Question 1: In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media

products?

Film Trailers A typical film trailer is approximately a minute to two minutes long. It doesnt usually express a long chronological narrative and usually only goes into depth with a lead character. The aim is to give the audience a flavour of what the film is like, without giving too much away. Trailers will usually establish the genre and in turn establish the target audience along with a basic/vague narrative. These are elements I wanted to incorporate into my film trailer in order for it to take on a more professional appearance. I only showed a few seconds of key moments, e.g. quick shots of ominous actions, blood and setting. Horror films like The Blair Witch Project and We need to talk about Kevin inspired me, it helped establish the genre, use of handheld camera work and create a sense of mystery. Below are links to We need to talk about Kevin trailer and my film t railer Skell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLRgAe2jLaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zWCsD9QMw0

Horror Genre / Psychological Horror When considering genre for my film trailer I looked at various aspects that would influence my decision. The success of a film lies in the audience, if a film has a good audience backing it; it is more likely to be a success. One aspect that was a crucial influence was the questionnaire that I did at the start of my research. It revealed that psychological / horror isnt the most popular genre of film but if directed at the right audience it can be extremely successful. Horror films strive to arouse emotions of fear, tension and terror. The typical conventions these films employ provoke these emotions E.g blood, death, killing, villains violence, chase scenes, isolated settings, screams, darkness, etc. Music is usually a key element normally used to build tension and punctuate violent visuals and the lighting is normally low key to create a sombre atmosphere. When planning my trailer I took all the typical conventions in to consideration, I knew they would be needed to create an effective trailer. I set my trailer in a typical, modern English house equipped with a dilapidated back garden, a stereotypical, isolated location to stage my horror film trailer. Most of the grisly sinister action were filmed in low key lighting in the back garden where the foliage had grown rampant, realistically there was plenty of shelter to hide and bury dead bodies/kill people without detection. The many shadows in the scene added to the fear of the unknown and it also effectively conveyed the teenagers entrapment. I also used parallel

sound, where by the music was used to build tension and allow the audience to gain a sense of panic when scary visuals were on screen.

Sub genre - Psychological/ Horror Burton describes genre as a type or category of media product, it gives the audience a guideline of what a film will be like. Horror consists of many sub-genres, I chose to lokk at psychological horrors because I believe theres a lot more potential for character depth and an interesting narrative. As opposed to the more common slasher/horror films for example where the plot usually portrays the lives of teenagers, trapped in a situation where some raving loon takes them out systematically one by one. Instead I wanted to portray the journey of a very psychologically damaged youth who compulsively murders his relatives and his closest friends for a multitude of reasons, a character so relatable its very frightening for my target audience (teenagers). Traditionally speaking most psychological horrors revolve around the journey/exploits of the main antagonist i.e. Norman Bates from Psycho, Patrick Bateman from American psycho and Kevin from We need to talk about Kevin. Stereotypically the killers are always adult males, however in recent years the killer has been someone less unexpected in order to add the shock aspect to the film. We decided to cast the killer as a teenage male, typical in the sense that he hes male and non-typical because hes a teenager. Ancillary Tasks To compare my magazine cover and posters I examined professionally made magazines and posters for example - Empire magazines issue addressing the psychological/horror film Hannibal. I used this magazine because it was a professionals presentation of a film with the same genre I was attempting to replicate. They put a lot of emphasis on their main antagonists intimidating countenance main focal image of Hannibal lectors face on the front addressing the audience directly with a primal glare. To scare the audience and effectively establish the genre of the film (psychological/horror) they did the exact same thing with heir film poster (which I also analysed) because its iconic, impactful and easily recognised. Following their good example, I did the same with my ancillary products. But instead I used the icon of my psychotic killers ceremonial, skull mask (similar to Michael Myers rubber face mask) and when that image is used consistently throughout my project it becomes a recognisable brand to the audience. And of course I also included all the other typical conventions of a film magazine including but not limited to: taglines, headings, steel tongs, tags, barcode, focal image, etc. The questionnaire that we produced at the very beginning helped me come to a conclusion about what my target audience preferred and helped me develop the products into something that would appeal to the them.