1. In what way does your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge forms and conventions of real Media Products?

We deconstructed a number of British Drama media products that allowed us to identify the codes and conventions that are commonly found in the genre's teaser trailers. We then included these codes and conventions within our own final product.


The Teaser TrailerThe Costume One way in which we stuck to the codes and conventions of British drama real media products is through our final costume design. After researching typical, female characters from existing films such as FishTank, and British soap operas like Eastenders, we used this research to develop our ideas for the final costume design. As a result of the research we found that the characters within these programmes wore clothing typical of the British drama genre for example; tracksuit bottoms, hooded jumpers, fake designer t-shirts and gold 'tacky' jewellery.

Our final costume design was very similar to those from existing programmes and films; we chose blue tracksuit bottoms, a black hooded coat with a white vest top and white plimsolls which gave the impression of being trainers on screen. We also stuck to the codes and conventions of British drama when looking at the detail of the costume for example, through jewellery. We purposely chose to use cheap looking, gold jewellery therefore our protagonist wore gold hooped earrings, a gold chain and a gold ring. The Location Our teaser trailer also uses forms and conventions of existing teaser trailers of the social realism sub genre when looking at the location. After completing location research such as scouting, we chose to use several locations from around south east London. For one of the scenes we chose to use a long tunnel situated near Waterloo station. It appeared dark, gritty and was covered in graffiti. By using this location with the combination of just natural lighting, this subliminally tells the audience that they are watching a social realistic film. We felt that as this location stuck to a lot of codes and conventions of the British drama genre, we filmed a lot of the teaser trailer there. As another method of representing the urban city location, we used iconic and popular landmarks such as Big Ben, the London Eye and black taxis. We felt shots like these were effective because by including them, the audience is immediately informed that the film is set in London.

Narrative Theory

We used two main narrative theories and applied them to our own teaser trailer. Freytag's dramatic structure can be applied to social realism films and trailers. Challenging this convention enabled us to sustain the audience's attention throughout the whole trailer. Freytag's structure suggests that narrative is broken down into a 5 part structure; exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. Our trailer mainly focused on the rising and falling action parts and never fully reaches a state of resolution. We also looked at Todrov's theory and it is suggested that narrative begins with and ends with equilibrium which is disrupted in the middle by agents of disruption to form disequilibrium. We chose to focus our trailer on this narrative theory as our film idea focuses on a young, female's life and a series of events which happen to her. This is likely to create a constant sense of disequilibrium to equilibrium throughout and so we portrayed in our teaser trailer through the use of other characters, position of shots and the pace of the sound.

Use of Sound
Our media product has used the codes and conventions of real media products within our final, non diegetic soundtrack. Having looked at a number of British drama films when researching existing music, it was clear that throughout that 'RnB' was the style of music which was most frequently used. Therefore we created a fast paced, yet still heavy rhythm and bass sound track for our teaser trailer which conformed for the conventions of real media texts.

Thick Skin A2 Media Teaser Trailer by jodehbaker Many of the existing British drama teaser trailers we looked at for research had synchronised their editing to the non diegetic soundtrack. This is seen in the teaser trailer for Trainspotting. This was a technique we used within our own teaser trailer because we thought it was effective. Also our use of fast paced music conformed to the audience's expectations as in other British dramas such as London to Brighton, fast paced music is used to create tension and build suspense.

However we also challenged the conventions of real media texts when focusing on sound. We did this by explaining the narrative through the actions on screen rather than using a voice over, like that of a typical British drama teaser trailer. Many existing media products use a voice over or extended dialogue to make it clear to the audience a sense of the storyline. However, we wished to keep a further sense of mystery for our teaser trailer and therefore decided not to include one in our final piece. This subverted the expectations of the audience because voice overs are a convention of real British drama media products.

Promotional Website & PosterOne way in which we developed the conventions of the British drama genre when designing a poster is that we used a clear, bold typography for the film title. Another way is that our poster design consists of credits which mention names of those such as the actors and the production company. These are placed in the bottom third of the poster layout which sticks to the conventions of a typical British drama film poster. As for the website, one way in which we developed the codes and conventions of real media products is by using a music track in the background. The track is from the urban, RnB music genre which is typically associated with British drama films. Another way we used conventions is that the background image of the website is mainly of the protagonist. This makes the image of the protagonist a main feature and therefore the initial part of the website in which the audience first looks at, like that of a typical British drama promotional website. However, when developing our promotional package, we also challenged the codes and conventions of real media products in order to subvert the audience's expectations. We did this by using a colour scheme of blue and white rather than the typical English patriotic colours which are used in films such as This is England. Also when designing our poster we positioned the protagonist away from the camera to resemble her vulnerability which is unlike a typical, strong, British drama protagonist. This was done to show that there is a slight edge to our film idea in comparison to those already in existence in the British drama cinema.