Media Studies Q1

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

2. Research on trailers and the horror genre
For my research I looked at many different trailers, firstly looking at all genres to
figure out what the conventions of a film trailer are. I specifically looked at
‘Shadow People’ because I really liked the low budget, high fear factor that was
involved in its creation. The film used lighting as a main effect to create a sense of
anxiety and fear in the audience. The fact that the ‘monsters’ were shadows
made the use of lighting really clever. I decided to use this low lighting and
sudden lighting changes in my trailer, but also within my poster, where I used only
a candle to light up the face of the clown character. This was to spark unease in
the audience because they could only just see the face of the character but not
any of the background around the clown. Low lighting and darkness is a common
theme in horror films and because the subject of my film fits with this convention
I decided to stick t this convention and use darkness as a form of light.
A radio talk show host unravels a
conspiracy about encounters with
mysterious beings known as The Shadow
People and their role in the unexplained
deaths of several hundred victims in the
1980s.
Sometimes POV shots are used to increase the
anxiety in the audience by showing them the
POV of either the victim or the Villain.
However I decided not to use any POV shots
because the trailer would be too short to fit
that in.

3. The iconography used in horror films is
conventional of the genre. Props like masks,
weapons, supernatural symbols are used to
connote danger, and most films that use
weapons would usually have weapons such as
axes or chainsaws, or saws to create and even
stronger fear, because these weapons would
all make the murder scene very bloody.
Although my trailer is short and therefore
doesn’t feature any people apart from the
clown figure there are many icons I used, and
many more I researched. I looked at
supernatural symbols first for real life rituals
and from different types of religions that
meant death or the devil.
Using this information I created some designs for tarot cards and
supernatural symbols. I eventually didn’t use the symbols in my
trailer, however I did use the Nordic sign for madness on one of my
film posters. Eventually I took the sign out because I couldn’t make
it visible and subtle enough. However other iconography in my
trailer was the tarot card, although not my design I did spend some
time researching them and choosing which cards to feature. I chose
three cards but didn’t include the death card in the three because
during my researching I found that the death card actually meant
rebirth spiritually, which would be strange for a museum that is full
of things that can kill. So although the death card itself would have
been a good visible icon of conventional horror, as the picture was a
grim reaper with a scythe. I decided instead to use The Hanged
Man, The Magician and the The Fool. These cards represented the
plot of the film. The fool who entered, the magician who brought
the items alive and the hanged man, the person/people who die
during the film.

4. some designs for tarot cards and supernatural symbols
From my media Weebly blog
Even though a convention of film trailers is to have
characters and for them to show at least a few of Propp’s
character types. In the trailer Shaun of The Dead, there
were a few character tropes seen. Such as Shaun being
the ‘Hero’, his friend Ed being the ‘Sidekick’ and Liz the
‘Princess’. However within my trailer there is only the
clown figure, which is focused on, and is shown to be the
‘Villain’ character. I also used Barthes’ symbolic code to
show that the exhibits are evil, but also the place that
they are in has become corrupt and dark as well.

5. Trailer Colour Schemes
COLOUR SCHEME
I really liked World War Z trailer and I tried to use their
same idea of colour scheme. Something dark with dark
greens and browns, to show the desolate nature of the
film. I thought that World War Z used a brilliant colour
scheme that reflected the theme of the film perfectly,
and it enforced the genre and showed the audience the
desolate nature of the film. So I tried to stick to the
general conventions of horror film colour scheme
conventions so that it would be recognisable as its genre,
but also so that the trailer’s colour scheme reflected the
film and the subject matter.

6. Titles of Horror Films
TITLE
Titles like World War Z and Oculus and Sinister and The Woman in Black all have very
memorable names, and are all short. So following the convention I decided to keep my title
short as well, first using Curious, and then ‘Curious Museum’ to give a better view of what the
film will be about. However I think my title is still very memorable and easy to remember
meaning that it can address my target audience because it is a short name that could be used
in social networks like Twitter (which only has 140 characters per message). I stuck to the
convention of horror film titles so that the audience will be able to recognise what genre it is.
Fonts of the titles of films in the horror genre are created by the
plot of the film, they all relate to the subject of the film. For
instance, the film title ‘INFECTED’ is written in a font that looks
like the letters are rotting and fading away, as if it is infected.
Another example of this is Orphan’, with the title written in a
font that seems it has been scribbled by a child, a joke in that
the child in the story is not a child., but a 33-year old woman. I
tried to keep to this convention and used a museum/circus style
font to create my title. I kept the colour black because the title
was on top of the candle which was a bright yellow light, so the
two contrasted each other.