by lily taitia

1. A2 MEDIA STUDIES
EVALUATION
By Lily Taitia

2. Introduction
For the A2 Media Studies course we aimed to recreate a film trailer of professional quality whilst following the codes
and conventions of film trailers that are created, we also had to create a film poster that corresponded to the film
trailer and then also using the previous skills we gained from AS Media Studies whilst creating a music magazine
cover. Before all of this began we selected a genre and a target audience that we would like to create the trailer,
poster and magazine cover; to gain the many attributes and research whilst also planning on what to uses and
gratifications as well as codes and conventions of the media forms.
This course challenged our skills to be creative, constructive and technical, we evolved the skills we had already
gained in the first year of Media Studies, we used all of the skills gained in the first year for the development of
the media products.

3. 1.
In what ways does your
media product use,
develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real
media products?

4. Film Trailer
My film trailer develops and challenges forms and conventions
of real media products of the usual film trailers created
professionally.
My film trailer shows the companies/institutions involved with
the development of the film trailer, this will allow the user
to get more information about the people involved, this
tends to raise the amount of audience that will watch or
get attracted to the film trailer because of who is involved
for example actors and actresses are used to capture the
attention of the audience by many media companies in
any industry whether it be music, television or movies etc.
This just shows the ‘Star Theory’ as they are only paying
more attention because of the people involved.
After watching and researching many other features as well as
the codes and conventions used whilst creating the film
trailer, for example I ensured that the traditional green
MPAA ratings is at the beginning of the trailer, this shows
me using the research skills to gain the information about
trailers

5. Film Trailer
This is one of the scene within the film trailer, this shows the
location we chose, which in this case is the assembly hall;
this was the perfect place as it showed the profession of
the video and also enhanced the emotion and atmosphere
of a ‘real’ circus show.
To ensure the trailer has the correct attributes and will gain a
wide range of audience I had to ensure that the story line
was easy to understand and suited the genre, I did this by
following the ‘Narrative Theory’ as it was simple to use
and set a simple layout/storyboard for the film.
For a trailer the ‘Narrative Theory’ must be short and clean as it
is not a film or a show so it must give the audience the
information they need to be persuaded into watching the
film itself. A trailer mainly consists of ‘flash forwards’ and
‘different characters POV’.
Vladmir Propp talks of a villain , a donor, a helper, a
princess, a dispatcher, a hero and a false hero these are
all characters in which Propp see to be involved, in this
case of the trailer the villain is the ‘Ring Leader’, the ‘other
children’ are helpers, and the hero is the girl ‘Leyna’.

6. Research & Planning
By using the normal professional film trailers already available I researched the details on the film and also watched the trailers to get a better
view on how to create my film trailer to see what sort of structure it must follow as well as the audience that are interested in the genre of
the trailer.
Whilst having a look at the trailer I can see the expert footage and the texture and features they use in the trailer to attract their target
audience. I also researched the information that came from the film to see that the synopsis and the genre of the film was similar to the
film trailer. Seeing these trailers and the information gathered I can see that the trailers support the film and give the viewer a reason to

7. Film Poster
The ways in which my media product has
developed, challenged forms and
conventions of a real film poster is after using
the information that I gained and researched I
used the intel of the expert film posters
created.
After going through many stages of drafts before
coming up with my final film poster draft I had
to use the skills that I had gained in AS Media
Studies developing a school magazine as
well as a music magazine, though I had not
created a poster before so this was a new
project for me so I was overwhelmed by the
little detail that came with designing a film
poster but also being able to attain the genre
of the film through the poster.
I created this film poster with Adobe Photoshop
CS3 to design this, I used original images
and the font type I receive at dafont.com as I
felt the font in Adobe Photoshop was limited.

8. Research & Planning
In order to demonstrate and show my
understanding of a professional film poster I
research and planned coming across posters
like these ‘Perfume: The Story Of A Murder’
and ‘Red Riding Hood’, by looking at these
posters the simplicity and yet the amount of
information that is conveyed within the poster
is something that I had to grasp whilst creating
my on film poster.
Having looked at the expert film posters I was able
to get a wider range of information that helped
me to convey the plot of the film trailer and
also attract the right target audience.

9. Film Magazine: Front Cover
Whilst designing the film magazine I was very confident as I had already designed a
magazine in AS Media Studies, I had gotten to improve my skills as the year
passed on, so in this section of developing the magazine I was confident. For the
magazine I had to research and plan the events that the ‘Film’ category of
magazines section, so I had to familiarise myself with the way the that the film
magazines are laid out and how the function in getting the target audience that
they wish for.
My film magazine cover develops and challenges forms an d conventions of a real film
magazine is with the different font type that I used to ensure that the magazine
suits the type of genre that the film was portraying, I had to also ensure that I was
following the theme, layout and codes and conventions of other film magazines .
It was a struggle for the texture and features of the film magazines as they are
more interesting and eye catching for the audience. As the designing of the film
magazine progressed the development of how the film magazine was going to
look like also started to mature development into the right film magazine.