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

The media technologies I used were a Kodak 12.2 Megapixel Digital Camera, a Tripod and a Sony video camera. I used the Kodak 12.2 Megapixel to take pictures for the magazine and poster front cover because it has a larger amount of megapixels so that the quality of the pictures will come out better. Then I used the Sony video camera to film the trailer. I used a tripod whilst filming to keep our shots steady, where needed. To edit the trailer I used iMovie HD.

For my research I used the internet to look at film posters, film magazine covers and teaser trailers so that my 3 media products would end up looking realistic and professional, although I still needed originality for the group trailer. Our film trailer was an original idea and my magazine and teaser poster are promoting my original film idea. For my magazine, I needed to follow conventions to keep it looking realistic and professional. I was not allowed to copy images and other things from magazines, it all had to be 100% my very own original work, but I was allowed to make my magazine look like existing film magazines layout. I had chosen to make my magazine look like the Empire film magazine, as it had all the conventions that would be good to use in my magazine front cover. Conventions were also needed such as a barcode on magazine, release date, price and issue number. This was also done through using the internet by looking at and annotating pictures, watching and analysing trailers and reading and analysing text on posters and magazines. For research, the hardware I used was an Apple Mac computer and the software I used was Photo Impact for my magazine cover and poster. While using Photo Impact I found it easier and more professional to use. As I know I am not that good with Photoshop I didn’t want to waste time by trying to figure it out so I decided to use Photo Impact as it is similar and the magazine and poster looked very professional. I researched into conventions, which involved looking at and analysing real film posters, magazines and trailers over the internet.

I copied some real magazine covers and posters into PowerPoint and did a voice over explaining the codes and conventions that it had on it and what I could use to make my magazine and poster have the right conventions to make it look professional. I then saved them and copied them onto my blog.

For the teaser trailer I researched into conventions of teaser trailers. Planning for the trailer was mostly discussing with the other group members where, when and how to shoot the trailer. We created a list of actors, locations, props and costumes needed so that we were organised. I created a shot list time table as such, which told us which characters, props and location were needed for each shot. We also created a script for the characters in our teaser trailer. As a group we planned a name of the magazine and we decided to base our on ‘Film Flick’. Before I started work on it and I planned to use a temporary picture which I found on the internet so I could have a rough layout on what I wanted my magazine to look like once I had my own images. I planned the picture for my magazine to be a close up of the killer with a mask which was placed on the side of the front page. There was not much planning which needed to be done for my teaser poster because during my research I found out that there wasn’t much to a teaser poster as they are pretty basic. All I needed to do was use the conventions I had developed my knowledge of.

The conversion of technology such as the use of camera phones , ipods and new editing software, has helped me with audience expectations as my target audience are more prone to use such technologies which they can relate to. Using modern technology such as ipods and new mobile phones to record responses from my audience , has helped me to understand the connection between my target audience and my product.

Evaluation Question 3. - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is very important when creating my main product and ancillary texts because it helps me understand who my target audience are and what things I need to include in my products and what things I need to change and adapt to make them perfect for my target audience.
Before making any decisions about my film I needed to identify with my target audience, I did this by making a video which I posted on my blog, in this video I asked people what they would like to see in a horror trailer. I decided to do a video and not a questionnaire because I feel it is more effective and different to typical audience feedback techniques. From these feedback videos I gathered the majority of information that I needed to fit my final trailer around what the people said in the video. Also the feedback from the videos I done regarding my horror trailer showed that my target audience prefer psychological horror rather than slasher horror, I tried to relate my horror trailer to this theme to gain more audience expectations.

I made a facebook fan page for my horror poster and magazine front cover and got audience feedback which is situated below, the audience feedback showed me exactly what my audience was looking for, and the feedback for my poster was really positive and the ideas we did. After showing the final ancillary text to my related target audience I found that all the ideas that was on the poster was what my target audience wanted to see and that showed that the video we done before we completed the poster was a good choice as it gave us an idea of what they wanted.

I also put the magazine front cover on the facebook page to get audience feedback and which is also situated below; the audience feedback was quite different to the one I gained for the poster and my target audience did give me some constructive criticism.
All the feedback that was given I agree with as I do feel that the magazine could have been simplified to make it easier to read, this would have been something I could have developed on to gain audience expectations.

As I got feedback from Facebook about my ancillary task, I decided to do a video feedback about my actual trailer.

Below is one of my classmates watching my trailer on the computer, which I videoed. After she had finish watching it , I asked her questions about what she had thought about the trailer.

The answer are below the video. The answers are not in a video format I wanted to show a variety of different techniques to blog.

Response:

Naresa: " I really enjoyed the trailer , I found that it had good use of rapid shots which made me want to carry on watching, also the use of music in the trailer was used very well as it fitted perfectly with each shot. The only criticm I would give this trailer is that some bits were quite confusing and I didnt understand the link, but that being said it is a teaser trailer and i did feel teased which made me want to know more about it but overall nice trailer , and I wouldnt mind seeing this in the cinema"

As I said above I wanted to use different styles of blogging my audience feedback. So now that I’ve used facebook (social networking site) and video feedback, I decided to use YouTube as a final technique to try and get good audience feedback. My YouTube feedback is situated below and it shows various comments of the trailer from my target audience.


I feel that YouTube commentary is very effective as since YouTube is video sharing network which people go on to view videos and share their views on it. So I decided to upload my video onto YouTube and send the URL Midnight Massacre YouTube URL to my target audience so they can give their feedback. I found this easy to do as most of my target audience have YouTube accounts so it was very efficent for them. The change in technology convergence has allowed people to view and share their videos and pictures which I also have learnt to do during my process of my production work.

I feel that having audience feedback has been a positive thing because it has helped me see my ancillary tasks and main product more clearly and I would have found difficult to see the evaluation without having other people’s inputs. I also feel that having audience feedback will help me understand even clearer what my target audience wanted from a poster, magazine cover and teaser trailer and to know that if I was to release these tasks as a real media product my target audience will be interested in the franchise.

2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?

View more presentations from nessasary.

Overall , In my slideshare presentation I wrote about the link between my anciliary task and my main task. As written in my slideshow I wanted to show a distinct link because it was important for me to give my target audience what they expected which I outlined in my slideshow.

I wrote about what my intentions were for the main theme throughout my main task and my ancillary task. I wrote about why I decided upon this theme and what effect it would have on my final production.

My slide share consists of what I intended my final production and my ancillary task to be like, hopefully with a clear link between the two.

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

Evaluation Questions on Prezi

In this prezi presentation , I outlined the effect of my trailer and what the lighting and mood does for the trailer itself. A big influence on the audience’s decision on whether or not to go and see the movie, as without realising, it gives away pieces of the story line, the genre, and the movies’ atmosphere as a whole. Also I discussed about the poster because. While analysing other movie posters for horror movies similar to my own, I found they tend to use very dim colours. I feel colour is very important in creating the atmosphere of the all the characters in the movie. Therefore, I chose to go with the dim colour idea as it will be very important in creating the atmosphere of the movie. I felt this was an important convention in advertising my poster as I felt that dim colours would be a popular idea in the market and therefore would be much known to the eyes of my target audience. Another topic I wrote about in my prezi was the magazine front cover, with this I decided to write about my choice to use a full picture rather than a cut out of a picture. Also I wrote about typical conventions of magazines I analyzed and the effect it had on my magazine.

Final Draft of Horror Trailer

Above is my FINAL production of my trailer. As seen below we did a 1st draft that we looked at and saw what was good about it and what was bad. After considering the pros and cons of the 1st draft , as a group we started to edit around the trailer, as this is the final production there is a big improvement and it hopefully meets the criteria of an teaser trailer.

1st Draft of Final Production

Above is the 1st draft of my horror trailer as this is not the final production there will be some faults in it. I feel that doing this first draft has helped me understanding the mamy faults that are in the trailer , it allowed me to either cut down or add more clips to the trailer to make it more effective. Whilst looking at the 1st draft of my trailer I went back and did a little more research into other teaser trailers just so that some of my ideas can stick into my mind so I can apply them to my actual trailer. The trailers I looked at were - "Paranormal Activity" , "Twilight".

Magazine Front Cover - Final

After careful consideration about our magazine front cover , as a group we sat down and looked through old magazine front covers such as "Empire", by looking at "Empire" we could establish a key theme between the main character infront of the magazine and the theme of the magazine background. This enabled us to see how the main character and the magazine layout both interlink, when anaylsing this magazine we came up with themes of our own and we tried to show a link between the magazine front cover and the trailer. After we planned out this we started sitting down and designing the front cover, whilst thinking about the strapline , title and picture we completed the final magazine front cover which is showned above...