Directors Chair Interview Q1: 'In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products'?

‘In our teaser trailer we have used, developed as well as slightly challenged the forms and conventions of real media products. Are aim at the beginning was making our teaser trailer seem as professional as possible but we also wanted to have some unique aspects and originality. Before we had even started the production process of our teaser trailer we had conducted extensive research on real media texts and the conventions they use to make their products as effective as possible. The targeted genre of our teaser trailer was crime/suspense thriller. We had found that these types of teaser trailers do a great job of building the tension for the audience by gradually increasing the pace of shots and their use of music to create atmosphere. In our teaser trailer we had replicated this convention by having a slow paced scene in the exposition of our trailer and then having a very fast paced conclusion. Teaser trailers are meant to excite and attract audiences without giving away the narrative of the film and we have definitely emulated this convention in our teaser trailer. Another aspect of crime thrillers was an assassin character which we had used in our teaser trailer. There were many examples of thrillers which use assassin characters such as ‘Vincent’ from the film ‘Collateral’ and ‘James Bond’ from the ‘Bond’ series. These assassin characters also have very smart costumes which is another convention we have adapted to our own assassin character. The smart costume represents professionalism and gives the trailer a higher sense of verisimilitude. One way in which we have challenged the conventions of crime thrillers, is by having our assassin character as the main protagonist in our trailer. This is quite uncommon as the assassin character in real media texts is usually the antagonist'.

'Our primary focus when creating our magazine cover was making it look as professional as possible. We wanted to replicate the forms and conventions of real media texts and had focused our research on two popular film magazines ‘Empire’ and ‘Total Film’. We had found that these magazine covers do a great job of drawing the audience’s attention through its use of visual effects, unique typography and striking images of the main characters. ‘Empire’ magazine was our main focus however as we had really liked the bold red title and the consistent layout the magazine had adopted which had made it very eye-catching and interesting.  Three particular Empire covers was are main source of inspiration such as (Public Enemies) July 2009 issue, (Quantum of Solace) October 2008 issue and (Inception) August 2010 issue. All of these particular cover centred on the main protagonist in the film and included mise-en scene such as black suits, guns and serious facial expressions which created a very dark atmosphere. We had used these conventions on our magazine cover by having the main protagonist in a black suit, looking very serious and focused. These specific parts of mise-en-scene had clearly informed the audiences of what genre our film was as we had gained good feedback from audiences. To create the magazine cover we had used Adobe Photoshop CS5 and we were able to implement other forms and convention such as barcodes, taglines and screenshots of the latest films which overall made our magazine cover look that much more professional'.

'Our film poster was a media product that we wanted to appear unique but at the same time we had still followed the main forms and conventions that professional film posters use to make it impactful and interesting. Firstly, we had used dark lighting and colour schemes to create a shady atmosphere. The use of black is common colour used in crime thrillers and can be used to represent the good and evil aspect in our film. Our poster had also centred on one of the key protagonists in our film which another convention that is used to inform the audience of the main character. We had again used ‘Adobe Photoshop CS5’ which allowed us to add in other characteristics or real film posters such as actor’s names, taglines and film credits. One way in which we have challenged the conventions of real film posters is the small range of colours we have used which is quite uncommon for thriller genre posters’.