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

The first screenshot shows three teenager girls (who are three of the main characters), who are stereotypical characters in a thriller film. Due to their age (and gender) these girls will be seen as vulnerable, which is a key part of creating fear in a film. We decided to conform to this particular convention because we thought it would help us attract our target demographic (15-25 year olds) as they might feel like they can relate to some degree. For example, the first half of The Last House on the Left is focused on three teenagers (although the focus mainly shifts to adults during the second half).

The second frame shows the character of Natalie walking through an alleyway at night - which conforms with the convention of darkness and low key lighting in a thriller film. Lack of light helps emphasise the idea of the unknown and is seen in almost all horror or thriller films, including the Woman In Black.

The third photo is of the main character, Holly. This is an example of a trailer convention as it is a strong introduction to her character. Although not the first time she appears in the trailer, it is possibly the most telling moment. She whispers "Help Me" which shows she is scared and reaching out to someone. The audience can also tell other things abou
+t her, such as her age, roughly, as well as the fact she is wearing make up so probably cares about her appearance. Character introductions happen very noticably in the film trailer for Catfish with a combination of sound, visual and intertitles. Although we didn't use intertitles to literally introduce our characters, we still tried to give the audience an idea of who some of the characters were, subtley.

The next frame is a section of my magazine cover. I have used some stereotypical conventions here, such as a masthead (PREMIERE), a barcode, date and price, a tagline, and a photo of the main characters of the film I am trying to promote. In general I wanted to use usual conventions of a magazine cover, so it was recognisable and didn't look like a poster. However, I didn't want to base it on just one magazine cover as I wanted it to look unique. Therefore I used a greyscale theme throughout, apart from the red text, which challenges conventions of magazine covers that are usually bright and eye catching. 

The middle shot is a convention of a thriller film as it is a recognisable location. In thriller films, the unknown, including new locations, can be scary but sometimes it is scarier when the scenario is completely recognisable in everyday life. Therefore several of our scenes are set in a park - this is a stereotypically happy environment that was twisted to create fear. This can be seen in many films, for example, there are scenes in Carrie which take place in her bedroom, and as everyone has a bedroom, this is an instantly recognisable location and the audience may then make a connection between their bedroom and that film, which intensifies the effect the film has on the audience. Another example is A Stranger Calls, which opens on a scene in a fairground. Although the scary action is not actually taking place in the fairground, the audience may still make an association due to the combination of visual and sound.

The sixth frame is a section of my poster. The title, institutional information and tagline can all be seen in this section, as well as 'Coming Soon'. These are all conventions of a film poster. The title is obviously important on the poster, so we made the font easy to read. The title includes both a serif and sans serif font, which is perhaps less conventional but it was white against black which is quite stereotypical. To understand the conventions of posters I looked at many, and annotated The Avengers film poster. Even though this was not a thriller film it provided a strong basis of what should be included on a poster.

The seventh frame represents the audience not knowing who the antogonist is. In many horror films, the source of fear and destruction isn't revealed until the end, which is a convention we wanted to conform to. It helped us emphasise the suggestion that the antogonist was supernatural - something we wanted the audience to believe.

The eight photo shows Holly in the woods which is a stereotypical 'creepy' location. By using locations such as the woods, we were able to create tension due to the feeling of isolation it creates. This was seen in The Last House On The Left as the main characters are trying to run away, but can't get help. Therefore we wanted to use this stereotype, however we didn't want to feature it too heavily as I felt that horror films set in the woods can be 'cliche'.

Lastly, the film features violence, injury and death as shown in the ninth screenshot. Destruction of some form is a very important convention of horror and thriller and we decided to portray the destruction in many ways, including the death of a main character. Many horror and thriller films do this - including The Exorcism of Emily Rose which focuses on a teenage girl who gets exorcised, but then dies. 

In general, I tried to conform to the conventions of film trailers, by using fast paced editing, appropriate music, quick cuts, institutional information etc. as it was obviously important to be recongisable as a trailer and intriguing the audience about the film. However, there were some conventions of film trailers that we decided not to use. Despite feedback and advice suggesting we should, as a group we decided not to include intertitles in our trailer as we didn't think they would fit with the music or the trailer.