Evaluation Question One - 'In what ways does your media production use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products'?

Deborah starts.In order for our film poster to be considered realistic, it was vital that we followed some of the main conventions used for a film poster. What I have noticed when it comes film posters, is that a tag line for the title is usually visible. For example for the 'My Bloody Valentine' film poster, the tag line is 'Get Your Heart Broken'. Another perfect example of the tag line convention used in film posters is 'Drag Me To Hell' - In comparison to the 'My Bloody Valentine 3D', 'Drag Me To Hell's tag line is slightly longer. It indicates the nature of the story additionally, and allows the audience to be aware of the story line. It says 'Christine Brown has a good job, a great boyfriend, and a bright future. But in three days, she's going to hell'. We, as a group chose to adapt this particular convention into our own piece of work. We used a tag line for our film poster, 'The End'. - Our tag line was 'Revenge is sweet, But blood is sweeter'. Unlike the 'Drag Me To Hell' tag line, We didn't give so much of the story line away. We intended to keep the audience of our film poster in suspense, and according to our feedback, this worked effectively.

Another convention of Horror film posters is low-key lighting. Horror film posters tend to have dark colours and really low lighting. A prime example of where this convention was clearly used is the spanish orientated horror film, 'Rec'. The majority of the background of the poster is black, and the female character in the poster appears to emerge from the black background. She too is not well lit, and one needs to look properly in order to make her out. Contrastingly, we chose to ignore this convention when producing our film poster. Our poster was well lit, with high key lighting. It did not fit the usual conventions of low key lighting in a horror movie. Even though this was so, we still managed to communicate our idea effectively, without confusing our audience. I would also like to add that when it comes to us using high-key lighting instead of low-key lighting, that we did not not 'rebel' against the conventions of lighting, rather we 'challenged the convention', meaning we did not follow the convention of low key lighting, we went against it instead. Deborah ends.

Teniola starts.In terms of our teaser trailer, my group and I have used, developed and challenged the conventions of real media products in many ways. For a start, most horror teaser trailers have low key lighting which enhances the sense of fear, which my group and I have portrayed in our teaser trailer. Although, not all horror teaser trailers have low key lighting, and is shot at night, we wanted to have this in our trailer as it is a common convention and it does bring a sense of terror and fear. We had more than one scene where the filming took place in daylight as we wanted to show a contrast, as well as our camera skills and what we are able to do with light. This shows that, we not only used this convention of teaser trailers we also developed it into a positive for our own benefit. We also, didn’t want our whole trailer to be in low key lighting which is sometimes seen in trailers such as [REC] and Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark (although the low key lighting in ‘Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark’ makes sense due to the title name).

During our trailer we had many quick cuts which is another way in which my media product used a convention of a real media product. This is not only a convention of horror teaser trailers, but teaser trailers in general. Film teaser trailers such as ‘Red’ and ‘Is it just me?’The advantage of having quick cuts in the trailer, is so that viewers only receive a snippet of the movie at a fast pace and be drawn in instantly.

Another common convention in horror movies trailers are victims and/or the killer seen. Our trailer shows a victim and the killer in the trailer, so in a way we used this convention in our own film. But in another way it can also be seen that we developed that convention and challenged it. As usually, in some horror films the only survivor is often female and the killer is mostly a single male (seen in Halloween, Scream and Friday 13^th films). But my group and I challenged this convention by having a female as the killer. We only have females in our trailer which isn't a usual convention. This has been challenged by Scream 2 as they also had a female killer. We have a black female actress and an Asian Protagonist which are two races that are often excluded from horror teaser trailers, as mostly Caucasian actors are used.

In most horror teaser trailers there are usually black screens inserted in between, in order to give a sense of fear, as well as to show time in which to take it all in and pause. This demonstrates awareness of the film genre that the film belongs to. Text is another convention that can sometimes be found in horror teaser trailers or teaser trailers in general. Sometimes reading text can sometimes draw in viewers, and make them feel apart of it as it’s from their own voice. In our trailer, we used both aspects; text and black screens. We believe that this was a good feature to our trailer as it shows panic and emphasises the genre. The text we put makes the genre obvious and relates well to our trailer.

Voice-overs and sound are two major conventions that are found within horror teaser trailers. The sound compliments the trailer itself and brings the fear, trembling and feeling within. Whatever sound or voice-over used can affect the way in which the viewers react to the film, whether it’s a horror, comedy or romance. My group and I used the voice-over of a female saying ‘I see you’ slowly and inserted it in the scene where the whiteboard with red blood writing says ‘I see you’. This works well as it feels quite creepy. The sound we used was made by Teniola on an application on an Apple Mac. We used ‘Garage Band’ and created the sound within 10 minutes max and were very proud and happy of the accomplishment once linked to the trailer as it worked well. We used ‘Garage Band’ and created the sound within 10 minutes max and were very proud and happy of the accomplishment once linked to the trailer as it worked well. Also, in horror teaser trailers is most likely that you will see blood somewhere. But my group and I challenged this convention, by not having any blood in our trailer. Although, we didnt't have any blood our trailer still came out scary. We used powder on the killer's face to make her seem pale and gave her a bruise underneath her eye and a unibrow. The victim wasn't seen with any blood at all. Clothing varies depending on the type of trailer and storyline a film has. Within our trailer, the victim was seen wearing a jacket and jeans in the chase scene and the killer was seen wearing a white shirt. Teniola ends.

Nashay Start. When as a group we were creating and designing our magazine front cover there were many conventions that we had to consider, we had to decide weather we would stick to these conventions or break the norm of a real life media product. However collectively we decided to stick to the conventions of real media products as we felt that our magazine would come across professional and of a high quality as opposed to creating the magazine to how we felt the magazine layout should look. Following the general conventions of a horror movie magazine made it simple, easy and efficient to work in a group; this also helped us come to easy decisions, whereas if we did not follow the conventions of a real media product this would create complex ideas maybe resulting in a lack of communication amongst the group.

From the research that we adopted and looking back at our movie magazine textual analysis, which we completed at the beginning of the A2 Course. As a group we were able to notice the similarities between a real movie horror magazine and ours, for example ‘Horror Hound’

the colours that the designer decided use are colours which are associated with horror movies- red is often associated with blood, anger, hatred and revenge and black is often associated with death and funerals. As a group we decided to follow the colour scheme of this particular horror movie magazine. The main colour schemes of HorrorHound are all dark and eerie colours black, grey and red which again connotes a broad platform of connotation from love to death. It also looked interesting and very appealing (Left). Simple dark colours which can connote so many meanings behind picture or what the magazine is about. We decided to follow the layout of a professional real media product as we thought it would make our ,magazine look much more professional and this has clearly reflected through the high quality of our magazine.

The masthead in most horror magazines instantly connotes to the audience what the magazine is about for example the ‘Psycho’ magazine automatically conveys that it maybe about insanity and madness, in relation to ours. Our Horror movie magazine is called ‘Tormented’ which simply represents a wide range of emotions, such as some being provoked, challenged or pushed. Also notice the theme of read in the masthead in the real magazine. More over another convention that we extracted into our movie magazine was the font and the text, as group we felt that our proposed target audience being between the age of 18-25 was young, fresh and interesting and for this reason we used fonts like Arial black bold to show the young, interesting side of our magazine.

Once we were taking the photographs for our magazine front cover, we faced many challenges and inconvenience for example when we initially took the first lot photos they were mistakenly deleted and so we had to retake them at a later date which, pushed the project back. However as a group we overcame this obstacle successfully. Additionally when taking the photographs we had to consider how we would use synergy and cross media convergence to promote and advertise our products in order for our intended audience to easily identify our brand/ production company and media products e.g. poster and magazine front cover. This then led us to the conclusion that we should put the protagonists’ female villain on the magazine front cover, the choice of having a female as our villain breaks the media conventions in itself as real media products usual have a male as the villain.

The costume used a shirt and skirt was simply to signify a school girl which is reflected through the context of our movie trailer and school theme we were aiming for. However in saying this I feel that we could have emphasised/ exaggerated the school theme more than we did for example mise-en-scene in a classroom or have a shot of the schools logo just to simply exaggerate and visibly show the audience in more depth what exactly our movie is about. In conclusion as illustrated above we challenged and developed some real media products such as having females on the front cover and starring in the trailer. However we felt it was more suitable to follow the general media conventions such as colour scheme. Nashay Ends

Teniola starts. In conclusion, my group and I have showed in many aspects of our products where we have challenged, developed and used forms of conventions for horror. I believe as a whole, we have successfully provided what is expected of a horror and even more in areas such as our posters and magazine front cover especially. As shown earlier, with the colours, layout and designs our posters and magazine front cover is up to a high standard in which our audience were expecting and took a liking to very much. In terms of challenging horror conventions or any conventions in general, challenging the forms can be a risk as you're not sure if your audience is going to approve and like the decision you made. With our products, in terms of challenging the forms, I think the risk my group and I took to challenge certain common conventions of horrors was very successful. When we analysis our trailer for example, we broke the conventions of the typical races you expect to see. Having an Asian Antagonist dressed like a typical Yurie brought a sense of fear and emphasised the sense of mystery and supernatural we were going for. Our audience took a massive liking to her character in our poster and magazine front cover as she brought back memories of The Ring, The Grudge etc. As well as having a black female featured in our products, having two races which are usually least likely to be in a horror film, it gave our audiences of those races a sense of peace and happiness that we took it to consideration and chose to feature it. So in each way; challenging, developing and using forms of horror conventions became a great success within our media products, developed and used the conventions of real media products. Teniola ends.