Evaluation Q4 .. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?

During this courswork process I have used various forms of media technologies in the construction of research, planning and with the evaluation stages. This ranges from drawing shots and uploading them as an animatic to using computer software to edit my work.

My research consisted of looking into a number of different films from my groups chosen genre, horror, and then using the information we found to create our own ideas for our own teaser trailers. My research was conducted by using various internet search engines such as http://www.google.com/ and http://www.imdb.com/ (internet movie database website). These websites helped me look into the oldest and most recent horror movies, as well as looking at reviews and ratings. I used these websites to download images of film posters and magazine covers for my research and to record it onto this blog (which is another form of technology i have been using to record information). I also looked at audience feedback which benefited me in the later process of creating our own teaser trailer. Some of my earlier research was also presented on a powerpoint presentation which was then uploaded onto this website (http://www.slideshare.com/) so i could add the link to my blog for others to access it.

I also researched the official websites for the magazines 'EMPIRE' and 'LITTLE WHITE LIES' amongst others to create a draft for our magazine cover.

During the planning process I used a digital camera to create stills of my storyboard. I then uploaded the images and created a basic animatic using the software Windows Movie Maker. The benefit of having the animatic was so it would give my group and i a rough idea of what the teaser trailer would look like in its final stages. I also took photographs of my storyboard and shootingscript using the digital camera to upload onto my blog.

In the construction process many different technologies was used to create all three projects. For the teaser trailer, digital video cameras was used along with accessories such as tripods and lights etc. This enabled us to upload all the shots we created onto a Ulead editing software. We each took turns in reordering the shots and then using the tools to create various effects such as cuts, fades and captions.

I browsed through a number of websites to find copyright material to use for our sound effects and soundtracks. We settled for a few sounds that we found at the following site:

http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/

I inputed the sounds into Windows movie maker, edited the file so it contained only the few seconds that we actually wanted and then made that particular sound longer so it stayed on a loop for our teaser trailer. i then saved the new file and uploaded it onto our teaser trailer. A mic was

We set up a photoshoot to take pictures for our poster and magazine front cover. We used a Digital SLR camera to make the photographs look more professional. We obtained many lights to create silhouette effects, and then took turns in taking the photos. The photos were then uploaded onto the system and we chose the best 2. Then, using Adobe Photoshop we edited each picture for each piece. we used several different tools including the text tool, and materials to create the film poster.

For our logo we took digital still images of a picture of an animal, and then uploaded them onto Photoshop to reshape the image using the crop tool and other tools and changed the colour to make it look more realistic.

Our magazine cover was also created in a similar way using photoshop. We used various editing tools to create titles, shadows and credits.

Foe evaluation a number of software materials was used. I used www.blogger.com to store and upload all my posts, images, videos and powerpoint links. This included links to slideshare where documents were also kept. i took pictures and uploaded the images as blog entries. These included images of screenshots, location, scripts and storyboards.

Overall i think that my project was successful and that my group and i used the technologies and softwares appropriately to create a good quality promotional package.

Evaluation Q3 .. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In the early stages of production we showed our unfinished work to peers and other people around the suitable age range of 15+. There was much positive remarks on the post work, and alot of people gave positive suggestions and feedback as to what changes we could make to make it a successful teaser trailer. Some of these suggestions included:
"To add more sound effects. The trailer seems to quiet and not in a good way"
"Make the teaser trailer shorter. Its too long"
We took into account both the positive and negative feedback to come up with the final production.

In order to gain feedback on the final product i created a questionnaire and emailed it to 5 people who had viewed the teaser trailer. The questionnaire can be found at the website below:

http://www.slideshare.net/xnazx786/cdocuments-and-settingsadministratormy-documentsshort-questionnaire

the responses i received from the questionnaire were quite positive, as 80% of people said they would recommend this to a friend.
I asked the 20% that said they wouldnt recommend it to a friend why they wouldnt and their response was:
"the content is not very detailed.. it didnt interest me enough to want to watch it again. it does not feel realistic enough to me"
i did take this into account as constructive criticism.

On the other hand some positive feedback included:
"Great suspense. love the build up towards the end.. leaves you wanting to actually watch the real thing!"
"I really enjoyed this. The soundtrack and sound effects really worked with the build up from the captions and pace, GOOD JOB!"

I have learned from my feedback that the effectiveness of our use of technology was successful in appealing to the right audience.

If i could have made any changes it would have been to create more realistic sound effects.

In order to gain feedback on both the magazine front cover and film poster we each made 2 rough copies of each 1 on paper and then showed them to other people. We chose the one that gained more positive feedback and created the image that was drawn using photoshop.

Evauluation Q2 .. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

i have formed this question and answer into a powerpoint presentation which can be found at:

http://www.slideshare.net/xnazx786/cdocuments-and-settingsadministratormy-documentsevaluation-question-2

Evaluation Q1 .. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product, being a promotional package of a film teaser trailer, used and developed forms and conventions of real media products in a number of ways. Our product is based on a short teaser trailer called 'The List' followed by a film poster for its release and a magazine cover for the 'after effects' of the films release.

'The List' - TEASER TRAILER

'The List' used typical conventions of a horror film. This instantly gave my group and i the colour theme for the teaser trailer, film poster and magazine cover, a dark/low key and shadowy theme with some flourescent lighting to produce larger shadows.
We did through research into what sort of things would be found in horror trailers, and saw that the majority of them were based in dark scenes, so this was ideal for 'The List'. We were particularly interested in the film trailer for 'The Ring' as it had similar conventions to our own teaser trailer. This included the low key lighting, the captions and the pace used.

We maintained a standard teaser trailer length of roughly 50 seconds. We aimed to keep the teaser trailer short but still grab the attention of the audience.

Our setting is based in a school. This is made clear from the classroom and hallway as well as the use of a school desk as one of our props. It was Holly's idea to use the desk as a major prop, and with the help of Chris and Jay we all managed to scratch a number of names into the desk to create a realistic effect whilst filming. The group effort was proved to be successful according to some of the feedback we gained. Other props included a hoody to cover the main character to make them anonymous to the viewer. Keeping the main character anonymous is also our USP of the film teaser trailer. This created enigma throughout.

It was my idea within the group to create anticipated captions to build suspense (similar to 'The Ring'), and as a group decision we decided to create a lack of continuity in the teaser trailer as a typical horror convention. This was also used to create suspense and tension. The lack of continuity began with the longshots in the first few scenes, and as the pace quickens throughout, more close ups were filmed of the main character towards the end. The long dark corridors was also used to make the audience feel uneasy. It also showed the isolation that the character feels, and so we used it to make the audience empathise with the person. There were many fast cuts produced within the whole teaser trailer, and the use of it was to keep the viewer interested and
alert at all times.

We wanted to film a few scenes with the charcters feet and shoes walking in the corridor but eventually rejected the idea as it was pointless to have it and added extra time.

The colours of red and black in some of the scenes connotes danger and blood.

We did not add any dialogue into the teaser trailer, but instead replaced it by eerie sound effects. This included irritating scratching noises in the background as well as a monotonic dreary tone that can be heard faint in the distance. We used these sounds to make the audience feel uncomfortable and alert at the situation.

Below is our final product for the teaser trailer:




FILM POSTER

We aimed to comply with the typical forms and conventions of a horror film poster. After extensive research into posters for films such as 'The Ring', 'The Grudge' and 'The Knowing' we finally created our own on Photoshop using the following forms and conventions as a guide:

• Colour code of poster. This included our dark eerie theme. Dark contrasting colours to reveal isolation of the character
• One main image. We used our main character whos face is hidden as our main image
• release date. Most film posters consisted of a set date, but as we researched we saw some only showed a month or season, so we decided as a group to make it 'HALLOWEEN 2010'
• Production company, director, producer etc usually in a small bulk of text at the bottom of the page. Ours was also placed at the bottom of the page. We included our names as directors, actors etc
• Logo. Our logo was designed from an image that we found on a hoody. We took the image and re edited it on Photoshop to make it our own original work
• Large title. Ours was written upon the desk that we used as a prop during the teaser trailer production, however, we used photoshop to try and create a realistic effect
• we used a bold font that was dominating, but still looked attractive

MAGAZINE COVER

For our final piece of work we were asked to create a magazine front cover. We looked into many major films magazines such as 'Empire' and 'Total Films' as well as a few niche films magazines such as 'Little White Lies ' and 'Sight and Sound'. We then used the examples we saw to create ou own magazine cover. We made sure we kept the following forms and conventions:

• Masthead - the main title of our magazine cover is 'CHILL' - a special horror edition to the 'magazine'
• strap lines - the strap line to our magazine cover is intially the words 'horror edition'.
• date - we created a date leading towards halloween for readers to anticipate the oncoming release of a new film.
• splashes freebies and competitions, using these attracted a wider audience
• a barcode and price - as seen on all magazine covers
• Colour code depending on genre (ours horror, so darker, disturbing colours like red and black to connote evil, death and blood)
• Promotional features like actors, reviews etc- we acknowledged these ideas but decided to use other popular horror films as our promotional feature
• one predominant image - ours was of our USP, an image of the person that we took during a photoshoot we set up (the main cjharacter in a hoody)

below is an image of the final magazine cover product:

Magazine Research & Planning

Below is a link to a presentation i created on magazine reasearch.

http://www.slideshare.net/guest2d216db/magazine-research-3635078

My group and i looked at many existing magazine front covers on film magazines ie; Empire, Little White Lies etc.

We then annotated the conventions ie; the strapline, title, information on other features etc and identified the main conventions of Horror film magazine covers such as the colours - black, white and red and the layout etc.

Film Poster Design; Research&Planning

Our second coursework piece is to create a film poster based on our teaser trailer. For planning, My group and i looked at many existing posters from the same genre to compare the typical conventions found. we discovered that most film posters have the major image as the main character, and possibly the surroundings being a key place in the film.

I have added a film poster for the film THE RING 2. i chose this film poster particularly because it is rather similar to the teaser trailer we have created as it includes an isolated female character with her head down. The colours that are used immediately tells the audience that this is a horror movie. Also, the colours are rather chilling which is the kind of effect we want to create with our film poster. There is little detail in writing which makes the film poster even more intrigueing.

'The List' Shooting Script

'The List' Storyboard