evaluation question 1 - eleanor wemyss

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


Eleanor Wemyss

•Trailer•Magazine•Poster


Inspiration for the Trailerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXXRS3Kghh4 When looking at all the horror trailers I chose “The Woman In Black” as a format to use as I liked the way the shots were put together and the composition of innocent characters worked well with my own narrative. The mise-en-scene of a large main setting of the house linked to our own as we had the large theatre as our location and the inclusion of few principle characters appealed to me as it shows more aspects of horror as most victims in horror are easily forgotten. The first 30 seconds of this trailer could be seen parodied in the rough draft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXXRS3Kghh4


Conventions of CharactersFor the narrative I wanted the protagonist to be female to challenge the

conventions real media products where more often than not the woman is the victim or damsel in distress. I also wanted the other characters to challenge/use the conventions. It typical horrors the blonde white girl would be the victim then the male in the relationship couple would save the day after the brunette works everything out. This is seen in such films as “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (1997) and “Scream” (1996). To use the conventions the characters were typical; boy and girl brunette couple, blonde girl and easily swayed other male who can sometimes be the antagonist. To challenge the conventions the brunette couple girl dies first, then the boy, leaving the blonde girl and ‘second’ guy. In ours the blonde girl lives but the second guy does still become evil. However, to develop the idea further, as usually the final girl would then kill the antagonist, the antagonist kills himself.

As I had written the characters profiles in the pre-production I had free reign on the singular story arc and characters biographies. This helped our overall trailer as the characters had more dimensions and were not as bland, they became more real. It also allowed me to develop them from real media products as their micro-narratives fit to many high school drama style films.


PlanningPlanning the shot list allowed me to use the forms of a film

as I could re-create the same camera shots seen in so many films before. The shot list also linked to the script and the character profiles as it included the dialogue that the characters would most likely say as well as keeping to genre and existing media product conventions. The props were typical of the horror genre and the location stuck to conventions as it was an old building in some parts of disrepair. Ironically, the location is actually said to be haunted as it is steeped in Portsmouth’s naval history as well as the world wars. This was ideal for our piece as some real media products have been filmed in haunted locations such as “The Possession” (2012) “The Ghost Of Goodnight Lane” (2014) and “The Omen” (1975).


Uses of Real Media ProductsThe research I conducted on trailers from 1960 to 2014 helped in the creation of the

trailer as I could see the different styles that were used over the years. The 1960 trailer from the classic “Psycho” has the director, Alfred Hitchcock, taking the audience round the set whereas the 1970s film “The Exorcist” (William Friedkin) shows flashing images to portray the narrative and very little is seen of the main antagonist. We chose to keep our trailer contemporary so kept away from this.

More recent horrors begin to feature more jump cuts and quick edits as audiences wanted to know more and more about the plot. This began the potentially over used but conventional means of creating flashcards to show more depth about the plot. Seen in films such as “Scream” (Wes Craven, 1996) with the use of white text on the cards with links to the font of the movie poster. We used this in ours as it is a useful tool to show the audience more.

In the trailer for the 2014 film “The Quiet Ones” (John Pogue) social networking sites appear with the end credits. As we are in the era of Web 2.0 this is a relatively new convention to be used but we incorporated it into our own to keep to conventions.

The incorporation of the producers/directors other works is used within many trailers over the years as it gives insight to films like the one advertised as well as what the audience will be expecting. “Annabelle” (John R. Leonetti, 2014) uses this convention to show the producer as they are known for their other works.


Rough CutWe decided that before we did any more changes to our trailer that we would

get audience feedback. This was a terrific idea as it showed us where the main issues were. This helped us to see the issues and to make our trailer fit to conventions better. Though the rough cut followed the style of The Woman In Black it didn’t quite work with our own piece. Therefore we made more changes to our final version following conventions of trailers due to audience feedback and our own independent research. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swPz18NWBKA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swPz18NWBKA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swPz18NWBKA


Final CutThe final cut worked so much better as we had the flashcards,

universal studios identity as well as the film name and credits. Therefore we kept to genre and real media product conventions within our piece. We mostly used and developed the conventions rather than challenged for the trailer as we wanted to keep as close to a real media product as possible in terms of creation but wanted our plot and characters to challenge conventions as it is refreshing to audiences to find a new form of narrative form.


Inspiration for the MagazineAs my group has chosen their magazines first I

chose to do a different one. Amos had chosen to create his own called ‘Envy’ and Jemma chose my original idea of ‘Total Film’, this left me to choose ‘Empire’. I researched British Film Magazines and chose four to further research. These included SFX, Empire, Total Film and Sight & Sound. After researching the different cover styles I chose Empire. I chose to use and develop the forms and conventions of real media products for my magazine.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?Magazines I didn’t use and Why

• Sight & Sound - “I almost chose Sight & Sound for its simple covers but I felt it would not draw the audience in well and the circulation was the lowest of the four.”

• SFX - “The covers are full of original images and bright colours and graphics. It was the low circulation figures that changed my mind.”

• Total Film – “As I have stated before one of my group members have used it for their own magazine. The readership was high and the covers had a good colour composition.”


Cover ChoicesAs I had Empire as my magazine I found four covers I liked best and chose the

best parts from them. This is where I used forms of real media products.

These are the parts that I chose to use and develop . Instead of following just one magazine I wanted to create a new style that had all the good aspects of Empire.


The PlanThis is the copy of all the good parts into a flat plan style.

This is how I have used real media products and next I will develop them. I then created all the aspects using Microsoft PowerPoint and Publisher and this is the result:


Getting the ImageI followed the style of Empire’s main image of usually a

single subject dominating the page. I chose the main character/protagonist of the piece as my model. This is how I have used conventions of real media products.


DevelopmentI created this as my

first magazine draft. I used Empire’s style of having the main

image over the text and followed their colour and house

style conventions. The red and white is

Empire’s usual colours and the gold

comes from their Hobbit cover.


Audience FeedbackI had thought I had

successfully created an Empire style magazine but after conducting audience feedback I found I had mostly developed it rather than used it. Therefore I followed what my audience had said and changed accordingly. The final result look so much better and looks much more like Empire. It has a more horror aspect to link better to Empire.


Real Media ProductsOverall I believe I used and developed

forms and conventions of real media products. I did not challenge it as I wanted the magazine to fit as much to Empire as possible. I used media products by looking and taking what was best, I developed by taking the best parts, putting them together then making it into a real media product.


Magazine


Inspiration for the PosterThe inspiration for my poster came from researching the

layouts of many horror posters. From this I chose to use an image with the whole group involved as the main image. Most new horrors would feature the main image of a single characters or the antagonist but I wanted to challenge the more modern aesthetic. Modern films still use other forms but the most common is a single entity.


New Media Vs. Old

These are two posters for horrors. One is the 1960 classic “Psycho” (Alfred Hitchcock) and the other the 2014 horror “Jessabelle” (Kevin Greutert). The old media uses blocks colours and large amounts of text to engage the audience whereas the new media uses very little but more content for the main image as it leaves audiences to create their own assumptions of the narrative. I wanted to use the same style as modern media in my production of the poster as today's audiences would relate to it better. Having different uses of new and old media in production helps to keep audiences interested as they aren’t viewing the same style over and over and brings back old styles, much like the theory of postmodernism but keeps audiences pleasure thriving.


The Poster DraftThis is the first draft of the poster. It

uses the same layout style of modern horror posters with the text being towards the bottom and the image being the main aspect. The style of showing the antagonist in the poster is still apparent as the character are in silhouette apart from the antagonist who is in bright white and holding a knife. It uses the convention of tag line as well as quote from either a critic or making links to a directors oeuvre. They almost always feature credits in white at the bottom allowing the spectator to know who is in the film as well as the production studios and whether its worth seeing. This is important as consumers are more likely to watch a brand they trust rather than a completely new one.


Audience FeedbackAfter receiving audience feedback I

knew I had to develop the conventions of my media product to make it suitable as a new media product. Therefore I put more emphasis into the image and the main text. The main font and colour of the title were the biggest problem as my first draft had red text and really simple font but most new horrors have white text and a slightly more elaborate font to attract the audience and show the budget of the film. The more elaborate the image and text combination then the larger the budget for the movie.


Real Media ProductsOverall I believe I had used the conventions

and forms of real media products in the production of my poster. As I had not challenged the conventions in my magazine I kept to the same style in my poster. It also creates a group image for the trailer and ancillary tasks. I used the colour and text style as well as main image of existing media products and have kept in the modern age of production rather than taking mainly old styles.


Poster

Drafts and versions of the

poster


To conclude...Throughout the trailer, poster and magazine I

kept to genre and media product conventions as it helped to make a more realistic setting and narrative. The colours, fonts and style are all the same throughout all three pieces and stick to conventions quite well. I mostly chose to use and develop forms and conventions rather than challenge, except in the characterisation and small parts of the other media texts I produced.


Evaluation Question 1

By Eleanor Wemysseleanorwemyss.wordpress.co

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evaluation question 1 - eleanor wemyss

Education

conventions of characters

media product use

challenge forms

characters profiles

characters biographies

principle characters

girl brunette couple

brunette couple girl