Evaluation Question 1 – In what way does your media project use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Teaser Trailer:
Firstly, like all real and professional films and trailers, we decided to start with a productions company logo. We decided to call our company “Bedazzled Productions” as this has connotations of jewellery, diamonds etc and generally things that sparkle and shine. We decided on having the three gold stars (as each star would represent one of the three women) with the words “Bedazzled Productions” (at a slanted diagonal angle) coming out of the stars to suggest to an audience that they are shooting stars on a black background. The words of the “Bedazzled Productions” would alternate between red and white, because from the start of this project, we as a group decided our colour code for this promotional package would be black, red, gold and white.
We chose these colours as:
• Red has connotations of love, passion, romance, danger and murder.
• Gold has connotations of wealth, fame, gold and glamour.
• White has the connotations of innocence, purity and women.
• Black has connotations of death, sex and seduction.
Through our mise – en scene e.g. Rose petals, lip stick, blood, jewellery etc and our trailer messages/ quotations e.g. “Revenge is sweet”, we made sure our colour code was referred to continuously. With the use of this colour code, we applied these colours to certain words. With words like “sweet” and “good” colour coded using white as this has a connotation of purity and good, on the other hand words like “revenge” and “bad” we put in red as this colour is associated with danger, murder and evil.
• Red : Lipstick, nail varnish, earrings, dresses, shoes, rose petals, rose, blood
• Gold: Jewellery, lighter
• White: Envelop of money, Tablet (spiking drink), bath tub, sink,
• Black: Glove, dresses, shoes, gun
Our choice of font was specific also, as it is bold, unique and the way the O’s look, it creates/ suggests an idea in the viewers/ audiences mind that these women have two sides to them; one devious, deceitful and dangerous and the other flirtatious, fancy and glamorous. So through the use and choice of our colour code and font it gives our promotional package a unique selling point as no other company has this colour code or font and uses it like we do.
In our trailer we decided to mainly use different variations of close up shots (medium close up, close up, big close up, extreme close up) as our group didn’t want to give too much information about the characters away to our audience. We filmed these shots to only give away certain characteristics e.g. skin colour, hair colour etc and certain pieces of information like wealth and their role as a character in this film.
By using shots that only give away certain pieces of information, this leaves the audience wondering/ thinking about different scenarios that could be going on within the trailer, what different reasons there could be for why a character does something and generally create questions about characters and what is going on in the trailer whether it is to do with their role as the character, their background etc. Examples of these shots that raise questions in an audiences mind are; the over the shoulder shot of Holly from behind at the bar, the shot of the wine glass being spiked and the final shot of the blood dripping into the sink and the characters bloody hand grasping the edge of the sink before collapsing to the floor. All of these examples cause the audience to wonder why these things are happening in the scene and what is going to happen after it. These questions can play a vital part in how popular a film could be as they can cause people to go and watch the full film after seeing the trailer, as they want to find out all the answers to the questions brought up in their mind from initially watching the trailer.
The Low angle shot of Holly at the bar, starts with a very smooth slow tilt up starts to slowly introduce Holly’s character to the scene/ shot but also the trailer. This immediately causes the audience to wonder who she is and how she fits into the film. Also by having the shot from a lower angle, it shows her character as being powerful and important to the shot and potentially the film. One shot that I felt certainly contrasted the forms and conventions of many professional teaser trailers is the hand held high angled shot in the bathroom of the blood dripping into the sink and the male character collapsing to the ground. By using the camera in a hand held position from a high angle, it makes it feel for life like for the audience as if they are the character collapsing and makes them feel as if they are involved in what is going on.
We usually kept the lighting for our project as ambient because we wanted to make it as realistic as possible, however for certain scenes we decided to change things for various reasons. The bedroom scene between me and Joy, we decided to use low key lighting to try to emphasise the seductive and sexual powers of the female character in this scene. Also we decided to have Joy’s character standing unlike the male character as this would show her character in a position of power and show that she is the one controlling the situation. In an earlier scene however (the jewellery/ring scene where a female pair of hands is trying on a big diamond ring) we decided to have high key lighting, firstly to emphasise and show the characters wealth and influential power, and secondly to show the sparkle and shine from the ring. By showing this it would immediately remind the audience of the production company name “Bedazzled” because of the association with expensive / precious things that sparkle and shine.
When we started editing we followed the forms and conventions of all professional teaser trailers i.e. continuity editing, cut, fade up and out. However, our project then started to challenge these forms and conventions as we decided that all of our trailer should be in slow motion, which isn’t common in most trailers of this genre. The purpose of doing this is that it makes what these women are doing (i.e. murder, theft, seduction etc) seem glamorous and from and audiences point of view, even though they can see what is slowly happening before their eyes, there is nothing anyone can do to stop it which emphasises the theme of helplessness and insecurity even more.
When looking at the forms and conventions of sound, our project doesn’t follow any of them only challenges them. As a group we decided not to have any diegetic sound in our trailer, as we wanted our own music track to be the only sound and to control the pace at which the audience would watch the trailer. We also wanted our track to try to glamorise the women vindictive and devious behaviour even more. The main reason we had to create our own piece of music and were unable to use a normal song was due to copy right issues. We agreed that the music should be soft and start off at a slow pace to show the characters as innocent and harmless when the audience is initially introduced to them. Then as the trailer progresses and more violence and danger is shown the music quickens and gets louder to try to raise suspense, tension and keep the audience engaged.
When choosing appropriate mise – en – scene our project used/followed the same conventions as most professional teaser trailer. The uses of props like money, jewellery and weaponry all show and give the female characters a sense of power, which constantly remind the audience that even though these women may look and seem harmless and innocent, really they are dangerous, murderous and deceitful.
Film Poster:
Our film poster follows the majority of the conventions of a professional film poster for various reasons. These reasons are:
• It has its own general colour code of red, white, gold and black
• It also has a bold, eye catching title that follows the colour code, contrasts the background and is the main focus (apart from the image) of the poster
• It has one main image that is dominant of everything on the poster
• It has the directors names and production company logo clearly shown on it
However, it challenges certain forms and conventions as it has no actor’s names on it because since none of our characters can be clearly seen in our trailer, we didn’t want to put actor’s names on as it may give the identity of certain characters, which could spoil the trailer for the audience.
Magazine Front Cover:
Our magazine front cover follows the majority of the conventions of a professional magazine front cover for various reasons. These reasons are:
• It has an eye catching title of the word “screen” in dark capital letters on a royal blue background; this challenges the forms and conventions of most magazine front covers as they usually have a brighter title on a darker background.
• It uses lots of persuasive language i.e. “EXCLUSIVE”, “new, unique phenomenon” etc
• It has promotional features like directors names etc I.e. “award winning director and producer; George Regan and Joy Isong”
• It has one predominant image, which shows Holly in a relaxed, calm pose smoking a cigarette, but still has a threatening sense about her as she holds a gun in her other hand.
• It correctly represents the genre of the movie and appeals to the right audience, as the films “dead man running, harry brown and kick ass” under the reviews on recent best seller films all are based around the crime genre and also all include a sense of violence, intimidation and deception.
• It has a quotation from the film or about the film from a newspaper or film critic e.g. “an example of why messing with the wrong women is a BIG mistake”.
Overall:
Gender stereotypes are the one thing that seems to challenge the forms and conventions the whole promotional package. In most professional promotional packages for this genre women aren’t the main characters, part of criminal organisations or are murders. Usually women in films of this genre are the victims, however for our project we decided to have men as the victims and have them in a position of danger, insecurity and inferiority. We as a group chose to do this for various reasons; one of these was that because no other film has done something like this, this scenario becomes one of our unique selling points. Also because for once women are the main characters and are in a position of power over men we felt this would appeal to a wider audience, as we knew the type of genre it was would appeal to men but we needed something to attract the females attention hence why they are the main characters.
Another thing we thought was a good idea was to have the three female characters coming from 3 different races. We got this idea from our some audience feedback we had gathered and from our research into the genre after looking at Charlie’s Angels. The purpose of these characters coming from different races is to make it a little harder for the audience to establish a connection between the three women and also to pinpoint who is the murderer in the film. Also by having them from different races it contrasts how they would look in different clothing, make up etc and also how they would blend and fit into different surroundings. A final reason for this is that characters from different races and ethnic backgrounds appeals to an even wider audience.