Evaluation Question 1

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

real media products? (poster )

The poster

For my poster, I challenged conventions of a poster to an extent as I did not include any images of the actors of the film onto the poster. This is because in the review of my double page spread I pointed out the emergence of new actors, therefore only mentioning the name of actors would maintain a consistency. However the placement of the actors names was conventional to many other Hollywood feature films to add a sophistication to the product. The style font that was used was ‘Bernard MT Condensed’ because this style of font was youthful and linked to the target audience. From the real media texts that I had studied I noticed that the background image of the product was strongly linked to the genre of the film. As the film was horror I created a dark eerie background by merging the title of the film ‘The Lying Game’ with edited smoke. I also challenged conventions of some of the real media texts in which I had researched. I challenged convention's by using the title of the product ‘The Lying Game’ as an enigma code for the genre of the film rather than using an image from the film to illustrate what kind of genre it was to be. Also the colour scheme helped in trying to emphasise the genre for the target audience, as I used predominantly a black and dirty brown. Also the placement of the title in the dark background surrounded by the animated smoke suited the genre and worked well on the poster because it brought out a sinister element of the film. Furthermore, I wanted the title and animated smoke to stand as my unique selling point as I wanted to draw the audience into the product by being subversive in the presentation of the product. Initially I wanted to place an image taken from one of the scenes in the short film, however I came to a conclusion that playing around with the conventions would be more engaging for the audience, as they would need to form a trust with product.

I also developed the conventions of the credit codes in many real media texts as the texts were not closely placed against each other, I thought separating the credits would make it easier for my target audience to read. Furthermore, the addition of the age rating 12 and placing of credit codes in a particular format created the idea the product would be tailored towards this specific target audience.

Challenging conventions:When looking at a variety of real media text, I noticed that the tagline was always linked to the content of the film or what was to happen. However, in the creation of my own product (poster) I wanted to create a tagline that related to film as well as the title of the film. The tagline: ‘How well can you play?’ was linked to the title as it had connotations of a ‘Game’. Furthermore, using the tagline acted like a pun and as it was short and concise it would be something that audience would remember. Also the language used in the tagline suggested direct communication with the target audience as they where being ‘addressed’ as an opposed to the tagline having a central focus on the main character of a film, such as the film ‘Orphan’ (2009) which read ‘There’s something wrong with Esther’.The use of the background image, alongside the tagline created for the audience that they where being invited to ‘play’ the game, which explicitly meant to watch the film. I thought this would effective as there was something sinister about the poster but also attractive, which is essentially the horror genre as it the fear of the unknown for the audience that also adds to the excitement and thrill of watching a film from that genre.

I also developed conventions of a film poster with the placement of a URL link for where information about the film can be found out. The website would be informative of the:•Cast •Crew•Characters•Actors•Locations•Influences•Reviews from film critics•What cinemas the film could be viewed•The synopsis of the film.

Adding the website to poster would be informative of the details of the film, such as more information about the production team. I added this because there was no main image of characters in the film therefore adding the URL link would give the audience a greater insight into the film.

Developing & Challenging Conventions

I challenged the forms and conventions of real media texts in the creation of my media product. I did this making the names of the actors all in one size as I wanted there to be more of a focus on the image of the title itself. Furthermore, the URL link on the poster would give audiences a chance to find out more about the product. However , I placed the main actors name as the first name, which highlighted he would be the protagonist. In the poster of the real media text ‘Inception’ the main actors name ‘Leonardo Dicaprio’ is placed on top of the other actors, which immediately creates a hierarchy and identifies to the audience, which actors and actresses will be the most dominant in the film.

‘The Lying Game’ poster ‘Inception’ (2010)

I wanted my tagline to have a direct communication with my target audience, as opposed to hinting the narrative of the film, which is highlighted on the poster of inception: ‘The Dream is real’.