In what ways does your media product challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

QuestionOne

CAMERA MOVEMENT

A way in which I decided to break from convention in my trailer was through my use of camera.

The majority of real media products in the advertising industry strictly use tripods whenever a shot is captured. This is so that a high level of professionalism can be performed by the production company. It is incorrect to assume that at all times a shot is filmed on a dolly, using a pan or along a set of tracks as in some rare cases a shot is filmed handheld to portray a sense of panic.

I took advantage of this - and so I challenged the trailer form that handheld camera movements are generally not permitted:

Here are the three times that I used a handheld camera:

I chose to do this because it meant that a new sense of eeriness could be bought to a trailer. It does not completely stand as our unique selling point however it just provides a new, creative way to really emphasis the fear of the unknown.

One of the few texts that I saw use an instance of handheld camera movement was Kidnap. This example worked well to signify the mother's real distress that her son had gone missing. As this message was not being signified in my trailer, I could challenge this convention and use it to signify instead, how on edge the presence of mermaids was making my protagonists feel (as demonstrated with the clips on the left).

CHARACTER REPRESENTATION

Another way that we challenged forms of real media products is through our character representations. Across a variety of trailers there is a secure stereotypical representation of both men and women. Usually, men play the role of protagonists, and women damsels-in-distress. It must be appreciated however, that these portrayals within trailers and film are starting to become more equal.

Below are prominent examples that satisfy this claim:

Ella's Character Representation

Jamie's Character Representation

Only Male Protagonists

Deadpool: Wade Wilson, accelerated healing powers.

Avengers: 5 Male Superheroes, only 1 female

Forrest Gump: A male that faces world events.

& The Godfather

These links provide indications of how we signified each character type

Coincidentally, one of our female characters, Sonnie, is briefly portrayed as the damsel-in-distress. So when this occurs we have used convention rather than challenged it. Yet, it does not take long for Sonnie to be represented as a minor antagonist character type - and since she is a woman, we subvert trailer expectations of including female as antagonists - as a result providing a way in which we rejected & challenged convention.

Furthermore, our only male character Earl, has two character types, a rare trailer form. Not only is he the antagonist but he is also the wise character, helping the girls find the answers that they seek.

The only real media product that I know to not reveal the antagonists at all in its text is the Maze Runner. In fact, they are not even revealed until the last few minutes of the actual film.

MAZE RUNNER YOUTUBE TRAILER

NO MERMAID REVEAL

In most cases, the antagonist and what they look like is revealed in a trailer, normally towards the end.

Although I did consider using this code, I actually thought that it would be best to not reveal what the mermaids looked like, as this would encourage more audiences to view the film during its cinema release.

It would have been foolish to not exhibit their presence at all, otherwise the narrative would not have been clear. Who were the girls so afraid of?

We teased their presence in numerous ways:

SOUND. Sirens have a distinct screech like sound, and we made use of the this is our choral non-diegetic soundtrack. It certainly was high-pitched and not a human sound.
PROPS. There is one close up shot that shows shells along a bank. Shells have connotations of sea life - suggesting mermaid activity.
CROSS-CUTTING. Throughout our trailer, we made it our mission to keep referring back to water, or a lake, implying that this was where our antagonists lived.