Evaluation Question 1

In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Trailer

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iJIYBhLrZA&t=2s  

Cinematography

There are a few shots within our trailer that do follow the conventions of  a crime film. Quite often crime films stick to a 'film noir' style with dark lighting, like what you would expect of a black and white film. There is a shot of the character Eve who is 'smoking' under a bridge, which  I believe has resemblance to this film noir style. There is another shot where Eve's bloody hand falls to the floor with the focusing on the foreground whilst the background is blurred. This is the type of shot you would expect to see in a crime trailer where there is implied death. 

 

Comparative shot to Film Noir: Sunset Boulevard (1950)

• Backlit 
• Harsh Shadows 
• Although this is not a crime film, it is still part of film noir.

Although we do have conventional cinematography, we do also have unconventional shots. For example, there is a panning shot at the start of the trailer featuring Eve taking drugs. The framing of this shot does not look as if it belongs to a crime film as it is a close up of a female character who is facing the camera, and is on the right side of the screen. usually we see females in the same mid-shot as the male protagonist whilst they are facing each other, not the camera. Another shot that I feel defies conventions is where Anon is walking down the alleyway and past the camera. Crime films tend to film the antagonist from far away as this can help an audience feel safe from them, however the cinematography in this case is that the camera is of a very close proximity to the antagonist. This type of shot may be commonly used when tracking the protagonist, but it is rare to track an antagonist in such a way. 

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Mise-en-scene

Anon:

Anon is clearly the 'evil' antagonist, as one might judge by the red lighting that makes them seem intimidating, this is also supported by the fact that we cannot see their real face since they hide behind a Guy Fawkes mask. However there is also blue lighting in this shot of Anon, which can connote that Anon is simply a neutral party, they are neither good, nor or they bad, they might have good intentions, but execute them in unconventional, life-threatening ways. With this representation of Anon, they could be classed as a counter type of a crime antagonist as we would expect a villainous character to have intentions of killing characters for immoral reasons. 

Anon's costume might be unconventional for a crime film considering how a large majority of crime films are about gangsters or secret agents. The only colour of their costume is black, which is to be expected, and they wear a Guy Fawkes mask like an Anonymous member would wear. I do not believe that there has been any use of Anonymous as a villainous character in a film, so in this case I think that our film trailer challenges conventions. However, there has been a similar character in the Australian indie film John Doe: Vigilante (2014, pictured on right), who wears an mask, albeit not an Anonymous one, but also wears a black hood, however this type of appearance of character is to be expected in a horror film such as Halloween, but not in a crime film, therefore I still deem our character of Anon to be convention breaking for the crime genre. 

Alice & George:

Alice's costume can be considered to be 'slutty' given how she is wearing fishnet tights and an extremely short dress and heavy make-up. To some extent this is what an audience may extent a female druggie to look like. George however is wearing a lot less make-up and is in a simple hoodie and jeans, which suits the stereotype of a male drug addict instead. In terms of crime films these two characters are counter types as female characters tend to play the role of a damsel in distress or a femme fetale who are usually glamorous & rich, and wear long, slim fitting dresses. 

Eve:

Eve is represented in this trailer as both stereotypical of a female character in a crime films, and as a countertype. She is stereotypical in the sense that she can be seen as a damsel in distress like many females are represented to be in crime films, this being because she is implied to have been chased and killed by Anon, which would tell an audience she is weak. On other hand, she is a countertype through performance and costume. Like with Alice and George, she is not dressed glamorously, but instead very casual, and her make-up and lighting in the scene at RAF Witham makes her ill and tired, which is entirely different to what you would expect of a female character in a crime film. 

Comparative stereotypical female crime character: Grace Faraday (Emily Stone) in Gangster Squad

• Smokes
• Glamourous/ dresses wealthily
• Is shown to be flirtatious 
• Is the opposite of what our characters are represented to be.

Connor:

Males often play the lead role in a crime film, however Connor is the only male character shown in the trailer, in which he does not show up for more than three shots. This would suggest to an audience that he may not have a major role in the film, which is uncommon as there is lack of female-driven crime films. 

Applying Propp's character types theory to this trailer, we can tell who is the villain, and who the heroes are, but not necessarily the individual roles that they will play. This is not necessarily a negative aspect as it leaves this information blank for the audience so they might be more tempted to see the film and find out this information themselves. 

Locations:

The locations we have used are an abandoned air field (RAF Witham), a woods, an alleyway, a studio room and a park.

Stereotypical locations: The alleyway and studio room are to be expected for a crime film. Alleyway's are usually where a kidnapping or murderous crime would take place in both real life and in films, or where a chase scene is to take place where the protagonist would see a suspicious person who is suspected to have a connection to the crime and run after them, or vise versa. For our trailer we have used it for the latter. The studio room is also often used for an antagonist to record a warning message or where they might have a notice board mapping out their victims or next target. 

Countertype locations:

An abandoned or run-down house may be typical of a crime film, but an abandoned air field is not. Considering how crime films are usually set in the middle of big cities it is unlikely for the characters to go to an airfield. The woods are more typical of a horror film where a protagonist is being chased by the masked serial killer, although its purpose in our trailer is conventional in films, it is not necessarily conventional in a crime film. As stated before, films of this genre are usually set in large urban cities, and therefore would not be near a large enough woods. 

The location of the park is not what comes to mind when we think of the crime genre, but it is however often associated with drug dealings, which is what we have used it for, so in this context, this location follows the conventions of a crime film. 

Props:

Our props consist of fake drugs and a fake gun. Both of these are without a doubt conventional for crime films, the gun is almost iconic of this genre due to excessive amount of gun battles featured in crime films, particularly American films.  

Colours:

This film is quite colourful  compared to normal crime films. Generally they have a low-saturated look and feature either blue or green tints in order to cpature that 'film noir' apperance. In shots such as Anon in the studio, Eve taking drugs in the airfield and Alice and George in the park, there are actually an aray of bold colours such as red blue and yellow, which is almost entirely uncontentional for a crime film. An example of a film which also uses colour in a similar way is Live By Night (2016).

Comparative trailer with bright colours: Live By Night (2016)

• There is a strong use of bold green and yellow througout this trailer.

 

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Sound

Our trailer has a voice over, most crime film trailers usually have a voice over from the protagonist(s), perhaps extracted dialogue from a conversation that happens within the film. However ours features the antagonist speaking over the top of the trailer, which challenges conventions of film trailers as a whole in my opinion. 

The majority of modern trailers use one song with one or two melodies for the soundtrack of their trailer, and sometimes features vocals during the third act, however our soundtrack features no vocals, and is instead different melodies entirely as if they were separate songs that have deliberately been composed so that the trailer starts off as a slow pace and then increases pace as it goes on. 

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Editing

The editing is semi- typical, as this was filmed purely for trailer purposes, there was not enough footage for a full trailer of 2m30s, so it is a rather short 1m20s, therefore there is not necessarily a second act in the trailer, only first (slow build up, introducing characters,  then montage. However I believe that the fact that teh trailer is so short is not a negative thing as it does not reveal too much of the film and only shows the vital information needed, therefore the fact that we have a short trailer means that we are challenging conventions in the editing department of production. 

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Themes

The plot of the film defies conventions to an extent, but it is overall typical story from what an audience can gather from the trailer (serial killer goes on killing spree whilst those being victimised are trying to find out what is happening before it is too late). However when applying Strauss' binary opposites theory to the film, there is no cops vs criminal or  law breaking vs order as both sides of the conflict are criminals as the drug addicts are using illegal drugs and Anon is a serial killer. This is an uncommon narrative choice, and consequently means that it is defying conventions.  

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