Evaluating Uses of Genre Forms and Conventions

Evaluate how your products used, developed or challenged

the forms and conventions of real media products.

 

 

TRAILER

Contact sheet (note, some of the images mentioned in the text are not in the contact sheet)

      Ratings card (no image)

• This is standard for all trailers that are being shown to an audience of a different age to the ones who are allowed to see the official film. Trailers can be cut to be shown before films with lower age ratings. We needed to add this to create a sense of institutional professionalism.

      Ident (no image)

• In real world media texts (trailer), idents are a key part of the text. They often occur at the beginning of the trailer. 
• In many real life media products, the composition of idents varies greatly. For example, THQ has a simple fade in transition whereas 20^th Century Fox has a cinematic feel as huge titles sweep in on an epic background.
• We wanted to make our ident memorable but brief and therefore decided on a quirky approach using fuzzy felt as this seemed n eye-catching way of producing a logo.
•  It is common in real life situations for companies to change their idents in order to suit the  proposed film. For example, for the film ‘The Simpsons Movie’ they placed a beloved character, ‘Ralph Wiggum’ on the 20^th Century Fox ident to match the comedic feel of the film.
• Our ident does not do that in this case as we felt that our film was unlikely to be big enough to warrant this treatment as it is not part of a franchise.

Adapted Warner Bros ident for Harry Potter

      Intertitles (images 1 and 2)

• In many real life media products it is common for trailers to contain some sort of narration, often a deep-voiced voiceover. We decided to use intertitles because we knew that there would be a lot of dialogue and other sound in our trailer and this makes it more difficult to place a voiceover. Also we had noticed that intertitles with emotional content are common in our war-based genre, as seen in this emotion-based intertitle from "Atonement":

•  In many real life media products, many of the names associated with the production of the film are placed at the end with titles that flash quickly on the screen. This may be necessary in our trailer to create a sense of trust in the institutions involved.
• We gave our intertitles a smoky background and ensured we used a green text to match the military theme and to tie in with the print products.

       Main title (no image)

• This was placed at the end of our trailer and is absolutely essential. We attempted to match it with the theme and narrative of our film by giving it a smoky background with a deep military style green colour text to accompany the feel of the film.
• This is common in real life media products as production companies often try and make the title associable with the particular film. It tends to occur at the end as this is where it is most memorable.

Characters (images 3,4,5,7 and 8)

• Within our trailer we really wanted to make each character powerful and recognisable to the audience. One of the main ways to do this was by using mise-en-scene to really show what type of person each character is. For example, the father was intended to be an aggressive and powerful character. We displayed this in our trailer by giving the father leadership style clothing e.g. suit and military attire.
•  It is common in media texts for the producers to give characters a real sense of identity and power. For example, in the latest trailer for Superman: Man of Steel, he is seen on several occasions wearing a superman costume making him seem powerful and domination and also establishing that he is most likely the hero archetype.

Full uniform to contrast with recruit's undress in Full Metal Jacket

• Psychological dramas focus largely on domestic situation and trouble that arises within a social group. It also offers the audience a lot of opportunities to relate to the situations.
• This is why in our trailer we made it clear that each character was going through some sort of domestic situation that was affecting them psychologically. We see this in shots involving the father grabbing the mother by the hair and also another where the mother wrestles a bottle of whisky away from the father.

Emotional moment in Atonement

• Although the audience may have been able to relate to the shots shown earlier in the trailer e.g. father ignoring son and mother trying to prevent alcoholism. We provided that further aspect of character identity that the audience may not be able to relate to e.g. extreme aggression shown by father as he points gun to sons head.
• Mostly all our characters fit into the genre conventions as a huge variety of emotions are shown which is common in psychological thrillers. E.g. sadness (mother and two sons), aggression (father and youngest son), happiness (youngest brother, friend and mother) and depression (both sons and mother). This is evident with shots such as the one where we see the mother on the phone. She seems to be hearing bad news as her voice crackles whilst saying the word ‘No’ again and again.

Classic receiving the news scene from Saving Private Ryan trailer

Camera work (3,6 and 9)

• A lot of close-ups were used during key scenes of emotion as this can really engulf the audience in a scene. We did this during scenes where the two sons were crying.
• This is a common factor in real life media products. For example, in the 2009 Sean Penn film ‘Into the Wild’, a young man passes away and in the next shot, his father is in tears. A close up is used here to really highlight the great amount of emotion.

Emotional close up Into the Wild trailer

• We went against much of the usual conventions of filming as much of the film is not filmed as an over the shoulder shot. Most of the scenes with diegetic dialogue were filmed as a two shot. This was mainly because we wanted to display the emotion of more than one character at a single time.
• We also used close-ups of important props to show their importance and their association with the characters emotions. E.g. in one of the last shots were a boy is shown to be shot down, we see him holding a family photo.

Family photo Brothers at War

• We also wanted to make the audience as involved as we could with certain situations. This was achieved by including a POV shot during the car crash scene. By doing this, the audience are put in the shoes of one of the character and gain greater sympathy for the amount of psychological pain this boy is going through.

 Editing (10 and 11)

• Right at the end of the trailer, we used a montage editing to create a sort of cliff hanger. This is common with most trailers as this is one of the main pull factors for someone to go and see the film.
• We also used an L-cut to make the trailer itself more effective. This is also common in current media products as the diegetic dialogue continues over the next shot.
• We also wanted to include plenty of quick cuts as to give the trailer a sense of pace that matches our genre greatly and is common in trailers of mostly all films (excluding more light-hearted films e.g. Rom-Com)
• We organised our shots thematically using the intertitles and the music to help mark the changes - different choices from the brothers, family conflict, the world at war and the montage leading up to the final shooting.

 Sound (no image)

• I believe that a lot of the film's emotion comes from the music. The non-diegetic sound matches the tone well in most parts of the films and also matches the emotion. E.g. choir type music overlaps the scenes were sadness is shown in the characters and is used particularly at teh end to create an almost epic feel. Drum beats also used to establish military connection and also an air of tension. In the middle section, music is used to create a senseof pace and action.
• It is common for most of today’s media products to rely heavily on sound, both diegetic and non-diegetic. Without music, many films and trailers lose their atmosphere completely.
• Diegetic dialogue is also an integral part of our trailer as it shows the characters' identity well. For example, when the father points the gun to his sons head and says “It should have been you”, the audience can get a real sense of his aggression.  

 

MAGAZINE COVER

Contact sheet 1

1. Barcode

• This is a necessity in every real world print products so we decided to include it on our magazine cover.
•  It gave our magazine commercial viability as the main purpose is obviously to sell the issue and make money.

2. Price

• By allocating a certain price to our magazine cover, we can give the audience a sense of what kind of magazine we will be.
• For example, we chose a price of £3.99 for our magazine. This way it appeals to a good volume of floating readers yet this may indicate that it is not an entirely ‘upper class’ magazine and might attract a younger audience as well as it is a little cheaper than many other magazines on the market.

3. Issue Number

• This is a small placement on our magazine cover yet as is the case with number 1 and 2, it gives it that professional look.
•   By allocating a slightly higher number, it would indicate that our proposed magazine has been going for a long time and is obviously successful for a reason.

Contact sheet 2 

4 & 5.  Mast Head

• The masthead is a dominating part of a magazine cover and we have followed the convention of placing it behind the main image.
•  We decided to make our masthead of ‘CINEMAX’ a bright colour. This is often the case in the real world as it draws in floating readers.
•  We picked a very cinematic font in order to match the existing professional fonts on the market - the letters need to be bold and quite thick as they may be partially masked by the main image.
•  By placing it behind the main image, we not only emulated real life products but also avoided drawing away attention from the important main image.
• We also ensured its positioning was not too dominating on the page. When looking at professional print products such as Empire, you can see how it only takes up a small part of the front cover.

Quite a lot of masthead covered here

 

6, 7 & 8. Magazine cover

•  Positioning is key with any magazine cover. We placed many ‘COMING SOON’ type thumbnails in the middle/lower third of our magazine cover as we noticed that where three characters feature in the main image, this kind of placement is often the case.
•  Our magazine cover takes up a similar amount of white space as most media products.  We follow the convention of the main image dominating most of the page.
•   The deep green background also links with the military genre of our film along with the smoky effect that is set upon it.

Smaller teaser images slanted along bottom; similar smoky effect

9 & 10. Main image

•  Our main image is the most striking part of our magazine cover in my opinion. In the real world, the first impression is made by the impact of the main image.
•  With three people featuring in the main image, we wanted to make it seem like one of them was conscious of the camera whilst the other two were not. This was mainly because we wished to follow the convention of most war film posters and we also wanted to discreetly hint that the character staring at the camera is the hero archetype. By making the other two characters face away, this was highlighted.
•   Choice of costume was also typical for the military style genre. By putting the three characters on the main image in army uniform, we could show the genre the film focuses on.
• The body language and facial expression of each character also suggests something about each of their characteristics. All three of them hold a very serious expression yet the middle one holds a look a greater anger. This links to the narrative of our trailer in which the main ‘hero’ archetype holds a great amount of anger towards the army.

11. Teaser Text

• We wanted to ensure our teaser text was effective in the sense it would appeal to a large audience. We achieved this by using varied bright colours and varying font styles. For example, we used a bright red for words like ‘STAR QUALITY’ and ‘expert’ as we wished to make them stand out. This is common in many real life media products.
• We also used words commonly found on the teaser texts of real life magazine products. One of these words being ‘EXCLUSIVE’. By having exclusivity, a magazine can sell a lot more copies as people want to find out about this ‘never before heard’ information.

12. Smaller images

•  These were included mainly to make our product look more like a believable magazine. We     cannot make the magazine focus entirely on our film as this is not the case in the real world and the magazine needs to offer a range of content to the reader.
• In order to make these images stands out against the dark, plain background. We placed a colourful band behind them so they catch the attention of floating readers.  They also act as a dividing feature on our cover
• It is common for real world media products to feature a band of colour with pictures or text set upon them around the bottom of the cover.

Contact sheet

 

POSTER

Title

 

• The title is a vital part of any movie poster. This is mainly due to the fact that it takes up a large majority of the page, but also because it gives hints about the genre and the narrative. The use of the Last Post, a famous trumpet bugle call, has obvious war connotations and as it is used in connection with fallen soldiers on Remeberance Day, also indicates the emotional and sad nature of our drama.It is therefore quite an intriguing and revealing title.
• The title is in thin font that we felt conveyed a sense of voth aggressiona dn emotion and there is a miltary colour scheme in play with the combination of khaki and brown.
•  One issue that we found existed with our title was that at first it didn't stand out and could not be read from a distance. So to fix the issue, we provided the title with a drop shadow to give it more depth and make it stand out more  as it fulfils a key formal function of telling the audience the name of the product and it must be as visible as possible.
• Placement of the title is also important. We wanted to follow the convention of many war film posters so we placed the title on the bottom portion of the page. This is due to the fact the main image normally takes up the top majority of the page and we noticed in our research that there are often smaller images below - therefore the title acts as a kinf of divider. 

Similar use of title as a divider

Background image

• With real life media products, we often see that a plain background image is used that is still relevant to the film. 
• For our background image, we used a screenshot of a woodland we gained from some of the footage shot for our trailer. The green and brown colours matched the military theme of our coursework pieces yet it remained simple enough to ensure it didn't take to much attention away from the main images and title.
• We also incorporated a smoke screen to elaborate on this military theme even further.
• We reduced the transparency to allow our characters to stand out.

Main image

 

• The main image is one of the most important parts of a film poster. It takes up the majority of the space and can establish genre and feel. 
• The inspiration for a main image came from looking at real world war film posters. They often display two or more characters looking into the distance. Therefore, we went for an image like this, with two of our main characters looking into the distance. 

Characters gazing into distance

• The mise-en-scene was also an important part of our main image. Only one of the characters clothing matches the military theme, so in this sense, we went against the usual convention of making the poster match entirely to the genre/theme. We decided to do this as we didn't want the whole film to be focused on the military. 
• Another way we followed real media products was by the decided facial expressions of the characters in our main image. They both carry a very serious expression which matches the very serious tone of the proposed film.

Credits

• Credits also featured at the bottom of our film poster. This is pretty much standard for most real world film poster yet we seemed to go against the usual credit conventions by including a huge quantity.
• It took up quite a large part of the poster and drew some attention away from the main image. I real work film posters, they are usually very subtle. 
• We again used the conventional cinematic font yet on a much smaller scale. This way, it matches the other text on the poster. To match the professional products, we improvised and created names for suggested roles e.g. 'Director of photography- Andy O'Driscoll'.

Other featured text

• There was also some other text featured at the top of the poster. This text links with the inter-titles of our trailer e.g. 'two brothers, different choices, a family separated by war'. This is a common occurrence in real life products as a famous character quote may feature on the poster.
• We also provided a 'make believe' name of the director at the top. This again is common with most real life products as it is considered the lead role in the film making process.    

Other images

• As is the case with most war film posters, were see other characters featured at the bottom, yet in most cases, they are more subtle than the ones feature in ours. 
• Here we see three characters, two of them dressed in war clothing, and one in normal clothing. This again links with the point suggested earlier that we don't want to focus entirely on the military side of the story but also the domestic side. 
• In real world products, the people featured in pictures at the bottom of the poster are often anonymous or in silhouette form. We went against this by incorporating characters yet it may have helped in the long run as it established some of the possible archetypes.
• As we see, the character on the left is in a very emotional/secluded state which suggests he may be the 'princess' archetype which requires saving. Then in the centre, we see a very serious, dominating character. This suggests he is the standard 'villain' archetype. Finally, on the right, we see a character standing heroically and looking into the distance whilst performing what we presume is an important task (phone call). Obviously, this suggests he is the 'hero' archetype.
• We also edited the images to make them a sepia/grey-scale tone. This draws attention away from the main image and is a common characteristic of real world products.