Q1 - Discuss the use of conventions of teaser trailers and the use of horror in your video or in general.
Below, each member of our group have answered this question starting with Berry then Jason then Rebecca and then Hoalie.
BERRY
Red = Conventions I followed Blue = Conventiosn I didnt follow I I am going to be discussing the codes and conventions of our chosen sub-genre as a whole. Our chosen sub-genre was Slasher. My group felt that this genre meant we could explore and be creative. We felt that using Slasher meant that we could include a variety of ideas
In Slasher films there are usually a group of characters that we become familiar with. The group is usually a set of 5 or more teenagers or young adults ranging from ages 18-24. The group usually consists of 2 couples in a relationship. Amongst the group there is usually the ‘dumb blonde’ who is in a relationship with someone else in the group. She is usually one of the first to get killed and is very over dramatic and loud. The ‘dumb blonde’ doesn’t usually believe that there is ‘someone out there to get them’ and can often make fun of the fact that others think they are in danger, hence why she probably is one of the first to get killed.
As previously stated the characters consist of young people, therefore settings are likely to be teenager dominated areas such as high school, parties, camp and last but not least the woods. These are places that teenagers are familiar with places that the audience immediately link to young people. However, sometimes the teenagers can be unfamiliar with such surroundings such as the woods hence why they are unaware the place is maybe ‘known for danger’ and hence why they get lost and end up in unsafe territory. For example, Human Centipede the two young girls initially get lost in the woods and seek refuge in a nearby home which ends up being danger. The location is usually somewhere remote, making it difficult for the victims to be saved and seek help. In Slasher films killings usually take place on a symbolic date e.g. ‘Friday 13th’ or maybe an anniversary of something that happened in the past or maybe a specific time of the day e.g. ‘when the moon rises’.
Music/Sound Effects
Music is not a popular convention when it comes to this genre, I believe this is because Slasher is made to appear real and adding music may make ti appear surreal. When sound is heard in Slasher films it is usually diegetic and part of the film itself for example loud club music may be played by the teenagers in the woods to show that they are having a good time and they are happy before trouble starts. However, non-diegetic sound is sometimes used in Slasher films to help us recognise things. For example, in Halloween there is a specific sound that is repeatedly played whenever the killer is coming. The audience become familiar with this and understand that whenever we hear this sound – trouble is on its way.
Editing
The editing in Slasher films usually consists of quick, short cuts whenever the victim is running and distorted angles whenever someone is being murdered to represent uncomfort and pain.
JASON
Below, each member of our group have answered this question starting with Berry then Jason then Rebecca and then Hoalie.
BERRY
Red = Conventions I followed Blue = Conventiosn I didnt follow I I am going to be discussing the codes and conventions of our chosen sub-genre as a whole. Our chosen sub-genre was Slasher. My group felt that this genre meant we could explore and be creative. We felt that using Slasher meant that we could include a variety of ideas
Characters
In Slasher films there are usually a group of characters that we become familiar with. The group is usually a set of 5 or more teenagers or young adults ranging from ages 18-24. The group usually consists of 2 couples in a relationship. Amongst the group there is usually the ‘dumb blonde’ who is in a relationship with someone else in the group. She is usually one of the first to get killed and is very over dramatic and loud. The ‘dumb blonde’ doesn’t usually believe that there is ‘someone out there to get them’ and can often make fun of the fact that others think they are in danger, hence why she probably is one of the first to get killed.
Costumes
In Slasher films, as previously stated, there is a group of teenagers. In Slasher films the costume of the teenagers usually consists of revealing attire. The females are usually dressed in shorts, skirts and tops that display midriff. The majority of the females either have medium length or long hair hanging down. The guys usually dressed in quarter lengths and vests. The stereotypical idea that killers in current Slasher films are dressed up isn’t always true. The killer is usually dressed quite casually consisting of chunky work-like boots with baggy jeans or overalls just like a normal person for example, in Halloween. However, the killer may wear a mask to hide his identity but would still be wearing ordinary attire.
Props (Weapons)
The name of the sub-genre ‘Slasher’ immediately informs us what type of weapons could be included. Weapons are usually brutal, sharp work objects such as knives, axes, machetes, chain-saws, hammers and saws. All of which are weapons that ‘slash’ and weapons which have work use and are usually easily accessible or lying around. The weapons used provide instant kills and little pain as they are instant. However the saying ‘live by the knife, die by the knife’ does not apply to the killer as whenever struck by one of the weapons the killer always seems to survive almost indestructible. The weapon is always displayed with a close –up usually, in the killer’s hand which is masked by a glove.
Setting
As previously stated the characters consist of young people, therefore settings are likely to be teenager dominated areas such as high school, parties, camp and last but not least the woods. These are places that teenagers are familiar with places that the audience immediately link to young people. However, sometimes the teenagers can be unfamiliar with such surroundings such as the woods hence why they are unaware the place is maybe ‘known for danger’ and hence why they get lost and end up in unsafe territory. For example, Human Centipede the two young girls initially get lost in the woods and seek refuge in a nearby home which ends up being danger. The location is usually somewhere remote, making it difficult for the victims to be saved and seek help. In Slasher films killings usually take place on a symbolic date e.g. ‘Friday 13th’ or maybe an anniversary of something that happened in the past or maybe a specific time of the day e.g. ‘when the moon rises’.
Lighting
The lighting of Slasher films varies throughout. As previously stated, some beginning scenes take place in high school or in the woods during the day. Therefore, as expected lighting would be high-key and natural light. However as we get nearer to the killings the night edges closer and lighting becomes low-key. The majority of the killings take place in darkness with little light so the viewers can make out what is happening.
Storyline/Plot
The killer is almost always a normal human being who has been through some difficulty in the past such as abuse, unfairness and prejudice or maybe witnessed something bad. This causes them to withdraw themselves from society and go to somewhere isolated such as the woods. When people trespass this causes the killer to go on a killing spree and kill the trespassers one by one. On other occasions, the killer has a grudge from the past and is seeking revenge so will therefore search for a particular person to kill them and whilst searching for this person the killer will kill the people he finds on his journey. The killer appears immortal as he always survives when attacked. Sometimes, the killer is amongst the teenagers but the others are unaware and oblivious to the fact that the person they are looking for is within. The teenagers sometimes guess that the killer is amongst them but always accuse the wrong person and find this out when it is too late. The killer’s identity is usually revealed in the last scenes e.g. Scream
Music is not a popular convention when it comes to this genre, I believe this is because Slasher is made to appear real and adding music may make ti appear surreal. When sound is heard in Slasher films it is usually diegetic and part of the film itself for example loud club music may be played by the teenagers in the woods to show that they are having a good time and they are happy before trouble starts. However, non-diegetic sound is sometimes used in Slasher films to help us recognise things. For example, in Halloween there is a specific sound that is repeatedly played whenever the killer is coming. The audience become familiar with this and understand that whenever we hear this sound – trouble is on its way.
Editing
The editing in Slasher films usually consists of quick, short cuts whenever the victim is running and distorted angles whenever someone is being murdered to represent uncomfort and pain.
JASON
At the start of the year we looked at the basis of horror and the different sub genres i.e. Paranormal, vampire/werewolf, j-horror, splatter, slasher. The one we decided to choose was slasher which has its own set of conventions. Things like woods, dark alleys, small towns for the settings. We have certain characters such as the slutty girl who dies, the final innocent girl who lives and a man as the killer who usually has a troubled childhood problem to explain his madness. There are the killer has a signature weapon and identity for example Jason from ‘Friday the 13th has a machete and a hockey mask
I had to rely on the more visual aspects because it’s not really suiting to reveal the plot in a teaser trailer. So I have a wood which I picked because I feel it has quite a spooky feel to it and you always get the feel of being alone and lost. A lot of teen horrors are conventionally set in a woods where teenagers go to camp out or party and the killers interrupt them, there are also a lot of famous chase scenes in woods because in a such a intriguing area as a wood you can hide and be completely exposed at the same time with this and the interesting sounds of twigs and certain animal noises it gives for a very exciting, tense and mysterious setting. Some famous scenes such as the chase in ‘last house on the left’ where the victim runs away from the rapist murderers until she finds the water to swim away in,
also the ‘Blair witch project’ a very genre breaking film was completely set in a wood and worked extremely well, to create that effect that they wasn’t alone but they couldn’t escape.
As for comparing with the Slasher sub-genre that we have chosen a lot of chases such as many of the ‘Friday the 13th’ films where Jason would chase teenagers to their brutal deaths through it
and ‘Wrong turn’ which is mainly set in a wood/forest where a bunch of disfigured cannibals are trying to kill and eat the people who have accidently ended up in the forest.
Another common convection that I have is the teenage female victim. I had chosen Anna and was happy with how she fit the mark. In a common Slasher film the victims are usually teenagers, pretty, and depending on how naughty, innocent they are depends on how they live.
But for a teaser it isn’t really necessary to go into the latter. Bit appearance and age wise Anna fit the role. A lot of different horrors use a kill to draw in an audience, many films start with an opening scene being a killing so the audience can have something exciting to entice them into sticking through the build to the later killings and it is usually this sort of character one that I have used. Then finally the most important thing to have a in a slasher is your killer and our killer is equipped with a hammer and a persona of a clown. So it is pretty clear that is a slasher to the audience watching.
Another thing I looked at was the conventions of a teaser trailer itself, I know that it should be much shorter than a trailer as it used to tease the audience so it should be around 30 seconds to 1 minute. It will be made a long time before the actual film, usually before it’s even fully filmed. It is separately made footage to give the audience a little taster of what’s to come. Another reason why they are made is to see how people respond to them and so they know if it is the right decision to go ahead with the project. Our trailer is 50 seconds which is perfect time for a teaser trailer. I also made sure that the trailer didn’t give much away, it was all based around one place and you never really see the killer, but you know that he is a clown, because of the clothes, the laugh and the title. So people will want to know what he looks like. Teaser trailers are to tease and I feel that’s exactly what I’ve done.
REBECCA
Q1: In What Ways Does Your Media Production Use, Develop or Challenge Forms & Conventions of Real Media Products?
Before beginning our A2 course work we were asked to research into horror films,trailers, magazine front cover and posters. Doing this allowed us to get an in depth knowledge of the different conventions in each genre of horror. We had decided a sgroup to do a slasher for our A2 horror teaser trailer so this meant we had to focus on the conventions typical of slasher films.
When making our horror posters we decided on doing two of them on portrait and one landscape. This was a little bit of a risk as we had to make sure we organised our time well and finish everything on time, but we felt that this would benift us and it also followed the ocnventions of most films.
We found by the films we researched that they usually had more than one poster especialy if they were high budgeted films and we wanted to make ours look professional.
On both of our posters our 'Klown' is the main image'. The make up its self was inspired by the Joker from Batman, but the effect on this poster, with half of his face faded into the background, was a mixture of inspirations.
Our main inspiration was the poster of Hostel. This too had half of the mans face darkened but not to the same extent to ours. We saw the Hostel poster and liked the dark mysterious effect it delivers and decide we want that we wanted a similar style.
With horror posters I found that mainly the killer (antagonist) was on the poster, however, on occasions i also found victims who are in pain on the poster too. This i feel is following conventions as our killer is the main image surrounded by darkness. What may have challenged the conventions is the fact our killers full face is on show and is also smiling. It is rare for the killer on the poster to be smiling. This suggest very much that he is twisted and enjoys doing what he does.
As i researched more into it i found that with slashers it was mainly the killer that was on the poster, for example Nightmare on elm street and Friday the 13th.
As we have a killer as our main image we are again following conventions.
Also similarly to many posters we have made a big gold title with credits directly below it which is at the bottom of the page. This i found was very common and was a convention we have followed. There are a few posters however that have the title and credits at the side or diagonally like the SAW poster for example and this tends to show unbalance. Our group though decided to follow the convention as when we experimented with where to put it the, the middle bottom was the best .
A convention we followed intentionally was the fact that we decided to not add a month of when the film was coming out. As this was a teaser poster we knew we shouldn't give away too much detail. Some tease posters even went as far as to leave out the credits and almost all of the had a season or year of when the film would be released.
We also followed conventions in terms of color. Red, black and white are used throughout our posters and this again is a common convention in horror posters. Black would connote darkness, while red connotes black and the white would possible represent the normal life the victims once lived. They also contrast well with each other.
Another example of how we followed conventions is our tagline. 'Funny... right?'
This again was common in most of the posters i had researched.
e.g. Final destination- rest in pieces
Woman in black- fear her curse
Nightmare on elm street- welcome to your new nightmare.
These are just examples of different tag lines used on posters but as you can see each tag line links into the film into some way. Final destination consists of brutal and gruesome deaths and the line rest in pieces is a play on this and the saying rest in peace. This is the same as any other tag line, it will always have a meaning behind it. With our tag line we tried to put a humor element into it as clowns are a form of entertainment.
HOALIE
A common convention I have used is to put a bold masthead on the cover. Like every other masthead on magazines, I have used a large, bold masthead that goes across the top covering almost a quarter on the front page. This convention is used to brand the magazine so that it will be known. I have used the colour white for the masthead with a red stroke and outer glow so that it stands out from the background.
I have used a main central image for the front cover which is the main focus, this is usually an image of a film character that is the main feature of the issue. It is a close-up shot, with the right side of his face shadowed black to create a sense of mystery.
REBECCA
Q1: In What Ways Does Your Media Production Use, Develop or Challenge Forms & Conventions of Real Media Products?
Before beginning our A2 course work we were asked to research into horror films,trailers, magazine front cover and posters. Doing this allowed us to get an in depth knowledge of the different conventions in each genre of horror. We had decided a sgroup to do a slasher for our A2 horror teaser trailer so this meant we had to focus on the conventions typical of slasher films.
When making our horror posters we decided on doing two of them on portrait and one landscape. This was a little bit of a risk as we had to make sure we organised our time well and finish everything on time, but we felt that this would benift us and it also followed the ocnventions of most films.
We found by the films we researched that they usually had more than one poster especialy if they were high budgeted films and we wanted to make ours look professional.
On both of our posters our 'Klown' is the main image'. The make up its self was inspired by the Joker from Batman, but the effect on this poster, with half of his face faded into the background, was a mixture of inspirations. Our main inspiration was the poster of Hostel. This too had half of the mans face darkened but not to the same extent to ours. We saw the Hostel poster and liked the dark mysterious effect it delivers and decide we want that we wanted a similar style.
With horror posters I found that mainly the killer (antagonist) was on the poster, however, on occasions i also found victims who are in pain on the poster too. This i feel is following conventions as our killer is the main image surrounded by darkness. What may have challenged the conventions is the fact our killers full face is on show and is also smiling. It is rare for the killer on the poster to be smiling. This suggest very much that he is twisted and enjoys doing what he does. As i researched more into it i found that with slashers it was mainly the killer that was on the poster, for example Nightmare on elm street and Friday the 13th.
As we have a killer as our main image we are again following conventions.
Also similarly to many posters we have made a big gold title with credits directly below it which is at the bottom of the page. This i found was very common and was a convention we have followed. There are a few posters however that have the title and credits at the side or diagonally like the SAW poster for example and this tends to show unbalance. Our group though decided to follow the convention as when we experimented with where to put it the, the middle bottom was the best .
A convention we followed intentionally was the fact that we decided to not add a month of when the film was coming out. As this was a teaser poster we knew we shouldn't give away too much detail. Some tease posters even went as far as to leave out the credits and almost all of the had a season or year of when the film would be released.
We also followed conventions in terms of color. Red, black and white are used throughout our posters and this again is a common convention in horror posters. Black would connote darkness, while red connotes black and the white would possible represent the normal life the victims once lived. They also contrast well with each other.
Another example of how we followed conventions is our tagline. 'Funny... right?'
This again was common in most of the posters i had researched.
e.g. Final destination- rest in pieces
Woman in black- fear her curse
Nightmare on elm street- welcome to your new nightmare.
These are just examples of different tag lines used on posters but as you can see each tag line links into the film into some way. Final destination consists of brutal and gruesome deaths and the line rest in pieces is a play on this and the saying rest in peace. This is the same as any other tag line, it will always have a meaning behind it. With our tag line we tried to put a humor element into it as clowns are a form of entertainment.
HOALIE
Q1) Film Magazine
Using the standard conventions of a music magazine front cover I have based and incorporated my magazine around it and created my own music magazine front cover.
At the beginning of this project I analysed a horror magazine front cover called ‘Gorezone Magazine’. I analysed the magazine to see what makes this specific magazine stand out amongst the others that have a similar genre and a similar target audience. This has helped me on what conventions I should use to develop my music magazine.
A common convention I have used is to put a bold masthead on the cover. Like every other masthead on magazines, I have used a large, bold masthead that goes across the top covering almost a quarter on the front page. This convention is used to brand the magazine so that it will be known. I have used the colour white for the masthead with a red stroke and outer glow so that it stands out from the background.
An example of mastheads are from the magazines Empire, Total Film, Jade screen, Studio and Premiere. These music magazines have their masthead going across their magazine.
Looking at the mastheads of existing magazines, I can see that the font used are solid with the use of a solid colour as well.
I have developed my magazine masthead further by using a font that isn't solid, as you can see I used a font that has gaps and has a graffiti spray effect. I have also carefully picked this font due to the fact that it suits the genre of the magazine and it will also attract a younger audience.
Here are 6 front covers of different music magazines. All of them have one main image of a film character, they all use close up or medium shot.
Analysing various music magazines I have noticed that a majority of them do not use plain background. I have challenged the convention by using a background that is plain and solid colour. I have used a black background to keep with the mystery of the horror genre.
As I saw on various other Film magazines, cover lines do not interfere with the main model on the front cover, so I placed the cover lines so that they do not cover up the models face and still can he clearly seen.
One main convention used in magazines are cover-lines. This helps attract the readers attention to carry on with wanting to read the magazine. They are usually distributed around the cover with covering the main image.
Music magazines usually stick to one or two colours for their font, I have used this convention by choosing to use three colours which is red, white and grey. I have chosen these colours because it stands out the most from the background which means that it will catch the readers attention very easily.
Looking at other music magazines I can see that they have kept most of their cover-lines on one side of the magazine, which is usually the left side. This has been done so that while the magazine is still on the shelf they can be seen and read by people browsing and catches their attention. I have decided to use this convention so that my magazine can catch the reader to pick it up and buy the magazine.
I have placed the date, issue number and website on the left side of the masthead, although not all magazines place it there, I did this because I think the information is important and should be place somewhere on the cover that can be seen clearly.
I have placed the price next to the barcode at the bottom left corner of the magazine, I have done this so that it is easier for people to take note of the price when paying for the magazine.
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