Evaluation Question 1) In what ways does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Q1. In what ways does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? - Gradice

There are specific forms and conventions when completing specific tasks. When it comes to real media products, there are precise forms and conventions that need to be followed which allows the products to be identified easily. The outline of this course requires us to make different media products, such as a movie poster, a magazine front cover and movie trailer.

 Before we had a final idea of what the poster would look like, we had to research on how typical horror movie posters looked like and what was the iconic feature that each poster had. Based on our research, we took it on board, and came up with a few ideas of what we wanted it to look like. Here is an example of what one of our posters could of look like:

A movie poster is used to advertise a film, there are several sizes printed to suite the different markets. They would normally have an image- the image would usually be the main actor of the film, with this image, it can set the mood/tone of the film and gives the audience a taste of what the film could be about. A movie poster would usually have texts, which would usually be the film title in a large font; the texts would include the main actor’s name. It could also include a tagline, release date and the name of the director.

When it comes to Horror film posters, the image would generally be a close up or medium shot. The character used in the image would be either the protagonist or antagonist. The antagonist would create suspence, disgust and cause fear for the audience, on the other hand, the protagonist would be portrayed as vulnerable, and their non-verbal communication would connote a sense of fear.

Horror Conventions: Martin

Our Teaser Trailer is a psychological horror which relies on character's fears, guilt, beliefs errie sound effects, relevant music and emotional instability to build up tension and further the plot, psychological horror differs from other types of horror sub genres such as slashers as they relie on gore and violence to get their horror effect, also another difference is that where other horror sub genres there may be some sort of monster which is the antagonist whereas in psychological horror it may just be a normal human being, whose horrific identity is often not revealed until well into the work, or even at the very end of the film. Other characteristics that psychological horror has is that they tend to be subtle compared to traditional horror and typically less physical harm , as it works it usually has something to do with sexual health and relationships with women and men mainly on the factors of mentally affecting the audience rather than the display of graphic imagery seen in the slasher sub genre.


Our trailer followed the common convention of the antagonist having some sort of connection to the protagonist. In our trailer the protagonist is a student and our antagonist is the teacher so there is a clear teacher-pupil relationship between them, relationships between the antagonist and protagonist is a common convention in psychological horror which we followed. This convention was used in our trailer as challenging it, could make the trailer a bit confusing however if  we did challenge it, this can add to the mystery of the trailer and make the audience think a bit more. Also with our protagonist we particularly chose as she appears to be pretty, small and innocent and following the rules and norms of school and wider society by not being involved in criminal activity like taking illegal drugs which is  common with teenagers or involved in sexual activity.

Ripley (protagonist)

Titi (Antagonist)

Another convention that we used is our final girls name, which is Ripley although it isn’t clear what her name is in our teaser trailer. Her name is a unisex name, which also follows the final girl theory by Carol Clover. A convention that we challenged is having a male antagonist, which makes it interesting in the way our victim reacts to a female antagonist, and I believe that will add to the audiences experience and make the trailer a little less predictable. Also there is a confrontation between the antagonist and protagonist where the protagonist cowers away which challenges the convention of the final girl theory, where the protagonist is meant to gain masculine traits and rise against the antagonist, this then makes the story less predictable and doesn’t show how it ends making the audience want to see more.

A convention we challenged is the 'Male gaze' which we did not use in our trailer as we didn't include any males in the trailer, as a group we did not feel that it was an important convention that we needed to include in our teaser trailer.

Another convention we developed is by using a shot of the protagonist running away from the antagonist, instead of the victim (protagonist) falling down which is a common convention in most horror films, she escaped the grasps of our antagonist.

In our trailer we also developed a convention we saw in a film in the same sub genre, we used a black and white effect similar to try and achieve a camera effect, this is very similar to what Paranormal activity  did in there films, and as they are also of the psychological horror sub genre. As a group we felt that added another dimension to the film so we also wanted to try and achieve this.

Paranormal Activity Camera effect

Inhumana black and white effect

Another convention we challenged is by using a signature weapon, which is really common in horror films in the Slasher genre, we did not have a weapon featured in our trailer which also adds to the suspense and mystery of our trailer. Most Slasher films have a signature weapon that is symbolic of the film such as Freddy Krueger’s glove in Nightmare on Elm Street.

 

Magazine Conventions: Titilope

Whilst analysing the horror magazine conventions, we found out that most magazine front covers are filled with grim colours such as Grey, Red and Dark Blue. These are examples of real media magazine products.

The first thing we realised that challenged the forms and conventions of real media productions was representing a Black female on the front cover of the magazine. An example of this is, Halle Berry in “Gothika”.  She stood out on the front cover as she was the leading star in the movie. This isn’t common in a horror movie to have a female on the cover of a magazine; having a leading role as antagonist in the movie.

Image Of Magazine featuring
'Gothika' .

This is because in the days of the movie ‘Gothika’, men were seen as powerful and dominant in society. They had the role of being the leader in their families; they were also seen as being more violent than women so therefore, they were more likely to be given the role of an antagonist in a movie. Women were thought of to be more tender, loving, gentle and caring.

However, we represented a female as an antagonist instead because, our trailer is recent in current society. Nowadays, most women are in powerful positions and some are in positions that are above men.  In addition, women aren’t so subjective anymore because there has been a ‘march of progress’ of women against patriarchy in society; so they don’t feel the need to perform their role of being a house-wife.

Image Of Powerful Woman.

Image Of Dominant Woman.

The font of the Mast-head is big and bold because whilst we were researching horror magazines, we saw that this is a very common element in magazines of that genre. This is done to attract the attention of the company’s target audience so they purchase the magazine.  We also chose this type of font because it carried along the message we wanted the audience to get about the trailer. The “I” is shaped like a knife because; it supports the codes and conventions of a horror magazine.

Image Of Lady In Shower
From Movie: 'Psycho'.

Image Of Knife/Sword
under skull, could symbolise
evil, death or war.

The ‘puff’ was included on the front cover of the magazine because, it supported parts of the codes and conventions of a horror movie magazine. Upper case letters also follow codes and conventions of magazines of this genre. We used the colour Grey because it is often seen as quiet, calm, boring and conservative. It is also a colour that is intermediate as it includes both Black and White, therefore, Grey can be used to describe a process that changes thought into action.  The lead character in the trailer (antagonist) is first perceived to be boring, lifeless and quiet. However things change and the character becomes violent and full of action and energy.

1.       In what Ways Does Your Media Production Use, Develop or Challenge Forms & Conventions of Real Media Products? - WENDY ABIRI

(Horror Movie Sub Genre)

In this question I will discuss, both how we challenged, used and developed the stereotypical conations that are highly associated with the horror movie sub genre. I will be discussing those of the psychological horror, which is the sub genre of our teaser trailer “Inhumania”. Our movie sub genre belongs to psychological horror this include films like The Grudge, Black Swan, The Sixth Sense & Rosemary’s Baby. As part of the planning and research stages it was compulsory of us to have some background knowledge of the  sub genre of a whole , which entailed us of watching videos of our chosen genre and applying key aspects that we enjoyed, and emulating the scenes , shot and lightings that we enjoyed !

We as a group were determined to analyze, the main conations associated with psychological horror and here are them as followed:

-          Quick Cuts – To create suspense, and to create a “don’t know what going to happen atmosphere”!

-          Slow Pace – Slow pace can also, help used loud sound such as “BANGS” or “THUMPS” to scare the audience and “keep them on there toes”!

-          Tension – Tension to anticipate that something’s about to happen this is essentially used in all types of teaser trailers no matter what genre they are

-          Foreboding Scenes – Scenes where something is anticipated to happen such as slowly walling behind someone in the dark.

-          Dark Lighting – Dark lighting to establish that it’s a horror film, plus its used to not show everything to the reader but just enough.

 

Dark lighting within our teaser tailer so we are in essence sticking to the conventions

 And a shot of a typical dark shot which sets the scene for a horror theme and a forboding atmosphere!

-          Sinister Character – A character / antagonist sometimes covered in blood or disfigured to show it’s the “bad” character

-          Shot which establishes the scene

-          Weapon – An Iconic weapon that the antagonist uses to kill its victims

-          Iconic Mask - An iconic weapon is used within horror films such as Scream – the Mask and Freddie Kruger with the long knifes as hand.

-          Little Blood – Physiological horror are known for the use of little blood only scene of torture

-         30 to 50 sec Length -

-          Less Physical Harm

-          Discomfort in Viewer

-          Frighten the Audience Mentally

-          Suffering

On a collective, we not only tried to challenge stick to and develop the associations of the horror movie sub genre as we decided that the main connotations where best to stick to as it helped establish the specific genre, but wanted our teaser trailer to convey a sense of originality to set us apart from other teaser trailers who have t he same genre as us! Ways we did this is in terms of the music that I created as I really grew inspiration from the music that was used in Halloween,althought within our music piece it features a variation of msuic pieces that I personally created, I drew inspiration within the scene when the antiogonist is circuling the protagonist, I wanted to create music which drew a forboding atmosphere. 

so within a scene where the antagonist is seen to be circling the protagonist a created a piece of music within Garage Band which created a sense of forbidding atmosphere to keep the audience at the edge of there sets plus from past research I have discovered that many teaser trailers have used this techniques within the psychological horror teaser trailers. In our genre I discovered that the characters are not usually the focus of the teaser trailer and they usually cut out there face to create a sense of unknowing we both used this technique but we also challenged this as we decided it was best to show who the main characters were so it could establish the pro and antagonist with the teaser trailer

 

 

Evaluation Question 1) In what ways does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? - Gradice

Here is an example of a film poster featuring the Antagonist :

Here is an example of a film poster featuring the Protagonist :

When it came to our poster, we chose to have the antagonist as the main image, because we felt that it would reflect a frightening mood dramatically to the audience compared to the protagonist. This one convention was followed. Whilst researching into horror movie posters, we discovered that most characters used on horror film posters were usually Caucasian characters.  At this point, we decided to challenge that convention by using a black female character.  When we watch horror films, there are not usually black people in horror, so what we tried to do was to reclaim horror by making it multicultural, and to try to attract a black audience.

When it came to the conventions, we felt as though we followed the conventions of horror movie posters. It was quite challenging coming with something different, this was because most movie posters are basic and distinctive.  The conventions have helped us to create our poster and it has allowed our poster to look like a professional.