In what ways does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions real

media products

What are themes and conventions?A form or convention is a way or style of how something is usually done. They are typical features that often appear to make things recognizable for what they are. In relation to teaser trailers, there are many different conventions which can be considered. Most teaser trailers will last 30 seconds to 2 minutes long. This is a very short time in comparison to the running time of the promoted film, so teasers need to catch the audience’s attention here. For this reason, many film trailers will feature some of the film’s “best bits” so that interest is sparked. Film trailers will also tend to use music that adds to the emotive feel of a trailer. Characters will be first introduced so they may be given background through narrative or voiceover. Close-up shots are often used to show what a protagonist or other character will look like. If there are “star actors” in the film they will be highlighted in these trailers. Conversion between characters will usually be short, often restricted to one liners. Most teaser trailers will also use titles and credits to visualise who is behind the creative side of the film. The film will use different types of fonts to emphasize their genres. For example a title with a blood style font could be representing a horror film

“Most teaser trailers will use establishing shots of scenery to establish the setting of a film.”

“Close-ups are used when introducing characters in trailers usually the protagonists.”

Forms and conventions of other products Posters often include texts that relate to the other products in the campaign. For example, if a title is used in a trailer, the same typography would be used on a film poster so that continuity is represented. This makes film marketing campaigns more memorable. Another form of film posters is that they will include billing blocks of the cast and crew behind the film. This can be used to attract audience members who are fans of their other films. Pictures may show protagonist characters and their settings to introduce narrative. Taglines will also be used to give short ideas about the narrative.

Film magazine covers often have mastheads at the top of covers for audiences to notice. Taglines are also used in magazines to give audience members a feel as to what the issue could feature. A large image will be the main focus of a film magazine most of the time to cast attention. Magazines that focus on the blockbuster films such as “Empire” will most likely have a star of the film pictured on their cover. Film magazines vary for the different types of films and their audiences. Most film magazines will feature a skyline to show the other features of the available issue.

How have codes and conventions helped to label our film?

Codes and conventions are useful ways at establishing a genre or theme for a film. One of the ways in which our film achieves this is through the use of a soundtrack. Many trailers decide to use these as they can add emotion and they can also help to establish a genre. For example, a soundtrack with a piercing violin playing would most likely represent a horror. Our trailer had a piano playing for our soundtrack which I believe helped to make it appeal to the convention of a psychological drama.

As we wanted our film was a physiological “teen” drama, we wanted to emphasise our use of characters. This was to show that we used teenagers in our filming to stick to the convention of a teen drama. When planning our film with a moodboard we researched outfits of typical teenagers to see how we could make our character more realistic. As well as this, we also used our setting to an advantage by filming shots around the college such as the shot of all of the students walking past the protagonist. We also emphasized this in our setting in the shot of the protagonist through the use of props in his room such as the xbox controller.

Through iconography we selected to film certain moments to make our film more realistic to the conventions of a physiological teen drama. When planning for this we decided we wanted to include moments of the car crash to add narrative to the trailer. We also wanted to add a shot of a mirror to our

trailer so that we could represent that our protagonist is trying to look into himself and work out what is going on. We also wanted our protagonist to be seen looking isolated so that we could stick to a code of a teen drama of “loneliness”.

This shot was used to represent the car crash, a convention of a drama film which we were trying to achieve.

This shot shows our character being isolated. This sticks to the code of teen drama.

How have we challenged the codes and conventions?

One way in which our product challenged a code or convention of a typical teaser trailer was the way we casted the film. Normally, you would see a large star being casted as the “star” to attract audience attention and increase the amount of views. However, as we would be classed as a low budget film we were only able to use a new actor without years of hollywood film experience. In a big budget film this could be classed as a risky move however as we are low budget this is quite acceptable.

Another way in which we as a group challenged the typical code of a teaser trailer was the style in which we used our shots. Usually, you could expect to see a lot of large action or fast paced shots to excite audience members. Our trailer has a much slower pace as our objective was to build emotion to the character and then have the big moment of the car crash scene to shift pace and excite audience members here.

One more way in which we developed a convention of a teaser trailer was how we decided to use our narrative. It is typical of films to cut down narrative to shorter more impacting segments to help establish a storyline quickly. However we decided to add our own narration to our trailer as we believed it would help introduce our film plot easily.