Evaluation 1

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

For our coursework we were asked to produce 3 products: A film poster, a DVD cover and the horror trailer itself. My research about existing conventions of these inspired me to produce my own products and the development and production of my products would be based on my research. To be more familiar with the convention of a horror trailer, I did a lot of research on YouTube and looked at existing trailers of horror movies, some of which included: Evil Dead, Paranormal Activity, Insidious, The Ring, The Grudge, The Devil Inside, Friday 13th, One Missed Call, Creep, Silent Hill, You're Next, etc. I decided to use my finding from the trailers I watched into my own product.

I feel that my media products, both trailer and ancillary tasks develop and challenge conventions of many real media products. I had a look at pre-existing horror trailers to give me guideline and indication of what the typical conventions are.

Conventions:

• Isolated setting (woods/dark forests)
• Dark atmosphere
• Large weapon (axe/saw)
• Blood
• Gore
• Masks (something to hide their identity)

Sound

• Suspense music
• Slamming doors
• Screaming
• Heavy breathing
• Loud bangs
• Children laughing

Camerawork/editing

• Fast pace cuts
• Over shoulder shots
• Low angle shots (for intimidation)
• Point of view shots (someone being watched)
• Panning (someone being chased)
• Cross-cutting (suspense)
• Fade to black (frightening effect)
• Credits

Characters

• Innocent, final girl
• Someone running away
• Victims (who become hero saving the day)
• Villain
• Someone pretending to be good, who is really on the bad side
• Killing creature 

Before starting the initial task of my trailer, I carried out a lot of research and had a few lessons on existing horror trailers, to find out what is conventional and why it is effective. I found out, by my research that most horror trailers are mostly 1 and a half - 2 minutes long, however mine is almost 2 and a half minutes long. Although this is challenging the conventions of most movie trailers, I understand the importance of  all the scenes I have left in,I deliberately didn't cut my trailer down too short because I wanted the audience to feel the story line and enhance them wanting to watch it. In relation to real horror trailers, I tried to use most of these generic conventions and adapt them into my trailer. My trailer starts with a handheld camera shot of the last girl (which is another convention), looking terrified, leaving a message to loved ones. By putting this scene at the beginning of the trailer, I challenged conventions, as in existing horror trailers, at the beginning, there would normally be an establishing shot, to allow the audience to be familiar with the scenery. This is normally a shot of a abandoned house in the middle of nowhere and always has some sight of the woods. I didn't use this convention, but challenged it because I feel that most movie trailers show an establishing shot of the scene, makes the rest of the film predictable and that you know what to expect, which in some cases makes the trailer a lot less frightening. I feel that by challenging the convention and having a terrified girl at the beginning, talking in the camera worked towards my favour, this is because it created an intense atmosphere right from the start, and is a way to really get my audience into the trailer, and want to see more.

For my horror movie trailer I wanted to give a frightening vibe to my audience from the very start. Keeping this in mind, I challenged many conventions of existing horror movie trailers. Firstly, I did not create a typical horror trailer where tension is built up further in, as I feel that would bore my audience. An example of an existing trailer where it's not frightening from the start and the tension builds up, it Paranormal Activity. I feel that this Paranormal Activity isn't a very successful trailer, as when I asked a few of my target audience what they thought of the trailer they used words like 'boring' and 'disappointment'. I feel that by challenging this particular convention, it worked towards my favour, as when I showed a few of my target audience my trailer, they gave me some feedback and a few of them said that they really liked how it was scary right from the start and didn't go down hill, it just got even more frightening as it went on. In most of the trailers I watched they didn't show the 'creature' until about a minute into the trailer. Again, I challenged this because I feel that by showing really quick flashes of the 'creature' like I did, really gives off a scary vibe to my audience and relates to my previous point about making the trailer as scary as I can, right from the start. This is exactly what the audience want to see in a trailer and because I only have 2 and a half minuted to see the movie to them, I feel that by showing little glimpses of the 'creature' at the beginning and throughout, I am giving the audience what they want, making them want to see the whole movie.

A convention I stuck with was, fast pace cuts. This made my trailer very effective, as it gave good rhythm to the trailer and is an aspect that I feel has to be included in a horror trailer to make it successful and frightening. The one existing trailer I took inspiration from was 'Evil Dead'. I noticed that in that trailer there was a lot of fast pace cuts that really worked in their favour and made the trailer more dramatic which gave me inspiration to add that to mine. In the Evil Dead trailer a nursery rhyme is used, which, to me made the trailer much more exciting and really frightening. I noticed that in many horror films nursery rhymes were used so I decided to stick to conventions and use a nursery rhyme for mine too. This really worked for my trailer, as not only did it fit nicely and had a nice and slow beat to it, which was exactly what I was going for in sound, but it is about a school, so it really goes well with the trailer itself. In the Evil Dead trailer the scenes were filmed in both light and dark settings, which I feel worked really well and created a really tense atmosphere, even though some of the scenes are not necessarily shot in a dark setting, it still worked to their advantage. I did the same, taking even more inspiration from this movie and filmed my scenes in both light and dark settings, which again worked really well for me.

Another convention I stuck with was my camera work and angles I filmed the scenes in. I noticed that in a lot of existing trailers recorded at least one of the scenes in a low angle shot. This creates a really intimidating look, which is good, as it belittles the characters as well as the audience watching, making them feel intimidated. I used a low angle shot in one of my scenes, for the exact same effect, to get the audience to feel intimidated my the zombie. I feel this worked really well for me, as it got the exact effect I wanted and actually turned out much better than I expected. I noticed, while watching existing trailers, that Panning is often used, for a scary effect, normally used for when someone is running away. I stuck to conventions, and used this camera work when a character was on the floor, backing away from the 'creature'. This again worked really well for me because it created a realistic effect and allowed the audience to feel frightened for her and feel as though they were backing away from the 'creature' too.

In every existing horror trailer I watched, there were cuts and the effect, fade to black. I stuck to these conventions and decided to include both of these editing techniques in my trailer, which turned out to be really good effects and they created a very frightening vibe and I feel it gave my trailer more of a professional look to it and made it a lot more successful, as before hand, I didn't add the cuts and fades and it didn't really strike me as a trailer but more as a short film and wasn't very frightening at all. So I feel that by sticking to these conventions, it helped me produce a more successful and a much better horror movie trailer.

Sound is very important in a horror trailer and can make or break your product. When choosing the right sounds and music to add in, I firstly did a lot of research, listening to the sounds of other horror trailers. I noticed that in most of the ones I've watched there were a lot of loud effects, mostly bangs, that are really frightening and give the trailer a really good and scary effect. I decided to stick to  this convention and added the effect into my trailer, which turned out really well for me, as it did create the exact effect I wanted it to and really does create a frightening vibe. I also notice that most of the trailers I watched have a sound bridge with the main music they use in the trailer, which is exactly what I included in my trailer. The main song that I used, I made it roll on to most of my scenes, although  sticking to the conventions with this, I also challenged conventions, when I made the song quiet down on scenes that the audio sound was important in, and just left it quietly playing in the background, which I didn't see a lot of in existing trailers, however I feel it still did work out for me and gave my trailer a positive effect and did create a tense and scary atmosphere.

Another popular convention of a horror movie is a 'final girl'. The Final girl theory (see post 19) is in most typical horror movies. for example, The Shining and Friday 13th, and I feel that,by having a final girl in a movie it gets the audience thinking whether or not she is going to survive and defeat the killer, as she has come a long way and is the last one and the only hope left. In my trailer, I did use a final girl, who is holding and speaking to the camera, frightened, leaving a message, shaking and looking really stressed. Having a final girl in my trailer, I feel is really effective and works hugely in my favour, as the scene where the final girl is talking to the camera, really gives off a positive effect and shows that she has been through and seen so much, and it really makes the audience want to see what she has witnessed and watch the full movie.

Before starting my ancillary task, a movie poster, I did a lot of research to find out what the important conventions were. As you can see by the picture on the right hand side, I stuck to many conventions and tried to make my poster look as realistic and as close to a existing professional one.  I noticed, whilst doing my research that on horror movie posters, they usually have one picture in the middle, of the 'killer/creature' and really think this gives the poster an edge, as its simple enough not to give the movie away, however still look really effective and gives off a frightening vibe, especially as the 'creature' in my poster is looking directly into the camera, making it more personal and that even more scary. I feel that sticking to that convention made my poster successful as a whole and really gave it that professional look. Another convention I stuck to was having the title of the movie just above the bottom of the poster, not disturbing the main image in the middle, which was a great effect, as again it gave the poster a more professional look to it and by making it the biggest text on the poster and in a bright red, really gives off a sharp look and makes the title stand out so the audience can't miss it. To make my poster look as realistic as possible, I decided to stick to conventions, again and add the directors names, the people who star in the movie, etc. which certainly did make the poster look realistic and gave it a positive effect. Over all I feel that I have made a successful horror movie poster that I am proud of and by doing my research and sticking to the conventions of a existing movie poster, I was able to make mine look realistic and gave it that professional look to it.


I did the same with DVD cases. I did a lot of research around existing ones and tried to make one as realistic as I possibly could. As you can see by the images on the left, I have tried to stick to as many conventions as I could, however still challenged a few which really worked out to my advantage. The conventions I stuck with include: a synopsis of the movie, which is an important part of the case, as it tells the audience what the movie is about, trying to sell it to them, not giving too much away but enough to make them want to watch it. Another convention I stuck to was adding a tag line on the front of my case. I noticed that every case that I looked at and took inspiration from had it's own tag line, which has a huge impact on the audience as, if you have a good and catchy tag line, then you automatically grab their attention and hook them in. I created two tag lines, one being 'What was once trapped is now unleashed' and the other 'The lucky ones die first'. I feel that by sticking to the convention of having a tag line, really did work in my favour, as the two tag lines that I made up, really does make you want to watch the movie and find out who the 'unlucky' ones are, who effectively have to battle the 'creature'. More convention I stuck to was making the back of the case look busy, by adding a few images of what is consisted in the movie, the ranking of the movie and a bit of information about it, a barcode, copyright terms and conditions, a little description of the company releasing the movie, which I again made up, a bit about the directors and editors, etc. All of these factors that I added in have allowed me to create a successful case and really does make it look more realistic. I did, however challenge a few conventions, as I have noticed that on most cases there tend to be images of only the main characters, however I decided to merge a few images together, a couple of them were the zombie, however some of them were objects and things to do with the movie. I feel that by challenging this convention, it has worked well for me as I have created a unique case that still has that professional look to it gives the audience more of a feel to what the movie consists of. Another convention I challenged was that I adding the amount of stars the movie got rated. I noticed that the existing cases didn't include this feature, but I feel that by adding this it grabs the audiences attention on how good the movie is and makes them want to watch it.

Overall, I was pleased with the way our horror trailer, DVD case and movie poster compared to those made by professionals as I only had few resources and very little in terms of hi-tech equipment. All my media products, predominantly fit into the conventions of other existing trailers, posters and DVD covers. This is great because it means my media products look authentic and realistic.