In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media productions?Radio Trailer and Magazine

review.Helen Houghton

Radio Trailer. The typical conventions consist of: sound effects, repetition of the title, a quick description of the plot, classification, tag lines, names of actors These all have the intention of capturing the audience’s attention,holding it for a moment and persuading them to go and see thefilm. All of the conventions aim to play on the only sense open tothem: hearing. This means they have to be able to grab theaudience’s attention purely through sound and with the hopes ofinfiltrating the imagination and that with the information anddescription supplied to them, they themselves ascertain whetherthe film is something that interests them.

For our radio trailer, we aimed to use these conventions so that this auxiliary product would interest our target audience in conjunction with our main product. Our classifications of the film was a PG and soourfilm is suitable for everyone and anyone interested in mock 1920’s films. However most specifically we aimed our film at people similar to our age group as we wanted to create something that we ourselves would be interested in along with our peers. With this in mind, we adopted methods that were designed to attract this particular audience. Most effectively we emphasised how the cast are highly regarded professionals, with a “golden globe nominee” and “Hollywood’s Mr nice guy”. Although this may seem slightly trivial, it’s important in capturing our target audience’s attention, as they are mainly teenagers who take an interest in the “celebrity culture” and so who acts in a certain film may influence whether they choose to see it or not.

To conform to the conventions, we included the features needed to describe the film and gave all the necessary information about the film, but as it’s a silent film we didn’t have any sound effects from the film available to use, which made it more difficult to give a sense of what the film’s like. To get around this we were able to use music from the film to enable us to reflect the overall mood of the film. Luckily, we were able to use a track that encompasses varied different feelings through key changes to reflect some of the genres that the audience can expect to see in the film. This then meant that the trailer itself formed a narrative structure all of its own as it then became a story almost, where the music and narrative had to work in unison; the music reflecting the tone of the narrative and the narrative “fitting in” with the music.

Voiceover

Furthermore, in keeping with our style of putting a twist on everything, we used a contemporary voice over, in the style of JML for our silent film. We chose to use a “JML” style voiceover as we thought it’s completely different to the normal convention of using a somewhat dramatic voiceover. We wanted to subvert this typical convention of a radio trailer, as we hoped it would be in keeping with our own individualistic style that is apparent through the rest of our work. Also, in a slightly socialist light, the radio trailer has the fundamental use and aim of selling the product, which has become commercialised, and so in a bid to be slightly ironic we decided it would be “different” to use what is thought to be the height of any commercialised product, which today is the JML brand with its Americanised lilt and host of household products.

We used this method to describe the plot of our short film to the audience, but with the balance of giving enough information to engage the audience so that they know what the films about, but also without giving away too much. So in a sense the aim is to leave them wanting more.

To see how this all fits together, take a look at our radio trailer Here

Magazine Review!

For the magazine review, we didn’t stray from the usual conventions. Magazine reviews on films contain the basic information of the film:

, i.e. the Director, the actors, the classification, the running time the basic plot. Usually thanks to the layout and graphic designs all of this

information is neatly contained within a simple box and so draws the attention to it so it’s easy to quickly scan read to find out what the film’s about and assess whether the reader is interested in reading more and possibly going to see in the cinema or not. The rest of the article then goes on to give a more extensive description of the film to give a greater depth of understanding as to what the film’s about and to further convince the reader to go and see the film.

Example: Review of The Last Song

Click here for an online review that uses the conventions stated. Obviously, the layout and appearance is slightly different to the review we have created as this feature is can be quite free, the unique the better. Also, as this is an example of an online review, whereas we have created a magazine review, this example is more interactive, due to web2.0

At the end of the review there’s a verdict giving the film a rating out of 5 which again can quickly help the reader to see how good (or bad as the case may be) the film is and if it’s a worthwhile watch or not. Of course, all of this information and the tone of the review with regards to how good it is all subjective to the person giving the review as all tastes are different and while the person giving the review has one opinion, someone else may feel differently towards the film.

The layout of the review is important as if it looks attractive it will draw attention to it and people will want to read on and then they may even go and see the film. As part of the layout, we set out the article in columns, as is to be expected and included some still images taken from the film so that the reader can see for themselves what the film is about, which again can help to give a “feel” for the film. For the images, we decided to use a shot showing the ghost girl outside the office building looking through the window, to highlight how the film contains a stalker issue and to introduce the main female lead to the public eye. The second image we used was a shot from the house with both of the characters lying on the bed. We thought this still image would be appropriate as gives the audience the opportunity to see the dynamics between the two main characters and suggests the perhaps romantic nature of their relationship.

Layout

Also, we took a positive comment from the bulk of the article and put it in a bigger font and in a text book to make it stand out from the rest of the article to encourage the reader to see the good points of the film.

We used quite a simplistic colour scheme of black, white and blue. We used black and white as its reflective of the black and white quality of the film and we didn’t want to lead the audience astray by constructing a colourful and vibrant review when the film itself it quite dark. We used an infusion of blue as black and white alone is simply quite boring and doesn’t catch the attention of the reader, and as there’s a lot of text it can make it feel like a chore to read rather than leisure activity. The coherent use of the same shade of blue helps to create an overall tone towards the film.

Colours.

For the font of the text we decided to use Trebuchet MS as it’s quite simplistic, aiding in the readability of the text. However, it’s a bit different to the usual font of published articles making it stand out and also reflecting how the film in general is different to what one would expect. The tone we created within the review was light hearted to make it enjoyable to read as above all watching films has the aim to entertain. This translates as the register we used was quite informal, almost chatty to enable us to engage with the audience regardless of their prior knowledge towards film making.

To see how we’ve put this all together click Here.

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