1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCT?

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INFLUENCES ON TRAILER

The main trailers we used to look for inspiration from was ‘The A-Team’, ‘Limitless’ and ‘The Equaliser’. All of these trailers were from a similar genre to the one we were constructing. We used these trailers coherently to our advantage to get the best out of our trailer.

For our A2 coursework we created a trailer and 2 ancillary tasks, which were a film poster and magazine front cover. We were allows to choose the genre of our choice and as a group we decided to choose Action Adventure/Crime/Thriller.

TRADITIONAL CODES & CONVENTIONS OF A TRAILER • Title of the film included

• Release date

• Company and cast information

• Length of 2-3 minutes

• Sounds appropriate to the genre portrayed

MAGAZINETo create the magazine front cover we carried out loads of research into real media

texts. The reason why we did this is because we did this in order to make sure my group and I were aware of the codes and conventions of a real media magazine so we can make our magazine look realistic. The magazine front cover we looked at was ‘Empire’ (The A-Team), but the reason why we did not use it as inspiration in terms of copying the title of the magazine and use the same colours was because we as a group thought that ‘High Stakes’ is not in the exact same genre as ‘The A-Team’ and not the same narrative so we thought we will create the magazine with help from this but not entirely from this. The genre of ‘The A-Team’ is Action Adventure/Thriller whilst ‘High Stake’s’ genre is Action Adventure/Thriller/Crime. Plus the reason why we chose ‘The A-Team’ to look at and study was because their was no other movie out there that has the exact same narrative as we wanted ‘High Stakes’ to be so we as a group came to an agreement that we should pick ‘The A-Team’ as it has a similar genre to us.

MAGAZINE CONTINUED…1) As we based our magazines off of ‘Empire’ magazines we recreated our magazine and named

it ‘Kingdom’. The reason why we chose ‘Kingdom’ was because we did a quick survey and we found out that the majority of the people that we asked said we should make our magazine unique come up with our own name for the magazine instead of ‘Empire’. So coherently as a group we came to a decision that we should name it ‘Kingdom’ and the reason behind that was because ‘Empire’ and ‘Kingdom’ literally mean the same thing and come from the dame meaning.

2) The straplines and content of the magazine has been laid out on both sides of the page. It shows the audience clearly what is included within the magazine. Also as you can see I have used ‘Empire’ as inspiration for my straplines and content. I have used the ‘#1’ and the ‘World Exclusive’ to illustrate that I am using this magazine in some way or form as inspiration and I am taking ideas from it.

3) Our magazine also has a barcode, which links it to the conventions of existing magazines. 4) The image used on the magazine is the main character within the trailer. The photograph is a

close-up and is similar to the image below of Angelina Jolie. Plus both of the images are made to look brighter, this could bring an air of suspense linking to the conventions of our genre as to say why are they so bright. This would make the audience go and watch the film to know the reason why.

POSTERTo create our film

poster we took inspiration from several different film posters but especially from ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘The Equaliser’ posters.

1) The poster includes the information of the cast and production team as this is a main convention of film posters. By adding this it will make our poster look more professional. Also this key information will engage and persuade the audience towards the film if they like a certain actor, director and producer as it is a unique selling point (USP).

2) The release date of the film is placed underneath the title of the film and placed at the bottom of the page/poster. This is a convention of typical film posters and makes our poster look real and professional. It also links to the release date placed on the trailer.

3) The title for our film is ‘High Stakes’. This is within capitals (just like within the magazine) and written in bold to put that emphasis within it. With making that bold it will stand out and complement it with image underneath to give that air of suspicion. It follows the conventions of what a movie poster should be.

4) For our poster we kept our colour scheme to black, blue and burgundy. The reason being was because the colour black brings an air of doubt and feeling to the movie and even with the burgundy and blue there is a bit of black touch to it so that would make the audience think ‘why is that so?’.

TRAILERTo create our trailer we took many inspirations, but the most significant

one was ‘The A-Team’. Even though the narrative was not exactly the same, we tried to use the same shots in ‘The A-Team’ movie trailer and incorporate into ours.

TRAILER CONTINUED…During the construction of this movie trailer, we took and used ‘The A-Team’ as part of our inspiration but not to the extent where we wanted to copy ‘The A-Team’ because it is not exactly in the same bracket as our movie trailer in terms of narrative. However, we wanted to use the same kind of shots as ‘The A-Team’, as shown on the right –hand side:These two shots are a face side close up taken from the two trailers (‘High Stakes’ and ‘The A-Team’). These two images illustrates that we have taken a few ideas from ‘The A-Team’ movie trailer and contributed it into ours. In addition to this, they both have a serious and thoughtful face on which immediately make the audience wonder what has occurred to make their face such severe.The one thing that they have in common is that they are both main characters within their trailers.

TRAILER CONTINUED…Below are an example of us using ‘The A-Team’ as inspiration in some way in terms of

shots being used. Both of the shots below are medium close-ups, one taken is from ‘The A-Team’ and the other is taken from ‘High Stakes’. This is a typical convention of all trailers as it allows the audience to already get to know the characters within the film and which characters the plot line will revolve around the most. Plus it allows the audience to get to know the characters within the trailer and get familiarised with them.

When analysing ‘The A-Team’ movie trailer, we felt that we were inspired by this movie trailer so we felt to use the shots within it.

OTHER CONVENTIONS IN OUR TRAILER One way in which we subverted against the conventions of a film trailer was the use of

soundtrack. We decided to use two different types of soundtracks into our trailer. One of them was kind of like a ‘siren’ occurring whilst the other was completely a normal sound track with a bit of a slow pace to it. The soundtrack of the siren only occurs for about 10 seconds whereas the second soundtrack, it is occurring throughout after that. This was the main reason why we added two soundtracks within our trailer was because we thought that it would help us fasten the pace of the trailer.

When filming our trailer, we made sure that all our actors within it were wearing some sort of black or dark clothing. This is because it would fit in with the conventions of action adventure/crime/thriller film trailers.