2. In what ways do my media
products use, develop or
challenge forms & conventions
of real media products?
3. Throughout my media coursework my products
convey forms of conventions that are clearly seen
throughout many real media products. These
products include movie posters, movie trailers and
magazine covers. When creating my products there
were many conventions that I had to follow to make
them successful. The main conventions that I
focused on were font size and colour, this is very
important as the products rely on the right font and
colour to make them successful.
4. When creating my magazine cover I used many
different types of fonts, for example the title “review”
is bright red and also bold. This is to make sure I get
the best effect out of the title, if I made it small it
wouldn’t stand out and if it wasn’t red the main colour
conventions wouldn’t be matched. Red is often used
throughout the horror genre as it signifies blood, evil
and death which all link to the horror genre. For the
film title “the cure” I used larger font and also
changed the colour to yellow. This signifies peace,
which contradicts the horror genre but coincides with
our film title.
5. Throughout the magazine cover I constantly use different fonts
with different colours, I have highlighted key words i.e. “free”
and “competition” as these are words that will appeal to the
reader. The main two colours that I have used are red and
white; I used these colours as they oppose each other, which
links to the constant contrast between good and evil throughout
horror films. As I said I used red for the main phrases as it links
directly to horror whereas white balances the cover as two
bright colours wouldn’t work. Also in some areas of the
magazine cover I used different fonts as there was a different
genre i.e. for the “free competition” I used “cooper black” and
for “the cure” I used “academy engraved”, this was because I
wanted a clear difference between them and as “the cure” is
more important I made it clearer and also larger.
6. I also included other film posters, this would interest the reader
as it brings more scope to the magazine. They are both well
known, popular films so they will attract attention well. The
hostel poster is red and the ring poster is black, these colours
once again reinforcing the horror genre. The main picture on
my poster is very distinctive, the hand and arm are both
covered in blood which is a common feature seen in horror
posters. The picture only shows the “persons” arm, so the
identity is hidden which adds to the tension of the film as it
could be anyone or anything holding the chain. The chain also
adds to the horror theme and is commonly seen throughout the
horror genre. It is usually associated with zombies and also
portrays violence which ties in well with our film.
7. When I created my magazine cover I wanted to stick
to the conventional layout, I needed the path of the
eye line to be used effectively and also my cover to
look professional and also realistic. I wanted the
reader to know it was a horror magazine the minute
they looked at it; I feel I have achieved this objective
and that my cover works successfully. The first thing
to be seen is the title, which is made large, red and
also has a distinctive font. This will ensure that my
poster attracts the attention of the reader. The main
image is next to be seen, it is large and the picture
clearly relates to the horror genre.
8. It was very important I chose a distinctive image for my cover
as it needs to attract a lot of attention. “EXCLUSIVE” is the next
sub title to be seen, like the title it’s large, red and also has a
distinctive font. It is made smaller than the title as I don’t want
to attract too much attention to it; I have used a different font as
well as a variety makes the cover look more professional. The
next thing you see is the film title “The Cure” I have made the
font colour yellow to emphasise its importance and once again
used different font. I have a large red arrow directed to it as
well, this once more attracting more attention to “The Cure” as
it’s the centre piece of the cover.
9. As you move through the rest of the cover the path of the eye
line shows all the main images and speech that I want it to. In
the bottom left corner I have “More MASSIVE movies coming
soon”, massive is made larger than the other text and this
emphasises the statement and increases the importance of it.
The statement itself included more information about what is to
come and increases the chance of the reader buying the
magazine again. The end of the poster finishes with “Other
main film interviews include” which has small font and is used
as an interesting end to the cover. It is more information for the
reader to be interested in and the other films titles will also
make the cover more popular.
12. Overall I feel that my coursework piece works very
effectively, throughout research and planning I have
constantly used conventional themes and colours
which link to the horror genre. I have related all my
planning to the horror genre and I have used many
ancillary texts to help me. The magazine promotes
the film effectively through special interviews with the
actors, and the poster also promotes the film through
the imagery and reviews. The film encourages the
magazine to be bought so the audience can find out
more about the characters and behind the scenes.
14. From my audience research I have attained some
very useful results. First of all we learnt that our
audience enjoy watching horror films, which is
obviously a good start. The majority of the audience
agree that horror is favourite movie genre and also
that they expect to see death/violence throughout the
movie. These are all good results for us as our film
includes both death and violence. The main aspect
of horror that the participants would change is that
they would make a less obvious ending and have a
male victim.
15. I also made a questionnaire to show my product feedback,
there were three possible answers, “Definitely, a bit and not at
all”. The results I received were also very positive, the main
answer that I received was “Definitely” and no one answered
“not at all” which clearly showed that my magazine cover was
successful in fulfilling its horror genre. I have learned a lot from
attaining audience feedback, using conventional techniques to
create research and make a trailer works, but there are
“conventional” aspects of the horror genre that are unpopular
so in future I would definitely change them i.e. make the victim
male.
16. For my movie poster I made sure that it was dark,
gloomy and mysterious. This is a conventional
setting of a horror film so it works very well and
makes the genre used obvious. I also had zombies
as my main picture; this once again clearly refers to
the horror genre and also means the audience can
easily relate back to these characters in the film. I
used the colour red predominantly throughout the
poster and also the zombies have blood over their
clothes.
17. How did you use new media
technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation
stages?
18. Whilst creating my research, planning and evaluation I used new media
technologies to aid me. The main technologies I used were “i-movie and
fireworks” “I-movie” was to edit our trailer and “fireworks” was to crop and
edit images. Another modern media technology we used whilst creating
our film trailer was a video camera, which had attributes such as night
vision. All the research, planning and evaluation I have completed has
been transferred to my blog, which is another example of new media
technologies. Without these new media technologies I would not have
been able to make a successful horror trailer, as the conventional themes
would not be able to be used. The video camera enabled us to shoot in
the dark, which meant we hit the conventional theme of the horror genre.
