1. Q1. In what ways does your
media product use, develop or
challenge forms and
conventions of real media?
Nusuri Bibi

2. Narrative
My narrative was quite simple as it was about a young witch, this was clearly
demonstrated through the use of Mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing
and sound. I believe I have challenged the effect theory as moral panic has
become acceptable in society. To a certain extent a moral panic could be
created through my trailer as in the past, witch stories have been
demonstrated through other media text such as Drama; Crucible, Poems and
TV episodes of Scooby Doo and the Witches Ghost and Sabrina the teenage
witch on Pop Girl of the target audiences between the age of 8-14.This makes
it believable that storyline about witches are still yet to come but there are no
real evidence from the past of witches actually existing. It’s just fantasy. My
audience have also been dominant because during my feedback my target
audience successfully decoded the messages of my narrative and identified
the genre.

3. My media product of my Horror film trailer, magazine front cover
and poster has been conventionally constructed as I was inspired
by existing products. In my trailer, I included titles, production
logo, black and white pictures, soundtracks and at least have 5
different locations. This style of a trailer was done for the Ouija
film and I really liked it as it was simple and effective. My front
cover was inspired by Empire magazine and my poster was
inspired by Ouija film poster. I knew that if I used two existing
products from the same film, the style of the products would be
consistent and that is what I wanted to achieve.

4. At first I included the green preview screen which informs the audience that this trailer is safe to watch
as my horror film is initially targeted at 15 and over as it will have disturbing scenes of gore in. I noticed
that this green preview usually mentions who's the film company associated with and location hence
why I've mentioned Wyke Sixth Form College of United Kingdom. Although it doesn’t look quite the
same, that is because I haven’t stroked the text and included wed addresses.
Editing
I used a range of editing skills such as transitions, sounds, colour over lay trimming and
furthermore to match existing horror trailers as possible. I wanted my trailer to be quite
similar in structure so that I meet the conventions.

5. I then created my signature logo '‘ NB Films'' inspired by the font of ‘Z films’. I then created a production
logo with my colleges logo and I was inspired by the ‘grow production’ logo as it has a reel on it and that
production produced the 'Conjuring'. The one thing I would change about my production logo is that I
would make it more moving like how 20th century fox and Universal is like simply because it seems more
professional. In my case I was imagining the film reel to swirl around ‘Wyke’ but I didn’t do enough
research to know how to create something like that.

6. In the Ouija trailer there’s a lot of black screens that appears to be transitions
but quite long. The first black screen on the Ouija trailer appeared at 8 seconds
whilst mine appeared at 10 seconds after the first footage. This doesn’t
challenge any forms as it’s not drastically different neither does it develop any
conventions .

7. In the Ouija trailer the black and white photos
started to appear at 37 seconds whilst my one
appeared at 38 seconds. My photos meet the
conventions of a recent horror trailer and the
timing of the pictures are also similar making it
conventional. Also in the Ouija trailer the black and
white pictures are of people playing the Ouija
board so I designed my pictures to witches so that
it relates to my narrative. In the Conjuring trailer
the black and white pictures appears at 30
seconds. The connotation of black and white
pictures are important because it scares the
audience a little bit and intrigues the audience
more about the narrative, so that they can watch
more and not get bored.

8. In the Ouija trailer the subtitles appear before and after the photo and my one appears
before the pictures. Because I think to show historical pictures as an audience you need to
be introduced to them so that they’re not confused about the pictures and it wouldn’t look
odd. Hence why my subtitle occurs at 15 seconds whilst the Ouijas subtitle occurs at 46
seconds. Also my trailer first starts of with a subtitle this challenges the conventions of
trailer as in the Ouija trailer there was a small footage before the pictures appeared. This is
so that my trailer interests the audience straight away and clearly makes the audience aware
of the genre.

9. I also included a subtitle of ‘This Halloween’ simply because I’m releasing my film during
Halloween time as my narrative has a Halloween theme. In the Ouija trailer the subtitle is
small and gold whilst my one is white stroked purple. This doesn’t challenge any conventions
as the style of my font was made by choice and my overall house style of purple, black and
white. I have kept the continuity of the house style on all three products to achieve the
professionalism. As you can also see is that I’ve included a picture behind the text, I’ve used
the same picture through out this is because in the existing film Ouija has two pictures used
repeatedly for subtitles.

10. This is a key subtitle that I needed to include in my trailer. The background picture has
a gradient filter with a red tint showing which I have tried to here on my trailer.
However the red isn’t as bright as the Ouijas background subtitle background picture.
The text alignment Is also different as my one is centered whilst in the Ouija trailer the
text are coming from the right side.

11. Also in the use of editing; the use of transition; ‘cross dissolve’ is not visible enough to
notice but a transition which fades from one scene to another in a blending style. I have
used this transition as my main transition because it’s a common transition used for any film
and trailer. However I have challenged the forms in using this transition because my
transition duration appears to be longer than it is in the Ouija trailer and this is because I
have less pictures than what Ouija trailer consists.

12. Finally this is a coming soon subtitle which conventionally appears at the end of any
genre trailer. As you can see here I am heavily influenced by the style of this coming soon
subtitle from Ouija so for my trailer I wanted to create the same effect so I took a picture
of my actress reading her potion book, put the opacity of the picture down and put a
vignette filter around it so that I get the faded out black effect. In the Ouija coming soon
title, the background picture has a tint of red. I also have a tint of red which was from the
lighting during filming. This makes my coming soon subtitle similar to the Ouija’s film. I
have included the website details at the bottom along with my production logo.
Information like this are final touches to professionalism.

13. Low key lighting is a convention in a horror film, however due to the days
becoming longer I couldn’t film at night so I had to compromise and use a black
picture as the top layer of the footages to achieve the sense of darkness and
connote death and fear. This will get the audience in the mood and scare them.

14. Parallel editing isn’t common for any genre. I wanted to use a parallel editing to
create dramatic irony. The audience would know what the witch is up to whilst the
supporting actors won’t have a clue what’s going on. To make the parallel editing
more obvious I used a voice over, if I didn’t use a voice over it would just look like
a transition. This challenges the convention of a horror film trailer and meets
Steve Neale’s theory as he argues that; 'genres are instances of repetition and
difference' that pleasure is derived from 'repetition and difference' (Neale 1980);
there would be no pleasure without difference. This sort of technique will also
encourage the audience to watch further.

15. Cinematography
I have used a variety of cinematography such as long shots, close ups medium close up
and also a panning movement to demonstrate the messages I have produced for my
audience.
This is a high angle I had used for my trailer. A similar high angle was used in Ouija of the
Ouija board whilst my one is a high of my potion book. The Ouija board is an important
prop in the film and similarly so is my potion book as this identifies my main characters
secret to the audience creating dramatic irony.

16. I have a medium close up of my actress when she’s seen for the first time in my trailer. This
is a conventional camera angle when the actors are being introduced to, talking or just to
see facial expressions. This is also identified as a two frame shot which I also used when all
my actors were first coming together. I didn’t challenge any conventions here as because I
needed to use camera angles like this because it’s introducing the characters and this is
important for the audiences.

17. As seen on the Ouija trailer I also used a panning movement to give sense
of fear for the audience. This movement gives a slight glimpse on what the
characters are doing. The pace of the camera movement also suggests
how serious and deadly the situation is.

18. There was a lot of screams in the Ouija trailer which was conventional of me to
include screams in my narrative as this helps identify the genre for the
audience. The camera angles used were medium to close ups. This shot type is
key to emphasise on the characters feelings.

19. Mise-en-scene
In the Mise-en-scene I tried to stay close as to my planning as possible. For example
the costume had to be autumn fashion this is because it’s Halloween and
conventionally dark costumes should be worn to match the atmosphere. The
Halloween costumes that were seen in the last scene was to emphasise on the horror
genre. The main character mainly wore black to connote death and to demonstrate
her evil role in the film.
Autumn clothesBlack top Black dress Halloween costume
Halloween costume

20. Although my lighting should be low key it was always bright. For example during my
photoshoot for my ancillary text the photo’s came out quite bright. I had to decrease
the brightness and increase the level of contrast to make it obvious it’s a horror
genre. I then instead just made it black and white. In my film trailer where the
female is screaming whilst giving birth I had to put a black screen on top of the
footage layer and put the opacity down so that the sequence looks dark. Low key
lighting is important as it helps set the mood of audiences.

21. I used a few props to make the sequences realistic as possible. The props in my
witch scene was a table full of witch’s belongings such as blood bottle, spiders,
potion bowl books and more. I haven’t challenged any forms as everything I used is
witch related. In the Ouija trailer their main prop was the Ouija board. I made sure
that my potion book looked important in my trailer because that helps identify the
main character as the witch.

22. Following the conventions I had to clearly make the antagonist and the
protagonist obvious. I demonstrated this through make up as in the Ouija
trailer the victims have neutral make up on whilst my supporting actress has
no make up on. Levi Strauss the theorist of binary opposites, says that binary
opposites in film easily identifies characters role. Which makes the audience
choose which character they favour the most in the narrative depending on
their cultural beliefs and upbringing.

23. Sound
For the sound element I used a soundtrack through out my film trailer called
Halloween main theme by John Carpenter. The beat of the music almost gives the
connotations of the heart beat full of fear. I also used dialogue of the characters so
that the audience know what’s happening in the narrative.

24. In my ancillary text, I produced a
magazine front cover and a poster. In my
front cover I spent a lot of time creating
because as I was doing it my ideas and
creativity keeps changing . At first I
wanted to be conventional and use the
house style colour of orange as it's iconic
colour for Halloween however as time
was going on I changed it to purple
because my main actresses make up was
purple I then changed the theme to
purple so that everything looks like one
piece. However the purple make up didn't
matter anymore as I filtered the image
black and white. I believe that I
challenged the conventions of horror
iconography because purple is a an usual
colour as it doesn't connote anything
scary, death or darkness but as research
tells me purple does connote mystery and
magic which fits in with my narrative
because my main actor has a mystery
background of being a witch. I was
inspired by the simplicity of the empire
magazine as it was quite pain and it's not
that technical like the entertainment
magazine.

25. See next slide for analysis (coloured shape will help you match the text)

26. This is the main image which is very important on a front cover magazine as this is the first image they
will see therefore has to be appealing and big in size so that it’s noticeable. The camera angle is a
medium close up as this is a conventional angle for any genre front cover. It challenges the forms and
conventions as it is filtered black and white and up until now no institution has done that yet with a
horror film.
This is the skyline which usually consists of advertisements and other information to
Appeal to the audience. This is conventional feature. As you can see I’ve also included two coloured text like
seen on Empire.
This is the masthead, (the name of the magazine). Obviously my style of masthead is different to the
Empire magazine and that is because my magazine is different in institution. I ‘ve just realised that my
masthead looks quite small compared to the Empire’s masthead.
I was inspired to do coloured eyes like this existing magazine simply because it’s more effective
especially on a black and white filter.
The tag line ‘exclusive interview’ has been challenged in the sense that it’s positioned differently
on the page than it is on the empire magazine. It’s also in different text and style which also
challenges the forms of conventions.
The price, date, barcode and website is a conventional feature however I’ve challenged the
conventions as I’ve placed my price and date above the barcode and website in the left side of
the cover and not right.
This is a cover line which I was inspired by Empire magazine. It’s bold and appealing and make
my front cover look full. The only way I have challenged it is that this cover line has a theme
of aliens and hence the green colour but I’ve used the colour purple to keep the house
consistency. Mine is simple with a simple grey stroke.

27. Empire has used this feature to feature the other stars included in the interview however I’ve used it for freebies.
Freebies are mainly included in magazines that are quite expensive because my magazine is average price I’ve
included two covers in there and nothing else. I’ve challenged the conventions and that was because It didn’t
look right at the top.
The plus sign is on the left of the magazine front cover as seen on the empire magazine. I’ve challenged the
conventions to an extent where I’ve used the stroke and glow tool on my plus sign whereas empire hasn’t.
Although the tag line of my features name is in white it’s different in style and where I’ve positioned it on
the page. Which does challenge the conventions but I still included the tag line underneath ‘interview’.
This the film title which I have included on my front cover. It challenges the forms and conventions
even though it’s almost placed where the Twilight name has been positioned. I had difficulty
positioning my film title because it’s not a straight font and it’s also long but I couldn’t change the font
as I had to keep the continuity going through my film trailer, poster and magazine.

28. In my poster I Included the features such
as masthead, tag line, technical
information main image reviews, age
certificate, production logo and kept my
house style quite consistent. Although
reviews aren't quite conventional on a
horror poster I think I've challenged the
conventions of a horror film poster. The
use of rates will appeal and encourage
the audience to watch the film. The only
improvement I would make within my
magazine is that I should have been more
practical about my fonts. I personally
don’t like the font I have used for the
technical information. Although I wanted
to challenge horror poster conventions I
was still trying to achieve the
conventional font where text is different
in sizes but I didn’t know what font is
professionally used so instead I stretched
the font to give it that tall effect.