In what ways does your media

products use, develop or

challenge forms and convention

of real media products?

In my A2 media product we had to create a trailer of a genre of our choice following with two ancillary texts. In this case it was a poster and a magazine cover. Me and my group decided to chose a hybrid genre which is sports comedy, but we tended to focus on the sport element more.

During research and planning, we found many codes and convention through analysing other sport comedy trailers such as:

• Run Fatboy Run• Dodgeball• Grudge match• Pain and Gain• Waterboy

All these films had similar codes and conventions of which I will discuss more later on in the presentation.

Researching these codes and conventions allowed me to add them into my own film trailer, making it look more professional and recognisable as a sport comedy trailer.

INTRO

When I was analysing the trailers stated in the previous slide, I looked at:

• Titles• Transactions between scenes• Music• Scenes• Narrative• Camera shots• Voice over (if there is one)• Protagonist

To make it easier for me and my group I broke down there genre in to sports and comedy, so I looked at codes and convention of each genre.

PLANNING

In sport comedy films I found out the codes and conventions are the following:

• The music is funky and upbeat but depends on which part of the trailer

• For the comedy element the music tends to stop, to focus on the humour in the specific scene

• Titles tend to be bold and colour to give the personality of the hybrid genre

• There’s a story/narrative, for example an underdog narrative• Protagonists tends to be a male• Included quick shots but some are long too but rarely• Sport event (race, match, competition)• Antagonist which looks more dominant than the protagonist• Motivation behind entering the sport event• Voice over• Close up of facial expressions to show humour and reaction

C&C OF SPORT COMEDY

Me and my group knew the codes and conventions of the genre was important but so is the forms and convention of a trailer itself.

We found out many conventions of trailers which included:

• Not giving away the whole narrative but establishing it• Building an enigma code• Titles which had the same theme• Production and distribution logo near the start• Music tends to match with change of scenes• L-cuts (IMPORTANT)• Many shots and scenes

Using all these codes and conventions of the genre and the trailer, me and my group had to gather them all and create a trailer which followed these conventions and challenged them.

In the next slide I will be talking about weather we did challenged or used these conventions in our trailer and how we used real media products to help.

C&C OF A TRAILER

To help us with our trailer we started of mainly looking at Run Fatboy Run.

Analysing Run Fatboy Run made us decide to have a voice-over. in Run Fatboy Run, the voice tends to describe how the protagonist is and also helps the audience recognise the narrative behind the film.

This is visible in Run Fatboy Run as we realise the first we hear is the voice over alongside the music but the voice-over is more dominant.

The voice over says “relationships are like marathons, the require dedication, discipline, and determination”.This immediately tells the audience what is the main aspects of the film but mentioning relationships and marathons.

The voice over describes the protagonist in a way by saying the opposite of what he is. For example when the voice over mentions “dedication” it overlays the scene where the protagonist is sleeping, indicating that the protagonist isn't dedicated.

RUN FATBOY RUN

MY A2 TRAILER

After analysing Run Fatboy Run I decided to include a voice-over similar to it’s trailer.

For example, after the production and distribution logo’s appear we have a voice-over overlapping the first few scenes. This is similar to Run Fatboy Run as there first few scenes have a voice-over

Our voice-over has similar elements because the voice over mentions the sport event in my trailer which is the race. The trailer includes contrasting scenes compared to the voice-over for example, the voice-over says “it takes dedication” with a scene of our protagonist sleeping through his alarm.

Having scene some what relating or contrasting in our trailer is a convention of a voice-over.

We wanted to include the voice-over because it’s a main convention of a sport comedy as many films have. They might be different in what the voice-over content is but they all have it.

DODGEBALLAnother real media product I analysis was Dodgeball. While watching the trailer I was mainly focusing on how the narrative was presented and what the actual narrative was.

Dodgeball was based on an underdog story, and from other research I found out that it’s a common convention when it comes to sport comedy. The element of having an underdog creates humour because the audience don’t expect the protagonist to win. The underdog competing in a race is the sport element.

I was also looking out how they trailer establishes its narrative and what type of scenes are used to introduce the characters. In this case, the trailer starts off with an establishing shot but sometimes a scene with the main character.

I also focused on mise-en-scene when I was analysing this trailer. I released that the sport outfit looked unusual on the characters so perhaps that created some sort of humour. The outfits on the characters defined the genre by having the humour and sport element in one.

After analysing dodgeball I implemented the conventions that I identified during my research.

During our group meetings, we was discussing on what the narrative should be, and at the end of it we decided to go with an underdog story, this was mainly influenced by the research I did on Dodgeball.

Implementing the underdog story me and my group had to look for a actor which looked the part. Someone who isn’t the typical athletic person which you may think has a chance in winning a race.

The next convention I implemented from the analysis of dodgeball was costume for our characters.For example, when it came to mise-en-scene I made sure our protagonist wore a suitable costume to fit the sport element, which was:

• Tracksuit bottoms• Trainers• T-shirt (mainly tight to create humour)

MY A2 TRAILER

One main code and convention that was really important to help the audience recognise that it’s a sport comedy trailer is music.

We wasn’t just focusing what type of music but also how the music fitted with the scenes.

For example from research I found out that music tended to be funky and upbeat when it came sport comedy trailers, so using the GarageBand we created a funky upbeat base to go into our trailer. We had to include more than one music loops, so we made many to give us more of a variety of choice just in case some didn’t go well with some scenes

The type of music was very important but so is how we put the music into the trailer. To give the comedic element more focus, I found out that we had to stop the music when a scene had humour so it creates a focus on it, increasing the humour even more. This was mainly done during editing, but it made us make sure that we film comedic scenes with close up of facial expressions and funny moments.

MUSIC

Titles are really important when it comes to a trailer. It makes the trailer look professional and real but most importantly it makes the trailer look like an actual trailer. It’s a convention!

Titles includes:

• Information (dates)• Name of the film• Production and Distribution names• Actors names• Phrases that are said within the film

To get a better idea of how our titles should look like and what title content should be included, I analysed the titles in the Grudge Match.From that I gathered new information like the titles had to have the same theme so the audience can recognise its from the film. The titles tend to be bold and colourful when it came to sport comedy trailers and also the sound effect behind each title was important to look at too.Nearly all trailer had dates or ‘coming soon’ to inform the audience and a website for the audience can find out more.

TITLES

Researching into titles really helped me and my group creating the titles. We made sure that our title had a unique theme to it and made sure all the titles looked the same when it came down to appearance.

We added the colour yellow to our titles because we thought it was a bright colour and the font itself was bold and had a stand out effect, giving it the element of it being a sport comedy trailer. Adding this feature to my trailer will help the audience recognise my trailer because of the titles and the way they look.

Using the software ‘Motion’ I was able to design the production logo and the distribution logo. These were added near the start of the trailer. This is common in many trailers.

My titles included actors name, directors name, script writers name, date and a website for further information on the trailer. Due to a rise in social network access we also added social network pages and accounts for audience to access.

When our titles appear on the screen we added sound effects which links with the movement on the title. This was influenced by the research on the titles in Grudge Match.

MY A2 TRAILER

An L cut, also known as a split edit, is an edit transition from one shot to another in film or video, where the picture and sound are synchronized but the transitions in each are not coincident.

This very common in trailers. I have found out that all the trailers that I have looked at, all have L-Cuts.

For example in Run Fatboy Run, there’s many l-cuts. There’s one where the main character is having a conversation about him not being able to run the marathon but the audience see a scene where he’s trying to run. The sound is coming from another scene but the scene overlapping is different.

While researching, I was looking for what camera shots were being used frequently, especially in sport comedy trailers. I found out that close up shots of the characters facial expression are commonly used, and also establishing shot of the setting. The close up of the characters facial expression, creates humour because its mostly like a reaction of something embarrassing he did. Establishing scenes are important in sport comedy films because it lets the audience identify the sport event that tends to happen.

L – CUTS&CAMERA SHOTS

MY A2 TRAILERL-cuts is a very important convention in trailers. I added many to my trailer to give the feel factor of it being a trailer.

For example, there's a scene where the trainer in our film is encouraging our protagonist to train but we see another scene overlapping it.

We included L-Cuts throughout our trailer because we kept on seeing L-Cuts in many real media products

CHARACTERSCharacters are important when establishing the narrative.

We had to pick the typical characters to make it easy for the audience to recognise it.

We found out that in sport comedy's there’s always a protagonist that doesn’t look the sporty type, some one who isn’t athletic that you expect the least to win a race.

The next character we found that was typical in a sport comedy film is a trainer. This could vary as some sport comedy films have the typical wise legend trainer and some have the stereotypical strong athletic trainer. We had the choice to chose from them too

The antagonist that we tend to see in sport comedy films are bullies or some who is dominant compared to the protagonist.

MY A2 TRAILERFrom looking at the codes and convention when it comes to character we went for the typical non - athletic protagonist, the athletic crazy trainer and the dominant bully

Our protagonist is:

• Non-athletic• Someone who enjoys food• Lazy• Likes to stay indoors

Our trainer is:

• Athletic• Outgoing• Loud• Crazy• Sport fanatic

Our Antagonist:

• Bully (dominant)• Cocky

MY A2 TRAILERFrom looking at the codes and convention when it comes to characters we thought about it carefully because I think characters are really important when it comes to sport comedy films.

The reason why that is because our characters need to look the part. They could act good but they need to have the comedy appearance. Therefore we decided to get an over weight person to be the underdog in the trailer because when you look at him the audience doesn’t expect him to participate in sport let alone win the race.

The next character we had was a over energetic trainer. He had to look athletic so we used a guy who looks athletic and a bit crazy too . Our trainer looked like a typical trainer and the costume helped with that too.

EVALUATIONOverall I believe that my trailer uses, develops and challenged codes and convention of a sport comedy as well as a trailer.

Codes and conventions like characters, narrative, mise-en-scene, camera shot and all the other stated in the previous slide.

It doesn’t give away the too much but enough to understand the story.

Thank you for going through my presentation.