is normally a piece of music that is part of the soundtrack of the film. If not a piece of original music, it is normally a piece of music that is or has recently been popular, or is associated with romance.

-Diegetic sound is used to make the trailer seem ‘real’ – to make the audience remember specific scenes and for them to identify particular scenes when watching the film. Diegetic sound is created by including the sound and picture from a scene in a film.

-Non Diegetic sound is quite often used in romantic trailers. The sound is taken from specific moments in the film, but without the picture (if there is a picture in the film...) . An example of non-diegetic sound in a trailer is the Dear John trailer where we hear what the main characters have been writing to each other.

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Page 5: A2 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 1

Best known Romantic films

1. The Notebook

2. Dirty Dancing

3. Titanic

4. Notting Hill (Rom com…)

5. Gone with the Wind

6. Grease (musical…)

7. Pretty Woman

8. Legends of the Fall

9. How to loose a guy in 10 days

10. Moulin Rouge

Most of these films are purely just romantic films, however there are some examples of subgenres such as ‘Romcom’ (romantic comedy) and Musicals quite often revolve around romance as the main plot.

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Page 6: A2 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 1

In what ways did I go along with conventions and why?

- I used the convention of there being two main characters, following the progress to their union. As well as the two main characters, there is the involvement of others (Esme’s friends) in the scene where Esme has been shopping. I included other actresses so that the trailer was not focused solely on the two main characters.

Esme with her friends

How well did this work?

As I wanted to create an easy film, which the audience didn’t really have to think about (unlike postmodern films), I felt the use of just two main characters made the film easy to follow and to understand. Also, I want the audience to realise who the two main characters are before going to watch the film at the cinema. The addition of a couple of other friends breaks up the trailer and gives the trailer a bit more added interest.

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Page 7: A2 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 1

-I also used the convention of the moving/cliché story line. My story line was the story of twins who were separated at birth and had never met. One girl lived with their Mother, and the other with their Father. The Mother told Emma that she had a twin sister. This led Emma to wanting to find her sister, so she wrote her a letter. The rest of the film shows the story of the two girls meeting each other for the first time. A scene in my trailer which is quite moving/clichéd are the scenes where the two girls run to each other. This is quite a typical feature of a romantic film, such as in Dear John where John comes back from war and Savannah runs to greet him. I think this is quite effective as it makes the audiences want to know why they are running to each other, so will go to the cinema to watch the film.

In what ways did I go along with conventions and why?Contents Next Back

Esme and Emma running to each other.

Page 8: A2 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 1

In what ways did I go along with conventions and why?

-The music in my trailer adds to the clichés and the cheesiness of the film and leads up to the highlight of the trailer where the girls meet each other. The overall piece of music is like a big crescendo as it builds up throughout. The climax of the music happens when the girls are running to each other. My music is a lot like those on actual movie trailers, where it begins quite sombre with a thin texture and builds up throughout the trailer, and is upbeat all the way through. I think this works effectively in my trailer as it takes the audience on a mini-journey through the film. I originally intended to compose my own soundtrack, however I found it quite hard to get the timing right and to fit in with the trailer. I then found the piece of music that I used on a site called ‘freeplaymusic.com’. I think it would have been easier to compose own music for my trailer if there was a way of having the video in Sibelius (the music writing software) at the same time as composing.

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Page 9: A2 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 1

In what ways did I go along with conventions and why?

-Another convention that my trailer follows is the convention of it being funny, but not intentionally. This is quite often created by the clichés included in the trailer, and when the audience recognise the cliché being involved, they find it funny. My trailer does this at the point of the girls running to each other.

-My trailer also uses both diegetic and non-diegetic sound. An example of diegetic sound is when Esme is calling Emma on the phone and says ‘Hello’. By including diegetic sound the sound connects to the picture which the audience finds beneficial. I think I could have included more diegetic sound in my trailer, however, I feel that the diegetic sound that I do have, works well. There are a few examples of non-diegetic sound in my trailer. Both examples are of Emma saying what she had written in her letter. I feel this works well as the audience can hear what’s being written and visualise it in their minds. I tried to fade out the music slightly (so it could still be heard) when there was the voice-overs, however, I was disappointed with how this turned out. I tried to do a gradual fade, which sounded ok on Adobe Premier Elements (the programme I used to create my trailer), but once I had exported it onto Youtube, the gradual fade outs sounded a lot more sudden and drastic, which I didn’t like.

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Page 10: A2 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 1

In what ways did I go along with conventions and why?Contents Back

-‘The appeal of these films is in the dramatic reality of the emotions expressed by the characters’ This quote is from wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_film

I feel my trailer conforms to this quote. The actresses both express their emotions well throughout the trailer and they both depict their character’s persona. Katie (who plays Emma) conveys her character’s worry and longing to meet her long lost twin well. I directed her to look worried in her scenes where she is looking through the window, and when she was walking to the post box. I also instructed her to look up for thought when she was writing the letter. To add to this, to convey the fact that Esme does not know about her twin, I asked Sophie (the actress who plays Esme) to act happy and bubbly for the parts where she is with her friends, so to suggest her not knowing a thing. Furthermore, in the part of my trailer where there is a split screen, I asked Sophie to look shocked which further adds to the fact she knew nothing before the letter.

Page 11: A2 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 1

In what ways did I subvert these conventions and why?Contents

-My first subversion of this genre was that the two main characters were women instead of a man and a woman. This subverted the standard romantic convention. Even though the story line followed two girls trying to find each other, it was still part of the romantic genre. I did this because I thought it would be hard to find a willing couple to act a relationship on camera. However, I felt my story line was successful as it tugs on the audiences heart-strings.

-My trailer is probably even more clichéd than your standard romantic film because I used a lot of clichéd story lines when planning my trailer. I did this because I knew what the audience enjoyed after researching into this genre.