Evaluation

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

Trailer:

Special effects and transitions:

The trailer which I produced begins with the institution logo, this is done is all trailers for promotional and copyright reasons. The institution self-advertises through this 5 second clip,
Due to my chosen genre of horror/fantasy, I went ahead with the popular convention of using short cuts between the scenes and increase the pace of transition from one scene to another as the trailer progressed towards the ending. These tactics build tension and create suspense within the audience.
In order to produce a smooth yet fast transition between some of the scenes in the trailer, I used a blur effect over a black graphic which lasts under 2 seconds to create a smooth transition between the different scenes.
I used a specific effect in final cut pro called 'projector', which is placed over the footage of Georgia Early standing in the big hallway towards the end of the trailer. I did this to create the effect of her haunting the school and more specifically the main character, Jenai but I also used this to create more tension from the flickering effect which distorts the original image.

Sound:

In the trailer I used both diagtic and non-diagetic sound. The soft piano melody at the beginning of the trailer portrays Jenai's life as normal and peaceful. Soon-after, as the events change course, music becomes eerie and low, almost sounding like a long howling wind, this sound depicts the tension in the upcoming scenes and prepares the audience unknowingly for the climax in the trailer. Finally, the last of the main pieces of music is a long drone sound. It is a lot louder and more powerful than the second one. I put this sound along the number of short cutting scenes that picked up pace since the start of the trailer. The fast and short scenes tease the audience since they don't know what the outcome of the whole story will be. Furthermore, I used a non-diagetic heartbeat in the last 10 seconds of the trailer, which firstly reflects the sacrifice scenes that show blood and therefore a dying person but it also ends the trailer smoothly and the audience are in the unknown which makes them want to see the film. Aside from the non-diagetic sounds, I also thought that is important to include diagetic sound coming from some of the clips, such as the actors speaking, and that is exactly what I did. There are three scenes which include this convention. I believe that the audience have more connection with the characters and the film itself since they are getting more than just an image of the film, therefore will want to go and see the film, to find out what the actors were talking about.

Magazine front cover:

My magazine cover has had many inspirations from existing products. My design for example, was heavily inspired by Fangoria. Although many film magazines use this technique, fangoria made this a constant design, whilst placing the strip on the side of the page, instead of the bottom like any other magazine does.  

The following conventions of my magazine follow and use real media products' ideas.

• The use of a slogan/strap line placed under the right side of the title gives readers a way to associate the product in a future purchase.
• Tag: 'Win!'. This word is the drawing point of the magazine aside from the cover lines. When people have opportunities to get free prizes and/or experiences, they are more likely to buy the product, since they have a chance to get more for their money. In this case, the readers of my magazine have a chance to win tickets to the film's premier. This is a technique which further promotes my film.  

Aside form using the general conventions of existing products, my magazine challenges some of these media forms through the following:

• The main image has no relation to the main cover line. I have done this because the Magazine is the first product (date wise) to feature the film. This means that the the film is at it's earliest stages of making, if it's even started, however an interview is used to promote the title as well as the actor. I have placed the main cover line in a red box, to really attract the audience's attention.   

Teaser poster:

This poster follows many conventions of real and similar media products. Firstly, the key element to the effect of the final product would be the main image. I used a close-up of a hand holding a necklace which is very relevant to the plot of the film. I made sure that the image was not only taken on a black background, but also blended with a plain black background to make sure that the lighting of the hand would be correct and to reflect the dark part of the film in the low key image.
In order to achieve a slightly eerie and surreal feel to the image, I used Photoshop and added a motion-blurred' reflection of the hand behind the original. Finally, to give the whole poster a more cinematic feel whilst putting more of a spotlight on the image in the middle, I added a lens flare, which also looks as though the necklace is reflecting it, giving it more of a magical nature,
The format is a standard A3 size, since its universal, as many designated poster places are the same ratio, just different sizes.
The rest of the poster is about the text and its positioning. I placed a tagline at the top of the poster saying "at school, no one can hear you scream". This is made to give the audience a hint about what happens in the film. In the trailer, Jenai screams in the bathroom scene, but its also relevant because the school is mentioned, The audience therefore wonders what the purpose of the tagline is and perhaps what the meaning behind it is.
Moving on, I created the film's title in the way that many horror teaser posters have done. The writing is very separated to fill in the space of the page width wise, yet making the letters stand alone against each other which in this case represents the scattered feelings and alienating new life.
Lastly, I placed the credits at the bottom part of the poster which includes actor's, producer's and distributor's names for credit. Underneath this information, I placed the production company logo, release time (which is 'coming soon'). and a Facebook page, which the audience can visit and get involved in forums. To finish it all off, I placed a release date of the trailer at the bottom of the poster, which can get the audience excited and ready.

Not all conventions could be used in one product otherwise it would become overcrowded, so here is a list of Conventions that I used in my poster:
Image(close-up) = yes
Film title = yes
tagline = yes
awards = no
date = yes
quotes/ratings = no
director/actors = yes

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

One of the most important features in the combination of my products is making them according to specific dates and having them produced in an order of release. The way I created my products is so that one promotional method leads to another. The magazine is the first product in line to feature the film's aspects. This works, since the magazine includes a feature with the main character from a film, offering an exclusive interview about the film, of which the title is mentioned. This is a successful way to promote the film, since the audience will read about the actor's role, and those who would have read the article, would already look forward to seeing the film.

Second in line comes the teaser poster. This does not advertise the official film's release date, but the date of which the trailers will be available to watch. This creates a suspense as to when the film will be out by. One product teases it's audience to another product and so on, until a large group of people will be interested in the film, to create it's big success.

Finally, the trailer comes last which further teases the audience about it's release date since there isn't one apart from the information that its 'coming soon'.

• What have you learned from your audience feedback? 

I used some of the traditional ways of getting feedback, and that is through questionnaires and face to face conversations. In order to get feedback, I printed out a questionnaire and managed to get 20 back. Some of them did not include opinionated feedback at the bottom of the page, however all of them did answer to the multiple choice questions. From some of this information. I created a graph which shows me a pattern of what people thought of the individual products based on their gender. I have also managed to compile opinionated feedback which was a mixture of sourcing it from the questionnaire paper as well as directly, face to face.

Trailer

"The quality of sound could be improved, as its hard to hear what the characters are saying at times."

-Nicole Clements 

"The scenes could transition faster to create more tension"
-Oshane Mclean
"The acting is very good - makes the trailer look more professional."
-Caroline Emmett

Magazine cover

"The colour scheme is well coordinated whilst the film strip is a great asset to the design."

            -Michael Beeson

"There is a well balanced variation of font to distinguish different topics and titles."

           -Anonymous

"The overall look of the front cover could look better with the main image having a black background to match the masthead and filmstrip"

           -Sumeet Raj

Teaser poster

"The lens flare looks tacky."

         -Anonymous

"Reduce the opacity of the tagline to reflect it's message of sound"

        -Sumeet Raj

"I like the lens flare, It looks cinematic"

        -Caroline Emmett, Grant Arthur

"The tagline is very effective."

        -Luke Townsend

I found that its essential to gain feedback from the demographic that I spoke to, considering these people represent my target audience. About 70% of my feedback comes from people who watch and enjoy horror/fantasy films. These people would have more knowledge on the codes and conventions of the genre, therefore give me a realistic opinion. The remaining 30% of people who I asked about feedback were the secondary audience.
I learned that a lot of my primary audience noticed where some of my inspiration came from when looking at the trailer, which includes a variation of films such as The woman in black, Harry Potter, The mortal instruments, and even a series show 'Vampire diaries'. This meant that my research into similar products was accurate and people who liked my product, are the people who also like the existing films which I looked into in the early stages of research.

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

I chose to use some of the Microsoft software such as Power-point, Excel and Word to carry out many of my research and planning. This meant that before uploading a lot of these findings onto the blog, I was able to store the documents securely and clearly in folders, which made my work easy and simple. I am very familiar with Microsoft office, therefore I didn't have to spend time on learning how to use any of the software. 

I used Microsoft word for documents greater in word count and any detailed write up. Some of this included analysing existing media products, making small conclusions or writing out a transcript. 

Power-point was mainly used for the creative side of my research, such as putting mood boards together or creating spider diagrams in a more visual dynamic. As noted in one of my previous post, I also used Power-point in order to create my initial logo designs based on existing clip-art graphics and the basic image adjustment options in he settings menu.

Finally, I used Excel to produce things such as the project plan and any graphs based on a questionnaire/survey.

In the production stage of creating both, my main task as well as the ancillary tasks, I used a Canon camera. I started off with a Canon SX20 IS which is a bridge camera, however the quality of it was not the best. There were school cameras available which were of a better quality, however I was very comfortable using my own to begin with. I quickly transitioned, since I brought a DSLR (Canon 1200D) which was a much better quality. It also helped that I began to transition from a bridge to a DSLR through the cameras provided by the school. A good quality camera was not all that I needed for good better quality footage. I had to buy a 32GB SD card in 'Extreme' version, since an 'Ultra 8GB' was insufficient for the speed and quality at which I wanted to film at. 

Aside from video filming, both hardware purchases were a benefit to the ancillary tasks and doing photography at a greater detail. The photos were much bigger in file size, and a greater detail, meaning I had more leniency when doing major editing.

I also used a tripod for some of the scenes that I filmed, as well as for a majority of the photography that I have produced. This piece of hardware allowed the camera to achieve better framing of the scene or image.

In order to construct my main task (trailer), I used Final cut Pro X , since this was the only advanced video editing software that my school provided. I did struggle at the beginning, as I have never used the software before, but within a few weeks, I managed to get familiar with the basic techniques of putting the footage together. By the time I had to add the sounds and music as well as any titles, special effects and transitions, I had the hang of the software and didn't find any of it as difficult as the first time using the software alone.

Photoshop was my software best-friend by the time it came to making my ancillary tasks - magazine front cover and a teaser poster. I not only used the software before I began the course, but had the opportunity to practice through my foundation portfolio.