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

As a group we were able to develop, challenge and most of all use conventions of real media texts. The ideas that we had developed based on our research of different horror movies and bring these ideas together. This enabled us to come up with media products that our audience were able to recognise but also see where conventions have been challenged and developed.

Continuity of the text shown above suggests that we stuck to the conventions of a teaser trailer by what we reveal to a minimal so to create a picture in the audience's mind. This creates a buzz around the film. For example The Dark Knight trailer uses less images and more sound to create a picture. In between the shots of the props we used quick fade in and fade outs building suspense. This is similar to the The Crazies teaser trailer shown below:

The similarities in the shots show that our trailer has stuck to the conventions with the synchronised music heightened at the most gruesome parts of the trailer.

As the music heightens the shots become faster because we wanted to build tension and give a scary effect so the audience will be scared by what they see.

We decided to use white noise in our teaser trailer as it gives realism showing similarities to a real video tape not working to create anxiety amongst the audience. For example The Ring trailer below uses the white noise frequently which correlates with their use of the TV in the trailer making the audience feel like they are part of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHa7dcCntyI The simplicity of The Ring teaser trailer can simplicity which is what we wanted to achieve in our trailer which doesn't give much away to the audience. Even though our trailer may look predictable the way in which the killer commits the act remains unknown to our audience. We have achieved creating suspense within the teaser trailer by leaving the audience wanting to see more of the killer as we did extreme close ups of her mouth and chest and a brief shot of her screaming. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsDlknTOyPs

We challenged conventions of horror films by using mainly black actors and a female lead actress as most real horror films usually consist of Caucasian actors. We decided to do this as we felt it would appeal to our target audience. Black actors have been used in films such as one missed but they haven’t had big roles. So we decided for our main victim and killer to be black which is challenging existing conventions. Below is the victim and killer:

We used Black actors using a developing convention which consist of mainly Caucasians actors. We decided to do this as we felt it would appeal to our target audience. Particularly our killer, a lot of her looks keep to popular conventions of the horror genre, as seen in a few real life horror films. For example, the derangment of Dr Hannibal Lecter in 'The Silence of the Lambs.'

In many horror teaser trailers they show the killer and victims before the bloody scenes and after. This involves a change in costume and special effects make-up. We used Ben Nye fresh scab and prof bruise and abrasion wheel to make the cuts and scars look effective.

The medium close up composition of this shot allows the special effects make-up to show clearly so the audience gets the picture. In this sense we have followed conventions as many horror teaser trailers show characters in scenes where special effects make-up has been used or the costume reflecting the location of where everything maybe taking place. This helps in setting the scene helping the audience to understand what could be going on. From shot to shot there is low key lighting this reflects the dark atmosphere and also suggests the killings are happening during the night time which is a common convention of teaser trailers. Some trailers just have the voice of the killer as they may not want to reveal the face. We used parts of her body for example her chest, her mouth and at the end you briefly see her as most of hair is covering her face. We followed the conventions by revealing the kille. However, this may not keep the buzz around the film and also normally when a well known actor/actress is starring in a movie as the killer, then it is often better not to reveal them because seeing them in character may give some of the story away.

In most horror teaser trailers there may be props to give the audience a brief idea which is what we have done. Using the main props in the teaser trailer helps the so the audience create a picture in their mind and remind them that this is likely to occur often in the film. Comparing this to modern day films today such as Saw 3D it has a similar effect where you have to look closely in order to get a glimpse of what weapons or a brief idea of how the victims will be trapped. Saw 3D below:

We get the view of the trap from different angles. First a low angle then a high angle. This suggests that they are reminding the audience this is key to the killers. Looking at the shots of the fingers. We had it in the sink, in the killers mouth and on her neck. This shown below:

The setting tend to be undisclosed until you've seen the film itself, so the audience can only guess where everything is taking place this adds to tension building up and suspense.

Her provocative outfit shows the sexy side to her character which is a way of her seducing her male victims.

Magazine cover

Overall you can see that our magazine applies many of the normal conventions of a normal magazine. We challenged a few conventions such as using a deteriorated masthead and a focussed'horror special' to really emphasize the fact that this month's special was all about Cannibal and any related horror films.

Poster

This is a video blog explaining how we chose to stick, develop or go against conventions of real movie posters.