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

Click on the above images to see my comparitive analysis of existing teaser trailers and my teaser trailer.

Horror conventions

I feel like my groups teaser trailer uses a lot of Horror conventions and looks effective in certain places due to the use of key forms.

          Usually, they are set in isolated places such as abandoned homes and graveyards to give the feel that nobody else is around. They are set in darkness and 'out of hour', usually at nightime.
Skin Deep is set in a forest to give the impression of a large area/getting lost and not being able to escape/entrapement. It also creates interesting lighting effects as at times the tree's could block out all light or light seeping through tree's could add to a mysterious feel.
           In Horror, there is no limit to camera angles. High, low and canted angles can give a feeling of disorientation. There is also usually an excessive use of extreme close ups to connote invasion of the audience's personal space.
In Skin Deep, we have used these and tried to show the unimportance of the victims when they are laying on the floor in blood by having the camera looking down at them. We have also used handheld cameras to give a shaky feel to when the protagonist is driving and running. There is depth in one of the frames, as the monster is walking up to the victim, who is tied to a tree, without her knowing. When the protagonist is running, there is a point of view shot of her running, which makes the audience feel they are in her position. The pace of our editing speeds up nearer the end after the general plot has been shown at the beginning. There is a series of fast shots, ranging from CU's to LS's and unsettling jumps to create suspense and show something is about to happen. Sound effects work alongside this, with booms, screams and unexpected noises to go against just the normal soundtrack as it is quite creepy but slow and quiet. We tried to find sound effects which would contrast with it.
             Visual signifiers of genre are very important and common in horror. The colours red and black connote blood and darkness which we have used almost throughout our teaser trailer. Other signifiers include religious symbols, masks and weapons. The reason we chose to use a mask in our trailer was because it was very cheap which was suitable for our low budget, and we were able to do a lot with it in terms of lighting up half of the face and creating mysterious shapes and shadows. Colours such as low brightness and high contrast are used to emphasise shadows and to create an unfamiliar effect and this was something we enjoyed playing around with when editing. There were times in our trailer when we needed to film in daylight but could editing the lighting to look like moonlight.
             The narrative structure for our trailer is very classic Hollywood narrative as it starts off as normality, reaches an enigma and then reaches a path to resolution before closure although as it is only a trailer, this is not given away as it would ruin the film, therefore it makes the viewer wonder what will happen, although we know it will end up with a final girl. Compared to other genres such as Action movies, it is a lot harder to distinguish who the hero will be as you do not know who will live or who will die whereas in Action, the whole film revolves around their heroic actions. I'd like to think my groups trailer is more outside of the box than certain sub-genres such as slashers where a lot of events are commonly repeated. A very small number of Propps narrative theories have been applied to our teaser trailer and these are:
5. The villian gains information about the victim.
The monster has previously gathered information about the protagonist and her job as being a model.
7. The victim is taken in by deception- unknowingly helping the monster.
By looking at her text and stopping the car, the protagonist is making it easier for the monster to reach her.
16. The hero is branded/wounded.
24. A difficult task is proposed to the hero (tests of strength/endurance)-
The protagonist battling for her life.
If this was a full Horror movie then it would contain considerably more.
            The characters in Horror consist of 'immoral teens', children, ineffective police and law figures and usually a final girl.
In Skin Deep, there is a final girl which is the protagonist. Although there are shots of her left for dead, later on we see her running through the forest which shows she is strong. It poses questions- will she beat the monster and save her life? The monster in our trailer also has a hidden secret in his past which makes him the way he is. He has a desire for beautiful women such as the models featured in our trailer which is why they are his chosen victims.
             Themes such as binary oppositions- good VS evil are used as well as out of control science, the hidden evil inside and Freud's return of the repressed theory. We have used this in skin deep to show that Horror is close to sex, as the monster has a sexual desire rather than a pure evil one. We have also tried to show a contrast between the characters and the monster as they are innocent women and he is ruining their lives for no reason.

Trailer Conventions

Firstly, teaser trailers are very short, usually 60-90seconds as it gives a very small insight to the film and makes the viewers look out for the longer trailer to be released at a later date. It provokes interest in the film immediately so that by the time the release date is nearing, the cinemas are due to be booked. Our trailer is just over 60seconds and we found that this was enough to show all that we wanted to convey the plot and show the horror elements.
Although the genre of the trailer is not spelt out, i feel that it is obvious through all of its elements such as the sound, darkness and use of the mask. The name of the Movie is included however it could be much larger to make it more eye catching and obvious. We have departed from using the usual production values as we currently have none, being new to the industry. We also felt that they were unnessecary and that we could use our short time in more useful ways.
             We tried to pick out aspects of the film that we thought our target audience of Males and Females 15+ would enjoy, such as blood and gore (which appeared a lot in the audience research) and tension building music to leave the viewer wanting more. Although i liked our soundtrack, i feel there was not enough of a build up in contrast to previous trailers and this could have possibly detracted from the suspense. Our intertitles are short and spread out throughout the trailer, leaving a few seconds gap for the audience to await the rest of it. It explains the premise of the story but does not give a resolution, leaving the audience wondering and wanting to see the film in order to find out. The intertitles also back up the images shown. For example "Beauty is only skin deep" shows models posing, so we know that they are the beautys.