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

conventions of real media products?

Our film trailer uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions, however
mainly it uses and develops. The reasoning for that could be perceived in two
ways: one, a traditionalist view on the part of the filmmaker(s) who have chosen
to stay within the boundaries of a pre conceived formula for film production or
two, staying within conventions is not an artistic choice made by the filmmaker
but rather a required necessity undertaken, so as to stay within the guidelines
and work under the limitations within which the product must be produced. So as
to produce a product that could be recognised and understood by audiences we
found it easier to build a story based on fiction and supporting Steve Neales
theory of generic verisimilitude. The final product was received with praise when
we screened it to an audience. General feedback received after the viewing,
indicated that the audience felt that the genre of the film was a thriller, however
no one from the audience commented on the film looking like or being a neo noir.
This may have been a fault by us as producers of the film, in not conveying the
genre clearly enough, or alternatively the genre is too specific and would not
then have been identifiable for our audience.
Breaking Down and Applying Theory
As mentioned earlier the idea of generic verisimilitude can be applied to our
media product. In keeping with trying to produce a product that could be
appreciated and accepted by audiences, creating a film that attained to generic
verisimilitude was key. When deciding what genre of trailer we were going to
make, a number of genres initially came up, but was eventually whittled down.
Interestingly the final genre of film we came up with was one genre, infused with
another style of sub-genre, which in all created a hybrid genre for our film. Sci-fi
Noir or Tech Noir as it is sometimes referred to, was the genre under which we
were going to try and produce our film. This creates an interesting contradiction,
for what we had decided to produce in fact challenged a theory within which we
had already been working in. Denis McQuail argues that genre is the main means
that producers and audiences communicate to one another. He sees genre as
an ordering process which simplifies the process for producers to make certain
types of films, and is a simplifying device for audiences in terms of allowing them
to make choices of what they wish to consume. A producer makes a thriller film
within the conventions of what a mass audience expects for a thriller, then
audiences decide whether or not to see the film. By creating a hybrid genre for
our film trailer we had in fact caused it to become more complex, expanding the
field for iconography and style and the inner forms often associated with Scifi/Tech Noir.
An example of outer forms seen within our film are the locations. The locations
we chose greatly helped to make the film identifiable as a thriller or modern day
urban noir, using urbanised locations such as Bromley and Penge as areas for
filming. Bromley was used for the night shoots; being a town centre we could
make use of the street lighting and other sources of light that would be in place,
helping to create a high contrast between light and shadows. Being an urbanised
area and filming at night these locations would help to carry and emphasise the
intended tone of fear and suspense felt watching the film, a tone found in both
the genres of thriller and neo-noir. The locations in Penge like the pub and the

warehouse are definitely similar to locations familiar in thriller films like Bullet to
the Head and The Fast and Furious franchise, which both feature fight scenes and
some point during their runtime.
Comparison to Existing Media Products
We found it hard to convey the genre of sci-fi, and we certainately could not
convey any outer forms with the budget we had. We included it however as an
inner form using it as the name of a company called Helios. The inspiration and
reasoning for the inclusion of this mega corporation can be found in the films
Alien and Blade Runner with the Weyland and Tyrell Corporations. This was a nod
to those two films but more importantly a theme of science fiction that was
included into the trailer, giving it that convention as an inner form rather than
through using iconography or setting.
The trailer also has the grungy vibe of modern noir films like Brick, and the gritty,
urban feel of a British Indie thrillers like Kill List, Dead Mans Shoes or Shifty.
There are flashes of Drive within the cinematography and the soundtrack, with
the second piece from the trailer that accompanies the fight scene based from
the original motion picture soundtrack composed by Cliff Martinez.

The two screenshots to the left illustrate

some of the features found in our film and
an existing media product. The top picture
is a screenshot from our media product
titled The Flare. Below is a screenshot
from the urban neo-noir film Brick.
Comparisons can be drawn between the
two. In our film we have attempted to
mimic the lighting effect that can be seen
in Brick, using the street lighting in the
background to illuminate darker areas of
the frame and give the film that stylistic
noir look. Reflecting back, I feel as if there
is too much light in the frame and that it
doesnt cause as much shadow as we
would have liked, but I feel it does enough
to clearly show what we were trying to do
and how we were trying to match our

The picture on the left is a screenshot from

our media product The Flare and the
screenshot on the right from Drive. The film
Drive was big inspiration for our own film. We
included a similar shot as a homage to Drive
using a tracking shot to film our main
character waking towards the camera. The
costumes share some slight similarities; both
wear a jacket and sport leather gloves and
black jeans, but the colours differ so as to
make our own character different and not a
direct copy of The Driver.