Evaluation Question 1

When we started this project we thought it would be a good idea to meet up and watch teaser trailers so we could understand the typical conventions and themes that occur. We used YouTube to help us conduct our research. We noticed that many trailers from the horror genre contained blood and gore so we saw this was one of the main conventions and therefore we knew that we had to feature something of this sort in our three media products. Conventions in media products are ways in which different products can be recognized and identified through its features as a specific type of product.

As a group we discussed different subgenres of horror and it turned out that we all preferred psychological horror more than slasher. So therefore we did not want to use too much blood and gore as we thought that sometimes them aspects of films and trailers can make them look unrealistic and too fake. So we decided that we would not feature any weapons or creatures in our trailer and stick to humans instead so by doing this we were challenging the typical conventions of the horror genre. As this is part of our A2 media coursework we knew that we had to come together as a group and produce three media products including a teaser trailer which would be broadcast on YouTube for the whole world to access, a magazine front cover which was promoting our ‘film’ and would contain an image of the character that we have created and a poster that would advertise our film, and a poster that would help our marketing campaign through promoting.

When we were first given our coursework task, we knew that we were in for a tough ride, and that we would have to keep on top of the work load. We watched teaser trailers and trailers in our own time and noted down the typical conventions that we saw occur within them. With all members of the group choosing different films and posters to analyse for our teaser trailer this meant we could all come together and share our findings as well as using blogger to publish our textual analysis, so we could all access each others work and see what each other noticed about the horror genre. Watching full length horror films also allowed us to see what aspects are most appealing for the audiences. We noticed trailers have a lot of editing and special effects. As special effects are what catch audience’s attention so we knew that we would have to increase our knowledge on skills on Final Cut Pro, which is what we used to create our trailer.

Research into teaser trailers showed us that some teaser trailers are shown up to eighteen months before that actual full length trailers are released which help create a buzz around a film. If a trailer is released over a year before the full length film, then teaser trailers are meant to be memorable and make an impact, which we had to bear in mind when planning our storyboard. As we our aiming our products at the horror genre fans, we know that this is likely to be people over the age of 15, and therefore we would have to make it so that they would remember what the trailer and go and watch the full movie at a later date. Some trailers do not contain any footage from the actual film, they just help to familiarize the audience with the types of characters, and give hints of what could occur.

We were told from the beginning to complicate our idea as this would go against the main purpose of a teaser trailer, so we had the idea that we would make it short and snappy, but at the same time would leave the audience with enough to go and watch the full film. This meant we had to use some sort of fast pace to build up the tension and make it quick. From looking at existing teaser trailers it was clear that music was a big aspect of them as this helped them to increase their pacing and build up to a climax.

When watching the ring teaser trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHa7dcCntyI we noticed that 0.32 seconds in to the trailer the pace dropped dramatically but then begin to gradually increase again from 1.00 onwards which shows different pacing used and how it worked effectively. Another trailer we looked closely at was ‘Texas chainsaw massacre’ although this was not a teaser trailer we still looked closely at it for inspiration. One thing that stood out to us was that at the end there was a dramatic pause which could lead audiand then all of a sudden there is an attack at the camera which shocks. We thought that this was successful and we used this at the end of our trailer to shock and fright audiences. Horror’s aim is to scare people and therefore it was obvious that pacing and pauses were crucial and definitely another convention that is used so we took this into consideration when editing as we wanted our audiences to also be frightened.

The audience would believe that the trailer is over towards the end when the title and 'Coming soon' appears, but we wanted to shock them and make them remember the trailer and therefore added footage to the ending with a loud scream wuich would hopefully frighten the audience.

Heartbeat sounds are used in many trailers including ‘let me in’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reRRAEVHq8E&feature=related. We noticed this was a reoccurring feature and it helps to increase the tension within trailers. Our original idea was not to use a heart beating sound, but when we added it to our audio we thought it worked well and went well with the pacing of the footage. We used Final Cut Pro to edit parts of the trailer, and increased the speed of some of the shots, which we got in time to match the heartbeat, so the character is moving in sync with the heartbeat, this worked successfully and we are proud of the editing and effects we managed to apply to our trailer, as none of us had previous knowledge.

We used low key lighting as we recognized this was a typical convention used to create an eerie effect in trailers, the low key lighting shows darkness which could connote the dark side of the character we created. When researching trailers for our textual analysis we found it hard to find teaser trailers as we could only find trailer between 1minute-3minutes in length, which are too long, so we knew that we had to make out trailer short and snappy. With our first idea being based around a school girl who gets attacked by a creature, we realised this would be too hard to create. So that’s when we decided to make our idea simpler, and that we would not reveal too much. The whole purpose of a teaser trailer is to tease the audience rather than revealing too much. So by using only one actress and using the same setting for all of our shots it allowed continuity and meant that we made sure the equipment was safe as we did not move outside of the media department. We also used various cuts and shots and put them in random order which is because we were trying to create the idea that the character was loosing her mind and had been “let loose” which is the reason we used the type of make up we did and made her hair messy showing that this woman can’t look after herself.

Our trailer is different from others we have seen as the majority contain footage from a film and sometimes reveal parts of the storyline. We couldn’t leave the audience totally clueless because that would mean that they would not want to watch the full length film and therefore we used captions to help the audience gain a little understanding of what may occur in the film. We used ‘dafont.com’ to download a font called ‘face your fears’ which had features of blood dripping as the letters look like they have been painted which contrasts with the end of our trailer when there is writing on the floor in blood spelling out the words ‘why?’ We broke the conventions of typical trailers by using the same location throughout our trailer. We also did not use any dialogue within our trailer as we believed that this could reveal a little too much, which could be seen as challenging conventions of trailers in general, as it is very rare that trailers do not contain any dialogue at all.

 Our very first idea was too complex as we wanted to film outside which we were told was not allowed. We also had an idea to film a reflection in a mobile phone, but after discussion as a group and with our teacher, we realised that this shot would have been difficult to achieve if not impossible. We also originally planned to use an Asian girl as our main actress, as we noticed that in films such as scream the innocent victim is conventionally a young “blonde, blue eyed” girl, so we wanted to challenge the typical conventions off horrors. With the limited availability of the cameras, and them being double booked it meant that we had to put filming on hold which meant that we lost our actress as she was also a current media student so had her own trailer to make. With all of this happening we decided that we would stick to our group and that we would be our own actresses. So we decided that ‘Chelsea’ would play the victim and ‘Yeside’ would act as the killer. This was because from our audience research we found out that our target market would want to see an ‘Afro/Caribbean’ killer who was female, so this meant we were satisfying our audience.

None of the group members thought that this idea was working as it was not reaching the expectations of the horror genre which is then why we changed it to our final idea but we kept ‘Yeside’ as the actress as a black main actress who is also meant to be a killer challenges conventions as the main characters are normally male in films. We wanted to make our trailer different and unique compared to one we have seen. Trailers begin to become too predictable if everyone sticks to the stereotypical conventions and therefore we had the idea that we would break and challenge some, without loosing the whole horror theme.

From research of movie magazines saw that one generic convention is that they have bold mastheads which stand out and we noticed that red and white was a popular colour scheme among many different magazines we researched including Total film, Empire and Entertainment weekly. We noticed that that masthead never changes and total film had a very bold mast head, and the word total was positioned in the top of the ‘F’ which we think worked effectively as the main focus was on the word “film” which contrasts with the magazines context as it is a magazine about films. So we decided it would be a good idea for us to try this out, with the name of our magazine being “Screen”, we then used the word ‘magazine’ going down the side of it. 

When researching the total film magazine covers we also noticed that they often use a grey scale effect on their images which works really well with the red and white. When we saw this we wanted to see if any other magazines also used this effect or colour scheme and we found that Empire also used this. With the red and blacks already having connotations of horror we think this would work well.

We noticed that people in our class are making a horror themed cover, so as a group we decided to look more into themed magazines and found an ‘Inception’ one from ‘Total Film’ which we thought was really successful as they carried on the theme of the image in the masthead and filled it with images to continue the inception theme. They also used red on the cover as we believe that red is one of the most effective colours to use as it is so eye catching. With us choosing to use red it also contrasts with our trailer as it is from the horror genre and the colour red has connotations of blood, horror and danger etc. However as the coursework spec requires a movie magazine so we stuck to that instead of making a horror genre magazine.

We wanted our magazine cover to look realistic and therefore have decided to follow the typical conventions of magazine covers. Through research we came to realize that the cover lines often use bold and non-bold fonts together which works well. Movie magazines are also priced high compared to other magazines which range from £2 - £6, and we will take this into consideration alongside our audience research when choosing a price.

We used many of the conventions of movie magazines by sticking to a colour scheme which was red, white and black, however added a twist by using the same font as the trailer ‘face your fears’ which showed continuity as it was also used on our poster and for our captions. Red is a very vibrant and bold colour which stands out which must be a reason that the majority of magazines published use this colour on their mastheads or cover lines.  We decided to put the main image in front of the masthead which is seen in many present magazines, we tried it in front and behind but we agreed that positioned in front of the masthead worked better.  By adding a behind the scenes extra it would mean we are giving the audience a taster of what may come in the actual trailer, and could make people become more interested in it. By using the film reel template to place the images inside, it contrasted with the genre of the magazine which was film.

We got our inspiration to do this from the ‘Sin City’ edition of Empire magazine as they used this, however they did not use if for behind the scenes images like we did. To make ours look more unique we changed the colour of the mages to black and white to make them look more authentic, and because traditional film reels are not in colour.

          Overall for the magazine we followed the conventions of existing magazines as we had one main image, a bold masthead, and cover lines positioned each side of the main image.

For our poster we wanted we wanted to challenge the conventions, whilst still making it obvious that this trailer was for the horror genre. The colour black has connotations of ‘horror’, so we thought we would completely challenge this and use the colour white instead. Although the colour white is never associated with horror, we thought that the white background could represent the white padded walls in mental institutions and as it also has connotations of innocence this could contrast with the characters personality as it is the oppisite of innocent. This relates back to our teaser trailer storyline and the title that we chose. We found a poster “dead snow” which also used a white background and we thought that worked effectively so decided that we would also try this out. The red on the white stood out and the white also links to the coldness linking back to 'Dead' and 'Snow' which also both have connotations of coldness.

With us using an A-symmetrical image we have shown only one half of our character which could imply that she has a split personality. As only one half of her is shown in bright light, whilst it gradually gets darker towards the inside this is indicating that she also has a dark side.  It is expected of horror posters to be dark and gloomy, but we wanted to challenge ourselves and go against the conventions. We continued to use the font ‘face your fears’ as this has become our sort of trademark as we have used it on all three of our media products and therefore people are likely to recognize our production team through this. The image on the poster shows the character in role and gives an indication to what type of character she may be. We used the teddy bears in the shot as we used them in our trailer so we wanted to continue this idea that the character has a childish mentality. Changing the brightness and contrast of the image meant that the blood was able to be shown more clearly however still remained subtle. 

All 3 of our media products have followed conventions of real media products as well as challenging them. The main feature we have used is a killer and blood which is following the typical conventions. However we have challenged them slighlty by using a black female actress which we believe challenges conventions as well as the white background on our poster which also is challenging the generic convetions as this is not seen often and white is not normally represented with the genre of horror. It is good to follow conventions as the it is easier for consumers to recognize the products we have produced although challenging the conventions works well as it makes the products more unique and different from other products from the same genre.