B Y E M M A N U E L L A H A G A N H A G A N

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP

OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA

PRODUCT?

• During research I noticed that the convention of

most horror genre posters had a certain convention

to them. As for the posters it would be either the

protagonist or antagonist that would be put in

placed on the poster however in some cases it is

not so as we have examples like Cabin in the

woods and SAW II.

• Also from looking at other posters like Cabin in the woods, SAW II and Alien I noticed that there was a similar concept to them except this was a different side to the type of convention where the protagonist or the antagonist is shown on the poster finish. These movie posters showed that there are also other ways of getting the audience’s attention with an object that is significant from the movie or a location in which the movie shall be placed in which is makes the audience wonder what it would be about.

• Cabin in the woods is a twisted up house that is

hanging in the air from this the audience who

analyse the poster wondering what it is about and

what the house has to do with the movie.

• Saw II used a broken fingernail that looked damaged

and extremely battered and had made the symbol

of the II to indicate that it is the second version of

Saw, this is a very simple idea which really did make

an impact, and from first glance the audience will

automatically detect its genre.

• Alien is also another poster that had this convention

and it had a spaceship egg, kind of glowing and

mysterious looking at this the audience may think

that this poster is an Action Sci-Fi however when you

read the tagline it does change the concept of the

genre “In space no one can hear you”.

• Taking these examples I decided to base my trailer poster on

the combination of one concept, which is having the

protagonist or antagonist.

• Looking at my poster I kind of went for the concept of Alien

where the background is dark and having something that

attracts the attention of the audience, with a tagline line that

insinuates what the movie is about.

• I decided to incorporate these ideas from the

research; I ended up testing a lot of shot from my

photo shoot which was:

• But for my I selected a photo of the antagonist to

be the photo, as at first I really didn’t know how I

was going to make it scary or relating to my trailer

but as I started getting into the usage of Photoshop

the ideas followed.

• Looking at the different posters I invoked the

conventions of keeping the poster dark and making

the poster have a mysterious feel to it. From what I

had analysed I kept the background dark and

lighting the lighting on the photo itself with a

mysterious touch. I added the eye colour and

redness of the skin to make the antagonist look evil

to make the audience feel like it is watching them

to create the enigma and encourage the

audience to go watch the film.

• The eyes took a while to conform to, as I added this

effect because I thought the original photo wasn’t

grabbing enough so adding the colour and effect

to the face I thought would make it more grabbing

to the audience.

• When creating my magazine front cover I tried to include conventions

that I had seen in the real media text that I researched during my

research period. Like “Magazine of the year” that I saw in the Tron

Legacy magazine cover, a barcode, date, price and the magazine

“Empire” title. By adding these different features it made my magazine

look more realistic and professional. I made the date and price to go

down in sequential sizes from the smallest big to the smallest small

because as looking at the other real media they have this code

however the size is as small it is because the rest of the text on the

magazine is to attract the audience and for the person to not be

discouraged by the price but feel eager to buy it because it is

interesting and information giving.

• Also in other horror magazines they feature a person from the film so this is either the protagonist or the antagonist or a significant character in the film, but I realised that it would be better to use the protagonist as I had already used the antagonist in the poster, and I didn’t want to reveal too much of the antagonist identity. A convention of a horror magazine is for the front cover to have eye contact with the audience to get them interested into buying the magazine.

• The added text and picture that is located and the right of the magazine cover are of exclusive interviews and an upcoming movie blockbuster which was Star Trek: Into the Darkness. Normally some of the magazines would have the pictures and preview of certain films however Ii broke from that convention and went with INTERVIEWS to attract the audience as some people would like to see more of what goes on BTS. Also with the Star Trek section there is the preview of the Star Trek addition to the magazine and this implies that there may be more surrounding the magazine they are buying than they thought.

• As the title of the movie is “Captured” I made the

text white for it to stand out of the magazine as the

biggest text on the page, breaking away from the

normal convention of dull colours for the text.

• As the protagonist face is the main selling point of the magazine I didn’t want to cover the detail of her features because normally the “Empire” would be covered by the front photo but in this case I put it over to be more professional.

• Empire knows that they can cover their master head because they are sure that their audience know their name very well so they don’t have to caution with the hiding of the mater head.

• Before planning my trailer I did some research into

the genre of Horror and Thriller movie trailers to

make further my understanding of the codes and

conventions of them so I will be able to incorporate

it into my trailer. Some trailers like HATES and the

Stepfather which has a confusing but clear story line

at the beginning then the horror being unleashed.

• Watching these clips showed me the importance of

horror and effects that have to be in the trailer and

it also opened my understanding to the importance

of lighting in the trailers. It is clear that dark lighting is

used very much in horror trailers, there is also a used

of high key lighting that is used to present and show

the twist of the story and allow the audience to

understand what is going on an looking at this as

one of the important conventions for horror genre-d

films it has been put into account and present in my

trailer.

• Analysing HATES and the Pact had the codes of

representing the clash between good and devil

with a puzzling storyline and showing most of the

characters to the audience for them to try and

guess the storyline themselves. However in my trailer

I wanted to keep the storyline hidden but yet

understanding so the audience will want to know

what happens, also the showing of good and evil I

showed in my trailer.

• Looking at the linearity of the Pact and HATES and

the Stepfather I noticed that it was pretty neat with

the characters and what they are there for,

however the revealing of the story is still hidden in

somewhat way and no evidence of how it would

end.

• For music I found that it is a very key convention in building certain suspense and atmosphere for the trailer. Eerie, heavy and tension building music is present and a significant convention in horror trailer and also diegetic music. Non diegetic sound and diegetic sound combined are extremely import to be able to build the narrative of the story and atmosphere in any horror trailer.

• The jump scenes which are present in most film trailers were only included around the ending of my trailer this is a convention that I changed up a bit as my storyline is kind of diegetic at the beginning however the enigma and tension is not lost in my trailer.