Evaluation: Question 1

"IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PORUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?"

TRAILER

Conventions of a Teaser Trailer

Before researching genre, we needed to understand the conventions of a teaser trailer itself. We did this when deconstructing trailers and noticing common conventions that consistently appeared in most trailers:

• Fast paced
• Short
• Less information than a theatrical trailer
• Less dialogue
• Credits

Our choice of music allowed us to add pace to our trailer and differentiate equilibrium and disequilibrium.

The footage was condensed to one minute and eight seconds keeping it short and fast paced, giving away little information and instead documenting a montage of images from the potential film.

We involved little dialogue in our trailer, however, a voice over commonly appears in trailers, therefore this is something we chose to experiment with. As we felt it didn't fit with our trailer due do the soundtrack we had chosen and the pace of our shots, we decided not to use it in the final production.

Conventions of Genre

We decided to make our trailer a psychological drama therefore researched films of the same genre or consisting of similar conventions. There were themes of technology (social networking, the internet and anonymous identity) as well as homosexuality.

Due to our combination of genres, we looked at a range of films with different conventions. For psychological we looked mainly at the character of Donnie Darko, as we structure the character of Matt around him.

'Donnie Darko'

‘Hard Candy’ and ‘Catfish’ stood out to us for their conventions of social networking and identity. ‘Chatroom’ also fitted in with both our psychological and drama theme. ‘Catfish’ was a documentary, however, the style in which is documented facebook information through the use of extreme close ups was inspiration for our trailer. All three of these films linked in with the idea of anonymity and identity on the internet.

'Hard Candy' - extreme close up of computer showing social networking.

'Catfish' - extreme close up of computer showing social networking.

We looked at ‘Brokeback Mountain’ and ‘Shelter’ which helped us to understand conventions and seek inspiration on how to represent an intimate friendship involving elements of homosexuality through filming and editing etc.

'Brokeback Mountain' - Close up showing intimate connection between characters.

'Shelter' - Lighting seeting a refreshing, happy atmosphere.

The typography portrayed conventions of our trailer due to the editing and effects we added to it. After using PowerPoint and Photoshop to add computer generated style effects, we added further animation in Final Cut Pro. It showed similarities to conventions of the typography's we had previously researched and films we had deconstructed.

'Untraceable' Typography - Research that inspired our typography style.

'Alternet' - Final trailer typography.

POSTER

Conventions of a Poster

Before specifying genre, we needed to understand the conventions of a film poster in general. This meant picking out important elements that commonly appeared on a poster such as:

• Images
• Credits – highlighting actors and directors (possibly specifying other films they have made)
• Typography
• Quotes/ratings
• Catch phrase
• Links – Facebook, Twitter, film website
• Productions company logo

We included all these things in our final poster highlighting conventions of our film genre.

'Alternet' - Final poster design.

Conventions of Genre

As our trailer was a psychological drama genre, this needed to be portrayed through the conventional elements of the poster. The ‘Catfish’ poster strongly inspired us as it fitted in well with the conventions of technology and social networking through its use of editing (computerized images, typography etc.)

'Catfish' - Poster 1

'Catfish' - Poster 2

We edited the images to fit with the idea of being computer generated or displayed on a computer screen by using effects such as pixelate, scan lines and blue tints.

Editing poster images using iPiccy.com

Editing poster images using iPiccy.com

The typography we used for our final poster was inspired by the 'Catfish' Poster. We used a Facebook banner which tied in immediately with conventions of our film genre and social link due to its clear representation of social networking.

'Alternet' - typography and catch phrase used for both poster and website.

WEBSITE

Conventions of a Film Website

After deconstruction several websites, we could establish an understanding of common elements and conventions that were consistently appearing such as

• Typography
• Images
• Trailer (usually plays immediately)
• Action Buttons
• Links - Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Youtube, Tumblr
• Release date and where to buy/download the film or purchase tickets to see it.
• Quotes/ratings
• Production company logos
• Animation
• Catchphrase

We tried to include as many of these elements as we could when creating our website using an online website creator called Wix.com. However, animation, for example, was complicated to create using Wix.

Conventions of Genre

We did deconstructions of both the 'Catfish' and 'Black Swan' websites.

'Catfish' - Website laid out like a Mac desktop.

'Black Swan' - Website portraying psychological drama.

'Black Swan' was a psychological drama therefore shared similar conventions to our teaser trailer.

The documentary film 'Catfish' had a very interesting website which was a source of inspiration for our final design. As it was laid out as if using a Mac desktop, this linked well with the conventions of social networking and technology. We wished to add elements of a Facebook profile to our website to make this direct connection.

'Alternet' - Final website design.