Evaluation 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

In what was does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

There are several ways in which our media product both has similarities and differences compared to the standard teaser trailer. The first clear difference that we have established is the length of time that our trailer runs for. Our teaser lasts roughly 1 minute and 40 seconds, allowing us to put more images across, and entice the audience in to wanting to understand more. The average time for a normal teaser trailer would usually be just under a minute, around the 50 second mark, and there are some that may stretch to the 90 second mark, however it is incredibly rare for a teaser trailer to stretch to 100 seconds. The second difference that we included was the amount of detail put across in the product. Usually in a commercial teaser trailer the basic layout will include a small amount of dialogue, and small amount of information about a few of the key characters, and maybe a small clue towards the story line, however in our piece, we have a constant flow of dialogue throughout the whole piece, we introduce the two main characters with lots of depth, and give a series of large hints as to what may happen in the film. However in order to keep the product as a teaser trailer we had to ensure we still included that element of tease, which is the reason for our series of clashing flashbacks throughout the product.
As well as the formal conventions, we have also used lots of the generic conventions by integrating much of the thriller iconography in the teaser trailer. An example of this is at the end of the piece, where we have included images of the lead character ‘Jessica’ holding a knife. This is also used to create the element of tease. Every thriller also sets up an enigma, which sets up a mystery, which is another key element to our teaser. For example, we have created a product leaving the audience wondering who these characters are, what’s happening between them and what’s going to happen with the knife. We did this by including the flash backs in reverse order, with the sex scene, and the moment the characters met. They want to know questions such as ‘who is this girl?’, ‘who is she going to kill?’ and ‘what happened to this relationship?’ which is why we did the piece in reverse order. Another way in which we have tried to conform to the stereotype of a thriller is with the use of costume and music. We have included an eerie soundtrack to create the suspense, and then used as little costume as possible for ‘Jessica’ to portray the stereotype of sex in thrillers.