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

real media products?

Main productThe first frame of my short movie is a preview board that appears just before the film. I included this typical convention as it is a feature that was very common with existing and successful products. In this way, this convention in particular is developing forms and conventions rather than challenging them. I chose this because I believe that it is what makes the film appear professional and so to challenge this particular convention may have made my work seem less authentic and believable.

The second frame of my movie again develops a stereotypicalconvention of real media products. This is due to the fact that the title is usually the opening frame of the actual movie. However, as I used a locked frame so that my actress was walking towards the camera, I decided to keep the title positioned across top of the hills so that it looked like part ofthe shot. This was not something that I found a lot of within my existing products research and so in this way I have challenged conventions of real media products.

This particular frame of my movie challenges a lot of existing media products. This is because in the majority of films that I have researched or seen, when a text appears, the camerausually focuses on the phone so that the audience can read the message from the phone screen. I challenged this convention in that I tried to make it more interactive by displaying the notification within the full shot. This was something that I thought worked really well as it highlighted the use of social media in today’s society which is which is what my movie focused on. This was something I had seen similar uses of in teen programmes such as Hollyoaks.

The next frame also demonstrated the same conventions but Instead displayed text messages rather than social media notifications.

My last demonstration of these conventions appeared in this frame. This shot in particular displayed a Facebook notification. All of these interactive conventions of texts and social media alerts were accompanied with their associated sounds so that they were more believable and authentic to what they were intended to represent.

The final frame of my movie again developed existingConventions of real media products in that it is common for the credits to be the ending frame. I decided to stick withthis convention as it indicated the end of my movie successfully and went well the the locked shot. If I had challenged this convention then there may not have been a definite end to my movie and may have appeared as though there was going to be more, or a follow up which wasnot the case.

The concept of my movie as a whole challenged a lot of ideas regarding social media. Although this was not aconvention in its own right, I decided to challenge these stereotypes of social media to raise awareness of the problemsthat it can cause in today’s society. I decided to do this as I feel like it is something that is not usually explored but that a lot of people can relate to. In this way my movie challenged stereotypical ideas of ‘teen dramas’.

Ancillary TaskMovie Poster

A convention that I decided to develop within my movie poster was the inclusion of badges linked with awards that the movie may have won. I decided to create a badge similar to the Sundance festival awards to make my movie seem more professional. However, I decided to have this convention take up a lot of spacewithin the background of my poster so that it stood out to the audience. Although I ensured it did not distract from the rest of the poster by making it more transparent so that it blended into the background. This was something that I somewhat challenged as I had not seen this presentation of a badge in this way on a movie poster as they tended to be small and located in bottom corners of the page.

Another convention that I developed within my poster creation was the Institutional information located in the bottom right third of the page. This was a typical convention of existing products that I found and was a feature that I wanted to keep as it added to the authenticity and professionalism of the poster.

I also developed the convention of ratings on my poster task. This was whereby I included a rating from The Guardian of 5 stars to make it Seem as though the newspaper had watched and ranked my movie. This was something that I found was very common of existing products and so I decided to keep this convention as it made the poster more believable.

The main image of my poster that acted as the background was a convention that I decided to develop. This was because the majority of existing posters that I researched and used for inspiration also did this. I found that the posters that appealed to me most had also used this convention and so I felt that it would be beneficial for me to use in my own work.

Ancillary Task Magazine Review Page

A convention that I developed within my magazine review page was the Drop cap feature. I used this because I found that it was common in many existing movie magazines and was something that made the article appear professional and believable. It also indicates to the audience clearly where the article starts and so is a useful feature to include.

Another convention that I developed was the inclusion of a sponsor. I used the BFI as my chosen sponsor given the content, production and cast of my movie. For this reason I felt like it was authentic to mention the sponsor as they are linked to the movie.

When looking at inspirational products, the magazine I looked closely at included award badges and recognition. I felt like this made the movie and article itself appear more professional and so I decided to develop this convention in my own work. To do this I created a symbol alike to that of Sundance Festival and then accompanied this badge with a piece of text indicating what category my film had won.

Typical conventions that I had to develop within my work were the use of page numbers and credits. These are set features of the vast majority of professional magazines and so I felt like I should develop them to ensure that my review page had the very basic conventions at least. These included both article and photography credits.

A stereotypical convention of existing media products that I developed was the use of a move title. This was necessary to develop so that my audience knew what the title of my movie was. Without this, the page would not have been professional or even believable. I decided to use a large font for this so that it would clearly stand out to the audience which is also a common convention. Just underneath the title I also included another typical convention of the release date as small additional information for the audience which would indicate when the movie was available to watch and appear authentic to real review pages.

This convention of movie facts was not a feature that I found to be very common when looking at existing products. However, I did find this feature on my inspirational product and so I decided to develop this convention as I felt it was unusual but effective. This feature added to the creativity of my review page and perhaps something that would distinguish my work from other competing magazines.

Another convention that I developed was the ratings from The Guardian newspaper. I decided to develop this as the majority of review pages include ratings from companies to demonstrate the opinions on the film to the audience. This is one of the main features of review pages and so I included it for this reason.

When researching existing movie magazines I did not find many which highlighted social media links. Given the content of my movie and the fact that my audience would be frequent users of social media, I decided to include these links as they would be likely to increase awareness of the film.

I developed existing conventions of media products in regards to the captions that anchored my images within my review page. This is a basic convention of many magazines and so I felt that it was necessary to develop the basics.

Another feature that I further developed was the use of slugs in the top corners of my pages. The slug in the top left indicated what type of page it was, ie. A review page, so that the audience were aware of what they were reading or could skip past it if they wished. The slug in the top right corner simply highlighted additional information of a website link to the magazine in case they had access to technology to perhaps boost advertisement for the magazine.