Question 1- in what ways does your media production use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

For Our A2 media studies coursework we were given the project of making our own teaser trailer, magazine front cover and film poster. We were expected to work in groups of three or four, each working together to create and compete all aspects of the brief mirroring the work of a real film production institution.Codes and conventions in media can be separated into 3 distinct groups - technical (camera techniques & shots), symbolic (i.e. clothing, colours) written and audio (music etc). These give the text meaning and determine the response of the viewer. This is also very important in terms of making a film (or a teaser in our case) that fit the criteria its target audience can familiarise with. For example; for our teaser trailer we first had the idea to produce a Comedy horror but found much difficulty to get forward the comedy elements and found that humour was not one of our strong points. Our next motive was to explore what kind of genre our teaser trailer highlighted by the mise en-scene that we had used. The outcome was therefore a Romantic thriller due to the slight change of story line.

The generic feature of a thriller is entrapment. The key element of creating a Thriller when researched show that most films highlight claustrophobic spaces such as planes, elevators, tube trains and ECT. This idea is shown in films like Flightplan, snakes on a plane, phone booth and panic room which all show claustrophobic spaces and a sense on entrapment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxZkcSIveCw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p07lBCfC2q8

The codes and conventions of a thriller is normally conveyed through sound and editing to show suspense, this is normally done through quick cuts, camera angle changes and lighting. They often include fast pacing of shots and numerous actions to communicate tension and a sense of confusion for the audience which eventually teasers them into wanting to see more.

The importance of teasing your audience is also apart of conventions, for example how long the length in time the teaser trailer is shown. The dark knight’s teaser trailer (AS SHOWN BELOW) runs for 59 seconds. It starts of by showing certificate approval sign for all audiences which runs for 4 seconds then the Warner bros logo which slowly appears. A serious of voice over’s overlap as the light slowly breaks to show the logo of batman. It then reveals the name of the film ‘the dark knight’ and the release date ‘summer 2008’ but does not state the actual release date.Most teaser trailers use this method of teasing the audience by not giving away too much information two main enigmas are shown in this teaser trailer being only the name and the release date.

When researching films that closely show the genre we are working on. We found that not all thrillers or romantics thrillers run for less then one minute without using enigmas. The example of the dark knight shows that Warner bros can keep teasing their audience as they rely on fans to already know the story of batman and the joker. So when a teaser trailer like this is shown it is much easier for their target audience to familiarise with the story line in oppose to an unknown romantic thriller teaser like ‘Death of love’. This is how we broke conventions of a teaser trailer by allowing the audience to follow a story line but still refrain from giving away everything. We did this by using enigmas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJXVuor-4_I

in the middle of our teaser to show our audience the twist to our plot. We also did this by changing the speed and tempo of the music... (WATCH FROM 0:13 – 0:20)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs9LlONKWPA

(THIS PART OF QUESTION 1 WAS WRITTEN BY THEON)

Looking at examples of thriller movie trailers, it is noticable that a majority of them use lots of diegetic sound effects of things such as exploisons, gunshots, lightning, car crashes, violence and etc. They mostly also use the convention of using fast paced music to accompany the trailer(usually between 120-160 BPM). This is because the quick tempo of the music makes the music seem more exciting and is best suited to scenes with fast paced action happening which most thriller trailers have. Generally they also use rock/metal instrumentation such as bass, electric guitar and drums. I think this is because it makes the trailer have a tougher sound to it and connotes a sense of danger and darkness.

Some thriller trailers also make use of classical instrumentation such as strings, brass and woodwind sections. However this is usaully films with big budgets that can afford to pay an orchestra and a composer to score for the film(such as John Williams or Hanz Zimmer) rather than to use MIDI instruments in a sequencer formats such logic or cubase which is cheaper. Also the music for these type of trailers are usually in minor keys which give them a more darker and gloomier tonality.

Some thriller trailers that abide by these conventions are:

The Transporter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XduBgb5AYFw

features music with a heavy metal type sondtrack featuring instruments such as electric guitar with distortion bass, drums and vocals in rapping style. It also uses diegetic sound effects of sirens, exploisons and punching noises.

Casino Royale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzkzv57c5dE

includes the famous james bond theme tune played on electric guitar. But is also mixed with orchestral instrumentation such as the trumpet and string section playing the melody. And is generally accompanied by the rest of the orchastral playing backing stabs on beats 1 & 2+ at 0:47 and then quaver triplets at 0:58 and stops at 1:09. The pace of the music is also quite fast playing at around 140 beats per minute. The trailer also includes diegetic sounds of exploisons and violence occuring.

The Bourne Ultimatum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlHwct4D3Pw

uses a majority of diegetic sounds at the start such as lightning car crashes, heartbeats, gunshots and violence. However at 0:50 a subtle rock type music enters( similar to the music used in the fight scenes of the matrix) with the use of electric guitars, bass drums and other synthesised instruments.

Similary for the music in our trailer i decided to use similar conventions of the above and compose a rock/metal type tune because it sounded good and made the trailer seem more demonic and brought out a more dark and evil side to the footage already captured especially with the idea of there being two killers. I also set the tempo to 120 BPM so that the music was fast and exciting similar to the transporter trailer. I also used instruments such as bass, drums, electric guitar (typical rock band setup) and a monster grumbling sound effect to set a un evil atmsphere beneath the other instruments heard.

Death of love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs9LlONKWPA

The trailer also contains a company logo(created by Julia) and theme music displayed in the start for the 1st 2 seconds. This was originlly music i had composed to be included in the actual trailer, however it didn't work as well with footage captured so was used for the company theme music instead . The company theme music and logo used at the start follows a convention that other larger film companies use such as 20th century Fox, Columbia, Universal, MGM, Disney, Warner Brothers and many more.

..(this part continued by Julia)

In the year of 2010 we have noticed a lot of films being released here in the UK have been showing very good examples of thriller elements like shutter island (directed by Martin Scorsese), ‘from Paris with love’ (directed by pieree morel). ‘Legion’ and ‘The crazies’. This shows that we are in some ways following fashion with the genre that is looking to be more popular now then it was a year or two ago. Although romantic thrillers are not always so common in May 10 2002 ‘Unfaithful’ directed by Adrianlyne was released and was is the genre of a romantic thriller. When researching on YouTube for a ‘teaser; trailer for this film it was not found but a theatrical trailer running for 2 minutes 22 seconds was This shows that the content of the film could not be shown as a teaser (showing for one minute or less)Or 20^th centaury fox found that it would be much more effective to release a theatrical trailer in oppose to a teaser. However, in many ways we havechallenged this theory that thriller trailers cannot be shown for less the a minute as our teaser runs for 25 seconds still revealing some information that the audience can understand.We decided to use a number of conventions from sub genre of a Romantic thriller such as using low key tones of lighting with some sharp shadows of light (as shown in the print screens below)

the same technique is also shown in Unfaithful directed by Adrian lyne, released in 2002 and felt this connoted something much deeper then what is shown in the surface that the audience would be intrigued by.

We used the concept of feeling entrapped and decided to film in college which is quiet a confined space in general. The lockers, railings and symbolic methods of using doors connote feeling closed off from the outside of school grounds. Allowing this to conventionally meet the genre of a thriller it also sets a setting of a school location due to the red lockers. This is shown twice in our teaser trailer to show the intensity of a killer being loose on school grounds. Using college ground was also very convenient as access to equipment was easy to get hold of but it was also because films such as scream, directed by Wes craven (1996) and scary movie 1 directed by keenen IvoryWayans,(2000) of the ‘helpless cheerleader’ scene.

In terms of conventions of a teaser trailer, we used the production company name and logo at the start of the teaser as most teasers and theatrical trailers do. Our logo it self is conventional. Shown below are examples of logos for production companies such as Universal pictures, working title and dream works which all use circular and round images of either an eclipse (working title) earth (universal) and the half moon(DreamWorks).

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Production logos are often used at the start of a film or for promotional use to brand whattheyhave produced. We conventionally used this method in our teaser trailer by using a supernova (as shown opposite) as the dominant logo.

In terms of actors, we used a Caucasian figure as the dominant character although it is not highlighted in the teaser trailer until towards the end. This much dominant figure was also played by a woman. This is where we began to Challenge the conventions of our sub genre by making the woman the much more dominant killer in comparison to her obsessed love interest, played by a black male. It was more practical to use black and white actresses due substantial amount of ethnic minorities in our college. We can then target a larger amount of audiences to fit our demographics as it can appeal to males and females. It may be more likely that it may appeal to more females then males because it has elements of romance as well as a dominant female character who is not just the ‘helpless victim’.

“Women screaming in terror have been Hollywood mainstay-even when the films were silent” In most horror and thriller films the killer is always played by a male character whilst the woman is always portrayed as the ‘helpless victim’. For example the actress Jamie lee Curtis stared in ‘Halloween’ (1978) directed by john carpenter established her self as the “ultimate scream queen” for her role in Halloween and later in Scream (1996). In our teaser trailer we challenged the stereotypical perception of a woman being the ‘helpless victim’ by making maryam (who played Stacie in our teaser trailer) to be the predominant killer.

Also thinking about costume of Mise en scene, and from the sketches I produced

I decided that it would be the best option to highlight her as the popular pretty girl for the first half of the teaser trailer. This is where you see her wearing a dress then a coat this in many ways broke conventions because most films located in a school or college always portray the main girl to have big boobs, long blonde hair and be a cheerleader as shown in films like scary movie 1 or valentine (2001). The other half shows her to be more un lady like and be wearing a hooded jumper. This is where we made separations from the ‘so sweet’ girl to the ‘so bitter’ girl.

Modern films also challenged these conventions by creating a female killer like, Friday 13^th(1980) directed by Sean s. Cunningham. The original version shows a woman as being the killer and recent sequels star a male killer. Notice how female killers are much rarer in big hit films. Perhaps audiences feel much more threatened by a male figure then a woman because we stereotypically expect women to be nurturing and motherly and not be capable of murder.

It is apparent that many thrillers or romantic thrillers are predictable. However we tried to challenge this theory by twisting the plot, giving ‘Stacie’ the upper hand. The plot also has a sense of irony; being that the killer is then killed by a killer. Although this may be confusing and difficult to understand it does put forward a message across to the audiences. Many films explore the use of cliff hanger endings and many explore the values of a story and a message. For example ‘The departed’ (2006) a Crime thriller directed by Martin Scorsese shows this repetition throughout the film about the ‘mole’ (or rat) in law and in crime. It is quiet comical however that the film ends with a rat on the window sill symbolising and representing what the film was all about.

Undertones of humour and comedy in thrillers are sometimes very effective. We also developed this method in our teaser trailer by showing how childish Stacie’s admirer is by having his ‘to kill list’ Although these shots were originally for our first ideas for a horror comedy we decided to keep this scene as we thought it still worked well with our plot as well as the genre of a romantic killer.

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Conventions of a Film Poster:

To be eye-catching/captivating.

To have a focal picture that will be intriguing.

To display a large title that is easily read.

Suggestion of the film genre.

May use famous actors to promote the film.

Will attract a target audience.

A tagline is usually evident on the poster.

Age certification usually displayed.

Coming soon or release date displayed.

Directors and Production Company displayed.

(INFORMATION FOUND ON…)

http://www.slideshare.net/guest78c406/codes-and-conventions-of-promotional-film-material-2668179

The conventions of a film poster have changed through out time and have evolved and changed through methods of new technology. Olden day film posters were not as graphic and as colourful as modern day methods to promote a film. For example, the posters opposite; ‘Black widow’ (1987) Directed by Bob Rafelson and ‘Scream’(1996) appear to have more writing on them, giving hints about the film in comparison to film posters in the 20^th and 21^st centaury. In the ‘scream’ poster, the picture also looks very graphical rather then it showing a photograph of a girl looking very frightened.

The diagram below shows one film poster we have found immediate comparison with.ShutterIsland (2010) Directed by Martin Scorsese.

This comparison shows that we were on the right track into promoting a film poster in the genre of a Romantic thriller. The images on our poster of a male figure and a female figure communicates to the audience as a symbol of passion, and passion gone wrong as most of the people we asked as apart of our audience research also agrees. Two film posters that also show this form of passion in the genre of a Romantic thriller is ‘Unfaithful’ And ‘Wicker Park’. Both film posters Cleary demonstrate a clear message to the audience about the content of the film by using a male and female figure.

Our film poster conventionally uses things like film credit (which are normally placed at the bottom of the poster). We also do this with our 2^nd film poster. Another thing is that we created a clear space for the release date to be seen to the audience as well as the title of the film. We have also used a focal point of our poster (of the male figure and the female figure) to gain viewers interest. All these elements used are to communicate to the audience that it maybe something along the lines of a romantic thriller, or a horror film (due to the blood shown on the female’s hands

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The diagram above shows how we compared our Film magazine front cover with film magazine EMPIRE's issue for 'Sin city'. We identified some similarities between the two front covers as well as differences of how we broke, and developed conventions of a real magazine front cover.

We noticed that most film magazine front covers sometimes choose to use the same photographs as the film poster whilst other use different ones but sometimes use similar or near enough same font as the film poster. Although this is not always common we developed the conventions by using the same font as we did in our posters.

The diagram below shows where we found inspiration to produce our film magazine front cover.

We decided to use a different picture for the magazine however to attract readers attention. we found the photograph represented what the genre was about. The wine bottle almost looks like a knife from the reflected light. The wine bottle it self connotes romance and elegance whilst the hand dripping with blood connotes a sense of fear and these two messages juxtapose the "bitter sweet" connotation of the genre of our film teaser trailer.

Release dates of Film magazines.

chronologically, a teaser trailer is shown to the audiences members months or weeks before general release, and so is a teaser poster only revealing the title of the film sometimes without a release date.( as shown in the example of Jennifers body(2009) directed by karyan kusuma )

When doing some official research about release date. We noticed that all film magazines headline a film two or three months after the general release. This is probably because to give the readers a review of the film in hope that it may eventually encourage them to see the film if they have not seen in already.

For example - Sin city was released in April 1 2005 but the Empire magazine released a headline issue on it on August 2005, 4 months after general release. (cropped example version)

Changes to our magazine front cover.

we had realised that copy righted images were used in our magazine front cover. The initial idea was to put other images of films on our magazine cover inspired by Real magazine front covers like EMPIRE magazine and TOTAL FILM. I then realised that maybe they are print screen images the magazine has taken themselves to avoid copyrighting regulations. Examples are shown below

In the new version of our film magazine front cover we decided not to put any reference in picture from of other films and keep our film title as the dominant feature.