Q. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?
My product is a Bollywood crime movie trailer, where, to sum it up, there’s a lot which has been used and challenged from the real Bollywood crime movie trailers. In a way, the place where my product challenges the form also develops it.
To be very honest, some of the conventions do not exist as conventions anymore, because due to the increasing consumer selection diversity, there is no set of camera angles, techniques and shots that remain stiff and staunch in Bollywood, except for the shot taken from a heli, which, I definitely have not taken. Hence, to the most basics of conventions such as lighting, and music, I have tried to follow up on Bollywood.
To start with, my media product used the same old voice over style (or at least I tried to do it that way) in the background. However, the form is challenged and developed when I intently kept the whole pace of the movie slow. This is where two forms and conventions are being challenged;
i- The whole trailer is very slow paced ; because of the script and its theme!
ii- The trailer does not include any song featuring dance sequence (which is presumably the most important thing in Bollywood movies, something that creates a signature for the movies).
The second part where my product uses a form and conventions of a real similar product is basically where the same old form of Sub-continental raga is used. The raga I used is known as Raga Bhairavi, the music was originally found on a website www.mediamusicnow.co.uk , I had to resample the music according to my own preference. The music is hence, built up on the same ‘sort of scales’ that are used in many Bollywood movies.
It can be said that, I challenged a form of the real media product. There is no lady in the trailer. Honestly speaking again, the commercial value will drop or should drop if there is no girl in a Bollywood movie, but this is what the challenge is of.
The convention has been challenged when there is no glimpse of any song of the movie in the trailer either. Bollywood movies are known for their songs and songs make up half of what we see India today. Hence, it is the biggest convention being challenged in my movie.
The reason for challenging was probably not literal challenging, because, obviously, you can not compare an indie film maker to a professional film producer/director in anyway. At one part, the challenges were real too, though.
The similarities remain evident in my product. Acting style should match, the music should match and the apparel, style of speaking, language, everything should match bollwood. I can even resemble my trailer to the film Dhamaal, which did not feature any girl and has no female protagonist in the movie, but Dhamaal is not pure crime.
Evaluation Question 2 :
Evaluation Question 3 :
Evaluation Question 4 :
Q: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The two ancillary texts I have chosen along a film teaser trailer are a magazine cover and film poster. These two ancillaries can provide a strong promotional package when coupled with the teaser trailer as they can reach out to large number of people through different mediums such as internet and magazines. Since the range of my targeted audience is wide one that include high income masses as well as the low income masses, I can reach out to these audience segments effectively with the help of my combination.
Teaser trailers are perhaps the strongest part of the promotional package since they provide a visual insight into the film. The audience gets glimpses of the actual film so those who take keen interest in the Bollywood crime genre will instantly be attracted to the film. Moreover, teaser trailers usually run either on television (or now via the internet). This allows us to reach to audience globally as internet and tv are not bound by any geographical territories. Those who are interested in such movies may also share our teaser trailer on the internet through forums, blogs and social networking websites such facebook or twitter. Hence the audience becomes a part of our promotional efforts themselves and views for our trailer gets generated automatically.
The film poster can be published anywhere, let it be on our official film website or it could appear in the news and reviews from critics online as well as those in magazines and journal. Since my film poster sums up the theme of my film, those particularly interested in the crime genre will be attracted and they become my possible audience. Again, these can be shared on different sources on the internet. The film poster, to be true, is not upto the mark, but this is what could be done in surrounding circumstances.
The magazine cover is one of the most effective way to get to the targeted masses. Those who follow magazines will know that the film must be really good, so much so that it made it to the front cover of the magazine and gets special recognition. Visual elements such as large portrait picture of my protagonist covering more than 70% of the page and a prominent heading, ‘UTV releases Abd’ (Abd means ‘man’), will instantly catch the readers’ sight. Since magazines are a cheaper medium compared to internet (at least in the Sub-continental region), I will be able to reach out to low-income consumers as well.
Therefore, I can say that the combination will hopefully prove to be very successful since I have carefully tried to include all visual and graphic elements that are necessary for successful marketing and I will able to reach out to a wide span of audience as well. Advertising is the key to success for any film and effective advertising can increase potential audience and anticipation for even low budgeted and poorly casted film; while high-budgeted star studded can be overshadowed due on the box office due to ineffective advertising. However, it can not be fully guaranteed by the magazine cover to attract the expected amount of masses. The first reason for this would probably be the 'special edition' label just underneath the title. Special editions tend to cover different and distinct masses sometimes. I wrote that deliberately because the film is for both, the distinct and the normal masses. Since 'Masala Mag' is assumed to be a famous magazine, it can also be assumed that it is going to attract both sorts of masses.
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