Evaluation Task 1 - In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms of Conventions from Real Media Products?

Frame 1: FONT
One of the ways I have challenged thriller trailer conventions is with the bizarre font. Usually with thriller trailers (as gathered from my trailer analysis) the font is usually quite simple and bleak to add a sense of realism to the film. However, I decided I would go in the other direction and make it stylish by making the font seem metallic (to emphasize the emotionless terror that lurks in the film) and the font has no structure, with letters sticking out and some letters being the wrong way up. This connotes the insanity and scizophrenic themes within the film. This is counter typical yes, but I believe adds identity to the film and helps the title as you remember it more. The movement is also rather unconventional, with each letter coming on after the other as oppose to the title coming on all together. I did this to connote the idea of mystery, that like every good mystery, little clues come out slowly one by one rather than finding out the outcome straight away. We are spoonfed the title like we are spoonfed a mystery.

Frame 2: VISUAL EFFECTS

Here in this segment of the trailer, the video and audio start glitching, as if the trailer is cursed. This concept is a little more complicated as it is both conventional and unconventional. On the one hand, it is rather conventional of films to be glitching if it is hand held, like "Cloverfield" or "Chronicle". However this is not used to convey real world footage at all. This is used for stylistic purposes rather than realism. This is unconventional of realistic thrillers. However, it is conventional of supernatural horrors. Although it is left to the imagination whether or not this film is supernatural, the "cursed film" angle does work in conventions of horror, which this film has elements of while not being an out right horror movie. This aspect is both conventional and unconventional depending on how you look at it.

Frame 3: FINAL IMAGE
This is the final image before the titles. Because of this, I wanted this last image to be a frightening and impactful one. Red symbolises danger and also gives this normal human face a satanic edge. The colour filter adds incredible power of suggestion, where because of the colour and the distortion filter, the audience will interpret as a demon or a monster, something that is inhuman. This helps add to the surrealness of the trailer. A final image being the most impactful is a common trait in trailer structure. For example, The Exorcist ending with a quick clip of Regan's face. The length of the shot is also important, as the quicker it is the more impactful it is, again shown by The Exorcist trailer. This is because if it's really fast it feels more sudden and therefore more shocking, as oppose to it going on for seconds and losing it's power.

Frame 4: STORY
Between 0:30 and 0:43 we get a montage of our protagonist. This helps set up character arc for the story without giving too much away. The protagonist says "I know I've done bad things, but I'm trying to leave it all behind". From this, we can assume that our protagonist has had a bad past and he's trying to redeem himself for some bad deed. This is conventional of trailers to have the first minute or so set up story and character while the second half is a montage of some of the best shots to get people to see it. For example, in The Exorcist trailer, before the final scares, we get introduced to almost every character and their dialogue tells us a bit about their character without giving away the story. E.G: Father Karrass "There are no experts. You probably know as much about possessions as most priests." From this we can gather that the story is about curing someone of a demonic possession and that Karrass is or was a priest. From this I knew if I wanted to introduce a character, it'd have to be through minimal dialogue in the form of subtle exposition.

Frame 5: CROSS CUTTING:
If there's something that is common in every trailer is a non continuity flow. All the scenes are out of time to what they'd be in the film. This is to help keep the movie fresh and keep the illusion that we are being shown a good chunk of the film. Because this is essential to all trailers, I had to have included it in my trailer. Throughout the trailer is cross cutting to different scenes, some scenes are split into multiple segments and are scattered across the trailer.

The three main stories that were being cross cut were the protagonist's story, dreams of the titular antagonist and a P.O.V narrative of running in a forest. The reason that I focused on these three was because one is the hero and one is the villain that the film is named after, these are the two most important characters in all the story. The P.O.V running scenes are thrown in there because they heighten the tension and are a common trope of horror, displaying my blending of genres (like with the character of Red).

The main influence of this pattern of story telling was the trailer to "Alien". Alien's trailer takes random quick shots from the film and splices them together to the rhythm of a heartbeat. By the end, we have no idea what this film is about but we feel inclined to go see it due to how blood pumping the trailer was (vague=interesting). However, instead of a heartbeat, I used a home made rock track to add to the surreal style I was going for.

Frame 6: PRODUCTION LOGO

In the trailers I've looked at, a production company logo is usually at the beginning of the trailer so the people know who made it. This can get newcomers into the company if they like the film they see (E.G: someone watches Aladdin and watches more Disney because of it) and it can get fans of the company to go see the film. It works both ways.

Because of this, I decided to put my company logo at the beginning so people know who it's by and people who are familiar with my work will go see it while people who aren't will go to watch the rest of my work. This advertisement works to sell this film as well as other movies I've made. The company logo itself is also symbolic. "Knight" is obvious, it's named after me and people will recognize that it is me who made it because of the logo. The flashing lights that pass by are representative of a flashlight. Flashlights and torches are a trademark of thrillers and detective movies. This suggests right off the bat that this film is going to have a mystery to it, more story driven than action packed.









Frame 7: COSTUME DESIGN

I've always felt that costume design is incredibly important to a character, it says what the character is about visually. This is why I didn't pay attention to what would be considered conventional or not when creating a design that best suited my antagonist (The Raptus). This resulted in a villain's design that is both conventional and unconventional in many different ways.

What's conventional?:
The colour scheme. Most villains where black as it insinuates darkness and evil. It's a great way to distinguish hero from villain (the hero wears green (earthly colours)).
The mask, a lot of villains, particularly in thrillers, hide their faces. This is grounded in reality as it's a way criminals would hide their identity. In the realm of film, it could insinuate something sinister and disfigured behind it. Hiding the face to add to the fear is a common device in antagonist design.
The hood, leather and gloves are typical real world clothes that are used to give off the impression of street violence, criminal activity and gangster vibes. This helps add another layer to the villain, although there is something about him that's supernatural, there is a realistic edge to him that makes him more frightening, like he really could be out there and he could really get you.

What's unconventional?:
The mask itself is that of a monster mask. This is a trope that's more familiar with horror than thriller as it has connotations of the supernatural.
The fact that the mask itself doesn't move adds a layer of uncanny as it should be moving, breathing, blinking, but it just sits still.
The movements. The movements are less realistic and more robust, like a broken android. This adds to the uncanny valley and makes a rather realistic design seem more supernatural.

Looking at both these categories, it's clear how I blended the normal with the surreal to make something new and interesting. It's conventional enough that it can be marketed, but original enough that it sticks out.

Frame 8: POSTER

For my poster, I used a traditional layout:
main image with title, slogan, cast and crew, rating and release date. The uniqueness of the poster comes in the form of the main image. The main image is a surreal recreation of a monster's face, using Red's eyes for the upper half of the face and the image of the Raptus in the forest as the mouth. This creates an unusual look for the poster. It's focused less on showing cast (the protagonist isn't even in the poster) and more focused on artistic expression. It also takes iconic images from the film and removes all context, turning what could be potential spoilers for the film and turns it into an abstract art piece. This image may be unconventional or unappealing, but it is very memorable, sticking in the audience's head over how bizarre it is, making people want to go see it more as they remember the poster more. The ratings and review quote are there to help advertise the film more, the more critical praise, the more likely it will be viewed. The release date is there so that people know when to see the film. The date itself is a holiday date. This is to help advertise it more as films that are released around a holiday season can be marketed within that holiday itself. This means that if it takes place around a holiday, more people will be likely to see it depending on the marketing. This is something a lot of films do, for example, the recent star wars films have all been released around Christmas time, and one of them is the third highest grossing film of all time. If this film is released around Halloween, then more people will be likely to see it.

Frame 9: MAGAZINE

Looking back at my magazine analysis, I took a lot of conventions and tweaked some of them so that the magazine would be conventional, but also unique. From my analysis, I noticed that not only was the masthead huge but the naming of it connoted an epic scale. For this, I used the name "ULTRA". This connoted something big, like this was the ultimate magazine, I also made the font size huge so it really stands out. This is a conventional title; big, memorable and catchy.
The rest of the font comes in multiple sizes and colours. This helps each story stand out. However, I decided, to make certain stories and puffs stand out, I tilted some onto a diagonal angle. This is rather unconventional and can seem rather untidy, but it helps connote the idea of a messy one man film maker and helps make the puffs stand out.
The coverline is rather neat and keeping in style with the rest of the magazine. However, the "BTS" which is abbreviated slang meaning "behind the scenes", is rather unconventional as it connotes lower middle class and less well spoken and tidy content. This helps the magazine seem more relatable. The context of behind the scenes acts a selling point as people enjoy learning about their favourite films. So to have a coverline that advertises that acts as a great USP.
The main image coincides with the coverline, it is a behind the scenes picture of the director smiling. This helps the magazine seem more down to earth and that relates more to the common man who will most likely buy this. From the analysis I noticed puff about other movies. Because of this, I realized if I wanted to make this magazine seem more real, I'd include other movies. So I have imagery and puffs that are centered towards films other than The Raptus. This is conventional of magazines to focus on multiple movies as it connotes knowledge and size in content and can bring in a larger audience that likes different films.