Evaluation

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

Above I have shown my poster and an existing horror poster that was released. I did this to compare my work to already liked posters to see the similarities and whats different about them.

Similarities

• Both show the directors and producers name at the bottom of the poster in small print
• The font and style of the title relates to the film genre and theme for example on ‘The Final’ poster the title has red stains on it to connote blood. Where as on my poster the title has a font that makes the title look carved into the tree and to give it that effect.
• Both posters use similar yet not too much color. This helps to give the posters a dull yet professional look as it does not look happy relating to the genre.
• Both posters have darkened the edges to give a sense of darkness to the poster and also to decrease visibility to also make the poster look more scary.
• Has only a limited amount of colors on the fonts
• Both posters show confusing images that attract audience.
• Both backgrounds relate to the film

Comparisons

• My posters title is going down the middle of my poster whereas the title in the existing poster is at the bottom
• My poster has a black and white effect and the other doesn’t
• My poster shows the names of the actors that are in the film
• My poster shows the Date of the release of the film quite clearly
• ‘The Final’ poster has darkened all the edges whereas I have only darkened the top and bottom

As you can see by the similarities and comparisons, my poster does not have much of a difference to a typical horror poster that has been released in the film industry. This is a good thing as it shows my poster could also do good when released as ‘The Final’ was also successful. There was not much differences with the editing too.

My media product does show the typical conventions such as the introductions of the creators of the film shown at the bottom, the style of the font relating to the film. Showing a confusing yet interesting image placed in the middle of the poster. Showing a date of when the film is going to release etc.

Above I have shown my film magazine and an existing magazine to compare them to see the similarities and differences.

Similarities:

• Both show a bar code
• Both show a obvious title
• Both show some sort of promotion or free inside label
• Both magazine have an introduction to the latest films including films and titles
• Both magazine have subtitles  to introduce pages in the magazine
• Both models are positioned in a mid shot
• Sub headings and heading are placed in the same areas on both magazines

Comparisons

• My magazine uses less colors that the existing magazine
• The existing magazine shows a lot more information
• My magazine shows the model above the film where as the existing magazine has the model behind the title
• The existing magazine has writing on the side of the page

My magazine is not different t the existing magazine at all. It was difficult to find hardly any comparisons. This shows that my magazine is similar to horror magazine in the market. I managed to find a lot of similarities which shows that my research was successful as i managed to follow the typical conventions of a film magazines.

Magazine Conventions

• Barcode
• Promotions
• Big Title and subheading on the sides of the magazine
• Central images
• Introductions to new films

Both of my production do use similar conventions and sometimes even challenge certain existing products for example with my poster, not all posters tend to be black and white with a tree placed right in the middle where as mine does this.

2) How effective is the combination of your main product (trailer) and ancillary texts (Film Poster, Film Mag Cover)?

My Main product and my film magazine and poster make a strong combination. The reason for this is simply because they are relate together well. For example the two productions above are clearly similar as the same character is used in all productions. This creates a strong impact when released into the market as it makes it easier for the audience to know what film is being talked about.

All productions use similar colors as my trailer starts of with a black and white scene, my poster is black and white and my main character in the film magazine has been edited to look a bit more dull that the rest of the magazine. By doing this give the audience a good idea of the film

All the productions express clearly who the main characters are. Furthermore all my productions follow the conventions of each individual product which helps create a more effective product as a whole as it would fit in better with the film market.

The film magazine and poster in my opinion help to promote the trailer too. I decided to get some feedback from who I think would be a typical audience for this film shown below.

The image above shows what a 19 year old thought of my trailer and whether it worked well with my film magazine and film poster. The feedback was positive as this particular individual was convinced enough to want to watch the film.My three productions would sell in the market due to all the positive feedback I received from typical audiences regardless of the success of the actual film itself. I believe my trailer would persuade viewers to spend their money to watch this film in the cinema.

My trailer production was made through inspiration and good reasons for example:

Trailer: I used this story to relate to a report where a girl went missing after a night out of clubbing where her phone was located in the forest which declared her being ‘missing’. I felt this was a serious issue so wanted to make a film about it to express my feelings with a wide range of audience. I have shown a link to tell you what story I researched.   http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/8922075.Police_still_combing_Savernake_Forest_for_signs_of_missing_woman/

I added a link to show my trailer as I uploaded it onto youtube.

I decided to record some viewers watching my trailer to see what they think of it and negative and positive points about it. This was a good idea as it helped me to gather some very effective qualitative research.

I have shown some of the main points which were said below:

Positive points

• The shortcuts were really good, there was a lot of pace which created tension
• I liked the music, it was really intense and sets the scene
• Made good use of long shots
• I loved the ending where it ended all white, kind of left the trailer on a cliffhanger
• I like the scene where Komal (Emma) Moves out of the way and you see the man in the background, was a effective shot

Negative Points

• The trailer was a bit too long for a horror trailer
• The sound should of been clearer, sometimes it felt like the sound took over the voice
• Couldn’t understand the storyline well

As you can see in the trailer I used a lot of techniques through narrative theories such as:

Prop – Studied hundreds of Russian folktales and found many similar character types. This theory is made up of 7 character types which are Hero, Villain, Princess, Helper, The Donor,The False Hero, The King/Dispatcher. My trailer does contain some of these characters such as The main character known as Emma (played by Komal) has two roles as she is known to be the victim but really is the Villian throughout the trailer in disguise. Another character who is known as Josh is seen to be the villian however really is the Hero as he tries to have justice and is overall innocent.

Todorov – This is a theory of a 3 act structure. I decided to adjust this a little by starting from the middle and creating the story after. For example if you take a look at my trailer i start of with Emma talking about the death of ‘someone’. This creates suspense to who it may have been. Further into the trailer a scene is shown of another female character known as Katie getting hit with the spade answering the question to who Emma was originally talking about. I did this because it makes the trailer more interesting and confuses the audience a little. I got some feedback from viewers to see if this was a good idea:

1. Viewer 1: This confused me at first but after a bit of thought I realized which made me feel positive about the trailer. It felt less cheap.
2. I liked that idea, I actually feel like watching the real movie now
3. I think it was good but could confuse younger target groups

The feedback was positive so I decided to keep this idea.

Barthes –   This was a good narrative to follow. Semic code was a important part of my trailer. I used a lot of digectic and non-digectic sounds such as Emma smaking a gasp sound just before the trailer ended and sounds that I added into my trailer through online websites which were the non – digectic sounds. I liked the sound of the enigmatic code therefore used this in my trailer as I made the end of my trailer with confusion as what happens once she turns around is not told yet leaves you thinking what did happen.

Textual Analysis on Trailer –

Camera Angles and Shots

LONG SHOT: The trailer begins with a long shot which helps to see the Mise en scene and also make you feel like you are in the scene. The beginning reminds me a lot of the existing film out which is ‘The Ring’ which was the main reason. The scene itself makes viewers feel uncomfortable to watch as they feel like a victim. A long shot angle is used again for when Emma throws the books. This was done so the audience would be able to read her body language as well as her reactions about receiving the bad news of failing an exam which helps to show that something is not right.

HIGH ANGLE SHOT: A high angle shot was used when someone had control over the camera as the floor was being shown. This connotes control and power towards the person holding the camera and less power over what is visible to the audience.  This angle shot is used again when the spade is being dragged across the floor. By doing this scene makes the viewers feel like the murderer and they are unable to stop their action that is a good technique to use to make the audience feel vulnerable.  Furthermore it is a good way to feel Katie’s character and what she is going to go through.

PAN MOVEMENT: The trailer uses a Pan movement where the camera is behind the trees and peeks out to see the car. This makes the viewer feel like the stalker/murderer creating insensitivity. At this point more non – Digetic sounds are used to increase pace which is relevant towards the end of the trailer.

MEDIUM SHOTS: Continuous uses of medium shots were used in the trailer which was just to help see the scene clearly without being too far from the characters face to see emotions and not too close to not being able to see the background.

OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT : To help see a conversation clearly, an over the shoulder shot was used when Emma and her teacher were having a conversation in the library. This makes viewers feel like they are part of the conversation and are standing behind the characters as the scene is being taken. This shows a sense of calm and nothing suspicious is to take place in this scene.

Editing

BLACK AND WHITE EFFECTS: The trailer starts off with a Black and White effects showing a man standing in the distance in a forest. By adding this effect creates the scene to be dull and bland. This helps to connote a scary and negative path for viewers.

FLASHBACK: The trailers ends with a flashback type edit as the scene blurs and fades out into white which normally connotes purity leaving the viewer confused and on a cliff-hanger about what happened to her which can be persuasive to want to watch the actual film which is the main points of trailers. This also shows that the trailers ends on a ‘to be continued’.

Earthquakes effects available on IMovie was used on some scenes i.e. when Katie is shown covering her face, and when Emma turns around to see what is following her. By doing this reduces visibility for the viewer for that particular scene making the trailer more interesting.

Sound

Sound had a huge impact on the success of this product selling one distributed. We used Digetic but more non-Digetic sounds throughout the trailer to help create tension, pace and interest. An example would be the starting as it starts off with a high pitch screech moving onto more calm yet tense music. This helps to prepare viewers for what they are about to watch also backing up the genre of the trailer, Horror.

Non – Digetic Roar and loud sounds were used throughout the trailer such as when she flicks the coin and moves off seeing the man sitting down in the distance and when she throws the books on the floor. As she moved off by adding a loud sound got the viewers attention to see exactly what we wanted them to see, this is the process of decoding as they unravel to discover and understand the intended messages.

Piano music starts to play during the middle of the trailer (0:28 seconds) when the teacher starts to get sympathetic towards Emma. This later on changes as a more eerie and freaky sound starts to play and overlap the nice piano music. This can be said to be juxtaposition as the bad evil music is overpowering the good connoting bad is going to happen next.

Digetic sounds were also used such as when someone had control over the camera and the floor was being shown (0:43 seconds). The sound of footsteps is effective to intimidate the audience a little as the footstep sounds weren’t normal but came across quite un-natural and a bit beastly. This was the intended purpose to make the person walking look a bit possessed and not normal.

Mise En Scene

At the beginning of the trailer the Mise en scene is of a dark abandoned forest with a man in the middle slowly approaching the video camera. This makes the person watching feel unsafe as they are unable to move. Plus the character walking up to the camera is wearing a hoody so viewers are unable to see their face which is scarier. Hoody’s in society have a representation of danger as it hides the face.

Mise en scene was also used again at the end when Emma was running away from someone, the camera was placed on the floor showing the entire scene as Emma was running away, this gives the audience an opportunity to see what is following Emma to help her and feel useful even though they weren’t shown. By doing this helps to see the scene more clearly and is important to help set the scene.

Barthes – looks at understanding moving images through applying 5 codes, Action Code, Referential Code, Semic Code, Enigmatic Code and Symbolic Code.

This theory was used in my trailer for example referential codes such as tree and empty countryside based roads. This helped audience to understand the location to be a woods area.  Another time was when the conversation in the library. By having the background shelf’s full of books gives the audience an idea of where they could be for example a college/school.

Semic codes were used in the trailer for example all the Non – Digetic sounds and Digetic sounds which are mentioned above.

Enigmatic code was used right at the end of the trailer as the trailer was not left on a positive note but more off a negative cliff-hanger. This was a minor enigmatic however was a very persuasive way to want to watch more of the trailer and even the film.

Symbolic codes were also expressed such as changing colors of particular scenes to make viewers understand the scene for what it is i.e. dark for dangerous, evil.  Barthes theory had a huge impact on my trailer.

Todorov which is the 3 act structure – Dilemmas usually occur during the middle of the text however this trailer started off with a dilemma as Emma was talking about someone who passed away and this strange man walking towards you so was a more of a non-linear structure. This was good as it shook the viewers at early stages of the trailer giving them the adrenaline rush of horror they expect.

3) What have you learned from audience feedback?

Audience feedback is one of the biggest things needed in order to make the most effective and succesful final production. I received audience throughout the whole journey of creating my trailer, film magazine and poster for example asking the audience such as students about what they think and what they dont like to help me change or improve particular parts of my media products.

As part of audience research I decided to create a questionaire to gather feedback from audiences that I believe would watch my film and asked them to answer some questions to see the results and use the results for when creating my media products. Once i received my re sults I placed them into graphs to show the information more clearly as shown below.

Question 1: I asked this to get an rough idea of what gender I am asking questions too. By having this information gave me a slight bonus on how serious and gory i can be towards females in this movie/trailer. As my main character are girls, it would be good to gather female target markets thoughts. This is so i can see what females like to see in horror movies and what they dont for example ‘would females target be okay with the girl being murdered in the end?’

Question 2: This is another question that I asked to understand the range of ages I am giving my questionnaire too.  I asked this to know what main age category in providing information for this questionaire

Question 3: As horror was the chosen favourite genre, I now know the information im going to receive would be relevant, accurate and perfect for when creating my horror trailer.

Question 4: By me asking my audience this questions gives me an insight of what the audience of the age group I preferred likes to see in horror movies. The results came as a suprise as most of the answers were Monsters/paranormal films. An example of one would be Paranormal Activity 1 and 2. This tells me that I should considers this when making my trailer. Good actors and Scary music were 25% each therefore I will make sure my film has appropiete and perfect sound/music.

Question 5: This tells me that people are not too bothered about a storyline which is good and bad for me. My trailer doesnt have a storyline but my movie does. I was shocked with the results as in my opinion a storyline is important. However this means that i can create my trailer with a storyline however i would not have to worry about it too much as it would not offend alot of the audience.

Question 6: The top answer was ‘Whenever there is a good film on’. This shows that trailers and persuasion is needed for people to want to watch films in the market

Question7: The reason why I asked this is simply because it gives me an idea to how long and how much time I should use on creating my trailer. Most of my participants do watch the trailer before watching the actual film.

Question 8: This question is just to allow me to understand my audience a bit more before producing my work

Question 9:

Question 10:

Improvements on editing  – Audience feedback was very important for whe I was designing my trailer. This is because audience feedback allowed me to understand what sections were most preferred and what was not as effective or what scenes were not as effective as mentioned in other parts of my coursework. Feedback was given and this allowed me to improve my trailer by cropping particular scenes out, editing particular parts of my trailer using IMovie effects and also find the conventions that audience expect to see in horror media productions.

Other ways of feedback and its benefit – I also received feedback from audiences on a social internet website known as ‘Facebook’. I uploaded my work and asked for opinions which will be discussed further later on. I constantly received feedback from Teachers and students that do graphic courses to ask how professional the production looks. This helped me further to make the best media final production.

4) How did you use technologies in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation stages?

I used technology constantly throughout the construction, research, planning and production of my media products. Technology had a huge impact on the succes of my trailer and poster and magazine.

The different ways and types of technology that was used are:

Youtube – I used a website called youtube for whenIi was researching existing trailers before starting my own trailer. The reason why I did this is because I wanted to see what all horror trailers have in common and what I should add on my trailer and what I shouldn’t. Youtube gave me the advantage of increasing my knowledge on horror trailer conventions. Plus I now know the importance of using digectic and non – digectic sounds and the strong impact it has on the trailer itself.

Online Storyboards – As part of my research, I went onto a website called ANNIE IN THE DARK which is a comic based story that was narrated through pictures and texts. The reason why i watched this is because i wanted to create a storyboard for my trailer before starting it  to get an idea of what angles, shots, edits, timing and scenes should be included. Technology allowed me to also get an idea of how a storyboard looks so it would be easier for when i create my own storyboard.

Photoshop – Photoshop is a programme that allows you to edit, crop and improve pictures by changing the colours, adding text/images on other texts/images, cropping pics, bluring, changing the style of images. Photoshop is one of the best programmes to use for when editing images. We had the oppurtunity to use this for when creating our film magazine and poster. As I already have a clear amount of knowledge about how to use Photoshop, this benifited me to create work to the best of my standards.

Horror Sounds – Most of my horror sounds were found on the internet through Free horror music websites as mentioned earlier in the coursework. Technology allowed me to research on the internet giving me a wider range of music to find the one that matches my trailer the best. This gave me the chance to make my trailer look twice as good as sound has a big imapct on horror trailers.

IMovie – IMovie is the actual programme itself which I created my trailer on. Without IMovie W would have stuggled to create my trailer. IMovie is an easy to use and navigate prgramme that was used alot for editing and changing and improving my trailer. IMovie’s also allowed me to adjust sound and move the sound around to best suit the trailer. IMovie was the perfect programme for me.

Online Social Networks – These were used to gather feedback and opinions about what people thought of my work. I have shown images of the feedback I received below. I did this by print screening the page. As yu can see, facebook members gave me there opinions and told me what they liked about my work. Therefore technology allowed me to gather opinions from a more wider target market and not just a small target market to get the best feedback from a more different ages and genders.

The images above and information helped me to re edit some parts of my work and give the audience what they want.

Google Map – As i was planning my trailer, I had to consider the location of where the trailer is going to be filmed. To show this i decided to use google map as a way of locating the areas where we were planning on recording and explain the reasons why.

Audacity – Audacity is an sound software which allows users to edit just soudns by making them slower, faster, echo sounds, change tempo and plenty more. I used this for when creating my trailer as I decided to edit my sounds by delays the time a little to help create a echo affect and also change the tempo of one of my sounds called  ‘Measured Paces’ , I already have knowledge on how to use this so this benifited me a lot. I have shown an picture below to show how I used Audocity.

This will also be an important part of your exam answer in the summer where you will be asked about the processes of production. Make sure you clearly write out every question and then produce your answer underneath.

The link above