Evaluation Q1

In what ways does your poster, magazine and trailer use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

Hisham Hasrat

Conventions of a film magazineMasthead: A masthead is a feature which is written on all magazines. This is written so the audience know which publisher the magazine is published by this will vary depending on the magazine and the target audience your magazine is aimed at.

Tagline/footer: A tagline gives information on the content of the magazine.

House style: A house style is the colours, fonts and layout that are used throughout a magazine.

Sub headings: The subheadings are the additional headings on the magazine which state what information the magazine contains.

Barcode: This will be placed at the bottom left or right hand side of the magazine so that when the audience purchase the magazine it can be scanned showing the price of the item.

Price/date: The price and date need to be written on the magazine so people know how much they can purchase it for and which issue is the latest.

Cover lines: Cover lines are text which consists of additional information.

Main title: A main title is the second largest text on a film magazine this is so that it`s clear to the audience as to what the magazine what film it is based on.

Magazine

The layout of our magazine has an influence from the cover of the magazine Empire as you can see we have developed and challenged some conventions with our magazine. We decided to put our selling line above the magazine's name we challenged this convention in order to grab the audience's eyes straightaway it tells them what the magazine is about from the selling line used. A convention was challenged because we didn't feature a character in our front cover this was done in order to hide our character's identity and to give a horror theme by showing the killer in though on a bridge. However we have followed conventions regarding the cover lines, date and bar code used which are common grounds of a magazine.

Masthead

Having analysed several different existing magazines it was clear that the name of the magazine was always placed at the top of the front cover. I used this convention throughout my front cover. The masthead is placed at the top of the page because it is the first thing that the audience look at when seeing at the front cover. The western eye always looks to the top-left of the page, so Empire magazine takes advantage of this to make sure that the first thing the reader sees is the masthead. This is done let the audience know straight away exactly what magazine they are looking at. Another convention featuring the masthead is the fact that it is placed behind the head of the model. This is done when a particularly big feature is part of the magazine, and this is because the magazine wants the main image have more attention than the masthead as the main image is more likely to draw in readers. The masthead of the magazine is presented in large, capitalized red font, which makes it very eye-catching against black background. This masthead is recognisable, many people as it is used on every single Empire front cover and uses the iconic Empire bold red colour. Empire is so well established that they don’t need to display the full title, as people know the magazine and it’s title even with part of the “P” missing and also the “I” and “R”. As you can see above, the magazine I created is similar to a real magazine, and I used the same effect; the dark background and an image in front of the masthead.

Most film magazines that I researched into have included pictures from other horror movies on their front cover of their magazine. We borrowed conventions from existing magazines as the main image is the main focus of the magazine, so the pictures we included in the magazine are small.

Mise En Scene

I think the Mise en scene of my images follow the codes and conventions of a real magazine. This is because, I used a variety of settings for my photos, a dark and isolated place in the woods, and also on a bridge. These landscapes fit in well with the concept of my magazine because they reflect the essence of horror that I was trying to capture. In addition to this, the majority of my images follow the conventions of magazines as they’re looking not directly at the camera in the pictures which makes the character look mysterious.

The props in which we decided to use also confirm to the usual horror film trailers. The characters in which we chose to play in our trailer support to the usual stereotype we see in horror films. The antagonist wears dark clothing and a hood, which implicates danger. We have borrowed conventions from real media trailers. For example in “Friday the 13th” the main antagonist, has a mask on and also dark clothing, so we knew what the audience wanted and what they like to watch, so we decided to implicate this idea in our own trailer.

Poster

For the creation of our poster we decided to follow the conventions with the influence of A Nightmare on Elm Street poster. In the poster the image is the centre of attention and the most important part of the poster, in the A Nightmare on Elm Street poster Crooker is wearing a hat which clearly doesn't reveal his identity and leaves a big suspense for the audience in our poster we have used the same idea including the main character but not revealing their identity, as they are wearing a hood. Following this convention has helped to engage the audience into wanting to watch our product. The poster for A Nightmare on Elm Street uses the main colours of horror which are black and red these colours were also used in our poster in order to follow the horror theme. For the production of our poster this poster has helped us with what to include and where to position things.

Trailer

As a group we looked at real media trailers in order to understand the conventions of horror and this has given us experience and better knowledge of what a horror trailer is supposed to look like also which conventions should be followed in order to create a great horror trailer. By watching real horror trailer it helped us to pick which ideas could be used in our trailer regarding camera angles, lighting, editing skills. By looking at these examples we could then decide which ones inspired us in order to put in our trailer and which techniques could be showed with our own interpretation.

We decided that in order for our product to be unique we were going to challenge and maybe develop some conventions. This would make our product less predictable and allow the audience to experience some new things which not many products have done so far, and also keep some conventions the same, as it remains a classical horror films which the audience loves. The final girl theory commonly used was going to be used in our product. The colour which we're going to use are white, red and black these colours are very common in horrors as it creates suspense and it doesn't reveal a lot it goes with the horror theme.

To help our trailer look real and believable we searched on YouTube to find other trailers of horror films to get ideas on what needs to be included to make a good trailer. We looked at trailers like “ Friday the 13th”, “Annabelle” and Nightmare on Elm Street”. For the making of our trailer we were majorly drawn into Friday the 13th because it contains the amount of characters we would like to use in our trailer and includes the same type of look of the killer we are going to use. This trailer includes dark scenes and distorted view which makes the audience panic and wonder what is going to happen. Also the killer is shown on the trailer but the identity isn't revealed we have used this in our trailer because it creates suspense and draws the audience making them want to watch the movie to find out who the killer is. In Friday the 13th the killer is a male, so we used a male in our trailer, where the killer wears a black hood and gloves. The camera techniques used in a mysterious way which allows the audience to wonder what's going to happen with the characters.

We also found that the trailers had preview cards, the title of the film itself and a “coming soon” These are features we see in nearly all trailers, not just for horror movies and without these our trailer would not look real. At the end of the trailer, we put in the title of the movie, as we seen this on real media products. This engages the audience in the trailer and makes them watch the whole trailer before the know what it is called, to build up the anticipation.

I feel as though I have used traditional conventions of horror films in my camera work and editing. This is done by using slow paced, longer shots at the beginning of the trailer to set the scene and to relax the audience and steer away from the genre as much as possible without going so far as too lose the audiences interest. Close ups are used to introduce the characters in my trailer to show who the main characters are and over the shoulder shot to show what the killers agenda is. This is done in the trailer for “Friday the 13th” and is very effective. In terms of editing we used quick cuts at the beginning to build up the anticipation which is enhanced by the music. As the trailer proceeded we began to use quicker fades to black and a distorted view of the killer. The tension comes to a climax when the victim is seen on the phone and the antagonist jumps out and drags him into an alley. feel I have developed and used traditional conventions of the horror genre.

Music

We also used real media products with our use of music. When researching existing trailers like Friday the 13th, we watched them on mute and found that when watching these trailers with no sound, they were not as scary to watch as when the sound was on. This showed us how important music and sound effects are. For us, this took the most time as we wanted our music and sound effects to fit our trailer perfectly and make the trailer feel mysterious and scary as this was very important in making our trailer look real. Overall, our trailer was able to use, develop the forms and conventions of real media products. We used ideas and influences from exiting trailers, posters and magazines.