Evaluation

Our Evaluation from sarah pierce on Vimeo.

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

We used YouTube to help identify the conventions of a horror trailer so that we could use and challenge this in our own horror trailers. We studied trailers similar to our own and looked at what all of these trailers held in common. We found that mainly there was a lot of use of vulnerable girls, an antagonist and a victim. Other conventions were screaming, concealed antagonist and shots used in the evening. We noticed lighting was particularly important in the trailers therefore decided to focus on this the most. We felt that the darker shots were very effective as it made people want to see more and come closer to the screen this is why we darkened our shots, using colour corrector so that we could give the same convention. We also used a concealed antagonist, his face is never shown and we feel that this makes it even more sinister and horrifying and again keeps in with the conventions of a horror. Instead of just copying other trailers we wanted to adjust these ideas to our own and hopefully not just change them but make them better. We aspired to pick and mix bits from trailers to make the best trailer with the best parts. We feel that we have done this particularly well with the way in which our shots get faster and so does the music creating tension. This is a good effect and leaves a lasting effect on the audience where they want more or wish that some of the shots were longer. 

Our film poster uses many of the forms and conventions seen in real film posters, in fact we based our film poster on the one of the film ‘Sorority Row’ as seen on our blog on our powerpoint presentation. We felt that to make our poster effective and to convey real media conventions we had to use shots that were striking and terrifying. This is so the audience would be able to associate the conventions of a horror with our poster. We decided to use two types of pictures one from the past experiences of the girls and the other pictures of the girls being tortured. This is to show the contrast of both pictures and to give the illusion that they have been watched. We felt that the dark-moss background effect allowed our poster to convey better media conventions, through using photoshop which real media products are made on, to capture better quality images. The dark moss effect captivates a more dark, sinister look associating it with a real horror trailer. The burnt out film strips made the poster look more professional in that we didn't just copy and paste basic images we modified images to fit in with the conventions based around horror themes.

The text involved had to be considered carefully so that it looked effective and similar to the ones seen in real media products. We used a quote from the Sun newspaper, following the conventions of many media products this is so the audience is able to associate good publicity with a good film. The title Reunion had to stand out , like in most film posters. This is so the audience remembers the title and want to see the film in cinemas. The tag-line is something that we incorporated from the poster Prom Night, as seen in our powerpoint presentation, we believe that this was an exciting tag-line adding to the conventions seen in most media posters. The institution of information was vitally important, however because it is generally so small it was hard to study other film posters to use the same context. We felt that our institution of informations looks realistic and like the ones seen in real posters. We had to use a certificate as this is necessary for our target audience, as ordered by the BBFC a certificate has to be given, we rated ours a 15. 

Our magazine front cover uses and develops the forms in which are seen in real media texts. From analyzing professional magazines such as Empire and Total Films, we were able to convey the same layout which they presented. It is important to study these texts so that we are able to capture the same level of professionalism they portray. We incorporated the forms and conventions that are associated with Empire and Total Films in that we used a large bold heading for the front title which made it stand out. It was important to think of a magazine name which stood out and could be seen on the front cover of a real magazine. We feel that Boss creates a definite impact onto the reader and is direct. We chose red because this was a convention used in Empire which we believed was successful. In order to make our magazine convey the real conventions of a magazine front cover, we had to include bar codes, an issue number, date and website. This makes the magazine front appear more professional to our target audience. These are all conventions seen in real magazines. We decided to use a red border around our film title, Reunion. This is so the audience are able to better recognize the title and want to see it in cinemas. 

We used a large font for ‘Imogen Hunt’ as we feel it is important to include the actresses name so people can associate her name with the film. The way Imogen is standing, however, isn't a typical convention you might see on a magazine front cover, challenging the stereotypes. In most you will see the actors in costume or in a scene from the film. We decided to make our actress in more of a model shot, yet still making her look how she did in the film: hair messed and looking frightened. This is so the audience can see what type of film Reunion will be. Because Imogen was more of a model then an actress we decided to use her in similar shots to Megan Fox and Kristen Stewart which is seen on our blog site showing strong female characters in a posing figure similar to how Imogen is. We decided to use the quote line ‘The Queen Of Horror” to portray a better image, that our film has been publicly recognized, similar to how other films are creating their success. We chose to use ‘Boss’ Top 20 Movie Stars’ as it made the magazine look more effective as small extras like this are often included in real magazines, following the conventions.  

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

we felt that the combination of our ancillary tasks with our trailer was very effective, we spent a lot of time considering how we would plan these out and what we would include in them to make them suitable for our target audience. We felt that the poster worked especially well with the film as the title Reunion on our poster was in a similar font as in the film with the same colours. This we felt connected them, and made them more interesting. We included more exclusive shots in the poster which weren't in the trailer and put happy shots of them underneath the negatives, this we felt also worked well as it caught their attention and worked with the trailer to give them more shocking images that made them want to watch it more. We felt that our trailer was much more interesting with a poster and that it would boost sales as it acts as an advertisement to attract more of our target audience. We also felt that with our catchy tag line "a night to die for' added to this and worked well with the trailer as all the scenes in it are also set of a night. We created our magazine just after our teaser trailer, as the film is not out yet and to have an exclusive interview with one of the stars in it we thought would work well for out trailer. This is because it will create a buzz around are trailer and will encourage people to read it and be more interested and involved in the oncoming film. To also be interviewed by a good magazine and be on the front cover also illustrates that it is rated the best oncoming movie as only a selected view make the front cover. This will persuade more people to watch it as they will be satisfied that it is worth seeing by its already good ratings and a must see by Boss magazine.  

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Initially, for audience feedback, we created a questionnaire so that we could establish what it was our target audience wanted to see in a typical horror trailer. We handed this out to a selection of our target audience. We saw that many that filled it in were ranged from 15-29 which we thought was good and useful when classifying our trailer. Our magazine and poster also got great audience feedback, many when looking at the poster liked the way we used negatives and thought that the composition of our shots on their worked well togther. Our magazine created attention by the way in which we used our typography our target audience though that it was eye catching and knew instantly that they were interviewing a star from a horror film. Lastly they liked the way we kept our title of our magazine simple as they noticed that each week it would be the same therefore it can not look like a horror theme, although had to tie in with everything around it which it did. We also looked at a range of films with similar story lines to ours, using  the Pearl & Dean website to establish what types of people; age, class and gender would be most interested in this type of film. We discovered the typical target audience for Reunion would be 15-24 year olds of both genders. When asked ‘What have we learnt from audience feedback’ after watching our finalized trailer the majority of our audience was impressed. We also felt that we have learnt what conventions must be in place in our trailer to 'wow' and attract an audience, for example, you need quick rapid pace shots to intrigue them and make them eager for more. That is why at the end of our trailer we have included coming soon, and after a short pause an effective shot of a victim being violently grabbed, this affected many people who watched our trailer and truly gripped their attention. 

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

The construction of the trailer entailed the majority use of new media technology. This included use of Final Cut Pro this is for the main construction of the trailer itself. Once the footage had been filmed we had to transfer it from the camera onto the computer and execute it using Final Cut Pro when using it at first it seemed a bit tricky and hard to get used to but after using it consistently it became easier to manage. We put flashes in between shots using the dip to colour effect changing the colour to white, we felt that this was effective as it made the shots look even quicker and made people want to come closer to the screen. We also used it to change the contrast and colour on some of the shots so that they were all near enough black and white and to make them look even more darker. We did this as we felt that the shots needed to be dark for a horror and that they must be around the same level we did not want to include some colour and some not as we felt that this would confuse the audience on what time it was. Photo Shop was used for the poster and magazine front cover, again this was hard to become familiar with considering we had never previously used it, but with consistent use and help from fellow workers we got used to it eventually. We used various effects using Photo Shop we felt that the most effective was the way in which we used our background on our horror poster. This is because we put paint on paper and scanned it in, to create a worn down effect, we enhanced this by making three different layers on top of each other and changing the colour of each to ash, grey and brown. This gave a good solid and errie background to work on for our poster. 

The negative effect also used on the images of them being tortured is effective as it shows the contrast and enhances their facial expressions making it even more horrific. Overall we were very pleased from the outcome of our poster and magazine by using Photo Shop and felt that if any changes were to be made it would be the image on the magazine front cover; only because we felt towards the end a action shot of her in the film may have been more effective and appealing, although we did recognize that magazine front covers do not always use a image from the film. Garage Band was used for the construction of our music for the trailer. We had to use this because of copyright issues meaning we could not use music from other sources such as YouTube. We found this difficult at first but after playing around with it and seeking help from teachers we eventually managed to complete a soundtrack for our trailer.  We used many templates from Garage Band and put them on top of each other, we then mixed up some of the notes to make them our own and also changed the tempo at times and put voice over’s from the footage. We felt it was effective as we got the music to get faster as the shots got faster and we felt that the music truly fitted the footage once we had aligned it up and made sure that each bit fitted each clip. When we had to film we found it strange getting used to the camera itself and the tripod again after not have using it in a while, however this was not long lasted as we pretty much got the hang of it straight away again. Fortunately in our group of three we all held our strengths in areas which others didn’t which came in really handy. For example one of us knew they were better at filming and another knew she was better at editing. 

In the planning and research for our trailer we used various technologies for instance we used pages to print out storyboard templates and to create our script which was very handy as it showed us how they should be laid out, and what should be included. We also used a program on the Macs called Inspiration, which helped us to create mind maps to illustrate what a horror trailer is and the difference between a teaser and a theatrical trailer. We felt that this was effective as it made our blog more creative and eye appealing and was an easier way to explain what they were. We decided to make it even more creative by creating a power point presentation on our props, locations and actors. This made it more interesting to an audience however blogger did not accept these files therefore we had to improvise and screen grab each page in order to made it an image to put on to the blog, so that it still presented itself as a power point presentation. When analyzing horror trailers we used links so that the reader can know what we were looking at and we also used images from the film on our blog to create a visual effect again to make our blog more presentable. We used spider diagram to present all our ideas and graphs used on Excel to show the results of our questionnaire sent out to establish our target audience and what they were looking for. We feel that overall we have used numerous amounts of techniques’ and more to make our blog presentable and exiting to an audience and have gained much experience by doing so. 

Lastly in our evaluating stage we have used visuals before of our poster and magazine, which were produced on Photo Shop so that when we wrote about it they knew what we meant. We also decided to evaluate our poster and magazine separately and have talked about aspects of it in this overall evaluation. This is because we wanted people to be able to look at it clearly before the read it and so that they can read and scroll back up to our work. We used a voice over and our title Reunion to create this evaluation as we wanted to make it more personal and show our creativity, we have also included a write up of it below in case of any complications or if we cannot be heard.