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

Firstly, as my product is created to advertise a hybrid genre, I did a lot of research into conventions that were common in both and found that it was essential I employ three main ones which are:

Building tension; The idea of something “bigger”; & An idea of supernatural powers at a higher level.

Building tension is key to the thriller and supernatural genres alike so it was important that I include it in my own trailer. I did analysed other trailers to see how they built suspense: I found that trailers such as HATE, Shutter Island and Nightmare on Elm Street employed many short, sharp cuts in order to add pace and create tension. *Insert clips of trailers* Here you can see I have used this convention within my own trailer *clip of trailer*

The idea of something “bigger” is primarily a concept taken from the thriller genre and can be seen in Shutter Island *clip & explaination*

However, this ties in very much with my next point an idea of supernatural powers at a higher level. This is primarily associated with the supernatural and horror genre and I was determined to have a supernatural element within my trailer. In the case of my trailer, the something bigger IS a supernatural element but it is not fully revealed to the audience in the trailer.

This leads nicely on to another convention of trailers, specifically those of the thriller and supernatural genre, which is enigma codes. A lot of trailers such as NIGHTMARE ELM use strange imageries such as the room full of snow etc *show clip* to make the audience question why it is there and what significance it has. I have done this in my trailer by use of *insert clip and explain*

I took inspiration from a lot of camera shots to create my trailer as again, a lot of these serve as enigma codes:

Walking down street in NIGHTMARE ELM PLL opening scene Leaning over girl on floor in NIGHTMARE ELM

I really liked the use of reverse style editing in HATES but decided this would only be effective if I used it all the way through and didn’t want it to be a complete copy. I developed the idea of reverse style editing by finding another way to suggest that things had happened in the past. I did this by shifting the colours from normal colour to black and white. I have included one shot that shows the character reversing *insert shot* but have also included the transition to black and white so that it doesn’t look to false and forced.

As my trailer is a teaser, I didn’t want to give too much of the storyline away as I only wanted it to last around a minute and a half. I decided that because of this I could definitely show the story in an non-chronological order, which is commonly done in many trailers anyway to create a sense of mystery as the audience doesn’t know what part of the narrative appears where. The use of a disjointed storyline in the trailer gives the audience an idea about the film but no resolution, which again provides enigma codes and an idea of “something bigger” that will draw the audience in.

As my first lot of research before I joined with my partner was focused on supernatural horror, this was where my initial ideas stemmed from. I got the idea of a cult from the skeleton key, which depicts many imageries of witchcraft and cult rituals *insert clips*. I later developed these ideas to adhere more to the thriller genre by including more action based shots such as in shutter island to create the idea that “the cult” or whatever the antagonist is, is something that should be fought against physically rather than with ‘magic’.

I wanted to try and incorporate the supernatural part without appearing to horror-y and decided to do this with a lot of the colours I used. For example, the intertitling used in NIGHTMARE ELM is red, which instantly connotes blood and violence. In my trailer, however, the text is white but as it enters there is a blue mist behind it which I feel adds something a little extra. I took inspiration from HATES, as I felt the way that the text moved onto the screen was one of the main things that hinted that the “something more” in the trailer was a supernatural element. This is exactly what I sought to do with my intertitles, and the reason I chose blue was because it is a cold colour and I felt this fitted well with the idea of the supernatural but didn’t adhere to the gory side of horror.

As my media product is a hybrid genre there are many conventions that overlap. One of these is the gender of the protagonist used. For example, in HATES the protagonist is female. In Shutter Island, it is male. In Woman in Black, it is male. Nightmare on Elm Street, there is actually a few who different genders are. I decided to make the creative decision to have a female character as I felt the audience would be able to sympathise with her more, especially with regards to the supernatural elements because in a lot of horror films the female is the protagonist. However, to not rule out my male audience I also have a quite dominant male character that features in the trailer, and helps to adhere more to the thriller side of things with characters such as DiCaprio in Shutter Island.

A lot of the settings I have used are dark and dim, which is something I found in many of the trailers I analysed. I feel this is essential for establishing the genre of my trailer and is something that can instantly comminucate the mood to the audience.

The only REAL part of my product that challenges any conventions is that it starts in disruption. Todorov’s narrative theory states that something must start in equilibrium but I have decided to challenge this by starting my trailer straight into a disruption as I think it is a good tool to draw the audience in. *Insert clip* the muffled ‘help me’ and the characters facial expression shows straight away that there is a problem that must be solved and I think this instantly portrays the genre of the film and keeps the audience interested.

Ancillary

Very much used the conventional layout of Empire magazine for my own – including text and image placement, fonts etc

Colour scheme of my poster is very much like the Woman In Black – blue tones to connote supernatural

Pose of actress on magazine cover similar to Jen Lawrence to attract male audience and to show the action themes – all females on Empire appear like this

Presentation of actress on film poster is very much like HATES – not looking at the camera creates enigma codes

Poster has a background images like HATES, WIB, SHUTTER ISLAND – adheres to conventions because it establishes the setting but also leaves audience wondering why the significance

The colour scheme of magazine cover takes influence from Empire – using red as an accept. I developed the yellows in my mock up to blues in my ancillary to establish genre