EVALUATION - Table

In class we were asked to make a table showing the generic conventions of a trailer of the same genre as ours and to then see if our trailer has the same conventions. Our trailer is of the thriller genre with slightly romantic and horror elements. As the main genre of out film is thriller therefore that is the type of genre I have chosen to base the generic conventions from.

I found doing this table very useful as it showed us what we had down which was similar to the generic conventions and what we still needed to work on. It was originally in a table format but I was unable to copy it onto the blog so now it is in bullet points:

Iconography

Generic conventions:
• Costumes – victim innocent white clothes, villain dark clothing – dangerous, mysterious
• Tense music
• Exaggerated sound effects
• Weapons
• Disturbing images – confusing the audience
Our film:
• Megan wears white in some shots
• Eric dressed in dark colours
• Kitchen knife and pen knife are shown
• Tense sound track played throughout trailer
• Enhanced sound effect of door knock and mobile phone ring

Style

Generic conventions:
• Fast editing – creates tension – dramatic effect
• Dark lighting, dark colours to show change from normal life
• Weather is bad (rainy etc)
• Unsettling shots
• Shots that don’t show everything – leave the audience guessing
Our films:
• Fast editing – with dramatic transitions
• Shows knives but audience doesn’t know what’s going to happen
• Screen flashes white when there is a flash back sequence
• Colour contrast of the flashback shots and the real time shots

Setting/location

Generic conventions:
• Everyday settings – normality
• Isolated setting?
• Can use anywhere
Our film:
• Family home – normal
• School/ university

Narrative

Generic conventions:
• Mystery – don’t find out everything straight away
• Starts normal – gets worse
• Victim
• Villain
Our film:
• Shows the change in people, how they were (good) and how they are now (bad)
• Victim (Megan)
• Villain (Eric)
• Audience doesn’t know (understand) why Eric has changed

Characters – stereotypes

Generic conventions:
• Female victim, helpless – needs rescuing
• Male villain – in control
• Male hero – saves damsel
Our film:
• Female victim – she is the one running away
• Male Villain – he is in control, she is scared of him, at the end of the trailer without seeing him audience can see he has the upper hand

Themes

Generic conventions:
• Violence
• Psychological
• Crime
Our film:
• Knife - violence
• Eric is stalking Megan - psychological

Target Audience

Generic conventions:
• Thrillers – 12A plus general 15, gender: bit of both, mainly male
• Romance generally 12A, gender: typically female
• Horror 15 plus, gender: typically male
Our film:
• 15, gender: as hybrid genre appeals to both male and female

Audience response

Generic conventions:
• Audience gets confused – has to think about plot
• Tense – unsettled
• Makes audience think about what is happening in the film
Our film:
• We want our audience to have to think about the plot of our film and be puzzled by it at some points
• Tense
• Unsettled

Rach.