evaluation question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We use typical conventions of both the action genre and the buddy cop genre such as explosive effects, most action movies have explosions in the trailers to entice the audience like in Die Hard or RED. These are usually placed at the end of the trailer to pull the audience back and leave them thinking about the film. They also usually have a famous action film star walk in front of the explosion to make the audience aware that he is the reason for the explosion and think about other explosive films with that actor as the main protagonist.

From the buddy cop genre we used conventions such as the good cop bad cop theme where the pair of policemen are totally opposing in character and so one is very formal, follows regulations and keeps in check, also they are usually kind to captured criminals,beliving that they will get a confession with their kind words. whilst the other is strong, aggressive and bloodthirsty, usually using more agressive interrogation techniques. this is especially seen in 1980's films as the police did not have to worry about suspentions and law suits from violence as they do today. this is seen in things such as Life on mars and Starsky and Hutch.

We developed these conventions by using inspiration from other media types in the same genre such as the TV drama Life on Mars in which both the good cop bad cop theme is used and there are many explosions. These explosions also helped us as we saw a more realistic acting approach to acting and reacting to an explosion. We decided that the more neutral style would suit our explosive finish even though it is not part of the action movie genre. We challenged this convention by blending the two styles of acting. In films the explosions are always followed by the characters feeling strong emotions usually of panic and sorrow, but in TV dramas the expression of the characters is much more neutral and unable to feel emotional. This seemed more realistic and so we chose to do this. If the explosion is planned in a film then the characters are always shown walking away with a smirk or a very serious face. this is usually in slow motion. this is seen in such things as James Bond and Iron Man.

In a TV drama the character is again more neutral and may look on from a distance as the explosion goes off. We decided that as our project was a film trailer we would refer more to film acting by using slow motion and having the main protagonists of our piece walk away, but we had the police turn at the end to keep the audience guessing as to wether or not the explosion was planned.