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

When I had chosen to make a trailer, I started off with watching a different range of trailers. Ones that use lots of short clips and ones that perhaps used just one long clip as a cliffhanger. When I planned to use the horror genre, I studied not just the trailers old and new but their budget, their success and whether that film has be re-made. As I found it interesting how a different director could take a existing film and change it, make it more modern, more successful and use different forms of conventions to make it more scary. I Googled and used websites to get inspiration and ideas for the ancillary tasks, looking at posters and magazine covers on not just horror films but other genres too, to see if I could work with both and make a unique set of tasks.


I used email on Youtube to ask permission to use the owner of our audio. I used email and text with Tyler (camera man), Matt (actor), Annabel (partner) and others working on the trailer to inform them of and changes in ideas, dates, location changes and any other important information to do with the trailer.


We created a easy to follow questionnaire using Microsoft word as it was quick and easy for us but also simple for the person to fill in. I also used Word to create the risk assessment as that was also something that needed to be kept simple and easy to read, as we also looked back at it now and then. I found using online graph makers was the easiest way to make the pie charts for the questionnaire results as I would put in the information and the graph would would be created for me, I could have used power point but I felt using the online program gave me more control over the options on what my graph would be like.


For the construction we used two different cameras to film it with, to get different camera angles on the same shot. When it came to the lighting we in fact used two phone torches, this worked for us as we didn't want our scenes to be bright. If the scenes were that little too dark we knew we could brighten them when editing.
We used Premier to edit which is full of options and effects. As I didn't want our trailer to be heavily edited, I mainly used the fades, to fade clips in and out and the slow motion settings. It became most useful when coming to audio as you could be really precise on when the diegetic and non diegetic sounds are fading in or out. I could also remove them completely from a certain clip once I had taught myself how to do so. All the audio sounds and music I used were off of the Youtube video mentioned.


Both ancillary tasks were created in Photoshop. We were both familiar with Photoshop so felt this was the best program to use. We used a range of tools, from simply cutting part of a picture to the more tricky job of brightening and removing the background of the magazine front cover, which at first (due to lack of light when shooting) was too dark and untidy for the cover.


 We have used this Blog to update our work to show our progress and changes. Even the little Blogs are important. For example when we have an idea and then do the write up of it later when it is complete. I have enjoyed using the Blog as it is easy to access and me and my teachers can look back at the work that I have already done. I can also use the Internet easily for help when posting and create drafts and come back to them in a later date and complete them.

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

This is the image we chose for the start of our trailer, it think it's important to begin with the certificate so that the viewer of the trailer is given the correct information about what is about to be seen, what the sort of target audience is to be expected and can almost get themselves ready to watch the trailer but making sure there watching the screen (where ever it may be) and sitting comfortably. Our reason for using the green certificate banner is because when researching horror films, most of the film companies used it, it's popular and recognisable.

When discussing camera angles and editing for the trailer it was clear the best option to get an effective trailer would to edit in quick, snappy clips and film at dramatic camera angles, using mainly close ups throughout. Doing this also can get a lot of the story in by giving clues, but not by showing too much of the actual film. We discussed and tried other techniques also but we went for the idea we originally had, although some other changes were made to the editing aspect, like after viewing some clips we decided they would look better in slow motion, to create a more dramatic, important feel to that particular clip.

We made the risky decision of covering the main title with the picture, but we came to the conclusion that the magazine would have already had issues out, so it would already be a well known film magazine. There for people would already recognise the title whether it were covered slightly or not. In some cases the buyers of the magazines will have had there eye drawn to the pictures or text if it is of particular interest to them whether they are a frequent buyer of that magazine or not. So this is another positive reason for having the picture over the top of the main title.

 

 

 

It took a lot of re-arranging to get the look we wanted for our poster, I wanted the bottom of the picture to be the main focus and use more of the top part of the picture to be the plain background to add text to. But during the editing we found there was too much text to all be gathered at the top which caused it to look messy. We have followed the forms by having all the credits at the bottom of the poster. The left leg is bent almost in a creepy looking way which causes the very centre of the picture to be mostly empty, this means looking at the picture you look else where. We have successfully made the viewer view the top first were the skirt and title are seen and follows the bat and right leg down to the blood and other details in black.

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

Just like the shots in the trailer we wanted the ancillary tasks to catch the audience's attention. We used a long shot for the establishing shot as this would show a simple but nether less interesting background, it also shows the character and including the bottom of the skirt suggests the character is female. Having no face included on the poster makes the viewer want to see more, you get a sense of uncertainty looking at it. All three ancillary tasks include obvious features as to what film it is and I think that they all match well without being too similar to each other.

Although we wanted both pictures to match in some way, we didn't want the character on the magazine front cover to be in character, we wanted it to be more about the actress herself. But because we wanted them to match (so our target audience would recognise them easily), we have taken a prop used in the trailer and posed the actress (me) in a way that she wouldn't be posed in the film. We have also used red detailing on the magazine front cover to match the cartoon looking blood seen on the film poster and clearly shown the face of the actress, so people that have already viewed the trailer will recognise the actress and will pick up the magazine. I think the picture we used for the film poster is successful however it isn't clear that it is the same main actor, as it consists of just my feet/legs, however I dressed in the same outfit as the trailer for this shoot so that the audience recognise that its is the same character. Increasing the constrast when editing shows the darkness in the film and suggests horror and drama.

The use of colours is important. We have used white to make text or pictures stand out but at the same time making sure there is still the dark element. The white background makes the magazine cover look clean and proffesional and the white text on the film poster brings out the title clearly over the picture. The actors names are smaller and in black as we wanted to keep the more obvious text very simple, so have kept the most important parts (the title and realise date) in white at the top.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Right at the beginning we did a simple questionnaire to help determine our target audience.
We then created another more detailed questionnaire where we were able to see what our target audience enjoyed about horrors and what they didn't enjoy about horrors so we could really focus on starting to create a trailer that would suit there feedback, so when showing them the finished product we should get a good reaction.


We showed our friends which were around the same age as our target audience more so around the end stages of editing. Comments from them were positive, but we had some comments on things we could change, these were mainly from the students interested in film or that took media studies also. We took this into consideration, as we want to listen to our target audience as much as possible. We also felt by getting someone to check it was a good idea as there could be little mistakes in editing we have missed out as we have watched it through so many times whilst editing. For example in two different clips filmed on different days there was different items on a desk in the background, Annabel had noticed this but I had not during editing. So we filmed it again and changed it. Professional film makers get there progress checked for mistakes and improvements by lots of people so we felt this was necessary. When we had completed the trailer we showed a similar group and some other people of different ages (15-28), there feedback was positive, including our classmates which were working on similar projects. We also found on doing this that even people outside our target audience main age found our trailer and the story interesting and said they would watch it.
Throughout the filming of the trailer we showed our two teachers certain clips for feedback and ways we could improve them if we felt they would need re-filming (we discussed this with them). Also throughout the editing stages we would ask them to watch what had been put together for feedback on how the editing is going and generally to see how we were getting along.


Targeting young adults and teenagers as apposed to families is something that becomes successful in the film industry. As this audience has more of a disposable income, they can afford to go to the cinema and buy DVDs as they will make a small amount of money through a job, ema or money from parents but will not be paying bills and buying food as a family would. A family may not have as much time or money to take several trips to the cinema in a year. And usually younger viewers at the cinema would go with there parents, which would mean only young teenagers from age 15+ would go to the cinema by themselves.