Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real

media products?

Question 1:

During the research and planning stages, I looked at least 5 different horror trailers to understand and begin to analyse the conventions of the horror trailer. I analysed in detail ‘One Missed Call’ and ‘The Crazies’ which both had many conventions of the horror genre. After researching into the trailers, I found that the conventions were: a slow build up soundtrack, usually being very quiet at the beginning and more fast paced towards the end, a dark lighting and colour scheme, camera shots of killings but usually stopping before the person is actually killed, close up shots of the main actors including the antagonist, faster editing towards the end of the trailer, eerie music and some trailers include actors dialogue [mostly the actors screaming/panicking]. In some trailers, a scare shot is also included at the end.

In our trailer, as a group we wanted to stick as close to the horror genre as possible. We stuck to the slow build up music which also was quite eerie sounding and had the faster paced editing towards the end. When I was filming, I tried to keep the scenes quite dark, lighting wise, however the colour scheme I challenged at the beginning of the trailer especially with the costumes and conformed to more towards the end. Another thing our trailer conforms to, is to begin with some cheerful scenes at the beginning of the trailer. In between the clips of film, I also inserted text slides which had the film name, release date and text on a fade to black transition which gives a brief overview of the film. However, we challenged the trailer by not having any scenes where it involved someone being killed because we wanted there to be some suspense in the trailer. The trailer also used a heartbeat sound effect which is used in some horror trailers. However, I think it made the trailer more tense which is why I decided to add it in. At the end, we also included a scare shot which is used in quite a few trailers.

Film Trailer

I also analysed some film posters which portrayed horror genre conventions. It seemed to be mainly a dark colour scheme, sometimes with red text to symbolize blood and gore which is scene often in horror films, but over all the colour scheme tends to be quite dark. The posters quite often keep the image on it very central. A billing block is often included, and the film title is usually in the middle and centred. Sometimes the poster will include a tagline and/or a quote from the film. A rating of the film can be seen on some posters.

My film poster uses the conventions of a horror film poster by having the image in the centre of the poster. I think that if the image was to the left or right, it wouldn’t have the same effecton the audience. I kept to quite a dark colour scheme but found that making the image black and white made it look more creepy and that way it emphasizes the red colour of theletter ‘T’. Using the red gives connotation of blood, gore,danger and is often used in the horror genre. I think what challenges the horror genre is the fact that it has the victim onthe front of the poster and not the villain.

Film Poster

Magazine front covers were slightly more difficult to develop because they don’t usually stick to a specific genre. Instead, they look at different films and different genres of films so I looked into magazines like Total Film. The coverline colours usually correspond to the colour of the image. This a convention that is used with most magazines. The masthead is the biggest piece of text on the front cover, usually in the centre at the top or to the left of the magazine. The date and issue are often placed on the side and there are often buzz words used on the front cover. The main coverline is much bigger than the rest and is placed in the centre or over the image.

My magazine front cover sticks to most of these conventions, having the masthead as the biggest piece of text and to the left. The date and time are on the side and the image takes up most of the space on the front cover which makes it the main focus of the front cover and the coverlines are on either side of the magazine. The main coverline is slightly of centre of the magazine, over the top of the image and is a bigger font size than the other coverlines. What challenges the conventions of a magazine is the colour scheme. The use of the red keeps in theme with the horror genre but the black and white also links to the image colour. The font on ‘fixation’ also links to the horror genre because it has a look of liquid about it and the red makes it look similar to blood.

Magazine Front Cover