In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media product uses many forms and conventions, I decided upon this as it is a tried and tested way to create a successful piece of media text by following these conventions. However I feel I did challenge the conventions in some ways.
In making my film trailer I decided to use the generic convention of using a green PG rating screen, I feel this gives a real feel of film trailer giving it authenticity. Also I used a production company logo, instead of creating my own I decided against it as I feel using a well known production company would give the trailer a more professional feel. Also with well known brands comes the idea of quality and reliability which the audience will associate my trailer with my logo.

To begin my trailer I used the track Playground Love by Air, I chose this track to contrast with the second track used, Right Here, Right Now by Fat Boy Slim as the juxtaposition of a calm serene song against a hard fast paced track is very effective I think. This challenges conventions as usually just one or similar tracks are used to represent the film however I enjoyed the element of surprise as the video was very sad and violent yet the audio used against it was very calm and pleasant.

Another development of a form I used was having a non linear narrative throughout the first section of my trailer as the shots switch between the girl arguing with the boy and then taking a pill, however much these aren’t in chronological order it does have some order to it as it shows an action followed by the consequence of it. Also the latter section of my trailer doesn’t exactly tell a story, challenging the conventions of a trailer, instead it is sharp jumpy cuts from each character and moment, this reflects the tone and feeling of the film and conveying this to the audience. Another convention I challenged was my voice over narrative, instead of the usual story telling narrative found in most trailers I used a very short voice over which came in occasionally, almost as if it is one of the characters of the trailer. I also started the narrative with a rhetoric question, hoping to engage the audience straight away, getting them involved with the film and also letting them relate to the main protagonist.

I did follow the convention however of a freeze frame of a character accompanied by a title shot including the name of the actor and the character the actor will be playing. I felt this was necessary as with there being many characters throughout the trailer the audience would need to get accustomed to them. This is also a good convention when used for famous actors as this draws in a wider audience. I did also follow the major conventions of the film trailers, in ways such as close up shots, Dutch tilts, montages, non-diegetic music, non-diegetic sounds used to add to the atmosphere of the film. I decided which conventions were the most important to add in to my magazine front cover after analysing these, and firstly, the most common ones seen on a magazine is the use of the title of the magazine, the main feature story, the bar code, date and issue number, the price and a main background picture.How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?I feel my combination of ancillary and main product is very effective as I have used many elements that incorporate and link them all together to make them easily recognisable to all of the audiences, making advertising more successful and easier. To do this I used screen shots from my trailer, ones which are representative of my trailer such as the eyes and mouth of the main protagonist and also shots that would represent to the audience the themes and issues raised within my film such as screen shots of the hand in the night club and the screaming under the water in the bath scene. I chose these shots as I wanted to interest the audience and engage them in both my ancillary products and film.Also I used the same fonts for the title and the same colour of font to anchor each of the texts and to give a sense of continuity. Another element I used to make my main product and ancillary effect it that of choppy cuts, within the film I used a sequence of choppy scenes and also in my poster and magazine front cover I used I used cuts of screen shots to represent the film.How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used many technical manipulations throughout creating my film as I used the editing suite Adobe Premier Pro. I used a lot of editing in every single shot I took as I feel this affects and improves completely the overall aesthetic of my film. This helped the construction of my piece, for my planning when creating my story board I firstly used paper and instead of scanning in the sheets I created an animatic using Adobe premier pro and apply my chosen music to give more depth showing how the video would be sequence however after changing my mind about my film and re-doing it al completely I had to delete this animatic and sadly didn’t have time to make one for my final film, instead I scanned in my storyboard. Also I used blogger to record and track all of my progress when creating my planning construction and research. Brief, planning and technical decisions.What was your brief?What research did you carry out and how did it inform your planning?How did you attempt to meet audience expectations in your planning?Tell me who your target audience is and how you give them what they will want. Confirm extensive audience research including focus groups.What decisions did you make and why?

This was my Brief– A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following:A film magazine front cover featuring the filmA poster for the film
To create these media texts I had to take out certain amount of research into each of them. This involved analysing many film trailers, when doing this I analysed “Factory Girl” “Moulin Rouge” and “The Virgin Suicides”, the reason I chose to analyse these trailer is because of their very differing genres. I decided that if I was to get a real understanding of film trailers I would have to analyse many different types. I did the same with analysing magazine front covers and film posters including their dimensions and drafting out plans for my own. I feel all of this definitely helped in producing my own main product and ancillary texts. Also I conducted audience research to find what really appealed to my target audience of 16 – 30 years olds however I was limited with this and because of timing I had to conduct my research on my college peers which limited my audience to 16 – 19 year olds only. Despite this I still feel my texts would appeal to my original preferred audience. I decided to use young people to star within my film as it reflects the audience I aimed my film at, letting the audience engage and relate to the characters, making the film more successful


My film relates to previous productions of its kind and of the same nature in many ways such as the issues raised and the way it is portrayed. Young people are often represented as reckless party fiends and this is shown within my video, I think that this is effective and makes the story easy to understand because of this. I also used a conventional setting of a night club which hosts a whole manner of things. I feel that my film reflects today’s society which most contemporary films do and with the recent uprising of drugs such as methadrone, cannabis and cocaine as well as violent relationships fuelled by these narcotics and alcohol abuse, I felt it was fitting to reflect societies worries, fears and problems when making my film. I would however like to mention that there wasn’t any illegal drug use in any of the making of my film. I think my video communicated with the audience that however much the people in the video look like they are having a good time on the narcotics there is the underlying danger, fear and unhappiness because of them which is represented through the overlap of the night club and Jemilla screaming, showing that combining the two isn’t good. I also think this is reinforced by the narrator questioning her statement when “she knows how to make it better, doesn’t she?” this is immediately followed by an over the shoulder shot of Jemilla looking distressed and screaming into a mirror. I used many technical manipulations throughout creating my film as I used the editing suite Adobe Premier Pro. I used a lot of editing in every single shot I took as I feel this affects and improves completely the overall aesthetic of my film. First of all I used to cut tool so I could get precise cuts of every shot and piece of music I wanted to use, I then manipulated the image as I felt the film looked too “real” and not very professional. For ever clip I went into Video transitions and applied Matrox colour correction primary to every shot apart from the title pages and production company logo. When using this for majority of shots such as the shot where the girl is taking the pill, I lowered the contrast and brought up the brightness and midtones whilst lowering the shadow slightly. I feel this gives the overall video more depth and a feeling of darkness which links in with the storyline and theme. In some of the shots I took I wanted the audience to focus in on just one aspect of the scene so I manipulated the position and scale of the shot in the motion section, this was done in the scene where the girl is screaming in the bath as in the original shot you could see some of her bikini top and this ruined the realism of the scene. In the first scene of the eyes opening and closing I changed the opacity to make the beginning of the shot more blurred, I feel this girls the effect of the girl and also the audience just waking up which anchors the eyes opening and closing. Another technical use was in almost ever shot I had I manipulated the speed and duration of the scene. In the shot of the boy downing a pint at the bar I sped the duration up considerably and also cut sections to give the shot a more jumpy feel. I think this gave the scene a more dramatic and tetchy feel to it. Yet in other shots such as the girl trying to slap the boy I slowed the duration down considerably as I wanted the audience to get a real effect of what was happening in the scene. In my teaser trailer for this same scene I sped it up and also used reverse speed which rewinds the clip, in my case playing it twice, I felt that because the teaser trailer had to be short I couldn’t slow down the duration so playing it quickly twice would have the same impact on the audience. Also in the very last shot of the sky with the release date on I used the cross dissolve tool at the very end so it would fade gently out giving a more professional feel.

Media institutions and audiences and audience feedback.Comment on the institution. What is the institution doing at the moment and how have you considered this in your production. How does it meet the needs of the audience- refer to audience theories like users and gratifications. What does your audience think of your product? How could it have been improved? What are its strengths?You must:Show a clear indication of brief and comparison with AS project.Record and reflect upon all stages of the production and account for main decisions made.Analyse finished product to show how form and content affect meaning. Make appropriate references to structure and representation and how it reflects the industry.Place production in relation to both other texts and industry practices.Good reference to audience feedback. Have a clear and systematic evaluation that is detailed, thorough and reflective


At the moment I feel the film institution are trying to break the boundaries with technology, such as the sudden boom and return of the 3D effect and also special effects. Obviously I couldn’t achieve this because of budget and the resources I was able to access, however I do feel that with recent releases of apocalyptical films such as “2012” and the rerelease of “the clash of the titans”, societies fears and worries are reflected through film. I feel with the recent uprising of drugs and violence within young people I would reflect this within my film also. I feel that my film uses audience narcissism as the audience can reflect on and see themselves within my film as I can imagine everyone has come into contact with drugs and violence be it first or second hand. I feel that because of this, it will make my film more successful as the audience can identify and relate to the characters, engaging them more. When conducting my audience research I asked some other qualitative research such as “what in your opinion would you say is the best part of the trailer?” and mostly I got found that the favourite part was the beginning scene of the girls taking the tablets as the juxtaposition of narrative is very effective. I also asked “What would improve the trailer” and found that the editing could have been neater and more of a narrative. I feel that my pieces could have been greatly improved had I not had such poor time management. I feel that If I had spent longer gathering more footage and edited the footage to a better quality I would have had a more successful piece. I feel my ancillary texts are quite compared to my previous AS piece but I think this s because I spent more time creating that. I am disappointed that they let me but nevertheless I feel within my time limit I gave myself they are of average quality. Given more time and better resources I would have improved them greatly by doing things such as having a separate photo shoot for the ancillary as well as using stills from the film. I also would have liked to have used Adobe photo shot to manipulate the images more but because I had to do them at home this software was not available to me. I do feel that my pieces however do have strengths such as the ancillary pieces do reflect my footage as different still are cut and put into place, this reflects the pace and tone of the footage. I also feel my film has many strengths in the way such as I have interesting shots such as extreme close ups of the mouth and a shot of the girl in the bath screaming under water, with it being a very quick brief shot I think that it makes the scene more shocking to the audience as with it being at the end it is unexpected.