report so far

Evaluative Report for Media Coursework

My task was to produce a campaign for the genre of horror, which included a main campaign poster, a teaser poster and a DVD front, back and spine. To find out more about our given genre I had to undertake research in order to know important information I would need when creating my campaign. When in the process of making my posters and DVD, codes and conventions were key, so when carrying out my research this was something I looked into, specifically in the horror genre. I found out that codes and conventions were one of the main aspects within horror and the campaign, there are a limited amount of codes however can be expanded on to fit a films audience and narrative. Whilst undergoing research on the horror genre I discovered that within horror there are subgenres, for example: paranormal being the subgenre of ‘Paranormal Activity’, and guano being the subgenre for the ‘Saw’ franchise, this would be something else I would have to consider.

Living close to a wooded area, and this being a popular choice of setting within horror, I decided to look into films that included this. ‘Wrong Turn’ (produced by 20^th century fox) was my number one choice as the whole franchise is based within this setting and was a horror that done well. I looked into all of the main campaign posters that had been made for ‘Wrong Turn 3’ and a continual link could be seen throughout. 4 out of 6 of the posters included the monster as a main part of the poster, and 3 out 4 of these, the monster was torturing the female victim with an axe. Already I was introduced to 3 important codes and conventions that I could expand on; the monster, the monster’s weapon, and the victim (often female). After reviewing all of the posters made, I looked into the final that was used to advertise the film. I closely examined typography, codes and conventions and the image as a whole. From this I gathered much information that would help me when making my own. The typography was large and sharp and mixed between the white and red colours (red obviously being something that runs throughout the horror genre in comparison to blood).