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

In creating this trailer I and my partner firstly researched into other movies of the ‘Thriller’ genre, to see what we could covet for our trailer. The movie followed the conventions of structure, at the beginning all is normal and there is happiness, then there is a happening which distorts this, finally all order is restored. So the movie plot follows the same plot structure conventions, of numerous films that have been produced before ours. The way Todorov's theory has been applied; In the beginning the husband and his wife lived happily together, this stage represents the equilibrium. The destruction of this equilibrium comes in the form of the husband’s boss and the cheating wife and the order is restored by the killing of the wife. However a section of the target audience would say that order is not restored because the happiness is not rekindled, this makes the movie plot to lean towards the conventions of a Greek tragedy, like Romeo and Juliet and Othello.  The plot also uses various aspects of a ‘Greek tragedy’ which is the implication is that the tragic (sad) outcome is an inevitable result of the key character's personal flaws. He or she was 'doomed' to disaster (death) from the outset.

Mise en scene:

When researching we analysed the inception trailer and came across elements of it that we thought in replicating would give the trailer a more sophisticated and professional feel. One clip in particular epitomised the conventions of light and dark shadowing to provide a mysterious effect. From the classic thriller/horror don’t look back; we copied the use of shapes to provide an enigmatic sense. In general the mise en scene of our final trailer helps to follow the conventions of normal film trailers, especially thriller, with the use of characters and the acting that was completed.

Inter titles:

Like many other trailers, we used inter titles to communicate with the audience more and to make sure that the audience understood each section of the trailer, be we did not want to overdo this, because our target audience does not need everything to be spelt out for them since they like to work situation and scenarios out for themselves. My partner and I defied the conventions of a thriller movie with the colouring of the text, red. Red is normally linked to the horror or romance genres but not to thrillers. The reasoning behind the choice of this colour so that the movie contains both horror and romance and we believed that there should be subtle hints to illustrate this

Characters: 

We stayed with the conventions when casting the actors. The boss had to be domineering and had to possess a physical presence in which he demands respects, the colour of the boss plays a huge part because black is linked to bad and there is not difference is this situation. The Character Danny is a simplistic character, whom is shorter and of smaller build than his boss to represent the inferior aspect of this character. He is clean shaven this represents his naivety and lack of wisdom, which is reflected in the fact that he was oblivious to his wife cheating on him. When casting the Danny’s wife we had to take into consideration the ability to play two parts, both the loving wife and the vindictive adulterer, her ginger hair is symbolic of a playful mentality which will influence her to cheating and her wide smile  illustrates her happiness as a wife.

Location:

The locations selected for our trailer were, in 2 different offices and a corridor, this is a typical convention of a movie of this plot, the movie ‘horrible bosses’ uses every day locations such as these and we believed that it was very effective and presented notions we liked to copy. The technique highlights how the happens in the film could happen to anyone, because nothing seems out of the ordinary, therefore the audience could put themselves in the position of the actors. The use of the offices shows the boss and Danny in their work environment and doing what normal men do, helping to run with the conventions of professional trailers.   

Editing:

The trailer speed we have adopted is quite slow; we have a few scenes and very little cuts. This does not follow the conventions of a thriller; a thriller normally has a collection of long to short scenes, shorting in the build-up of tension. I and my partner decided to defy this technique, because we believe that the trailer would be far too confusing with the shortening of the scenes due to the complexity of the plot. So we opted for longer scenes to provide a more narrative approach so that the audiences are able to gather knowledge on the happenings of the trailer.

Music:

The instrumental we used was a tracked originally produced by Ed Sheeran called I Love you. The sound track takes on a reflective tone, with slow tempo strumming. This can be seen in two ways, the characters could be reflecting upon what will happen or the couple who are pictured in the opening scene could be reflecting on their wonderful relationship. The soundtrack allows the audience to make up their mind in how they want to perceive the song, this gives the audience the choice and choice will be further evident within the movie, as in what person will the audience support.   

Conclusion:

In conclusion I believe the trailer that I and my partner created helps to use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products through the use of camera shots allowing the audience to establish connections with the characters, also through the use of mise en scene, the interties used, the music in the trailer, the location and editing, all helping to show an effective film teaser trailer.

Magazine and Poster:
Me and my partner on this project also created a video evaluating the film poster and magazine, the video features below: