Evaluation

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

Our horror film trailer conforms to the majority of conventions that you would typically see in an existing horror film trailer. These conventions include lighting, editing, back tracks, voice overs and characters. The lighting within horror trailers is always dark as to play on the audience with the common fear of darkness and what's beyond. We made sure that our lighting was dark enough to get this effect but not too dark that the camera couldn't pick up the filming. Conventionally, the only light source in a horror film trailer is dim and perhaps flickering, so in our trailer we had a dim spotlight hovering over the victim, an effect created by taping a torch to the ceiling. We used the light from mobile phones to help get the perfect lighting whilst filming. Another convention of horror film trailers is that the editing is usually slow with long, lingering shots that help build tension and suspense for the audience. We conformed to this by not using quick editing or snappy shots. These kinds of trailers are conventionally quiet, perhaps with eerie music and sound effects such as a heartbeat or footsteps. We also conformed to this convention by having no dialogue and a quiet, creepy back track of a piano for an eerie atmosphere. We also had a voice over on our trailer, but this slightly subverted the conventions; horror trailers do have voice overs but they tend to be deep voice American men telling the audience when the film will be released in the cinema. Our voice over is a monologue being read by the actor playing the villain, and is all part of the storyline in the trailer. Within horror films there is typically a male villain and a female victim, a convention brought about by ancient stereotypes of men being powerful and women being weak.
We also had to make a film magazine cover and a film poster. For the magazine cover we had to consider colour, mast head, fonts, continuenty, main image and much more. Looking at existing film magazines such as "Empire", we noticed that the colour scheme is dependent on both the genre of the featured film and the colour of the main image. This meant that we had to focus on the main image before considering the background. The image we had chosen was of our villain in his black and white suit and top hat. Mode of address is dependent on the character, but as he is the villain, we decided that direct mode of address would be the most chilling for the readers. His black and white chilling look led us to create a black background with a grey-white smokey effect. Conventionally, the mast head of the magazine is at the top, left corner of the cover, so we conformed to this and named our magazine "Aperture". We made sure that all our text was a reasonable, legible size and kept to the same fonts for continuenty. The headline on most if not all film magazines tends to be close to the bottom and central, cutting across the main image, so we conformed to this with the headline "Black Magic Preview". More conventions we found whilst studying film magazines was that there would be a banner at the very bottom displaying extra features of the magazine, a bar code, the date, issue number and price. We made sure to add all of these typical conventions, displaying the price as £2.99.
We looked at existing film posters and studied their conventions before creating our film poster. These conventions were that the tag line appears at the very top of the poster and the main image fills the page. Towards the bottom is the title of the film with the actors names in small above it. Below this would be the small print, production company's logo, a website for the film and the certification of the film. We conformed to all of this, our tag line being "One hell of a show" and our main image being the villain's head made up of words. We made the background dark to suit the tone of the film so our text was either white or red. We used the "DM Studios" logo, and certified the film as 15 with the added information that it "contains scenes of graphic violence". Finally, we added www.blackmagic.co.uk to the very bottom and our conventional film poster was complete.

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

For the coursework piece Daniel and I chose to do, we had to create a film trailer as well as two ancillary texts which were a film magazine cover and a film poster to compliment the trailer. These additional texts help to make our main product seem more effective and realistic. Creating not only the trailer but also a poster and magazine cover meant that we could show how we can use a range of software and it expanded our knowledge of media production. Combining both the main product and ancillary texts also shows that we were aware of their separate conventions, such as the editing of a horror film trailer being different to the editing of a film magazine that features a horror film. Expanding our knowledge and range of skills increases our chances of creating a brilliant piece of coursework. We made sure that our product and texts had continuenty, sticking to our 'minimilistic' and 'subtlety' throughout their creation - for instance, the simple black, white and red colours of the poster reflect onto the magazine. Using the ancillary texts shows how we understand the steps taken within the film industry, how the marketing process works, and that a trailer would not be the only advertisement for a new film.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our focus group enlightened us as to what was good and bad about our initial storyboard and trailer ideas. Most of the feedback we were given was good, although we were told that if we could add more props into the trailer such as a magicians box, it would have more of a magic feel. After considering this, we realised that we didn't have these kinds of props to use and so this idea had to be scrapped. We were also told that the title screens didn't look right with the light bulbs making up the words, because it looked to glamorous and not scary enough. When it came to making the title screens we ensured that we listened to this advice by using a blood effect on the words. Now the words melt away on the screen in a more sinister fashion. We were told by three out of four of the members of the focus group that they would want to watch the film if they saw the trailer. The one who said that she wouldn't watch the trailer said that it was only because she doesn't like horror films, but otherwise it was good.
Before the special showing of our film trailer, Black Magic, Daniel and I handed out questionnaires to a range of genders and ages so that we could gather audience feedback from not only our target audience, but others too. We discovered that the majority of the people who filled in a questionnaire enjoyed the trailer and would watch it if it were a full length feature film. Only one person did not want to watch it if it were an actual film. Although our target audience were teenage boys, over half of our feedback came from 18+ females, which shows that even people beyond our target audience enjoyed our trailer. Just under half of people said that they don't normally watch horror films, yet as I previously mentioned, 90% would like to watch a full length film of the trailer. We asked our audience about what they liked from our film trailer and the responses were that there was good acting, a dark feel, it was mysterious, it didn't give much away, it was engaging, there was good camera work and that it was professional looking. We were given some constructive criticism which included bland voice over, not 'magic' enough, needs more tension and to give more away. This last comment conflicts with previous praise that the trailer was good for not giving too much away, therefore we have to dismiss both comments. We also received a comment that the lighting wasn't good as the trailer was too dark, and although we appreciate that it may have been dark, any lighter would not have created the horror atmosphere we were looking for. 90% of the people who filled in the questionnaires said that the poster complimented the trailer and people commented that it was spooky, eye-catching and professional looking which made us feel that we had created an appropriate poster for our trailer. We were given the criticism that it didn't directly relate to the trailer, and that it could have been misinterpreted as a sci-fi film poster. We think that this may be down to the style of our main image, with the floating head of our villain made up of words - the script from the monologue. From our audience feedback I have found out that on the whole, the trailer was well received with only a handful of criticisms. If we could go back and improve, we would make our monologue more intriguing. Our target audience enjoyed the film trailer, as well as others we hadn't targeted.

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

I used the Internet to research other horror film trailers in order to gain a full understanding of their forms and conventions. I did this through You Tube. I then took the URLs of each trailer I chose and put them on the Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation that I had made that discussed the forms and conventions of horror film trailers. I would discuss a trailer within a slide and then click the URL so that my classmates could watch the trailer and understand what I mean. For the research of film magazines and film posters, I used the Google Images search engine. Our teacher had previously printed off some examples for us anyway, but I needed to research horror film posters and magazines in particular. We recorded our focus group onto Garage Band on the Apple iMacs; unfortunately our focus group recording was lost and cannot be retrieved, as I explained in an earlier blog. We filmed our trailer using a Sony Handy Cam HDR-SR10E Camera. We used this camera because it had full HD capabilities and large space to store a large amount of movie files from our excessive filming sessions. We used a tri-pod during some filmed sessions to prevent our shots from being too shaky. To record the monologue we used Daniel's iPhone 4s as it has incredible recording capabilities and a Garage Band app. We transferred this recording from the app to iTunes so that we could easily add it to our trailer. The script of the monologue was on Daniel's iPad 2, and not on paper, because it would reduce chances of background noise such as rustling of the paper. To create our film trailer we used Adobe Premier Elements because we felt that it would be more efficient than using Windows Movie Maker or iMovie - though later, we switched to Adobe Premier Pro as it could offer us more in terms of effects and controls. To create our film magazine cover and film poster we used Photoshop because of the various controls and effects it offers. We felt that it would be more efficient than using Microsoft Publisher. Before the special viewing of our film trailer we created a questionnaire on Microsoft Word to gain audience feedback. Obviously, I have kept track of my entire project using Blogger, and have also uploaded my evaluation here. Finally, we used Windows Media Player and VLC to play our trailer on. We went to the auditorium in school to show our film trailer on a large cinema-style screen using a computer and a projector. We did this because the trailer, in reality, would be shown during the advertisements in a cinema, so we wanted to right atmosphere for our target audience. Without the use of all of the technologies I have mentioned, our project would have failed and we would not have been able to create our final film trailer, film magazine cover or film poster.

Finished Product - 26/04/12

Today we finally finished our trailer, poster and magazine cover. Below are the images of the poster and magazine cover and a link to a video of the trailer that we posted onto YouTube after asking for permission from Scott: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WENFS6h4gao

Monologue - 24/04/12

On the 20th of April, last Friday, we attempted to record the monologue and the footsteps for our film trailer - the last thing we need to do for it to be finished. At first we wanted to record it in one of the exam rooms of sixth form so that we would have complete and utter silence, however the room turned out to have too much echo. We were using a microphone that Daniel owned, but it wasn't very good and picked up lot's of static. We moved to the social area of sixth form (which is currently empty due to the exam period, as students are spending their social time in the study area). The microphone still picked up a lot of static and it was difficult to record without people walking in and ruining it. We got the best take we could, but later discovered that it was't good enough to go onto the trailer as the sound was distorted by background noise.

Today we decided to try to record the monologue once more, this time in the drama hall where we had previously filmed the villain's walking scene, and instead of using Daniel's microphone we recorded the monologue on his Apple iPhone 4S, which turned out to be a lot better at picking up sound and the static levels weren't as bad. It took us many attempts but we finally recorded it. We then recorded the sound of Scott walking across the stage to use as our footsteps sound effect at the end of the trailer.

Final Editing - 14/04/12

With all of the filming done we decided to edit everything together. We went through all of the footage of the villain and picked the 'walking scenes' that we thought looked the best and began to cut them into segments, putting each segment in between a clip of the victim, to achieve the beginning of our storyboard where it cuts from the villain walking to the girl squirming. We added a fade effect to the end and beginning of each clip, a well-worn editing technique used in horror trailers as it creates a slow, drawn-out feel which adds to the suspense and tension. This sequence will continue until the pivotal moment of the trailer - the villains first reveal, where we see his face for the first time. This was filmed using a panning shot, swooping the camera from behind the villain, to eventually look round at his face where he was smile maliciously and tip his hat.

After completing this, the editing was finally over. All we had to do then was add sound onto the trailer but first we must record the monologue and the villain's footsteps. We found an eerie tune of a piano to play in the background constantly, instead of Placebo's "Running up that Hill" which was our initial idea. We added a 'boom' sound effect to the title screen that displays the title of the film melting away in blood, in the hope that it will impact on the audience with a sudden silence.

We will add the other sound later though the use of foley.

Magazine Cover - 29/03/12

Today is the last day before the easter holidays which will last two weeks. It is daunting to know that after the holidays we will have only two weeks to finish our coursework completely, so today Daniel and I really wanted to crack on with things. We have finished our poster, the film has been completed all except for the sound effects and monologue which means that all is left is to do the magazine cover. We will be finishing the sound editing of the film at a later date when we have the equipment we need, i.e. a microphone.

We encountered a problem with creating the background that we wanted, however, as we had no internet to help us. We definitely want the background to have a mysterious, smokey effect, but this cannot be achieved without having use of the internet for help, advice, and effects that can be downloaded. We tried many times to use the tools provided by photoshop, but nothing worked for us. We can't do anything else to the magazine cover until the background has been done as that is the first layer, so we had run into a deadend with this issue. We decided that we would instead find the image of Scott that we wanted to use and cut it out ready for when we could do the magazine cover. After cutting it out with the magnetic tool, we used the smugde brush tool to airbrush Scott's face of any blemishs, as would happen to an image being used for a real magazine. After we had done this, we didn't have much else to do.

We passed the time productively by experimenting with different music whilst watching our film, to see if there was anything better than what we already had. After much deliberation, we decided to stick with our original ideas.

Preparing for Evalution - 22/03/12

In today's lesson our teacher gave us all a sheet of paper with four questions on it. These questions, when answered, will be our evalution for our coursework. We were told to begin writing up drafts of answers for these questions so that we can later blog our full evaluation. These questions are:

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

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

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

The questions will require a lot of thought and detail in order for my evalution to be addressed fully. We were also given a sheet with a checklist to help us to organise what we have and have not done. The checklist was split into different categories: planning, main product, ancillary texts and evaluation. Each of these categories has a checklist below it. For planning, the checklist consists of: initial ideas, initial research into similiar products, focus group findings, storyboards, drafts and powerpoint slideshow. I can tick all of these except for focus group findings. Main product has only one item on the list, obviously, and that is the fully edited video. I cannot yet tick this. Under ancillary texts is: poster, website, magazine cover and radio advertisement. Only two of these apply to us and that's poster and magazine cover. We can tick of poster, but have not yet completed the magazine cover. We cannot tick off anything from under the evaluation category, as this is audience feedback which we can only get after the video is completed and premiered, and the answers to the four questions I mentioned above. I haven't started these questions yet.

The majority of the checklist has been ticked off, so I am well on my way to completeing my A2 Media coursework.

Feedback - 15/03/12

In today's lesson we decided to get some feedback on our product so far, as we had practically finished editing the trailer, aside from the monologue and sound effects, and our poster was complete. We set up the trailer, turned the volume up and let our fellow classmates and teacher watch it, asking for honest opinions and constructive critisism so that we may be able to apply any advise they had to offer.

After the screening, we recieved very positive feedback as a response, with comments such as "palpable tension", "very good lighting" and "brillantly shot". There was no critisism for our trailer, which we were very pleased about. A few were particular amazed by our title screen, where the words "Black Magic" melt away like blood. Now all we have to do is record a voice over for the monologue and add in the sound effects of footsteps and a muffled cry; after this, our film trailer should be completed and we can then concentrate on the magazine cover.

We have been working on the film poster throughout the lessons where we were unable to edit. Fortunetly during today's lesson we were able to finish the development of said poster. It has a black background, with half of our villains face made up in words and the other half fading to black to give a 'floating head' effect. "Black Magic" is in large text below this image in dark red, and the actors names are above this in white. Below the title is the smallprint, in white, the font of which took us ten minutes to find and perfect - we wanted to look as professional as possible, and all the smallprint on film posters is the same font, no matter what the genre. We then added "DM Productions" logo and the age certificate of "15 (some scenes of graphic violence)" at the very bottom, with "coming soon" in red also at the bottom. We asked for feedback, as well as suggestions for what the tagline should be. We already had "a hell of a show" in mind, but we wanted to know what our peers thought.

We were given two suggestions; for our tagline to be "it's going to be one hell of a show" or simply just "one hell of a show". In the end, we went for the former, and put it in red at the very top of the film poster, above the image of the villains face. It was also suggested by one person that we have a different image of the villain, where he has his top hat on and is pulling it down at an angle, but as no one else thought that our original image looked bad, we decided to ignore this advice. We want to keep our poster simple, just like our trailer and magazine will be, and so there may be such a thing as too much if we change the image to the one suggested.