1. In what ways does your media
product use, develop and or
challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
Trailer.

2. Research and Planning.
At first I wasn’t sure which genre I wanted my trailer to be so I
narrowed it down to four different genres. They were:
• Fantasy - I looked at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2011)
and 17 Again (2009),
• Comedy – I looked at the Inbetweeners (2011) and Driving Lessons
(2006),
• Romantic comedy – I looked at Wedding Crashers (2005) and Bridget
Jones’ Diary (2001),
• Horror – I looked at Blair witch project (1999) and Scream (1996).
After looking at these trailers on Youtube I decided I wanted to make a
horror trailer. However I also wanted my trailer to appear in black and
white. I then did some research on black and white horror trailers, the
ones I looked at were Curse of the Demon (1957), Frankenstein (1931).
Even though the film The Artist (2011) isn't a horror it is the most
recent black and white film to be released. I thought it was important
to look at this trailer because of that reason.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV7_erL3F6A&feature=player_embedded

3. Research and Planning.
Before I decided to
design a story board I sat
down and decided what I
wanted my character to
be like so I made a check
list and recorded it on
my blog so I could refer
back to it when I needed
to. I also showed this
check list to my actor
who was playing the
character so they had
more of an idea of what
they had to do to give a
good performance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV7_erL3F6A&feature=player_embedded

4. Research and Planning.
To help me plan my trailer I
produced a story board so I would
have a layout to follow. This is also a
convention that is used for every
film being made. This also allowed
me to plan when I was film and
where which made the process a lot
more organised. Even though I
changed certain scenes I stuck to my
story board. When looking at horror
trailers I noticed that many of them
ended on the cliff hanger and left
you wanting to know what
happened. So I decided to develop
this and made sure that when I was
creating my story board that the
final box had a cliff hanger scene in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV7_erL3F6A&feature
=player_embedded

5. Location.
For the location I got the idea from the film Scream. I liked the
idea of how someone could be vulnerable in their own house so
I decided to develop this idea. The location also allowed me to
take shots from different angle because of the stairs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV7_erL3F6A&feature=player_embedded

6. Music and Speech.
I my trailer I decided I didn’t want the actor to say anything
throughout the trailer. This meant I challenged real media
because all the horror trailers I looked at had the
character/characters speaking in them. However I feel that the
character not speaking in my trailer works because I have the
voice over and have the music throughout the whole of my
trailer. I put the music throughout the whole of my trailer
because the drums especially built up the tension and I noticed
that the film Frankenstein used this convention in this film
however my music is more up to date and it fits in with the
mood of my trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV7_erL3F6A&feature=player_embedded

7. Voice over/ narration.
When researching horror trailer I noticed
that a lot of them had voice overs in them
to narrate the trailer. I decided to develop
this in my trailer and have it at the
beginning and the end of my trailer. I
wanted it at the beginning to set the
scene and give people some clues about
the trailer. I then put the voice over at the
end to name the trailer name when it
faded in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV7_erL3F6A&feature=player_embedded

8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV7_erL3F6A&feature=player_embedded
Font of title.
I saw that the trailers font seemed to be
chunky and large. The ones that stood
out were Curse of the Demon and
Frankenstein. I liked this style and size
and decided to use this convention. I
wanted my title name to look like this so
I decided to experiment in Dafont
website.
This is the font style I used for my
trailer, magazine and poster.

9. Other Font used and where it was used.
When watching the trailers I researched I noticed
that the actor names were in the middle of the
trailer or at the end. When looking at Frankinstien
and Curse of the Demon I saw that the font style
for the actors name was the same as the font for
the title. I decided I would challenge this because I
wanted it to be different so my title would stand
out even more at the end. I developed the idea
from The Artist because the font was small and in
the middle of the screen which made it look well
presented. I also used a plain black background. I
also used the same font for the actors name and
the ‘ COMING FRIDAY 13TH APRIL 2012’. This meant
they linked well together and that I didn’t have
random text. I wanted to carry on the convention
of horror films showing the date of the release at
the end of the trailer. This also felt like a natural
conclusion to the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV7_erL3F6A&feature=player_embedded

10. Shots.
When researching horror
trailers I paid particular
attention to the shots. This will
make my trailer look more
appealing to watch and also it
will look more professional. I
noticed that there were lots of
close ups that were fast
paced, over the shoulder
shots, establishing shots. I
included all of these in my
trailer especially the over the
shoulder shots when my actor
was running as it gave the
impression someone was
chasing her. I also used lots of
close ups combined with fast
paced music which added to the
tension building up. These shots
are typical horror conventions
so I decided to add these in.