In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms

and conventions of real media products?

PosterFor my poster I used a medium-long shot of my protagonist, I feel this will allow
my audience to have a slight insight into what genre my film will be and into the
plot, but without giving to much away, this would entice people who are fans of
the genre. I think the using my main character, the protagonist as my main
image was important as the audience would immediately be able to identify that
he is the main character when they watch my short, through Propps stock
character profiles. From doing my research at the beginning of this project it was
obvious that by using my protagonist as the main image in my poster I would be
following the standard conventions of a majority of film posters that I analysed.
In my main image shows my protagonist looking lost and distant, this like I
earlier said gives the audience an insight into what the plot of my short film will
be without giving away too much, as to still keep them interested in my short by
not giving away the entire plot. The fact that my protagonist looks lost and
confused gives a slight inclination that my short will be following Todorovs
theory of beginning with an equilibrium and that something will happen to
disrupt this equilibrium. I believe this follows the standard conventions of most
movie posters, with perhaps a few exceptions.
However, I did find portraying and getting across the right mise-en-scene difficult
when creating my movie poster difficult. For example I first planned on using a
close-up of my protagonist for the poster; my problem with this was it was very
hard to get across the mise-en-scene and atmosphere whilst still giving the
audience an idea of what my film was about, using this style. By studying the
conventions of other movie posters from all genres, I realised that it was
important to create a poster which was not only dramatic and memorable, but
also gave the audience an insight into what my short film contained. I felt that by
using a medium-longshot which contained a background of the surrounding are,
made my poster aesthetically pleasing and also gave my audience a good
insight. I found that this was slightly against conventions of film posters from my
genre which generally used close-ups or extreme close-ups for their movie
posters.
Another thing I found important when creating my movie poster is to use direct
address. I learned that this was an important feature and convention of a
majority of the posters that I looked at. I believe that it makes the audience feel
more engaged and feel like they have more of a personal relationship with the
character which can make the short film more enjoyable for the audience and
gives them a greater understanding and insight into it.
I also found mise-en-scene to be very important when creating my short film
poster. For example, although I found mise-en-scene to be a lot more important
within genres like horror, as posters for films such as Friday the 13th and
Insidious clearly dress their character in a way which connotes their characters

having a particular personality whilst also representing the genre. I found that it
was not as present with drama posters but still was a convention. As I have
studied how people are represented within the media, I decided to use Goffmans
theory of self-presentation and develop this convention so that my audience get
the correct representation of my protagonist.
Most of mise-en-scene comes from my characters clothing. I dressed my
character in what I believed to be ordinary every-day clothing, my reason for
doing so is that I think it would make the audience feel closer to the character as
they can relate to him, or even see themselves in the same position. When
creating the image, I found that a majority of film posters were dark and
mysterious in order to keep the audience guessing and not give away too much
of the plot, this was a very common convention. To try create this same effect I
tried to use natural dull lighting, this in itself creates a sense of mystery and
intrigue. The lighting on the image itself did not require me to make any artificial
changes, as I already had my desired effect from natural lighting and found that
any high key lighting would distract away from the title and slogan.
I named my film the lost because I felt this created intrigue and would cause the
audience to begin thinking who or what in my film is lost. I felt that by keeping
my title general and not too specific it keeps the audience more interested as
they are not entirely sure what it is about, this follows conventions of a majority
of films for example The Fighter and Psycho have rather generic names for this
same reason.
I chose for my the title of my poster to be running horizontally across the bottom
of the page as was the case for a majority of posters as it was a common
convention, I felt this to be the perfect position on my poster without taking
away from or obstruction the main image. Also, through the use of focus groups
I found it was my audiences preferred location. Through uses and gratifications
theory, I realised it important that my poster had to be informing as well as
maintaining its aesthetical elements to attract my audience. This is important as
then the two-step flow of communication theory shows that people within my
target audience can then go tell their friends about the short film, therefore
expanding the audience my short reaches.
When producing my title I decided upon one which was bold and striking in order
to catch the audiences attention and clearly engage with them, which is
obviously the purpose and a common convention of all poster titles. When
deciding on which font to use, I opted for one that looked scratched and worn.
This connotes the impression of danger and perhaps the feeling on unease in the
short film. My focus group also agreed with me on this point and also selected it
as their most desirable font. I believe it works extremely effectively as it is very
dramatic which fits the genre well.
I placed any institutional information such as the credits at the bottom of the
page, in order not to catch any of the readers attention. I found this a common
practice and convention of movie posters, and a technique that worked well, as

all of the attention is still put on the main image and important information like
the release date.
Picking a colour for my font was another tough decision. I had to make sure that
my font colour matched conventions of the genre and the mise-en-scene of the
film, whilst also fulfilling its purpose. For example, I could not have font colour
that drew too much attention away from the main image and towards the credits,
however I also could not have a font that completely blended in and was not
clear to read. When looking at other movie posters there was a clear convention
of either black or white being used for both heading and credits. After consulting
my focus group I decided that black was the most effective colour as it was bold,
stood out, but also did not direct attention away from my main image.

Short Film
When deciding upon a score for my short, I found that using a slow tempo piano
was the most effective way of getting the atmosphere across to my audience.
This again, was a very common feature and convention of not only short films,
but films in general. I feel that pianos are instruments often associated with the
horror and drama genre, by using this music my audience will immediately be
able to associate with my genre. This links with uses and gratifications theory as
my audience may then feel fulfilled, as common conventions they come to
expect from the genre have been met.
The first several pieces of music I tried to add to my short were far too uplifting,
they contained multiple instruments and a high tempo seemed like they would
be more fitted for an action or more light-hearted drama film. After watching
various short films I realised that a vast majority of the ones that had a similar
tone as my film were very slow tempo usually only containing a string instrument
such as the violin or piano, and was an important convention to making a good
short film, so I thought it was very important that it was a convention that I
followed.
When thinking about the mise-en-scene for my short film, I thought that by
having my protagonist in average clothes which didnt give off any particular
connotations was the best approach, as my audience would not be having any
pre-existing thoughts about my character, and he would not be carrying any
stereotypes. I found this common for a vast majority of drama shorts that I
researched and found that the only character that was usually dressed to give
conventions was the antagonist, which my short film does not contain, so in that
sense it challenges standard conventions of drama short films. When thinking
about location I thought that using a small train station added to the eeriness
and creepy feel to the short film. I also felt that using big open spaces for a large
amount of my short helped add to the feeling of being lost or confused.
I did not want to overly use diegetic sound when creating my short, especially
speech as I felt it took away from the atmosphere. With that in mind I decided

upon having only one instance which used speech during my short, however this
does not mean that I wanted to get rid of all diegetic sound completely, natural
sound that is heard in the background gives the film more of a realistic feel. This
is a very common convention of short films as all but one of the ones I
researched had very minimal speech or none at all.

Review Page
When constructing my review page I made sure to follow a lot of conventions in
order to make it look as professionally as possible. For example, when
researching review pages I found that using a still from my short movie was the
most common way of using an image as it is giving a real insight into the film, I
decided to use this myself and found an appropriate still from my short film and
edited to fit into my review page. When choosing an image I found that it was
important to choose one that didnt give too much of the plot away or contain a
spoiler, and should generally contain the protagonist which mine did.
When it came to the actual language I used in my review, I read a number of preexisting articles which gave me a good idea into how I should approach and
address my audience. I found that music and film reviews generally adopted a
much more informal approach, and would commonly use slang and abbreviations
when talking to their audience as it creates a much more personal connection
with the audience and the writer, also the audience of my review and short film
would mainly be people from a young age group of about 16-23, this means they
would feel a lot more comfortable reading an article in an informal style as it can
relate to them more, this is my reason for choosing this style. I also chose for my
text to be presented in columns rather than just standard paragraphs, this again
is a common convention and I believe that is will seem less daunting to the
younger audience as it is evenly spread out and in a format they recognise and
are familiar.
I had to think for a while when deciding where the positioning of my title should
be on my page. I decided upon positioning it just below the main image and just
above the text. This goes against a lot of conventions as on the reviews I looked
at a majority of the titles were positioned on the main image. However, I found
this distracting when looking at the image and also found it hard to distinguish
the title from the main image without putting the text in a bright colour which
took away from the main image and text completely, I also thought that it was
important for the title to be instantly recognisable as it is very important that the
title sticks in the audiences head and they remember it after they have read it,
so that they can tell their friends and family about the upcoming film.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary
texts?
I created a house style by sticking to a particular colour scheme in all three of my
media products. I used red in my magazine to signify aggression and rebellion

which I believe will connect to my audience as they will be from a younger age
group. However, the primary colour I used in the three of my media products was
black; I feel that this shows the mystery and darkness of the short. I also find
that using the bold colour was the easiest to read and most memorable, this was
especially important when there was a backdrop full of colour.
The font style was another important thing that I had to consider when thinking
about how effective my media product could be. I used a focus group to decide
upon which the best title font to use was and then used it for both my poster and
review page. I also tried to use it for my title sequence in my film but was met by
too many technical obstructions which made me decide to use a standard font.
This was disappointing as I feel it is an important convention to use the same
font for all of my products in order to create brand recognition, unfortunately I
could not do this.
I feel to keep the mise-en-scene and atmosphere the same for all three of my
products was essential in order to captivate my audience. I made sure to keep
my character in the same clothes for the entire of my products in order to keep it
as realistic and professional as possible. I also made sure to keep the dull low
tone lighting in all three of my products as I felt this created the best atmosphere
and eeriness. I also feel this is a common convention of media products and an
effective way of captivating the audience.

What have I learnt from my audience feedback?

The average age of my primary target audience will most likely be between 1723. I chose this age group as they are a similar age to the main characters and
will be able to relate to them on things such as their social life and interests,
making the film more personal and apply more to them. I wanted my films
audience to have as broad of an audience as possible; to do this I made sure my
short film did not alienate any genders or races. I think I have done this by using
a young black male as my protagonist which perhaps goes against stereotypes.
However, some may see this as tokenism which may be taken offensively and
would have a counterproductive effect on my film.
My secondary target audience would be male or females around the age of
anywhere from about 30-50. The reason for this is that my film is being made for
the purpose of being evaluated by an invigilator for my media coursework. That
means I have to make my work aesthetically pleasing in order to impress my
secondary audience.
My tertiary audience will be aged 12-16. This will be people who enjoy
mainstream pop culture. I believe I have targeted them through my narrative as
mystery drama genre became very popular in the late 2000s with popular films
such as the Twilight.

All of my audiences were very responsive when I asked them questions during
my research. However, some audiences were much easier to get hold of than
others, such as my secondary audience as there were only a limited amount of
people I could ask. My primary group on the other hand were very easy to talk to
and communicate with as their lots of my peers that I could speak to.
Many people I spoke to said they would like to of seen some sort of antagonist or
villain at some point during my short film. However, I disagreed with this and
said I would like to go against the common conventions of most drama and
horror films and not have an antagonist present during my film.
My film and media products are definitely targeted at my primary target
audience as it is the broadest and easiest for me to create a product for as I am
from a similar age. I found that through group feedback in focus groups that all
of my audience were very interested in my genre apart from the tertiary
audience, who I feel would have enjoyed a film with more action, and means that
I was right in my decision to keep them as my tertiary audience.
How did I use media technologies in the research, planning,
construction and evaluation stages?
Research
To complete my initial research I used google search in order to find film
magazine and posters of not only my own chosen genre but other genres in
order to get a feel of common conventions of film review pages and posters. I
used Microsoft Word to analyse my short films but got the screenshots from
YouTube, this did prove quite time consuming as I had to keep print screening the
video multiple times as some of the shots came out blurry. Looking back on my
research I dont believe there was too much else I could have done in order to
make my research any more efficient.
Planning
For the first stage of my planning I again used google search to gain access to
websites such as IMDB to gain an understanding of not only my genre but of film
in general. I then used this information to create Word documents to upload to
the Blogger website or straight into Blogger itself. I first found it difficult to get
the information from word onto Blogger; however I later discovered a website
that allowed me to easily transfer my information onto Blogger as well as other
websites.
When it was time for me to begin researching costume and props I found
websites such as Topman and Next contained the clothes that I wanted to use, I
saved these as a JPEG file and uploaded them onto my blog via Microsoft
PowerPoint, which was easy to do. When I needed to use pictures of my location
and cast I used my phone to take the pictures and then uploaded them straight
to my blog using an USB.

When planning for my ancillary tasks I used the website dafont.com to come up
with several different font types which I then allowed my focus group to decide
which one they preferred, and that is the one that I used for these tasks. I used
the website freemusicsfx.com to obtain a variety of scores which I then saved as
a music file onto my computer.
Construction
I used Microsoft Word to create my poster and review page. For the poster I had
to take a photo from my phone and then upload it using a USB, and then edited it
on Adobe Photoshop, using the lighting tools. I took a slightly different approach
when choosing an image for my magazine review, and decided upon taking a
screenshot off of PowerDirector as I felt it gave it a more realistic feel as most
magazine reviews used this approach.
As I said earlier I obtained all of my fonts from dafont.com, I then used the
programme Fireworks to remove any background and put them on my tasks.
When filming my product I used a phone as the quality was better, and also It
was much easier to use and upload videos than on the recorders provided. I then
uploaded these photos onto PowerDirector which at first was a big challenge to
use, but after I had time to get used to it, PowerDirector gave me a much more
professional look then other editing software such as Movie Maker.
Once I had chosen a score for my product that I was happy with, I could easily
upload it to Moviemaker as it was already saved as a music file on my computer.
Moviemaker allowed me to edit the sound well to give the best possible effect.