Combination of Media Texts Evaluation
- 1. Abigail Murray How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? In the film industry, it is important for a film to be successfully advertised to its audience. The main way of making sure that the audience are familiar with a media product is to advertise it in a variety of ways and make sure that all of these ways link together through cross promotion. The link between each text allows the intended audience to create an opinion of the text before they actually decide whether or not to go and see it. Considering this, I knew that it was important to combine similar ideas from my ancillary texts when creating my teaser trailer. One of the main ways that I cross promoted my products was by using an identifiable house style. The way that I then decided that I could use my ancillary texts as influence, was through the obvious genre features that could come to be an identifiable house style. The genre features used in my poster were the colours used (deep red blood, black and red text and a dull/dark image), the blurred distorted edges of the image, the wooden sign as a conventional horror prop, the metaphorical “invasion” of “normality” with the car driving in to the village and the conventions of a film poster being the credit block, the title and the production logos. These are similar to the genre features that I applied to my website homepage – a dark background; a horror soundtrack as music; dark wooden background linking to the wooden sign in the banner; media ratings; and the social media aspect (twitter feed). The genre features that are obvious within my teaser trailer link to some of those that I applied to my poster and website. I decided to use the same soundtrack from my website as I felt it created a tense, horrific atmosphere and helped my website conventionally fit into the horror genre. This was a copyright free soundtrack that we developed by adding a variety of effects and another underlying soundtrack, helping to create pace and atmosphere. However, the original soundtrack is the one made clear and helps create the running house style between both the teaser trailer and the website. This was intended to be positive in creating a running theme for the audience to understand the style and narrative of the film. The low angle shot that I used within my poster seemed to work well in looking distorted and conveying the cult-like horror conventions. I decided that when going out to film some clips for the teaser trailer that experimenting with low angle shots could help me also apply this convention to the trailer. The fact that these shots are identifiable in the car sequence of the trailer links really well to my poster - helping to cross promote the film. For my poster I also decided to create a wooden sign with the words “Welcome to Woodwich” written on it, reminiscent of that from “Silent Hill” (2006). I liked the way that this prop worked and so decided to use an image of it as the banner of my website. The way that these texts linked together through this sign created the cross promotion that I feel was needed in order for them to look professional. Because of this, I knew it was vital for the prop to appear within the trailer. The only problem that I had was that we had already filmed the car crash sequence and we were happy with the shots, and so it wouldn’t be able
- 2. Abigail Murray How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? to appear during this. Instead, I had the idea of it appear as a running motif along with other cult-like props. This worked and helped to link the trailer to my ancillary texts. The final aspect of my ancillary work that I feel created an obvious house style was the social media aspect that was used on my website homepage and within the teaser trailer. I felt that the twitter feed that I used on my website homepage was successful in connecting with my intended audience as they should be interactive and involved with a variety of media. To help link this idea as a house style, I used the website address at the end of the trailer with the link to our Twitter with the hashtag (#WelcomeToWoodwich). I feel think helped to create the idea of the film being one big project linked together through the used of a variety of media products rather than having three separate media products created for a film. If I could further the work of each text then I would assure that they work together in promoting the film rather than acting as separate pieces of work. I feel that on the website, as well as displaying the trailer, we could use a link to a YouTube page that could display other promotional content. I had the idea of designing a week intended for our audience to witness small clips of the teaser trailer on each day. These clips could be featured on our Twitter page and so linked to the website homepage. At the end of the week the teaser trailer could then be released. I feel that this is a way of creating excitement around the trailer in encouraging more of our audience to want to watch it. It is also a good way of involving as much cross promotion as possible. However, I feel that the poster is much more difficult in working with the other texts in promoting the film. Because it is a 2D piece of media, it cannot be further explored and is designed to only be looked at, at a glance. Because the title that I used on my poster was not the one that we decided to use in the trailer, I also have the trouble of my audience mistaking the poster and the trailer for two different films. Because of this, I feel it is important to link the social media aspect to the poster in order to encourage our audience to explore our film and its promotional content. I feel it is the social media aspect of the ancillary work and teaser trailer that helps clearly target the intended audience most successfully. Because we are intending to aim towards a young audience that are frequent film and media consumers, I feel that making the promotional content as interactive as possible is important. The film is a 15 meaning that anyone above 15 can watch it, yet I feel the themes within the film would appeal to a younger audience. This audience would probably be users of Twitter or other social media and so connecting with them in media that they may use every day is a good way of making the film highly identifiable to them. The elements that I am most proud of concerning the combination of my ancillary and main products concern the way that I have dealt with the house style, the intended audience, the camera work and my use of editing. Using the colours red and black intending darkness and
- 3. Abigail Murray How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? blood helped me convey the horror genre whilst identifying a house style in each product. The way that I have portrayed social media in the twitter feed on the website home page and as text at the end of the teaser trailer not only combines each text to help link the film together as cross promotion, but it also is a way of me to capture my intended audience. This aspect was also important in my camera work as if it didn’t look conventionally horrific then I wouldn’t scare my audience. Low angle and distorted shots was one of the aspects that I was proud of as it pulls the horror genre through every aspect of the film, making it obvious as to which kind of genre it is. The final element that I am proud of is the fast paced editing that we intended to use in order to create tension and that I feel is successfully achieved. Although I couldn’t create a combination of editing throughout each piece, as they are different forms of media, I combined the website with my trailer by working around the soundtrack used on the homepage. I feel this gives the film a distinctive touch. Overall, I feel that the strongest piece is the teaser trailer as it combines ideas that I had during the process of creating my ancillary products and explores areas in which I didn’t have to time during the production of the ancillary work. One of these areas is the use of negative effects on images during editing. I had the idea of adding a negative of the sign in my poster but felt that it was too late to explore this in order for it too look professional. Instead, I used my sign in the trailer along with a distinctive object from the poster of each of my group (a voodoo doll, a mask and a child from the cult), where we added a negative, jump cut effect as a bridged montage motif. I feel the reason that the teaser trailer is the strongest of the products is that we learnt mistakes in the production of the ancillary work such as planning our time in a schedule or simply how to use programmes such as Adobe Photoshop. If I had to make improvements to one of my products I would choose my poster. I feel that this is the product out of them all that isn’t conventionally horrific and the one that contains the least cross promotional content. I could have possibly used my image on a black background instead of featuring it as a background itself. I feel that maybe then it would have linked to the house style of the dark colours used in my website homepage and teaser trailer. I also feel that in the poster there is not enough made of the wooden sign. Although it was the poster that was my original idea for using the sign, in the trailer it is significant as a motif and on the website homepage it visible as a huge banner and matches the wooden background. I feel that blurring the rest of the image and making the sign more evident may have made the poster much more engaging and the narrative more identifiable. Finally, I feel that the skills development that I have learnt throughout the creation of my ancillary work to my main product proves that my main product is much more professional and the strongest of the products. The way that I used research before creating my teaser trailer was almost done when researching for my poster and website as the horror conventions and audience research was to be exactly the same if I wanted each text to act as an ensemble. I researched into the
- 4. Abigail Murray How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? BBFC and how I should portray a 15 film as well as considering the idea of a young, mostly male audience. My research into the theorist Susan Hayward and her work on sub-genre that I did for my poster was developed into my trailer as I had a good understanding of the sub-genre that I was aiming to look like. I also feel that the way I planned my teaser trailer was heavily influenced by the production of my website and poster. When I went on the shoot for my poster at Saddleworth Moors, the weather was really bad and I felt that it was very far away to get to. Because of this, I spoke to my group and we reconsidered going there for the filming of our car crash sequence. This proves that the production of one product helped in the planning of another and meant that we were fully prepared to film. My technical competence has developed fully during the process of my advanced portfolio and I feel this is due to the combination of programmes that I used in order to create each piece. The skills that I learnt in Adobe Photoshop came from a workshop that I took part in yet I feel the actual production of my poster was that where I learnt most of my skills by making mistakes and overcoming them. Some skills that I learnt in making mistakes was how to layer, the difference in brushes and how to successfully save a piece of work. This fully helped me and my group when creating the title for our teaser trailer as we had learnt from our previous mistakes. Making an animatic before creating our trailer was aimed to see the piece as a whole with music to see if we felt it would work. However, this process was successful in developing my skills in Adobe Premiere. I now know how to successfully upload content and edit to a pace with music and video. In the future this could be helpful in uploading small clips of a teaser trailer to a website in order to combine each piece of media. Finally, I now know how to use a professional camera in terms of framing and holding a shot. Going up to Saddleworth in bad weather and trying to get a good shot took a lot of time and taught me that framing is very important. This was again made important when editing on Adobe Photoshop and so taught me to be very precise with the camera whilst filming in order for the editing to be made easier and the piece to look more professional. Overall, I feel I have cross promoted each piece successfully and professionally in order for the products to look like promotional content working as an ensemble in order to promote a film. If I could do it again, then I would be sure to use content from my poster in the website homepage and teaser trailer in order for it to look more like a piece made for the film.