Evaluation question 1

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

All trailers share some central conventions. They must include the genre, name and production values of the film. I think the genre of our film is easy to distinguish right from the start of our trailer because of the inter-titles describing the killer and his back story. This is then supported through the use of music and mise-en-scene elements like the creepy empty woods setting. The name of our film is also prominent as it has its own shot towards the end of the trailer with nothing to distract from it. The production values, however, are less obvious. All the main characters are seen so it could be said the stars of the film are made known. The directors name isn't given, however this would happen in a real trailer if the director was unknown and therefore couldn't be used as an advertising technique.

Furthermore trailers have to use aspects of the film that the target audience will be interested in. We tried to film clips we thought would grab the attention of our teenage to early twenties audience, for example most of our shots are just of a group of teenagers hanging out, so this is something they could identify with. A trailer should also introduce central characters and their relationships, and also identify the main protagonist. All our characters are shown at some point in the first few shot so the audience knows who will be in the film. I think the shot of Jake (killer) coming out from the bushes as though he had been stalking the other characters portrays him as the villain whereas the shots of Poppy (final girl) looking scared shows her as the main protagonist.

Music is an important part of a trailer, it has to be emotive and in keeping with the genre. It also has to emphasise build-up rather than crescendo. We tried to find music for our trailer that would begin quite calmly whilst the equilibrium was still in balance and then have more of a build-up later on once it was disturbed. Also trailers will use a mixture of dialogue, voice over and inter-titles to introduce the characters and what is happening. We decided that a voice over wasn't right for our trailer but we did use inter-titles to reveal the premise and give some information. although we did have trouble with our sound as we were all new to the software. we also struggled to find music for the first few scenes as these shots were flash backs of the killer and wasnt really the same pace as the rest of our trailor. 

Horror films also have their own set of conventions. For example there are certain settings which are often used. These include locations such as small communities or isolated places, places with a ‘past’ for example in the wood, homes and places at night. We upheld this convention in our trailer as we set our film in some woods.

Horror also uses a specific technical code. It uses conventions such as obscure high and low angles. This creates disorientation as the shots change quickly and are at angles that people don't usually see. Another technical code convention is close ups. We used this towards the end of our trailer when Jake is walking towards the camera, which makes the audience feel slightly uncomfortable as he staring straight at the lens. We placed these clips during the fast shots as this creates an invasion of personal space and keeps the audience on edge We also used a close up of the killers prop a teddy bear which gives an insight into the plot line. Another convention is a fast editing pace to create suspense. We used this is our trailer towards the end as it didn't allow the audience to settle on any one image, so they only got an impression of what was happening and it therefore brought the tension to a peak. Furthermore ambient sound is very important in horror.

Horror also has a specific iconography, for example red and black are visual signifies. We used a lot of black filters and toned are images down so they were a lot darker in our trailer. We used common mise-en-scene elements like weapons (knife). Furthermore horror has character type conventions. For example rebellious teenagers as victims like many horror films do.