Evaluation 1

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

I would say that my trailer both uses and conforms to conventions of real media products in most ways. For example in my trailer it gives away the key points of the film but leaves it as a cliff hanger at the end so that the audience don't know what happens without watching the film itself. However they still get the idea of the plot without too much being given away. This is what happens in most trailers as it draws the audience in and leaves them wanting to know more, which then means they will want to watch the film. The reason I chose to stick to this convention is it obviously works as has been used so many times before and also I wanted to make sure there was the right balance between giving away my plot and keeping key points hidden for the film itself.

I originally wanted to do a trailer that consisted of mainly music with occasional speaking over the top as I felt this would challenge media conventions and most trailers tend to work the opposite way with speaking as the focal point and music in the background. However as I worked through my trailer I found myself sticking more to the conventions of real media products and using more speaking than I had originally wanted, the reason for this was that I found there were more key points within my trailer than I had first anticipated. So in the end I would say my trailer consists of half music with the other half voices and although it slightly challenges the real conventions of media products it mainly develops and uses them.

My film magazine front cover conforms and uses many conventions of real media products as it has the mast head, title, tag lines, barcode, a strap line and brief sentences about the stories inside; however although it conforms in all these ways I decided to do something slightly different. The way I did this was instead of using a magazine that already exists I chose to create one of my own and use some of my own ideas. Even though I chose to use my own name and make it more unique in that respect I did in fact take some of my ideas from already existing magazines such as the bold box around the title and the barcode from Sight and Sound. Although using my own magazine name and ideas made my magazine different I found it hard to steer away from the conventions of a real media text and instead simply found myself conforming.

My film poster looks like many other film posters however as I chose to put the title of my film on the bottom right of my poster rather than the centre this is one way it challenges rather than conforms to real media texts. I chose to do this as I felt if I put it anywhere in the centre of my poster it would simply look out of place and block up key parts of my photo. Also I wanted for my poster to stand out from others as I feel this would draw the audience in and make them want to learn more about why it is different. Another way it slightly challenges conventions is by putting my strap line at the top left hand corner and on a diagonal as most film posters again tend to put their strap lines in the centre either at the top or bottom. However it definitely conforms to real media texts by the use of the credits at the bottom and also the date the film is released in bold writing so it can be easily seen. Overall like both my trailer and magazine I have found that my poster seems to conform to real media texts rather than challenge them.