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?

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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...

Poster - Final

As you can see below we were choosing between two poster styles. However we have now decided to go with the second poster. We chose this poster because as we looked at other film posters such as "One missed call" and The "Uninvited" it showed us conventions such as the name of the starring character and a big main image. Through this I learnt that looking at other horror poster and what they typically include it will give me a good basis for making our poster to a good standard. The poster includes various things such as who it is starring, the title of the film and the certification. This in itself sets is above the other poster we were considering because it shows more about what the film includes rather than the colours it contains.

The final production of our poster is situated above...

Poster Choices

After taking pictures for our poster , we narrowed it down to one picture but two poster styles.
We done two poster styles to show the choices we were considering. Below are the two choices we were considering. The first picture was our first style choice, we decided to do this poster like this because we wanted it to contain everything that a usual poster has included in the movie rating e.g. 5 stars. However the poster did look a bit to busy and therefore you couldnt really focus on the main image which should be the main attraction. So we therefore did another poster , which is the 2nd picture, this one was done in much more detail but it was subtle and included what we thought would attract the audience and be rated much more as a poster than the other one.

*Click on the pictures to enlarge it - to view it better*

Photoshoot Still Shots

As we are assigned to do a magazine front cover and and poster we decided to take a lot of pictures to give us a variety of shots. This gave us a wide range pictures to choose from and therefore we could see what our audience thought of our pictures and we could pick what pictures were more suited.

Above is a slide show to show the extra pictures that we took while shooting our photoshoot for the magazine front cover and poster. After looking at all the pictures we narrowed down the selected few.

Film Production Still Shots

Above is the slide show that I put together showing still shots of our filiming process. I decided to take still shots so that any clips we do not put into our trailer we can show through the still images. Although some of the pictures above are not ones we used in our trailer or for our magazine or poster front cover , I thought it would be significant to put it in the slideshow to show the decision we made as a group on what images to add to our final production.

Start of Production - Magazine Front Cover , Poster and Trailer

After doing my research and planning *which is situated below* it was time for me to start doing my production work which consists of 'Magazine Front Cover' , 'Poster' and 'Film Trailer'. So all the above posts will have my still shots from filiming , audience feedback and the final productions of my coursework. After all that I learnt from Research and Planning hopefully will help me get a better understanding of what my final production should include, from all the class work and group work to individual work, I have grasped what is needed to make a successful trailer and poster.

Evaluation of Research & Planning

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Above is a presentation I made on powerpoint and then put onto slideshare to discuss the process of what I have learnt through doing my research and planning. It answers questions about what I have learnt throughout this process. Through doing this presentation I could focus on all that I tried to do to make my final production have all the key concept it's suppose to have , this was enabled through the target audience profile , research into horror genre and planning my horror trailer concept I feel that it has given me a good basis to complete my final production to a good standard.

The 5 S's - Storyboarding

Above is a Slide presentation of my groups storyboard. When doing the story board we decided to plan it out how we would visually like it to come across in the final production. So the Slide presentation shows the stages of which we wanted each scene to come out. Next to each scene we wrote how long we wanted it to last for and what type of angle we wanted it to be shot.

The 5 S's - Schedule

After prepping for planning our trailer , we then sat down and decided to work out what days would be best for one another to get together to film , as we wouldn't want anyone to miss any days of filming. So from then we planned out what days we would be best to get as much done as possible. We firstly sorted out a day which we should by the costumes and the masks and all the props needed for the trailer. After sorting this out we then had a clear schedule of when we need to film and what times would be best to give that 'horror' effect (e.g after 8 ,when its dark and foggy). So after careful consideration of everyone in the group needs we planned when and where we would like to film and on what days would be best , this will ensure us that the film will be done to the best of our ability.

The 5 S's - Stock Characters

We discuss as a group how many people we would like use in our trailer. We decided to keep the characters quite minimal we felt the use of props & locations would speak for themselves.

The only form of characters we are using with speech is a reporter. This reporter is used to inform the audience this killing has been happening over a period of time & the people in the area are aware of the situation. We are going to use props to insinuate that a murder has happened or is about to. We are going to use a 'random' victim to just emphasise the amount of killings. Our main victim we are focusing on will be a girl, we want her to be shown as vulnerable because when we are challenging our stereotype the killer is going to be shown as very strong & the contrast between victim & killer will be emphasised.

Victims tend to be very vulnerable in horror films. The killer will be very different from our usual killers we see in films. Our killer is going to be femine she will wear a long cloak with red heels, red lipstick & long hair. She will be wearing a femine mask to keep the mystery alive. Masks tend to be used in films to do the exact same thing and I feel it keeps the story more alive when you dont know who it is. For example in the film "When a stranger calls" the man was not wearing a mask but his face was never revealed to the camera. Every other aspect of him was apart from his face & to me as the audience I felt this kept the suspense and intrigued me more.

The 5 S's - Shot List

As a group we sat down and decided on what shots were going to go 1st and how we were going to organise it in relation to filming. After careful planning we decided how we would like the shots to go and below is the organised shot list.

Before going into production it is vital to plan out how the movie is going to be shot. Directors always have their own planned out shot list for planning out the movies shot selections.

Above is the picture of our shot list (click on the picture , then click again to enlarge)

The 5 S's - Script

In our trailer there will be hardly and talking as we would like to keep it snappy and attracting to the audience. So because of this decision we made we decided to only let the reporter in our trailer speak about the 'killings' that will take place. So therefore the script below is only written about the reporter - which will contain overlapping voices of other reporters to create a sinster effect.

Reporter 1: (After the Dark room shot) * Woman's Voice* " Im standing just infront another YET gruesome murder. Last night another murder was committed at 11.54pm. A girl was brutly killed, she was thought to be ...
Reporter 2- *Speaking over* *Womans voice* "Another murder at 11.54pm another girl was kille left with no identification of who she is , she was thought to be...
Reporter 3- *Speaking over* : A woman was walking her dog when she found a girl covered in blood , it seemed that she been left here for quite some time , she was thought to be...
*VOICES ALL TOGETHER* : "Some are saying this is a massacre!!!!!"


(Example of a script)

Certification for Midnight Massacre 2

As a group we decided to aim our film at 15 years and over. We decided to do this because we feel that we will be covering a wider audience base , as that is the age that they are more prone to watch horror films. Also because our film will not contain any explict scenes or hardcore violence will feel it would be a suitable age to set it for.

Below is a classifcation outline of what it means for your film is your plan on aiming it and 15years and above.

BBFC 15 CERTIFICATION RULES:

These categories are awarded where the material is suitable, in general, only for those aged 15 and over. Works classified at these categories may upset children under 15 or contain material which many parents will find unsuitable for them.
The ‘15’ category exists only for cinema films. No one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult, and films classified ‘15’ are not recommended for a child below that age. An adult may take a younger child if, in their judgement, the film is suitable for that particular child. In such circumstances, responsibility for allowing a child under 15 to view lies with the accompanying adult.
The ‘15’ category exists only for video works. No one younger than 15 may rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video work.

Risk Assessment - Filming

When conducting a risk assessment, consider all the likely hazards, who may be harmed, property which may be damaged, and the controls already in place. Then, for each likely hazard, bearing in mind the controls already in place, record the ‘risk assessment’ level which can be seen on the following table. The further actions to be considered will be determined by the level of risk assessment.

(Click on the picture to enlarge it , to view the risk assessment)