Evaluation Q1

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

The most obvious way to assess the ways in which my product interacts with the forms and conventions of the equivalent real media products, would be to analyse its relationship with existing teaser trailers and their established conventions and criteria. The predominant of these criterions being the limited length of teaser trailers in comparison to the much longer theatrical trailers, as found in my research.

My product complies with this important form of a teaser trailer, which is vital in distinguishing between the two types of trailer and so therefore fulfilling the set brief. However, some may consider my product which is 1 minute and 3 seconds in length to be pushing the limits of this important convention. However, my product could be considered limited in conveying the desired themes and ideologies in a cohesive narrative if it had been further trimmed, making this challenge of typical conventions justified. Alternatively, due to the very early release of teaser trailers before a film is produced, they,

‘Usually contain little, if any, actual footage from the film’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaser_trailer

Which allows a teaser trailer to be highly ambiguous, conveying a theme or tone as opposed to a fuller narrative structure common in theatrical trailers. This criterion would seem to challenge the fuller content and time scale of my own product suggesting my text challenges the conventions typical of teaser trailers further than would fist be suggested. However, as the main ‘chase’ scenes within my trailer show only the victim running from something unknown, and the attacker is only insinuated from other shorter shots it does possess some of the ambiguity and less linear, complex narrative structure commonly featured in theatrical trailers. This does position my product within the boundaries of teaser trailer conventions but it does seem to push these boundaries to the limit in challenging the majority of shorter more ambiguous trailers commonly seen to ‘tease’ and entice the audience prior to production beginning.

Another way to assess the way my product works with forms and conventions is to analyse its relationship with the established conventions of existing trailers from the same genre, the action/thriller genre. Drawing on findings from my own research into an extensive array of these trailers, I found some of the most important conventions to be:
- Quick, abrupt, snappy transitions between shots
- A fast, exciting tempo or mysterious atmosphere/tone
- High action/thriller content (chases, car scenes, explosions etc)
- Music that crescendos to heighten drama and create a climax

Throughout the production process, we tried to create a trailer that would comply with these conventions, so that it effectively conveyed the appropriate genre and themes, as well as using tried and tested audience gratifications to appeal to our target audience. We definitely used the form of abrupt quick shots and transitions, to keep up a fast, interesting pace and engage attention. We used a blend of music to achieve the crescendo as we could not find one appropriate piece on its own. This I think is particularly important as music is a powerful tool to establish the desired mood and ambience to accompany the visual components. A combination of these effective conventions we have seen working in our research, such as the ‘Taken’ trailer I focused on and has offered the most inspiration with its similar theme and genre, has allowed us to create a fast and exciting tempo and effective trailer following the conventions and forms of existing products. However, it could be regarded that our product lacks the extreme high action content such as the car explosion also featured in the ‘Taken’ trailer and the style of shots common in action/thriller trailers to engage the audience. An explanation for the reasons why our trailer challenges this typical convention is simply the limited budget and resources available to us. To create scenes like those featured in blockbuster film trailers could potentially cost millions. We have created our own interpretation of these genre trailers with the resources available to us, and in many ways we were able to make it comply with the conventions seen in professional products, however it is difficult to produce something that will entirely reflect these established conventions, so in some ways our text does challenge the more extreme conventions seen in high end productions.

(The taken trailer mentioned above)

(to watch with sound, click on below hyperlink)
http://www.screenrush.co.uk/video/player_gen_cmedia=18824936&cfilm=126169.html

The secondary components of the campaign both the poster and magazine cover do seem to comply strongly with the conventions and forms found from our research. Being the same form, a print based still image, they share similar conventions. From research, I found the important and commonly featured of these to be:
- A large, dominant and strong headshot or full photo to feature as the primary optical area
- An appropriate background of either a shot from the film, appropriate scenery or blend of colours
- A prominent title and/or tagline

Both of our products comply with these criteria; both use a character photo as the primary optical focus, as well as the title and tagline for the film. The backgrounds of both are a shot of the woods at night, which is appropriate background scenery for the genre and plot as well as creating continuity across the campaign elements.