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

The majority of media texts have what we call Generic Textual Features. These include:

• Narrative- similar plots and structures, predictable situations, sequences, episodes, obstacles, conflicts and resolutions
• Characterization - similar types of characters, roles, personal qualities, motivations, goals, behaviour
• Basic themes- topics, subject matter
• Setting- geographical and historical
• Iconography- a familiar stock of images or motifs, the connotations of which have become fixed; primarily but not necessarily visual, including decor, costume and objects, certain 'typecast' performers, familiar patterns of dialogue

My main product and my ancillary texts will use, develop and challenge these codes and conventions (Generic textual features) of media texts.

My main product, which is my film trailer, has a similar narrative to most horror films. I hope to have portrayed this with the clips in the trailer without having given away too much of the story. The basic storyline is that a psycho has his eyes on a young girl and he then sneaks into her house to attempt a murder. The solution is not revealed in the trailer but going along with a narrative thats similar to existing films the solution is that the victim "beats" the psycho at his own game and there is a happy(ish) ending. The characters are similar and have analogous roles with personal qualities that you may be able to identify in existing horror films. With the young girl victim, and the older man "psycho", this film fits in very well with many narratives and themes of other films such as:

Prom night trailer

These narratives and themes seem to go down well according to the reaction of films such as prom night and audience's like the theme of girl victim and man psycho. If there was a woman psycho, the effect wouldnt be the same. However, I have developed the characterization generic textual feature and expanded the male psycho character into one that is paranormal. I think this will be exceptionally effective as the thought of him being physically dangerous (using a knife etc) will be ignited with the thought of him being paranormal too. According to my audience feedback, the paranormal is something a majoirty people are afraid of because it is unknown whether these things are true or not. In this sense my trailer does challenge some forms and conventions of real media products as the story differs and therefore has a slightly different storyline to most existing films. The setting of my trailer is very similar to real media products that exist already. It is set in a dark alleyway at first, and then continues on inside a small house where various paranormal activity goes on and where the 'menace' will sneak in. The setting is mostly dark or edited to make seem more eerie and to have an extra tense atmosphere. My main product doesn't necessarily challenge or develop any forms of real media products in the sense of setting, but uses many of them. Iconography wise, my trailer develops some aspects of real media products. In my trailer I have a scene of complete darkness but I have added a voice over of someone crying and pleading for someone to leave them alone. I think that this is a good feature to have in a horror trailer as darkness is something that is known to scare people, and with the added voiceover of a victim, this could increase the tensity that this scene may have already had. A familiar prop that I used was a knife. This fits in and uses forms and conventions of real media products, an example of an existing film using a knife is Child's Play.
My trailer uses codes and conventions of trailers. Our trailer starts off with a dark shot of the victim walking, but we have edited it so it flashes into negative at two points during this scene. This is similar to the paranormal activity trailer that i've researched in my Codes and conventions. The background music that i've used is also chilling, yet fairly quiet at the beginning as sometimes silence and quiet noises can be the scariest when used at the right points in a trailer. By building up the tension with the background music, the images seem much more effective. We also start our trailer off with the company name that produced the film, this happens in all trailers at some point. Another textual feature we used was the use of text throughout the trailer to explain some background information and to get the audience thinking about our film. An example of this is "Who will be next?" could get the audience thinking and wanting to know what happens in the rest of the film. Like in the trailer for Insidious, we continue the trailer with shots from the film and flashing images with a tense background soundtrack.