Evaluation

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

At the beginning of my project I researched the codes and conventions of film trailers. These codes and conventions included that, film trailers usually last from anything between 1:45 – 2:30 that way you get to see a decent length clip to get an idea of what the film is about and it doesn’t give too much away. I decided to stick to this convention because I wanted to make sure that people got the plot of the film and were able to see what the film is like without giving too much away. Another convention of film trailers is that the protagonist is usually shown first in a  close up, I stuck to this convention partly however I also added my own twist to this and I did this by having a Skype call between the protagonist and his best friend, this way the audience see’s both characters at the same time however the protagonist ‘Adam’ is taking up the majority of the screen whereas ‘Sam’ who is the co-leading role, is in the bottom quarter, this shot therefore show’s you who the main character is and the friend who will be helping him on his journey, according to Vladimir Propp’s character theory this would make Adam the ‘Hero’ and Sam the ‘Helper’. Because my trailer is in the horror genre, I had to research the conventions of horror films and decide how my trailer could stick to or challenge those. Conventions of horrors include, one of these is that the character forgets about the threat, and this happens within my trailer as when ‘Sam’ tells ‘Adam’ about the game ‘Slender’ in which the supernatural creature in the game stalks you and kills you and that there’s been some spooky happenings with it, he doesn’t care about the danger and he decides to play the game and like in other horror films, he ended up in a lot of danger because of his ignorance, I stuck to this convention as I felt like it was a huge convention of horrors and that it was vital in all horrors and if mine was to compete against others then I would have to be able to offer what they do. This convention is also matched with that a warning goes unheeded, and within my trailer I stick to this convention again for the same reasons, the part where this happens is when ‘Sam’ says to ‘Adam’ that he definitely thinks there’s something freaky about it, however ‘Adam’ dismisses the comment and plays the game anyways, I added a little bit of a change to this convention however as the person who gives the comment, ‘Sam’, also ignores the warning as he too plays the game however it has less consequence then to what happens to ‘Adam’. A convention that I challenged was that the setting was a secluded location, I challenged this as the location of mine is in a house in the middle of the street, and although there is a very narrow alley included in the confrontation you still see that at the end it’s just another street, there is also the fact that it’s not really dark when he attacks. The reason that I did this is because it makes it look like ‘Slender’ will attack at any time, and this will put people on edge as if it can attack at any time then people will have to be ready all of the time and this in my opinion makes it more freaky and this is why I have challenged that convention.

Editing in horror films is usually slow paced to start with and then ends up fast paced and this is a well-known convention, I stuck to this convention as at first we have the Skype call were it is very slow and there isn’t much going on, we then get the scene in ‘Sam’s’ bedroom which gets a little bit faster and after that we get the action clips which are a lot faster paced and end with a slower piece of editing which builds up to the big scare where ‘Slender’ goes at the comment and there is the loud sharp noise which accompanies it which adds to the scare.

When looking at conventions of my ancillary texts, I decided to follow a lot more than what I challenged, one of my ancillary texts was my film poster, conventions that I followed with that included, the main actor’s names in large text, I did this in order to coincide with other products and so the audience knew who was starring in the film. Another convention that I followed was that the title of the film is shown about a quarter up the page from the bottom and is made to look bold and very easily visible, I have done this because it will get the audience to look at my film poster and straight away they will know the name of my film and it will get them interested and will boost the amount of people that will want to see this. Another convention I followed was images that took up the majority of the page and in my poster there is the protagonist and the antagonist (again this is a convention I followed) and they are both very large images and take up at least three quarters of the page. I did this as like with the names it shows the audience the characters of the film and it will get them more interested as they will have an insight as to what the film might be about.

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

I think my products combine very well; my main product obviously explains what the story is about and what you could expect if you were to see the whole movie. My ancillary texts don’t provide as much information as this however you can get an insight as what to expect as they have the protagonist and antagonist which is featured in all three of my products which does make them combine well, combining all three of them by using the protagonist and antagonist is what I did as that is the main link, anything to do with the trailer should include the main characters of the film as that is what it is all about. Another way that my products combine is that they include the same techniques such as the text in both of the ancillary texts and at the end of the trailer is all the same and this links all three products together even if people don’t pick up on it, it still links them all together and people will probably pick up on it sub-consciously so if they see that text it will remind them of my products which will reinforce them to watch my trailer and look forward to the film. One thing in which the trailer and ancillary texts aren’t linked is that, the trailer is in colour however my ancillary texts are in black and white, this could send out mixed messages as people may think that the film is in black and white when really it is in colour, I took this into consideration when I decided to do this, however I decided that it wouldn’t be a huge risk and went ahead with it, this is because I think it makes the poster and magazine much more effective as it makes them look more freaky which is what the film is all about.

What have you learned from your feedback?

The feedback that I have got is from many sources, I have focused it mainly on my target audience which is the 16-24 age range however there is also some feedback from other ages. Some of the feedback I got was positive and some of it was negative and included things that I could improve on, one comment I got was about the northern accents of the actors which they said made them ‘laugh more than scared’ however when it got to the action bits they did find it ‘very good’, this made me think that if I had the chance to get different actors in who didn’t necessarily have such strong northern accents then I could have done that, or I could have got the same actors to try and put on a voice that sounds a bit more neutral so that it didn’t interrupt the film. Another piece of feedback I got said was the tweet by Emily Charlotte @MissLittleFeet, it says that it’s good and to make the aspect ratio wider so it fills the screen, I asked for feedback when I had a bit of trouble with the screen and making the trailer fit the full screen however it is now sorted so I took that piece of feedback and corrected my error. Another comment that she made was to add more close ups. I agree with this as my trailer includes a lot more mid shots and long shots rather than close ups; however I feel like there are a few shots which start off as long or mid and end up as a close up. If I had the chance to reshoot however I would put in a few more shots which were closer in to show off the emotion of how terrified the protagonist is. Emily also said that the soundtrack and the plot was very good, this is great feedback as she has highlighted specifically what she enjoyed most about the trailer. I got two more pieces of feedback off Twitter and these were from Phil Harrison @SilverTigerPhil and his said Great trailer, can’t wait to see the movie #DeNiro, this is positive feedback however it is very broad and doesn’t specify what is good about the trailer so although it is feedback I can use it isn’t great help. I also got a tweet that was very similar to that which was from Chris Jennings @chrisjennouk which said #Decent well done #Spielberg, this again was positive feedback which I could use to say that people enjoy it however it doesn’t have specifics as to whether people enjoyed a particular stylistic or a specific shot, this means it’s not a huge help. I put my trailer on Facebook as well which received 7 likes, which means that 7 people had watched my trailer and felt it was very good. Feedback that I received for my ancillary texts included 11 likes on instagram when I posted a picture of my film poster; this means that they all thought that my film poster was good however nobody left any feedback.  When I asked my class to rate my film poster 23 people out of 26 all agreed that they would rate it a 9/10 which is very promising and is very good feedback, some of the comments they left included, “I like that it’s in black and white, very spooky!” another comment said “The way you’ve got the gun to point at the audience is very effective and gets them involved straight away”. This overall was great feedback for my film poster. I did the same thing with my film magazine however 22 out of 26 this time said they would only rate that a 7/10 this isn’t as good as my film poster however it is still good, some of the comments that were left for this included “It doesn’t look as professional as it could do.” And also “It looks a bit to crammed.” If I were to change my film magazine I would re look at it and see whether there is anything I could take out in order to free up some space and try and I would look at more magazines and try and get mine to look as professional as there’s.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stage?

When constructing my product I used many pieces of technology, the first piece of technology used when constructing my product was a Sony HD camera which the college let me borrow. I used this camera to film the whole of my film. I had the choice of the camera I chose or the choice of two other little cameras which just used memory cards however the camera I chose to use picked up sound better so therefore since I had dialogue within my trailer I decided to use one of those. Whilst filming I also used ‘Skype’ which is a media technology which is used by friends to contact each other this is how it is used in my film trailer. Another media technology that was used during the construction of my trailer is adobe premiere pro CS4 which is an editing programme which I used in order to put my trailer together along with the sound. I used this system as it allows for many different uses of the videos; it has many different video tabs so that you can use more than one video at a time.  It has the same with the sound as well; it also has many different effects such as transitions that can be featured within the product you’re making. The media technology I used during my construction of my ancillary texts was a digital camera which was used to take the images that are featured on my ancillary texts. I then adobe Photoshop CS5 which is an image editing programme, I used this in order to manipulate my images so that they would look perfect when I put them onto the product. It also allows for airbrushing so I could airbrush anything that wasn’t perfect and I could also remove anything that wasn’t meant to be there. Media technologies I used during my research and planning included the internet and many different search engines which I used in order to find my planning, I used many different search engines as I wanted to make sure I looked everywhere to find the right research and planning. During the evaluation stage I used Microsoft word to write up my evaluation. I also used media technologies such as social networking E.g. Facebook and twitter when I was getting my audience feedback. Other technologies included an iPhone in which I used in order to get screen shots of the feedback that I got on the social networking sites, I then used the iPhone to transfer the images that I had screenshotted onto the computer and I then transferred them into my evaluation in order to show what feedback I got.

10 second trailer

30 second film trailer

My film trailer

The development of my Film Magazine

I decided to go for the same look on the front cover of my magazine as I had with my film poster, that way people could associate them with each other and it would be easily recognised. So I decided I would go for the same background as my film poster. Once the background was on I needed a name for my magazine so I went for Film Review as it's simple and makes certain that it is a film magazine, I then needed to make sure that the masthead was clearly visible so I needed a stand out colour, I decided on red because it went well with the black, the only thing was that the edges weren't bold enough and it didn't look like it stood out so I gave it a light grey border which makes it much more visible.

 

After getting the masthead to stand out I started to work on the very top of the magazine cover and I gave it a skyline, I thought of many things that I could include here and I decided to include my friends film trailer title into it, and so my skyline shows that you can get a free 'Inheritance' poster.

 

 

Once the skyline was in place I thought it was time to add my headline, the headline off my magazine cover is the title of my film therefore I imported my title in and placed it in the conventional place of where the headline goes which is about a quarter of the way up the page. I spread the headline across the whole landscape of the page to make it stand out more and make sure that it would be clear to the customer which film is being spoken about.

 



 

After I had added the headline I also decided to add some teasing content as well along the bottom so I thought just to make the writing stand out I would make sure that there was a definite black background so I added a black strip at the bottom so the white writing was made more visible. I decided that the teasing content I would add was, extra posters, interviews and competitions, I did this as because it is a film magazine this is what the customer would want to see.

 

 

Now that the majority of the layout had now been established it was now time to add the images, I added the exact same ones that were on my film poster as this is what usually happens on a film magazine when they talk about a new film, they usually just take the film poster and use that as the front cover and that is the path that I followed.

 



 

Once the images were added I thought it was time to put in what the magazine has to offer about the film, so I decided it would be an interview with the star and therefore underneath the headline I have included a quote from the star and this will intrigue the reader into wanting to read the whole article.

 

 



After the quote was put onto the front cover there were still sub-headings to add onto the magazine, the sub-headings had to apply to films as this is a film magazine and they also had to be interesting enough to entice the audience into wanting to read the articles. I also needed them to stand out so in the same way I made the masthead stand out by adding the grey border I did the same to the sub-headings so that they were easily seen.

 

 

I thought that I had finished once I had added the sub-headings but then I remembered a key convention to music magazines, and that is a barcode on the front cover, I decided that there was a nice gap to fit the barcode in the bottom right hand corner just above the teasing contents, on the barcode I added the title of the magazine, the price and also the date in which it is released.

 

 

Once the barcode was added I decided that I had finished my magazine front cover and that I had produced a magazine cover that includes many conventions and is a good copy of what a magazine cover looks like.





The development of my Film poster

As you can see in my previous post I had a choice of three fonts in which to use in my ancillary texts after I had chosen the one I wanted to use I started on my film poster, I looked at a few film poster such as:



After looking at these I got my idea on how I wanted my poster to look and I started with the layout of it, this ended up looking like this:

This shows the main conventions of a film poster as it has the title of the film in the bottom third of the poster which three of the four posters above have. It also has the text at the bottom which shows the actors, producers, director etc. It has the names of the two main characters within the film, which are the ones that will be featured on the poster. It also features a few quotes from reviews to show that the film is good and reviewers want to recommend it.The poster also shows that the film is out this fall, it comes out in the fall as it is a horror and it is more effective in this time period as it is starting to get darker and people will get more hyper reality from it.

 

I then went on to add an image and background onto it, now because my image and background are mainly black I had to change the colour of all my texts to white so that they stood out as you can see.

 

 

After adding this there was only one more image of the protagonist to go onto there and once added I put a black and white gradient onto there as the film is about a mystery creature which is stalking the protagonist so thereofre with the poster being in black and white it adds to the mystery.

 

 

This is what the poster looks like with the picture of myself added to it, as you can see the gun is pointing straight at the audience, the reference of this is to 'The Great Train Robbery' which was the first film back in 1903 in which at the end of it a man points the gun at the camera which makes it look like he is pointing it at the audience and shoots, which is like mine where the protagonist is pointing it at the audience.

 

 

When I spoke to my teacher about this poster they said they really liked it however as I was infront of Slender and I am the protagonist I should stand out more and therefore said I should try and brighten my face up more so that you can really tell i'm infront. I then went away and took his advice and did this

 

This is the exact same however I brightened my face and hair, it does make me stand out more however I feel like I may have made it to bright and ruined the image however it does bring me to the front more and make me stand out. I also felt like 'This Fall' was a bit to American to put on my British film poster so I decided I would change it to an actual date. The date I went for is 'Friday 13th September', this is because horrors are usually released between summer and autumn so I went for September which is just in-between those two seasons. The Friday 13th is because that is a date that is renown for being scary and having horror films released on that date.  

 

 

 



Update

I have hired a camera which I will be sharing with Sam Shaw for over the half term were we shall help each other film the remaining footage of our videos. I shall then come back to college and get my footage edited into my trailer and also begin putting pictures into the ancillary texts. 

Picture featured in the trailer

Within my trailer there is an image I have taken where you can see me in the forground and 'Slender' in the background. As you can see in my image I am wearing a T-shirt that says 'Franky says Keep me nut daan' which is used as instead of the protagonist getting involved in this game which has lead to him being stalked he should of just kept his head down and not got involved with what could potentially lead to his death. It also shows a pair of glass doors which shows that 'Slender' is only stalking the protagonist as there is something inbetween them so it can't get to him, however they're glass doors which means that it can see him and stalk him but not hurt him yet.

 

Just in case you couldn't see it, I've pointed it out for you.

Fonts for the trailer and ancillary texts

When looking what font to use for my trailer and ancillary texts I had a look at the website, www.dafont.com and on this website was a lot of different fonts in which you can use. I narrowed down all of these to the three I liked the best which were.

Figure 1.

 Figure 2.

Figure 3.

All of these styles are very similar, I chose this type of style because it's like it is handwritten therefore it makes it that little bit more freakier as it looks like Slender has actually written it himself.

My preferred one is figure 3. as I think that one looks the freakiest and it also stands out the most therefore I think it will increase the audience of the film.