Evaluation Question One

 

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

 

 

The main aim of film trailers is to promote the bigger picture, in trailer terms the bigger picture is the film, trailers create immediate interest of the film, before it come out. The film trailer allows the audience to create brief ideas in their head of what they think the film is about. For example (genre, storyline, actors) all of these things will tell the audience if they will be interested in seeing the film. Usually in the build-up of a film there is more than one trailer, the first being the shortest, and gradually getting longer, this is all part of teasing your target audience and markets your film really well. When the film has made a name for itself and the public keep wanting more, this I when you make a website and a poster like we have done.

 

The usual conventions of teaser trailers are:

1. The length of trailers usually vary between 2  and 3 minutes
2. Trailers include key moments from the film which are not placed in the sequence of the film, and do not give away any crucial plot details in order to add to the suspense of the release of the film. The title of the film is usually presented on screen at the end of the trailer along with the release date and any other information.
3. The names of the main actors in the film are usually put on screen nearer the beginning of the trailer so that the audience know who to expect to see in the film. This can be important as audiences will sometimes to decide to see a film based on the stars in it.
4. Some teaser trailers include the names of directors and producers who were involved in the making of the film being advertised – this helps the audiences to make connections with previously successful and recognised films. Some teaser trailers use on-screen text which gives important information about the film, such text is usually in time with the beat of the background music. Most teaser trailers are accompanied by music which suits the genre.

 

The usual conventions of the Horror trailers I am studying are things like, questions being left in the audiences mind things like, what happens to the main character,?  Examples of trailers that do this are ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Quarantine’ and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. The text used in horror trailers usually has a creepy edge to it with the use of dark colours such as black or red. A young, vulnerable female is usually used as the main character. Horror films tend to bring out common fears in people, such as the dark.

 

Teaser trailers which have influenced my media product are:

 

‘Grave Encounters’ is one of these because I really like the way the trailer insinuates that it is found footage.. The trailer’s genre is horror and is similar to the idea of my trailer in the sense that the main characters are being chased by something; another similarity with my trailer is the way in which the main character is a young female who is reporting the events that are taking place. This is something that influenced my trailer so that the audience have a clear idea of what the trailer is about without giving too much away. Another similarity between the ‘Grave Encounters’ trailer and my media product is that, rather than the main character holding the camera and filming herself, she is being filmed with a hand-held camera by someone else. I think this was a good idea because you get to see her reactions rather clearly, and you can emote from her when she is talking to the camera, also close up shots look really good and effective. Another similarity is how they edited some of the shots to gray-scale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Paranormal Activity’ is a film which influenced me in the production of my trailer the most. The trailer for the film is very similar to mine in the sense that it is filmed using a hand held camera and imitates the idea of something unknown after the main characters. The low quality of the filming supports the idea that the filming is found footage, which is something that I decided to do whilst developing my media product. Similar to ‘Grave Encounters’ the film has more than one main character, it only has two main characters, which means the film each other, but at night they leave the camera on every night to find what is disturbing them. The audience are told at the beginning of the trailer through the use of text that the characters are missing and their footage has been found, which is presumably what the film is based around. I also wanted to create this feeling of questions through my trailer, however I thought that the use of text is very effective as it adds suspense in both mine and ‘Paranormal Activity’.

 

 

 

 

 

The final trailer that had a big influence on my trailer id ‘The Devil Inside’. This trailer does tell you a story in its own particular way, you establish relationships and understand the story, however when the trailer is finished, you want more. The beginning is amazing, and shares similarities with my trailer in terms of a female talking, however it is not via a phone call. There is also quite a lot of characters in the film it seems, and we have four in ours, and it might not be necessarily a mystery thing after them, but you can determine there is a mystery to be solved.

 

The way my trailer utilises conventions; one way is that it starts off with the main character briefly explaining the storyline of the film and giving the audience an idea of what to expect. This starts off as being the narration of the trailer which is then presented as text, and then the young girl is describing her ‘experience’. The text I have included in my trailer is white so as to stand out on a plain black background, but at the same time I try to portray a creepy feeling by making the text slowly grow towards the screen, which I have reinforced through the trailer by having this effect at the beginning and the end. The trailer creates a sense of mystery by the way in which it does not reveal what is after the main character, therefore leaving the audience with questions and wanting to know more. My trailer includes several different clips that are not necessarily in chronological order but give the audience an idea as to what the film is about. 

 

 

 

 

 

The main character for my product is a young female who I have attempted to portray as being vulnerable through her clothing and make-up. I wanted her to wear something plain like a top with nothing on at all, symbolising the film name ABANDONED. The sound I have used to accompany the trailer is something that I believe suits the genre and fits in well with the rhythm of the trailer and the different shots and text. The loud fuzz at the end is particularly effective as it adds suspense. Additional sounds such as loud bangs have also been included in the trailer to compliment the transitions between shots.

 

I believe my trailer challenges others in terms of telling the story without giving out to much information, and I love the way we used a voice over mainly through the beginning of the trailer, voice overs normally tend to give lots away, other trailers usually want to tell a story, out voice over indicates how scared the main Female character is.

 

My poster also shares similar conventions with others, which a main central image, relating the the name of the film, and with information about the producers/actors and other things at the bottom, we also have a slogan which is ‘watch terror unfold’ this continues throughout. I think my poster challenges other posters in terms of how much the central image relates to the title, because her face looks so lost.