In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For the purpose of this question, I am going to be referring to the trailers for Shaun of the Dead and Scary Movie, both popular films within the comedy-horror genre. Both trailers have a lot of views on YouTube, proving that they are popular films. I therefore think that they are good examples to use as they are representative of the comedy-horror genre as a whole.
Conventions of comedy-horror trailers:
-An establishing shot
-Montage editing
-Wide angle shots
-Sections of the trailer being strictly comedy or horror based
-A horror based font
-Gallows humour
How have I challenged conventions?
Despite making use of most of the conventions above, I have also challenged some of the conventions to both make my product more unique and also to change the direction of the genre. Nicholas Abercrombie says, "audience may enjoy the stretching of a genre in new directions." I found inspiration in this quote and decided to apply it to my project, deciding that a change in genre would bring positive results to my trailer.
A notable change in my trailer compared to the real-life comedy-horror trailers is more emphasis on the horror aspect within my trailer. Even though comedy elements are seen at the start, the predominant atmosphere throughout the trailer is that of a frightening, creepy one. This is for reasons such as me wanting to change the direction of the genre, as previously identified, as well as a natural change that resulted in shots and dialogue that connoted a more serious atmosphere to the one I had originally been anticipating.
Another convention I have broken is the use of gallows humour within the trailer. This is because the scenes that contain violence, such as the scene when one of the victims is tied up by the villain, is not meant to be funny and thus there is no humour to be found from violent elements of the media, despite there being humour elsewhere. This means, technically, there is no gallows humour within my trailer.
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