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

EVALUATION QUESTION 1

BLOODLINE TRAILER, POSTER AND FRONT COVER

• For our A2 Media Studies Coursework was as a group were assigned the task of creating a trailer of any genre and create 2 ancillary tasks to go alongside the trailer which was our Film Magazine Front Cover: and Film Poster:

FILM MAGAZINE FRONT COVER – FORMS AND CONVENTIONS

• To the right is my finished Film Magazine Front Cover. As you can see it follows many forms and conventions of a real film magazine front cover such as:

- Including a Masthead at the top of the Page

- Having a Model from a new film on the front cover

- Having a sell line

- And more

- My Front Cover was inspired a lot by the features from ‘MovieMaker’ Magazine

FILM MAGAZINE FRONT COVER – FORMS AND CONVENTIONS

• From this comparison between my own Front Cover and ‘MovieMaker’ magazines front cover you can see that my front cover contains my forms and conventions from real media products such as the MovieMaker Magazine.

• However my front cover has also challenged the conventions of film magazine front covers as not my film magazine contain or show the logo of a film on their front cover whereas I did. I did this to showcase the main attraction of my magazine showing of the new popular movie

• You could also say the I challenged the conventions by adding the slogan of the Magazine above the masthead which is very uncommon in real media products, although ‘MovieMaker’ did put a banner above their masthead, it was not their slogan and therefore is definitely nonconventional, and means that I challenged that convention.

FILM POSTER – FORMS AND CONVENTIONS• Here is my Final version of my Film Poster. I am

aware that my Film Poster does challenge a lot of forms and conventions but also follows them.

• Forms and Conventions that are followed:

• - Logo/Title of Film included

• - Release date included

• -Poster Credits included

• Actor’s Names included

• Production Company Logos and Websites included

• Some sort of picture relating to the Film

FILM POSTER – FORMS AND CONVENTIONSMy Film Poster also develops and definitely challenges the forms and conventions of a real Film Poster. Forms and Conventions that my Film Poster Challenge are:

- Logo/Title of Film is at the top of the page.

- Actors Names are at the very bottom of the poster

- Release Date is below Poster Credits

- Does not include a slogan of Film which is “Blood is Thicker Than Water”

FILM POSTER – FORMS AND CONVENTIONS• My Film Poster also develops the forms and

conventions of real film posters, what I did when creating my film poster was when adding photos, I had the idea of the Star Wars Posters where the characters shoulders and heads are shown with everything below faded into the background. So I added this idea into my own poster. Although my Film is of Urban Drama Genre and Star Wars is of the SCI-FI genre and therefore completely opposite genres I developed the convention used so I integrated it into my own Urban Drama Poster to suit my Trailer and Poster.

TRAILER – FORMS AND CONVENTIONS• My Group and I decided to choose and make a Urban Drama based trailer, so we had

regular meetings in and outside lessons to develop our ideas into a feasible and visually interesting plot, which we could then create a trailer based around the plot.

• We as a group were all, already aware of most of the codes and conventions that are usually found within a Urban Drama trailer such as:

• - Mise-en-scene such as Snapback Caps, Hoodies, Tracksuits, bandannas, etc..

• - Also Mise-en-scene based around weapons such as Guns and Knifes

• - In terms of types of Shots and Editing, we knew we would need a variety of shots but knowing that Urban Dram Trailers usually contain a vast amount of Montage editing.

• - Grey/Black atmosphere/Mise-en-scene to make the trailer look gloomy and dark to feel like an urban drama.

TRAILER – FORMS AND CONVENTIONS • Shank is a film trailer that has really

caught my groups and I’s attention, as many aspects of this trailer can be incorporated and was into our trailer. The storyline of the film 'Shank' relates significantly to our Urban Drama, 'Bloodline'. It depicts a close knit relationship between brothers which shows how the lives can change significantly to result back to crime. From watching this trailer, we as a group feel that the non-diegetic voiceover plays a major roll in giving the audience an understanding of the storyline, drawing the viewer in.

We added a similar montage like the one used in SHANK as it made the storyline less obvious for the audience while highlighting the genre to entice the target audience. Many aspects used in SHANK influenced our final trailer

TRAILER – FORMS AND CONVENTIONS• We tried to add a Unique Selling Point

to our trailer, which was that our main character lives in the countryside after leaving his past of living in a gang filled urban environment who then is dragged back in order to save his brother. This USP definitely challenges and develops the forms and conventions of a typical urban drama trailer as you will 99% of the time never see shots or scene from the countryside in an Urban Drama trailer. To the right you can see a huge contrast comparison of shots we took and used in our trailer of Countryside scenes and Urban Scenes.

TRAILER – FORMS AND CONVENTIONS• In terms of Mise-en-Scene our trailer

definitely followed the Forms and Conventions of a Urban Drama Trailer. As you can see from the right. Our character use very stereotypical and urban drama costume such as Snapback Caps, Hoodies, Body Warmers, Puffy Jackets. This allowed them to come across as the typical character you would find in a Urban Drama Trailer and let the audience immediately know what genre of film this is.

• As well as our main characters following the correct forms and conventions of an urban drama, we had Police costumes in use and police cars and siren sound effects were used. This is typically found in an Urban Drama Trailer/film as the gang or characters are always on the run from the police.

TRAILER – FORMS AND CONVENTIONS• In terms of editing we also

used the most common form of editing in a trailer, which was montage editing. Which like most Urban Drama Trailers built up pace from the beginning to the end. We followed other forms and conventions of edit such as:

• - Fade to Blacks

• - Using Captions

• - Jump Shots

• - and more

TRAILER – FORMS AND CONVENTIONS• We followed the forms and

conventions when it came to shots and we followed one of the most common type of shot used in an Urban Drama Trailer ever which is a tone of running scenes. By following this convention, not only were we able to fill our montage with useful clips but it made our trailer look a lot more professional and engage with the music used and for every running scene, it looked as if the pace building up to the end of the trailer began to speed up.

REFEREEING BACK TO REPERTOIRE OF ELEMENTS OF URBAN DRAMA GENRE• Character: Typically in a Urban Drama movie there is generally three groups of characters; The

Gangs, The Police, Innocent Civilians, along with these group of characters there is also typically a ex gang member who gets dragged back into his old gang life. Normally the female characters are stereotyped to be ignorant and to be used for sex appeal and the men are usually the gang members. Children appear very often in urban drama films as it gives the film a sense of how the innocence can be twisted to become involved in a gang or can also be used to show how a gang could be ruthless in killing a child.

• Audience: Men seem to be one of the main audiences for Urban Drama Films as it's exciting and ruthless and gives the audience an insight on gang life. Also young adults from 14 upwards possibly from London would be interested possibly by the Urban Drama genre as it shows them what actually occurs near where they live.

• Settings: For the majority of Urban Drama films the setting is quiet similar, there is generally always a dull, rainy day and a council house around an area which you can tell is full of crime e.g. graffiti showing vandalism. Popular settings also include London Streets, alleyways and Council.

REFEREEING BACK TO REPERTOIRE OF ELEMENTS OF URBAN DRAMA GENRE• Themes: For an Urban Drama film to be successful it needs to conform to some of the typical themes, themes

such as Evil vs. Good, Misunderstood children, Dark Lives, Sin vs. Purity and even death.

• Style: Conventional lighting for an Urban Drama film is quite low key, dark and gloomy with a dull, cold feel to it. They have a lot of use of close ups and a variety of low and high angles shots, to create tension. Another way of creating tension is through the use of sound, typically you'd get a lot of rap, grime, and nowadays even dubstep playing, this also gives an insight of what the gangs of today like listening to, in terms of music genre.

• Iconography: An iconic item you'd find within a Urban Drama film would be some form of knife or gun, and of course most defiantly blood. In terms of clothing, Hoodies, Snapbacks and tracksuits are worn to represent how gangs dress.

• Narrative: Typically the narrative of a Urban Drama film would be to have some sort of gang with gang members and gang leaders established, so the audience get an insight of the hierarchy of power within the gang, there is usually also a police group who the gang are running from at some point within the film, there is also usually a misunderstood gang member who believes he is doing or not doing the right thing by being in a gang.