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

This is the video me and my group created which shows the discussion we had about the ways our media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions, of real media products. This video is effective at showing the point views of all members of the group. It has also allowed us to brainstorm the conventions as a group which has allowed us to reinforce each others thoughts on the project and identify conventions which other members of the groups may not have thought of.

Conventions which we followed are:

•  green certificate
• new line cinema video in trailer
• colour theme
• contrasting characters
• theme of friendship
• image of one person on the cover
• subtitle over magazine title
• layout U shaped conventional
• image over empire logo
• doodles
• posture within characters which shows status
• billing block
• bright colours

Challenges:

•  having the poster landscape
• cartoon on the magazine

Trailer

The green certificate is a convention of a trailer, it occurs at the beginning of every trailer and it indicates that it is appropriate for the audience to view. We looked at British trailers to see if it was conventional for us to have Amercia Inc. as part of the information or if this for American trailers only. After the research we found this was conventional for British film trailers so we kept with the convention and included it as part of it. In evaluation if I had more time I would have liked to have created our own green certificate instead of using copy. This would have made the trailer more professional and it would have looked a higher quality.

The production company is conventionally shown in the trailer, so we included the video of the New Line Cinema into the trailer. By including this video it looks professional and realistic. To begin with we wanted to use the same text as the other text shown in the trailer. However this was not conventional as the video including the logo of New Line Cinema is more common in trailers so we changed it so it fits the conventions of trailers.

The background for text used was pink which is conventional for the age and gender of the target audience. Pink is often used in this genre of comedy/ fantasy teenager and it is conventional for teenage girls. which is why we used the colour in the trailer. However in evaluation if I was to improve this I would change the background of the text so it was a similar colour which is used in the colour theme for the poster and magazine. As this would link the trailer further with the other promotional products.

The setting we used was a school which is conventional for the age of our target audience as it enables the audience to relate to the setting. This is conventional of trailers as settings that are used need to be able to be identified and familiar to the target audience. So we used a school as the age of the target audience which will watch the film are familiar with school as they are still there or have just left. This is so they can relate to the characters and makes situations in the film funny as it supports the genre comedy.

The themes in our trailer are conventional of teenage comedy/fantasy like friendship. It is frequently used in this type of film, so it shows that as a group we wanted to stick to the conventional themes that are often shown in the trailers. It also allows the audience to identify with the theme as they can relate to easily.

Also contrasting characters were used in the trailer as one girl is popular and the other is a normal geeky girl. This means a wider range of the target audience as there is more characters which they can relate to as there is not just one type of person. This encourages a wider audience to watch the film which is why it is conventionally included in trailers. Also it means that it is more likely for the audience to like one of the character and want to know the outcome.  

The music used is conventional teenage comedy/fantasy as it is upbeat, which is what we wanted to create as a group as it is often used in real media products. By using upbeat music it supports the genre of the film because it tells the audience that it is lighthearted and fun. I think we have kept with this convention and has allowed the trailer to be lighthearted and fun like the storyline.

Magazine 

 

We have followed a range of different conventions of magazines to create a professional and realistic looking magazine. The conventions we have followed are: the layout of the magazine as we have followed the U shape layout for the text which is conventional used on magazines as it allows the text to be evenly distributed so that the cover is not busy and it also means that the image on the poster is not covered by text. In evaluation even though some of the text does cover the character I believe that the text follows this convention and is well distributed. Furthermore we have also followed the conventional layout of the magazine Empire by placing the mast head, tag line, price, website, date and bar code in the conventional places. We have followed these conventions so that our magazine looks like a conventional Empire magazine so it can relate to the magazine when looked at. Furthermore we also put the head of the character over 'Empire', this is conventional of popular magazine brands. As not all the word has to be seen for the brand to be identified. We followed this convention as we thought this made the magazine more realistic. In evaluation I think this was done well as the head does not cover too much of the lettering but enough so that it follows this convention. Also as Amie's jumper is red so the masthead stands out links to the photo on the cover. Which is further reenforced by the fact that Amie's blond hair is a light colour so it makes the red of the writing bolder. The target audience also said that they thought that the masthead was clear and could be easily identified as that company. 

The colour theme and fonts of the text follows the conventions of magazines. As we used a range of different fonts but they were all similar so none stuck out more than others on the magazine. We also used one colour theme of yellow, red and black. We found these were conventions when researching magazine covers. We have followed this and I believe that it has made the cover eye-catching and engaging, it also looks professional. The colours and fonts we chose complement the image on the cover, which is why we chose the colours we have. They also complement the brick wall and stand out. However in evaluation the yellow is not clear from a distance so I would make the colour slightly darker so that it was brighter and clearer.  

 

A convention that we challenged was that we included a cartoon image of a skull and cross bone on her coat. I believe this works well on the magazine as the size of it means that it does not stand out and fits well into the layout of the cover. It has allowed the magazine to show the concept of the film as it gives the image a fun and indie feel which we wanted to include. It also fulfils its purpose of showing Amie's personality as it is the conventional sign for danger and warning. When talking to the target audience not many people picked up the fact that we had included the cartoon which as a group we wanted to achieve, which means that I made the right choice in the size and location of the cartoon as we did not want it to overshadow the key concepts on the cover.  

 

In evaluation to make the magazine cover even more conventional I would change the date on the cover as we put the date as January. As this challenges the convention of magazines advertising a summer film as it would have been done in month nearer to the release date.

Poster



There were very little conventions that have to be followed like the other products but the main convention is that there is a billing board on the poster. We have kept this and included all conventional information which is present in the billing block. We also tried to keep it to the same layout so that it looked professional and appropriate for the poster. In evaluation by creating our own billing block it allowed us to personalise the billing block so that it fit with the film we have created. However when creating this we had to keep checking that the billing board was correct for example spelling and the layout, so this was time consuming especially when mistakes were made.

Another convention was that we included doodles on the poster. We found when researching posters that the genre of film we were creating often included doodles on the posters such as 'Angus, thongs and perfect snogging' and 'silver linings.' So we kept this convention as we thought that this supported the storyline of the film and added personality to the poster which would intrigue the target audience into finding out more information about the film.