Conventions of Real Media Texts

"Explain how significant were the Conventions of Real Media Texts in your development of creativity across your 2 years of production work."

At AS I produced a hip hop/r & b music magazine and at A2 I am in the process of completing my horror teaser trailer. A convention is seen as a norm that is constantly repeated. An example of a convention is applying the key colour gold which connotes wealth as well as majestic nature.

An example of a convention in A2 is the Final Girl that Clover mentions as well as the ‘rules’ that apply to this certain character/convention for example she is usually a virgin in to connote purity and sets herself apart from the other teenagers who have been taken over by this sexual nature. This stock character typically used in Slashers has been reinforced an example of this is in cabin in the woods where the Dana is the Final Girl however in my trailer we are subverting this idea by changing the final girl to a final boy.

In AS I was unaware of the audience’s expectations and solely focused on what I wanted to see/what I wanted. However in A2 due to my constant questioning and feedback from my research, teacher and group I have improved and my creativity has expanded. Once I was aware of the aspects that needed to be included (conventions) I was able to apply subtext to my work. Chandler claims that genre is a type and is recognisable which is what I expect my trailer to be like. It should include a reasonable amount of conventions to ensure the audience is familiar otherwise my product will not succeed as money and time will not be invested in watching my film. Neale then talks about boundaries between genres being permeable within genre which is the idea that my group and I had as we are producing a Slasher as well as a Splatter. The use of two subgenres is quite creative however I am limited because all I am doing is re-imagining what I have seen many times before due to research therefore I am not original.

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation and these are conventions that often have denotations (the literal meaning of something) and connotations (the idea or feeling which a word invokes for a person). An example of a semiotic is phallic power. First of all the word phallic means any object that resembles male genitals. Knives, teeth and fangs are examples of phallic objects. Due to the fact that phallic objects refer to masculinity items of this sort are prone to come with the connotation of power, dominance and authority. When linking phallic power to vampires their phallic teeth penetrate the skin, blood is then shed which is a yonic symbol to connote purity as it is said that virgins shed blood. When the vampire bites the people (often male biting female) sexuality becomes monstrous and it can be seen that they have corrupted the innocent and released sexual nature. The reason vampires are described as monstrous is because the church believed that sex before marriage is wrong so for the vampires going around biting people (in other words having sex) they are going against the will of God and the reason that the crucifix repels them.

In AS, my brief was a hip hop/R&B music magazine to complete this successfully I had to identify conventions in magazines like mast heads and dominant images which are a vital part of magazines if these were not included it would be hard for my audience to recognise this as a magazine. Then in A2 I am creating a horror trailer so I edit and create titles (production names). Because my AS magazine was hip hop/R&B the main colours I used were black and gold black often connotes dominance and power which are deemed to be masculine traits so I wanted to subvert the stereotype by using a female as my dominant image. Gold also connotes wealth and a majestic nature. In comparison to my A2 horror trailer the typical colours used are red and black as they both connote danger and evil.

In my Year 13 film promotion exercise, I made a trailer and to do this identified a number of key conventions for example shot duration. Due to my research I was able to come to the realisation that in horror trailers the average shot time is between three to four seconds until the end of the trailer which is usually a montage is typically one second each and the number of cuts increase. Todorov a theorist from Narrative gives an idea about the films structure, the equilibrium, disequilibrium and resolution. However a horror trailer mainly consists of disequilibrium as this is what the audience expect and prefer. In my trailer I have conformed to the conventions as I used disequilibrium alone.  In addition I used low key lighting which is essential to create a creepy atmosphere. I have also filmed in isolated areas such as the old police station that me and other A2 students visited (school trip) visited and we as a group have provided funds for costume and make up.

In conclusion I have developed as a creative producer because I have used many skills following most of the most apparent conventions and I have been able to subvert some ideas to challenge these conventions like our antagonist being female suggesting that the patriarchal ideas(men dominating) is subverted and women are now as powerful and have the same mindset and ideas.