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

During our earlier research, we analysed films from similar genres (Hot fuzz, the other guys, etc.) in order to challenge or use the same conventions and techniques that we had seen.
The first convention that we could relate to our trailer is the 'eye stare' scene from Hot Fuzz (4-5 seconds in). This is used in combination with eerie music to build tension as dramatically as possible, suggesting an action sequence is about to take place. We used this technique at the start of our own trailer to build tension in a similar sense. However, we challenged this convention by using the audiences expectation of an action scene and replacing it with a funny one, in order to establish our spoof action/comedy genre.
From the film 'Paul Blart: Mall Cop' (8-15 seconds) we noted how an unexpected change in atmosphere in a trailer, or a scene that does not follow in sequence or with the music, can be humorous to the viewer. This was because at the very beginning of the Paul Blart trailer, we see a character who appears unfit despite the surrounding characters suggesting this location takes fitness very seriously. The fact that the tense music and the sound of the man speaking do not alter, despite his appearance on the scene, provides for a subtle joke for the viewer. We therefore used this convention in our own trailer, in our 'car slide' scene. The action build-up beforehand combined with the music suggests that an action sequence is about to take place, but in fact a funny scene occurs instead. We then followed the convention shown by not altering the sound, and keeping the music as action-orientated. This made the funny slide seem out-of-place, adding to the humour of the scene.
Regarding our ancillary tasks we used a number of conventions found in popular magazines and on posters. In both cases we used a large main image, demonstrating the importance of our trailer. We also used stereotypical images and styles associated with out genre/narrative, i.e. sirens in the poster and stripes on the magazine cover. We used the form of a traditional magazine layout, as we had a large-font title at the top, a main feature in the middle and snapshots of other films (to suggest a review later in the magazine) at the bottom. We also included a barcode and a price on the magazine to add a sense of realism, but developed the convention of having them located next to eachother (which is usually seen on most magazines), and instead had them separated.

Evaluation - How Effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

As part of the G324 media brief we had to develop two ancillary tasks, which we chose to be a magazine front cover and a poster. We decided that these two tasks were best suited for us as the other option was a website homepage, and neither of us had any experience within that area. We also had experience with programs such as Photoshop which could be used in the design of posters and magazines.

In order to ascertain a starting point for our poster we looked at film posters of similar genres and narratives, specifically 'Hot Fuzz' and 'The Other Guys'. We noticed how the two main characters stood in the very near foreground, as a typical action-orientated scene took place in the background.

In relation to our trailer, we incorporated 'sirens' behind the title so that the viewer of the poster would instantly recognize that the genre of the film displayed would, at the very least, be part action. This assumption would be enhanced by the background flames, and the unexpected addition of a Mexican-styled costume would demonstrate that the described trailer is actually an action-comedy.

Using our previous research of popular magazines such as 'Total Film' and 'Empire Magazine', we learnt some conventions of magazine front covers and found ways to use and adapt them.
The first thing we noticed during our research was that the magazine title was almost always obscured in some way, usually because of a main character of a new feature film partially blocking it. This is done to suggest to the reader that the magazine is already successful and well known, so the reader should already know or easily work out what the title is. It can also be done to draw attention away from the title and to the main feature itself, suggesting that the magazine holds interesting and valuable content.
We used this convention in the sense that our title is partially obscured, but also challenged it by obscuring it with a tear effect rather than by placing the feature in front of it. We did this in order to make the word 'Torn' autological (a word that describes itself) to have a greater visual effect and to make it more memorable.

In relation to our main product, we kept the same title from the poster to add continuity and to develop a sense of realism, due to the fact that when distributing a film, producers attempt to display the title or slogan of the film as much as possible, to increase awareness of the film.
The stripes located behind the words 'news, reviews and movies!' are also associated with the police, being found on police tape. The colours are usually yellow and black however, but this stood out to much on our magazine cover and drew attention away from the main article. We therefore kept the stripes but changed the colours to grey and darker grey, colours which stand out much less.
I believe we made our magazine cover look professional and realistic, but I would like to have included another image that holds great significance in our trailer, such as the car from the car slide scene. This would have held greater similarity with the magazine covers we researched, and also would have had greater relation to our trailer.

Our Finished Film

Here is a link to our finished product:
Bad Cop Bad Cop

We uploaded our film to YouTube originally, where it received 116 views as of today. We then decided that to expand our audience and gain the opinions of our peers/target audience, we would post the film on Facebook where it gained another 46 views. The comments we were given will be further discussed within the 'audience feedback' section of the evauluation.