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

Trailer

Trailer length:My trailer is 1.09 minutes long, the teaser trailers that I researched are all around that in length for example the Valentines Day trailer that I researched is 1.31 minutes long, The Twilight Sage Eclipse trailer is 1.33 minutes long. And the Love Actually trailer that I researched is 30 seconds long; this suggests that the majority of teaser trailers vary in length from 30 seconds to 1.30 minutes long. So because my trailer is 1.09 minutes long, this shows that this aspect of my trailer has used conventions of real media products.

Pace:My pace of my trailer is quite long, I used about 5 video clips and because I

wanted to use the majority of the footage in the clips, this made the pace of the trailer quite slow. When researching existing teaser trailer, I found out the majority of them are quick with lots of cuts and lots of small snippets of film. It is a common convention of horror/thriller trailers to contain short fast scenes to order to build suspense and add dramatic effect. Because my genre of my trailer is a Romantic Comedy I also researched the common pace of Rom-Coms. They too are quick, but they do not contain as many cuts and different scenes as horror trailers. Taking all of this into consideration, I am able to tell that because my trailer has a longer pace that conventional trailers, this means this aspect of my trailer, challenges forms and conventions of existing teaser trailers. But I still think the way the pace is long works well, because the use of lots of cuts in trailers is to make sure that not much of the story line is given away, making audiences want to watch the full film, but my trailer doesn’t give away much of the story line, the pace enabled me to show more comedy aspects of the trailer, to make it evident that my trailer is a Romantic Comedy.

Editing:In my trailer, I did edit parts of it, but I didn’t edit it very much, when

researching existing trailers, I noticed that horror trailers contained a lot of editing, with a variety of different cuts and edits. Whereas my Romantic Comedy trailer is more about showing the comedy aspect of my film. Therefore it contains more footage rather than editing.

Titles:Saying this I did use some editing when making my titles to go in my trailer.

When researching Romantic Comedies I noticed that they contain lots of fast transitions to display the title of the film or the name of the actors/actresses starring in the film.

Here are some examples of how I used transitions in the editing of my trailer:

Editing continued:I also added fade in and fade out transitions at the end of one scene and at

the beginning of another. I did this to make the scenes fade into the next, smoothly. This is a convention in all film trailers, no matter what the genre of the trailer. In horror trailers, the transitions are more jerky as each scene goes into the next, this is because of the genre of the trailer, the shots are going to be quick and jerky so the transitions between each scene need to be similar. In the romantic comedy trailers that I researched before starting my own trailer, I noticed that the transitions were generally fade in and fade out transitions. So this part of my trailer uses conventions of existing teaser trailers.

Sound/sound effects

When researching Romantic Comedy trailers I noticed that they do not contain many sound effects only music soundtracks for the trailer. But I did notice that in one of the trailers that I researched (The Ugly Truth) I noticed that on some of the comedy scenes a sound effect will be used, for example the background music will be playing and then when a comedy scene comes on, the music will stop and a sound effect will play as if a record had been scratched, and then the soundtrack will start playing again, this is a common convention in some of the trailers that I researched as it emphasises the comedy aspect in the trailer.

I didn’t use this sound effect in my trailer as I didn’t think it would fit well into my trailer. So saying this I think that the way I didn’t use any sound effects in my own trailer, challenges conventions of real media products.

Music

All romantic comedy trailers contain background music being played through the duration of the trailer, it is usually only one song throughout, but on some occasions parts of different songs can be heard. The music will generally be fast and upbeat to go along with the fast pace of the trailer, the music will usually be a ‘cheesy’ song that helps to show the romantic side of the trailer and also the comedy side.

In my own trailer I used the song ‘This Will Be’ by Natalie Cole. I choose to use this song as it is an upbeat ‘happy’ song. I cut the song down when I was editing it so I could use the parts of the song that I thought would be appropriate for the parts of my trailer. I think this part of my trailer uses conventions of real media products. As it is a common convention for romantic comedy trailers to contain lively upbeat music.

Mise-en-scèneCostume:In existing romantic comedy trailers, I noticed that the costumes the actors wear, depends on the

storyline of the film, for example ‘The Ugly Truth’ is based in a work place so the costumes the actors wear are smart ‘office’ clothes. My trailer has more of a casual storyline so I got my actors to wear smart/casual clothes. This means my costumes I choose, uses forms and conventions of existing media products.

Props:In the trailers that I researched props were used to enhance the storyline, certain props are used

in romantic comedy trailers to emphasise the comedy and the romance within the trailers.In my own trailer I did not use any props, as I didn’t think props would work well with my trailer

as it has quite a basic storyline with basic scenes.Setting:Where trailers are shot, also helps to enhance storylines, in the trailers that I researched they all

had different storylines which means different sets and locations are shown to emphasise and enhance these storylines.

For my own trailer, I used 3 different locations to enhance my storyline:

Indoors-staircase In the street In the woods

Camera work

In existing romantic comedy trailers, the camera work is very steady but there are also a few different shots used, zoom shots, over the shoulder shots, high angles, low angles, close ups and extreme close ups are a few different shots and angles that can be commonly seen in romantic comedy trailers.

In my own trailer I used a few of these camera shots and angles for example, zoom ins, zoom outs and over the shoulder shots. This aspect of my trailer uses the same conventions as existing media products.

Zoom in and zoom out sequence

Over the shoulder shot

Voice over

It is a very common characteristic, that romantic comedy teaser trailers usually have a voice over, narrating the storyline, this is only common in romantic comedy or comedy genre of films. It is not usually heard in horrors or thrillers, voice overs can be used to emphasise the comedy aspect in trailers or to just help tell the storyIn my own trailer I used voiceovers in almost all of my different scenes, I used them to help show the comedy, and also to make the film sound appealing to audiences. So again this is another convention that my trailer contains that existing trailers contain as well.

Information at the end of the trailer:Producers: When researching trailers I realised that all of the trailers I watched all has a

green banner at the start of the trailer, this is some sort of legal requirement for trailers, so because this is a common characteristic I thought it was best to add this at the beginning of my own trailer, to make it look more conventional:

It is also common for trailers toInclude ‘from the producer of...’Somewhere in the trailer, this is used to attract audiences. I didn’t include

this in my trailer but instead I showed who the producer is, this aspect of my trailer challenges the conventions of existing trailers