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

Media Evaluation Question 1

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

1.  These two shots taken from my trailer and the trailer for Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2011) are showing camera work. The real media product is from the genre thriller/horror and this uses a camera technique of zooming into the two characters making them feel small and weak till you're closer and can see the emotion in their faces. I've tried to replicate this with my product, to show the weakness of the character adding more character development into the trailer. When I shot this I was focusing on the narrative within the trailer, giving them a longer screen time with this character than the others.

2. This close up shot from my trailer is linked into the previous shot having this as the emotion in the characters face, when he looks in his bag of money. In the real media product I am showing the reaction shot to compare, how most thriller films try to focus on characters reactions, to make you really feel like you care about them.

3. These shots contrast each other. In my trailer I am really trying to just welcome the audience to these characters, making them know (or not know as the case may be) who they are. In the real media product they have introduced the characters and are focusing on the chilling shot of Jodie Foster lying down while the mysterious shadow approaches, trying to get the audience scared, on the edge of their seat, etc. 

My film is a strongly independent film, I have spent a lot of time working on the composition of the shots and camera work and I feel as if my finished product has lacked on the narrative. The idea of the full film is to have them each tell a dark story from their past and this needs a strong cast to make this work in the right way, making the audience feel for the characters. In this trailer I am trying to get people to know about this film, giving them a little bit of the story to tease the audience. 

I feel like companies are making trailers that contain as much of the story  as possible to get the audiences interested but I think what's happened to mystery, not giving much away. A few advertising campaigns from more creative directors have teased the film as much as possible because they know the audience's for their films will research these films, look for interviews, read articles, search the internet to get a bigger picture of what they are going to watch. Examples of this would be Super 8 and Prometheus, links to their trailers are below this section. Some film trailers can give the idea of the story away and still hide most of the events in the film, like Hunger Games (link below) which is an already established book series so most people know about the story anyway so why hide it, just keep the major events for the film.

Super 8 (2011) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpzUCA5i6zY 

Prometheus (2012) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHcHYisZFLU  

Hunger Games (2012) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgssLmsOa2s 

4. In this shot I was comparing it to Panic Room (2002). In the shot you can see two of the main characters judging their options, in my shot I have tried to show my characters taking action rather than judging the situation. The characters are aged around twenty so this fits them quite well. 

5. These shots show the characters seeming weak and scared. This was something I wanted to include in my trailer to add heart to it. They're normal humans they would be scared if trapped in a small space so this was a major part of my character development.

6. Instead of using a strong block lettered font, as done in Panic Room I decided to go for something more artistic, to add to the feel of the trailer. The font style hasn't changed for any of the title cards and I think this gives a real structure to the trailer.