Evaluation question 1

Evaluation Question 1In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media texts?

Concept: Found Footage

Similar Films Include

Concept: Found FootageOur project was conducted after extensive research into the

sub-genre, for both the trailer and the ancillary products.

We looked at the previous six films in particular detail and

established the main conventions that they had, which included

Fast-paced editing, Less-known actors, and for the film poster, a

photo that looks like a still from the footage.

I believe that in terms of the concept we used the conventions

well, fitting in well to the sub-genre. Our combination of the use

of demonic possession and found footage works really well I

think, and I would not say that in terms of the concept we

needed to challenge conventions. This is because doing so

would be risky and make our trailer unsuited to a particular

genre, which, if it were to be made full-length and distributed,

may not work in our favour as we would not be able to appeal to

a specific target audience.

EditingThe Blair Witch Project

The Blair witch project

featured a lot of cutaways

to a black screen that

lasted longer than one

second. This is surprising

as fast-paced editing

seemed to be the most

common type amongst the

research pieces. However,

the use of cutaways is

something that we kept in

mind when making our

trailer.

Editing8213 Gacy House

The editing in this trailer again

features cutaways, but the

speed of editing increased as

the trailer progressed, along

with the shots getting

progressively shorter.

The beginning of the trailer

features fades to black with

text. Towards the end of the

trailer, this changes to cuts to

flashes of white between shots.

This progression is something

that we adopted in our trailer,

with longer shots featuring

more at the beginning, and the

editing becoming faster.

Editing

Our style of editing conforms to the styles we have seen in

our research, in terms of the pace of it and the use of

cutaways.

In some ways, however, I would say that we have

challenged conventions established by existing media

texts, as although the shots at the beginning of our trailer

are longer, they do not get progressively shorter

throughout the trailer.

CostumesHere you will see I have directly compared Harry- our character of Zac- and the

character of Micah from Paranormal Activity.

CostumesI also did the same for my character, Jess, and the character of Katie

from Paranormal Activity

Costumes

So, as you can see, there are significant similarities

between our costumes and those of the characters in one

of our main inspiration pieces.

Therefore I would say that we have conformed to the

conventions established by existing media texts very well

in this instance.

Ancillary ProductsIn my research and planning stages, I devised multiple power points and mood boards of the codes and conventions of existing media texts.

Below is a side-by-side comparison of our (almost) finished magazine cover and that of an existing text, Total Film Magazine.

Large Title in top third

Feature Film Title

in bottom third

Close up of

actor

Barcode

Combination of shapes

Ancillary Products

Since the photo in the previous slide, further changes

have been made to the magazine cover. This means that

our finished product is even closer to the existing texts.

I am very confident in the way in which we have used the

conventions that we extensively researched. We made a

mental checklist of what we needed to feature on the

ancillary products and checked through each element to

ensure that we included everything necessary to comply

with conventions established by existing media texts.

Typography

[REC] 8152 Gacy

House

Quarantine

Typography

As you can see from the previous slide, central white text

was the convention of the majority of our research trailers.

We featured the central white text against a black

background (as seen in [REC] and 8152 Gacy House)

throughout our trailer, and we featured the typing effect

and added a keyboard sound, which is seen in the trailer

for Quarantine. It is with this in mind when adding our

typography that I am confident in our product conforming

to the conventions established by these texts, but

combining them to develop the codes that we found in the

research and planning stage of our project.