Evaluation

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

For our group coursework we have decided to choose the genre of horror for our film trailer, poster and magazine front cover. The conventions we have to try and challenge but also follow as we need to make sure it looks professional and looks like a real media product but we also do not want to copy any products already on the market as we want to make a unique horror film in our own way. We have made a storyboard ourselves to outline what will happen step by step in the trailer. Individually we have each made our own drafts of Magazine Front Covers and posters. From doing this we have been able to show to others how we have came up with a ideas for a film and how we have developed them into making something original that people will enjoy. We have also produced audience research to see what conventions the audience wants to see in our new horror film. From collating this research we were able to see what we can use and develop to create our media product and from it we were able to come up with new things that the market hasn’t seen before which could be successful.

Before coming up with new ways to challenge real media products we decided that it would be best to start with things that have already been used. If we start with this then it will make our film idea look very professional and begin to look like a real media products.

For the trailer we have produced a 1 min and 30 second clip of our horror film. We have used certain camera angles and shots in order to make it look more professional and so it appears to be more mysterious and dramatic. We have used over the shoulder shots, close ups and pans so that our film will be more like an authentic horror trailer like the trailers for ‘The Unborn’ or ‘The Grudge’ .
 We have also used make up and costume to make the character in the film appear to be very scary and yet also look frightened and disturbed. In this image you can see what we have took from her to make our actress appear scary. We have taken the long hair, the child like appearance and the white gown cotume.

As a group we took on separate jobs in order to make the mise en scene really appear to look scary and terrifying to the audience. A group member did the makeup on the actress and I helped to style the hair in order to help us portray the girl the way we wanted to. We also had a challenge to pick out the locations we wanted to use in our trailer. We wanted to pick places which appear to be scary such as abandoned houses and empty colourless rooms. Our trailer was well thought out and planned thoroughly and we met up each week to plan our filming so that our trailer would look professional as we have spent as much time as we can to get it looking like a product which could be real and released to the public.

This clip we have used in our trailer shows our inspiration of this character in 'The Ring'

As you can see from this video we have dressed our actress in a white gown and we have straigtened her hair in order to make it more scary.

In the trailer we have also challenged some of the typical horror trailer conventions as we have used only one main actress and only one other actress with only a small part to play. As our storyline only required two actresses it made it very unique from other horror trailers which showed multiple characters and lots of people in the background. Our trailer shows of one girl who is looking for who is responsible for the death of the sister. We have used all the different shots in order to make it look like a typical horror film but as our casting list only contains two girls then it stands apart from all the horror trailers already made. Like other horror film trailers make up is a main part of making the characters appear to look scary but we have developed this as we have really used our makeup to show the audience that this is a horror film as we have made the girl look very frightening. As a group we have decided the best way to show the genre of horror to the audience is through the make up and costume of the character. We believe that the audience will be especially disturbed by the girls look throughout the trailer and this alone will be scary enough to make the audience be very anxious while watching it. By developing the use of the makeup and costume throughout the trailer it makes our trailer look scarier than if just having a frightening storyline.

As we had to choose one poster and one Magazine Front Cover for our group we decided that there are elements on each one that should be used and we have made a joint magazine and poster to show our best efforts. For the Magazine we have stuck to the rule of left hand third for most of the text but we have decided to put more text under the image to the right hand side of the page so it is right under the image. Not many film magazines do this so we are showing something different and trying to show that our magazines will stand out on the shelves. We have also used the colour scheme of black, white and red which shows typical horror film related colours as they symbolise death, blood and coldness. This shows that we are trying to bring some of our horror film onto the magazine cover and we are using the colours as well as the text to do this. We are trying to develop the typical film magazine as we are making this cover a horror film special showing a unique selling point in our Magazine. 
As you can see from this 'Empire' cover it shows lots of different genres of films on the front even though the main image shows what appears to be horror. For our magazine front cover we have only advertised horror film movies.  We think this will stand out to horror film fans and it wil make our magazine unique.

For the poster we have made together using parts of each of the groups and developed text effects such as the tagline as we wanted to make it appear more frightening. This will make our poster look like a more professional horror film poster as it will look disturbing to look at. But we have also tried to challenge some of the horror film poster conventions as we wanted ours to be unique. So we have used a very different kind of image. We have put two separate makeup and hairstyles on each side of the girls face and have made one side black and white and the other in colour. This is a challenge to conventional posters as it shows two separate editing on each side of the poster as we placed the tagline and film name accordingly to each side of the image. We wanted the more dramatic side makeup to have the scary bit of the tagline and the girl who appears to be more understated to have to less scary few words. This is not like any other film poster I have seen or analysed.

All in all our Magazine Front Cover, Poster and our Trailer uses most of the typical conventions of real media products but also develops them and challenges them to really make ours unique on the shelves and stand out to the audience who enjoy watching horror films. From this poster we have seen all the different faces and as a group liked how different this poster is compared to other posters with only one face on.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

For our coursework we did not only make a trailer but we also had to make a whole film package which included a Trailer, Magazine Front Cover and a Poster. We had to make these as a group and we had to make sure that they all fitted together so that the audience could see that they all about advertising the same film.

To make a combination of products that all link together was a challenge as we had to discuss certain elements that need to be added to all of our ancillary texts in order to make them all together. In order for our Poster and Magazine Cover to be linked to our main product of the trailer we made sure we featured the same actress in all. We have one main actress in our trailer and for our Magazine cover we had a close up of her face and there also was a mid shot of her on the poster. As we have used the same actress in each of our products we can show the audience that they are all linked together to show them how we have used different ways of showing our new film.

Another way in which you can tell that the main product and the ancillary texts are all related is from the use of the Film name and Tagline. Right at the end of the trailer we are featuring the name of our film and the main focus of the poster and magazine cover is the film name. This is so the audience will be able to talk about our film relating it to the name of the film and so that they can tell from watching the trailer that this is the same film as featured on a magazine cover. Also at the end of our trailer we have a voice over stating our tagline and on our poster at the top of the page we have placed our tagline, which shows that they are connected to the same film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UxLEqd074 (Link to Film Trailer)

From looking at this promotional package for the film ‘Paranormal Activity’ you can see what aspects link with all products to create one promotional package where the audience can identify the same film from all the different ways of presenting the same movie.

From this product you can see certain aspects which are similar showing that they are all from the same movie. The colour scheme of red and also the same actors show that they all link to the same product. Also in the poster, magazine front cover and in the trailer it shows the actors in the same setting so the viewers or readers can see that this will all happen in one place.

 In our ancillary texts and trailer we have also considered as a group the different costumes we want our actress to wear. We have brought two costumes for our actress to change between throughout the trailer. Also in our ancillary texts we have used the same costumes. For our poster we have featured both costumes as one side of our page we have the white dress and on the other side of the page she is in her black dress. For the magazine cover she is also wearing one of the costumes showing that throughout them all there is the same house style showing that this must made by the same people for the same film.

In addition we have used the same colour scheme through all of our ancillary products and in our main product. In our final Magazine Cover we have used the colours red, white and black and in our poster we have continued with this colour scheme. Most importantly we have followed this colour scheme in our trailer as all the text we have used is ether black, white or red.

From looking at promotional packages in my audience research I was able to see which things in particular work in order to make the audience see that it is part of the same film.

As you can see here from the Poster Magazine Cover you can see that they do link together as ancillary texts and they should also have a big link to the trailer.

Here is our group final poster and magazine cover. From this you can see the things we did to make sure that they all connect so the audience will be able to see that they come from the same film. We have considered the colour scheme, use of same actors and same costumes in order to make our film looked like a professional promotional package. 

Here is a clip in our trailer of the evil character.

This clip we have edited for our final trailer as we have made it the rotated it a cropped it. But you see from our original clip that we have used the same makeup as in both of the ancillary texts and we have done the same hairstyle and used the same actress so the audience can realte all of these types of media to the same film.
Our final Trailer, our Magazine cover and our Poster do create a promotional package as we have done all the things needed to make this into a professional film promotion. 

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

As we have done a lot of audience research individually and as a group we were able to find out what people do and do not like about horror film advertising. We found out lots of different things about what we should do in order to make it a popular and successful film. We had to change some of our ideas in order to make the audience like the trailer, magazine cover and poster which we had to make. The audience research we did was three separate questionnaires one for each element of our media product. We asked the audience five questions about horror film Magazine covers considering which elements they like and which they would like to see improved. We then asked five different questions about horror film posters and what part of them they preferred to look at best so we could see what we needed to make that bit in particular look good and exciting to the audience. We finally asked five questions about what they like to see in horror trailers. This gave us the things in which the audience looks for to make a good horror trailer. Also as there have been many film trailers for the genre of horror we need to follow the audience’s feedback to make ours stand out and be popular and therefore an excellent new horror film idea.  

 By doing graphs we were able to see what the audience wants to see in our trailer, magazine cover and poster. From this we can see the audeince likes to see an exciting poster and find out about a new film from the poster. After finding out this information we can see that the poster is very important so my group worked extra hard to make our poster succesful. We believe after getting audeince research on our poster it was the most succesful and the audience wanted to see our trailer and our magazine cover because of our interesting poster.





  If the audience like the horror film we make then it is more likely to be a successful addition to the media products already out there. Outlining what we have learnt from the audience shows us which aspects of the horror film will be successful and which could be improved. From all of our questions we have produced graphs and analysed the answers in order to find out exactly what the audience altogether believes we should do to produce a good horror film. From finding out all of these things about what the audience want to see in our media product we are able tailor our ideas to also fit into what the audience wants to see. As we have learnt certain things about what the audience wants to see certain decisions such as effects we should put over the top of our footage when we edit such as making it black and white or having certain sounds playing over the top, we can now make much easier as we know what the audience wants to see.

I have also learned from audience feedback what the viewers thought about our poster, magazine cover and trailer. We were able to see which aspects of the trailer we did really well and which things that w could improve even further upon.

We can see from our audience research that our images on our poster and magazine cover were very effective and they showed the audience our genre more than the text or form did. The audience feedback was that they thought the image was well edited and the close up shot showed the girl emotional distress so the audience could tell that this would be of importance in the film.

After finishing our trailer we showed it to our target audience and other audiences to see what was good about it and what things could be improved. We asked people which clips of the trailer they enjoyed the most and what effects they found most exciting. We found out from the audience that they especially liked our flashbacks which we added a black and white effect onto. We also wanted to know if they liked our storyline and if they found it scary. From our feedback the audience has stated that they find it very chilling and they were frightened at our last clip in the trailer. The audience also commented on the use of costume, make up and props. As a group we worked very hard on the costume, hair and make up and we wanted the audience to find it very chilling and scary. From audience feedback we can see that they did like this very much and some said that they found it very professional and very disturbing.

Altogether I have learnt from audience feedback how exciting and how chilling our trailer was. Also by having the feedback from our work on the magazine cover and poster has enabled me to see how well they all work together to make one product. Also I have learnt from audience feedback that our trailer was scary and the sounds especially the piano added to the chilling effect. All in all from feedback our product was chilling, unique and interesting.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

To make our film trailer, poster and magazine cover we had to use challenging software’s and conduct lots of research and planning in order to create a successful overall product. There is a lot of new media technologies which we wanted to use in order to make our film a current and advanced trailer.

To begin we set up our own blogs to create web log of all the things that we have developed from the start of our trailer, magazine cover and poster to the finished products. As a group we treated our blogs as a diary of events which had happened throughout the process of the making of our film. This began with audience research into planning and finally into our end pieces. Thanks to the creation of Web 2.0 we were able to create a blog which has enabled us to track and record our work.

I decided that a blog is the best way to show our work to our target audience’s and to share our work with a wider range of people. Having a blog enables me to interactively share my work to the public. Also blogger has a special feature where people are able to give and receive feedback. This has helped me to see what I need to improve and what is good so I can continue doing these things. Although the main reason why I have produced a blog is so that I can update my work on a daily basis as I like the flexibility of this way of working as I like to each week put up some posts stating my process and how much my trailer is developing. For example I have posted about when I have spent the day filming and also what meetings the group has had in order to create our trailer.

To construct our Magazine Cover, Trailer and Poser I have used lots of different software’s to make our products look professional. We have used Photoshop, I movie, Final Cut, Soundtrack Pro and IDVD.

Using Photoshop enables me to edit my images and add text to make up a poster and magazine cover. I was able to add effects onto my text so that they go with the genre of our film. So I was able to change the colour and add blending options such as stroke and shadow.

On photoshop we were able to create lots of different ways of writing the title of our film 'Who am I?'
Then we could write it onto Premier Pro knowing exactly what effects we wanted to put onto it to make it look how we wanted it to.

We have used I movie to edit our trailer and put all our clips together to make a flowing trailer. We were able to use the software to create effects on our clips and then put all our clips filmed together so they are in order of how we wanted to show them. As we did not film our clips in chronological order but we wanted our trailer to be showed this way we had to put all of clips in order using I movie. We also added a black and white effect on some of our clips. We had decided we wanted to do this effect and I movie enabled us to add this on very easily.

Using the Final Cut we were able to add on the text we wanted to use such as the film name at the end of our trailer. We were also able to add in transitions in our trailer as we had seen this done in the trailers we analysed.  On Adobe Premier Pro we also were able to add effects to our clips such as brightness and contrast on our clips.

As there are new technologies developing we were now able to use software called Garageband. This helped my group as we can now use this to add on all our sound effects and we were able to add to our film trailer our voice over. We now were able to add the voice over to the clips we wanted to. We could also decide what volume we needed the sound over the clips.

Now that collaborative software had been developed and is still developing vastly we can now produce products using moving images such as trailers. Now it is much easier for our group to put all of our raw material together to create three final products. 

 This photo was taken on the software Adobe Premier Pro and we were able to edit our clips to make it look professional due to this advanced software.














Now that collaborative software has come together to get sounds and clips together to create films and trailers it is much easier to go on software’s such as final cut and garage band to edit a exciting new trailer. Also we can now create a moving image trailer for our coursework so now we can show we can use our creative side to create story boards and produce photo shoots before creating a film trailer, poster and magazine cover. This is all very modern ways of showing how creative we can be whilst studying media due to moving image. 

To edit the clips we have taken we used Adobe Premier Pro. To begin we cut all our clips we had used in to the sections that we want. For example we cut the scene of the house as the clip was taken up a lot of seconds in the trailer that was not important. Also we cut some scenes as then our trailer would be too long. From research I found out how long trailers usually were so from this we decided our trailer couldn’t be over two minutes. Then in Premier Pro we added in all the sounds we recorded. We imported them onto Adobe Premier Pro and listened to them along with the clips so we could see exactly what point to start them and end them. Finally we added our company logo, film title and date of release. When we did this we were able to design them so that we could follow the same colour scheme as our poster and magazine cover.

We put all of our raw material together to create an end product. 

Over all we had several clips that we had to put together to make an interesting trailer. We had to add on effects to our some of our clips. For example on some of our flashbacks we have used the effect of black and white. From our raw material we had to change things and put certain effects on things to turn