In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Teaser Trailer:
Form: - Our teaser trailer is 1 minute 14 seconds which fits the
teaser trailer convention of around 1 minute.
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Our trailer begins with the production companies and
- ends by informing the viewer of the title, the date of release and the webpage where they can discover more about the film.
All of these are conventions used to structure and define a teaser as apposed to a theatrical trailer which would be longer and focus more on the narrative hooks and actors.
- To view our storyboard, click
here.
Inspirations and Research:
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Media in the News
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1984
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Blade Runner
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Equilibrium
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Franklyn
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Gattaca
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I, Robot
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The Matrix
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V for Vendetta
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Genre
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Media Theory
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Symbols
Poster:
The layout and form of the poster fulfills
Poster conventions:
- it has the names of the actors,
-the tagline,
-the title,
-the date and
-down the bottom the cast and crew list with the production companies.
Content:
- the idea of two opposing characters,
- representative of two sides of a conflict,
- inspired by the CD cover of U2 and Green day's single 'The Saints are Coming', where the leader singers heads are back to back highlighting an opposition of forces.
This consept also appears in the poster for 'The Ides of March' from which we took the idea of cutting the faces in half. We felt that this:
- Created greater character enigma and
- A mirroring quality between the characters, an effect which can be seen in
'Equilibrium'.
- Allows eye contact: the pictures stare out of the poster, at the viewer,
- an emotional connection is made and
-invites the consumer into the world of the film.
This can be seen in the posters for
'Gattaca' and
'Blade Runner'.
The static across the political figure:
- implies the technological aspects
- shadows his image, aligning him with darkness.
There is a link between this and the
'1984' film poster which includes the iconic image of Big Brother on a screen ribbed with static. We have chosen to leave out the screen to imply that the threat in our film is far more physical, part of the reality of the world.
General ideas we got from the media texts we looked at were:
- stoic expressions,
- shadowed faces,
- characters dressed in black, and
- gritty ambiance to imply dark plot elements.
This we feel we have conveyed and the urban, grungy background reinforces the film's identity as a dystopia and the strange high angle perspective draws viewers in to look closer. We feel that the symbolic spiral staircase conveys imagery of an endless conflict.
The triple colours - black, white and red are conventions of our chosen genre:
Soft Scifi Thriller.
The Anchorage:
- SteelTong anchorage (used on the website and in the teaser trailer and inspired by the same sleek red font of
'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy')
- stands out against the dark background.
- red title: draws the eye most due to the brightness of the colour and because it is the only colour
- red: symbolic of danger, violence and blood.
This can be seen also in the 'Blade Runner' and '1984' posters where red is the only bright colour, used for the title.
Title at the bottom:
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highlights the significance of the characters (who are in the foreground further illustrating this) and
- the narrative above the film's label, this is used in the 'Gattaca', 'Matrix' and 'Equilibrium' posters.
- aids the compisition, the viewer's eyes travel down the poster.
Date at the very bottom is a poster convention.
Stylised Black and White:
- can be seen in the 'Equilibrium' poster
- connotes to mystery.
- Darkness is also important for our narrative, something which our product has in common with many of the media texts we deconstructed eg.
'Minority Report' and
'Franklyn' supporting the presentation of the Thriller genre.
Covering the Mouths:
- inspired by news reports where faces or eyes are blacked out for anonimity and where indecent language is covered.
- symbolism: implies that in our dystopia freedom of speech is oppressed and treated like foul language.
Websites:
- unique to make them interesting to a consumer but also
- add to the world of your narrative.
Webpage conventions we have conformed to:
- title at the top and the link to the home page and
- the appearance of the trailer.
Synchronosity between products (trailer, poster, webpage):
-the colour scheme (black, white and red),
- images eg. spiral staircase and
- static
- further emphasises the ambiance of our product/film.
Headings:
Inspired by the most common ones on the sites we deconstructed, for example:
- photos,
- videos,
- cast and crew, and
- book tickets.
However, like on the 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' webpage we changed the names we gave these headings to play more with the themes of our narrative eg. 'Surveillance' instead of 'Videos'.
These headings also differ between the two pages which link off of the Home page to continue the concept of conflict between two opposing sides.
Like the 'Gattaca' webpage we have emphasised the 3 characters introduced in the trailer through images on various pages.
The 'Blade Runner' webpage uses scenes from the film as backgrounds to each page and the consumer becomes an active user as they search for items to click on and discover more.
- engages the audience
- creating a more memorable experience
- also mirrors the detective, mystery narrative of the film.
This interactive aspect is something we particularly liked and also found on the 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' Webpage - the consumer must enter the date as the entrance code and can then go through different levels of the 'circus' visiting places from the film.
Our date appears at the bottom of the home page with out '/' or full stops like a code and we ask our consumers to click on an image or 'Choose your Allegiance' after watching the trailer.
- continues the theme of sides and conflict from our narrative
- each picture takes you to a different page.
- on these 2 pages - one for rebels and one for the government there are
video backgrounds with clips from the trailer/film which adds to the identity of each side.
