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

QuestionOne

As well as using the forms and conventions of real media products, I took this further and developed them also, placing my own uniqueness to my text.

USE OF DIALOGUE

Every trailer that I analysed, regardless of genre, included dialogue. In the planning stages of my production, I wanted to challenge this convention by not including dialogue between the characters at all. I made sure of this in my shooting script, choosing to only include non-diegetic soundtrack.

Unfortunately, this was unsuccessful as the narrative became confusing and the relationship between characters could not be established

After some audience feedback (see question 3 for specifics), I decided that it was best to include this convention, rather than to not.

Although, I developed this rather than just using it because I only included a short amount of exchanged dialogue.

This was between the main characters, Sonnie and Alexa. Through cross-cutting, it can now easily be identified that Sonnie is in transformation, as she cries out, "What's happening to me?".

Below is a short sequence in our trailer, where bestfriends Sonnie & Alexa share a phone call. Even before the phone call, Alexa knows that something is wrong, as illustrated through the research on her laptop.

Sonnie makes the call and she is in distress, declaring all that is going wrong for her and the fact that she cannot trust herself since she is changing, with it later revealed that she is becoming a mermaid.

PACE (SLOW MOTION)

A text that I chose to analyse closely was the 5th Wave. As a postmodern trailer, I could rely on this product to deliver the specific codes required.

In my research of this text, I determined that pace can be used for dramatic effect and this was something that I particularly liked.

In this example, the pace was used to mark the point at which the equilibrium changed. Slow motion was used to capture, excellently, how time essentially just stood still as an aircraft crashed over a building. Nothing, not even time, was how it was supposed to be.

This was specially interesting to me, and I wanted to take this further in my own text, and that was the belief that pace can be used not just once but throughout my trailer.

Unlike the 5th wave, I used pace each time a shot including the necklaces appeared to tease disruption (as this prop marked an alternate world) but like in the 5th wave, I could highlight how time ceased to exist, showing development.

PROPS

It was easy to identify in my research that props are an essential code in any trailer. A text that has a compelling use of props that inspired me to notice this is Memento.

In this film, a camera is used as a handprop and this prop alone changes the narrative completely.

The Polaroid shots taken by the protagonist of this text alter our perceptions of him. He seems to be represented as a resourceful person, able to beat his illness of forgetting the days event. This is significant however, because these teased shots make up the text's trailer.

After seeing the importance then of the props, I applied similar concepts to my own text but, I used a range of different props, developing this further.

The main prop that I used was necklaces. These were extremely important in portraying mermaid existence in our trailer, as whenever they were present, the environment for our characters changed - marking the disruption of the equilibrium. For instance, when they were present a new key of music was introduced, the pace of the shots slowed and the behaviour of our characters changed. Moreover, expanding and extending my use of the prop convention by including atmospheric props, "greens" and even set props.

Some examples include:

A shelf of books as set props.
Water as part of the "greens" prop family.
And the use of shells for atmospheric prop.