Question 1

Over many years people tend to associate certain conventions with a certain genres, generally reinforcing the idea of what a genre has to present. Various shots, scenes, camera angles and characteristics present the type of genre that the following media product will fit into, which ultimately affect the way the audience will identify and evaluate it.

Ways that the conventions determine the genre of a certain media product can be very different depending on what genre it’s trying to portray or reinforce, for example: mise-en-scene, lighting, camera shots/angles, character fashion and character personality.

Whilst developing ideas for our three media products (magazine cover, promotional poster and film trailer) we had to implement and test various conventions used within real media products in order to produce the most effective outcome and display and reuse our knowledge of real media products.

Magazine

I believe our magazine consisted of an effective selection of conventions used within real media texts, the conventions we’d used throughout the design of the magazine allowed our work to have a higher sense of professionalism. Below are the specific points Becka and I felt we have shown how we had followed real media products;

To widen or refresh our knowledge on how real media products were presented within magazines we had commenced primary research into the mass market film magazines; Total Film and Empire. We avoided taking further research into niche magazine titles because we wanted our media product to look as if it had gained great success; the widely established magazines also have set templates which appear at a higher quality standard. After a fair amount of discussion Becka and I had agreed on using Total Film as we felt it would work best with the look and approach we were edging towards. Total Film had very select and specific layouts that we’d easily be able to replicate so that our film magazine looked to a similar quality as a real product. We felt that Total Film had a wider audience and success rate, the magazine title is rarely ever completely displayed as the image or celebrity who features in the promoted film covers part, we suggested that this is a clear indication of the success because if the magazine title doesn’t need to be clearly displayed for purchasers to recognise it then it must be a popular and successful magazine. Choosing Total Film may suggest how successful our film would be because it’s the world-wide magazine that has instant recognition, however this would mean that we’d have to directly follow a layout to ensure our magazine cover establishes the same professionalism of the real media product.

Elements that are always featured within a magazine cover are items such as: a barcode, pricing of the magazine, the date it was issued, a website and the issue number, so it was obvious that we would need to incorporate these within our media design. When reviewing back to our magazine product they are all clearly displayed in the correct places as what Total Film are and therefore the effect of this is the improved quality of our work, also sticking to these conventions displays how a real magazine should look so we’ve ultimately improved the professionalism of the magazine whilst showing our knowledge of the conventions.

As the model on the cover of our magazine product I ensured I was looking directly at the camera, taking Photography and Media as an A-level taught me to understand the importance of direct eye contact in an image as it inevitably engages the audience and creates a focal point of the product. The enhanced darkness of the image reinforces the idea of what genre the film fits into, we ensured that the model looked as if she’d been battered and bruised to also provide suggestion on the genre the film would fit. I attempted to pose in a way that looked like I was being mentally tortured, imprisoned and helpless; the effect on this would suggest an idea of what was to preview in the real film. The small suggestion and in-sight provides enticement to the audience as they’d know what to expect however they’d learn the reasoning for this in the film, using an image like this makes the audiences question why this had happened, when and inevitably makes them want to find out therefore watching the film.

 Another convention we had used within our magazine product was the previewing of various other films above the title of the magazine; we had incorporated this idea from the research and planning we’d previously carried out. This has been a beneficial resource as the replication suggests the consistent layout and professionalism a real life magazine has. We had used our own images as we wanted to keep every element of our magazine our own, we had found this design on a previous issue of the magazine and felt that adding additional images would create a higher sense of professionalism and quality within our magazine. However to avoid copyright issues instead of using existing images from the internet of various films that we’d listed within the cover lines we’d used screenshot images from our AS project; Depleted. Using images within a magazine gives visual suggestions to the viewer inevitably engaging them into looking at the magazine, they were also featured in a distorted fashion instead of in straight lines; this has a better effect on the outcome as the messed fashion will draw attention to the magazine.

We’ve developed our magazine to fit the conventions of a real life magazine by adding phrases and cover lines in a larger font; this makes them more easily identifiable and gripping which would instantly create more positive audience feedback and better promotional ideals. Without the gripping phrases put into a larger font I believe the magazine would be too text-filled, too much text could potentially put off the viewers from wanting to buy and read the magazine as they would feel the magazine simply consists of text instead of exciting features. We ensured that the best features were presented on the cover and in a larger text size because these would be the potential selling point for the magazine, if they were gripping enough it would ensure more produce is sold.

A large selling point of a magazine is what features inside; usually the magazine will give a slight suggestion to what a following interview may hold. Therefore if we had revealed things that were going to be featured it should draw viewers into wanting to watch the film and read the entire interview. We didn’t feature any real life celebrities name within our film so unfortunately viewers may not have paid much attention to the interview clipping we’d featured on the front, however as we’ve followed the conventions of typical film magazines it shows our knowledge and understanding of real life concepts. I don’t feel we really challenged any of Total Films conventions when constructing our magazine cover, we felt obliged to stick to what knowledge we had developed through the research and planning because we wanted to evidently show how our primary research had guided us through the development of the cover, challenging it could have suggested a lack of knowledge; the ultimate effect of this meant our product layout couldn’t have looked unprofessional because we’ve basically directly followed a set layout.

As stated previously we had issues with the first image we wanted to choose for our magazine cover as it was taken from an angle that cut the models head off, however to recuperate from the mistake we used an image that was similar to the poster. Although many magazines and posters do feature similar images we thought that alternate images would look better, however as this wasn’t now possible we had to stick to similar image; the outcome was still very successful and I believe it betters our ancillary products. From primary research we knew that some films and posters are similar so it meant we weren’t challenging the conventions of real media products. Audience feedback was much more positive once the image was changed; they had stated that it made the media products ‘more consistent’ and that the products weren’t too similar as you could see the obvious alternate images. From receiving feedback we were able to have an in-sight of viewer opinions on what we need to alter, so I believe the feedback of changing the image was very useful and has effectively improved our overall product.

We stayed with the general convention of having only one character on our media products, we did this because we needed to gather our actors/actresses together and this wasn’t possible due to the limited time we’d left ourselves to take these images. As Becka and I have access to highly professional cameras we felt it was essential to use them to improve the quality of our images, because we had used good quality cameras it had actually improved our ancillary products because the images didn’t pix elate once opened on Photoshop.