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.