Evaluation - A2 Media Coursework

Trailer In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products My trailer starts as any conventional trailer does, with the main character – This allows the viewer to pinpoint the character they should be looking out for throughout the trailer. Before long, my trailer starts using narrative to continue the trailer – This conventional. In my case, I added a little bit of mystery to keep the viewer watching. Sticking to conventions my next step was to introduce the villain of the trailer – Obvious by the low voice, change in music and mise-en-scene (He is wearing black clothes – The slippers add mystery to the character. The mysterious character seen here was given his main debut as a ‘bad guy’ when the music changed to a more threatening piece… The scene cuts as soon as he is revealed – To keep the mystery here.

Trailer In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products Using text on a trailer is very conventional – This isn’t the first time text has appeared in my trailer although this text signifies a change in the trailers theme – Now the thrilling aspect of my genre will be exploited. A whole range of different clips begin to play, one after the other – Each with something horrifying or thrilling happening. Whilst this fast paced scene in my trailer is taking place, the music picks up to match the images. This part was important as I wanted the audience to see a helpless main character begging (Who we assume is the villain) for mercy. The return of the villain, his hand gesture in this shot shows that he has power and is in control being lit from behind makes him more of a spooky character. I couldn’t resist using a chase scene in my trailer – Even in early plans, I was always going to film one. In this shot, notice the character that stands out is one that has not been introduced. I cut this characters scenes from my trailer – But notice how they hold each other – This suggests a possible love interest. The colour red provokes mystery. A chase scene is very conventional and was needed to show my main character in jeopardy.

Trailer In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products After another talking scene between the main character and the villain, I cut to a shot which is fairly conventional – It’s of the minion getting closer to the camera whilst finally falling to the ground and looking into the lens – This is threatening for the audience as the character is effectively looking at them. Over this scene, I use the voice of the villain to narrate “If you die in the dream world, you die in the real world” – This was originally my slogan for my film. A shift in power is noticeable during this scene because I used a very cliché method of using the camera at a low angle and bringing it up to above the actors head into a high angle shot. This shows that after the “if you die” speech, the main character now knows his place.

Trailer In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products This scene is one of my personal favourites and one of the more effective scenes in my trailer… The main character slowly approaches the mysterious figure we have seen throughout the trailer – And after some time of waiting, causing tension in the audience, the main character places his hand on the mysterious character’s shoulder, prompting him to turn around and go to bite his hand. This scene was one I had planned from the start because it both thrills the audience and scares them at the same time. The title of my film appears, this title took me a while to think of – When I thought of it, it was perfect. It fits in with my trailers story as well as provoking irony. Night-night is usually a term associated with the phrase “Have a good night”. Unconventionally, but not unheard of – My trailer returns for one final thrilling scene of my main character by a tree panicking, as the camera pans to the left it reveals my mysterious character as a zombie.

Trailer In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products Overall I would say that my trailer uses many conventional techniques but is NOT a conventional trailer. My trailer has the conventions of other trailers, but not all from the same category – I wanted to portray two sides to my trailer, horror and thriller , and I did this by taking conventions from one and mixing them with conventions from the other – This cause the unconventional trailer that I have. The overall ‘feel’ to my trailer is quite conventional as it starts slow and slowly works it’s way to being more fast paced and thrilling. My trailer then starts to become unconventional as it works it’s way back down to being slow paced whilst keeping the horror theme. After the end title roles, my trailer returns, although this is unconventional, the scene that it shows is rather conventional and linked to the horror genre. Other than my main character – There are two other characters, my ‘Villain’ and the ‘Zombie’. These characters might seem like generic characters for my genre, but together they are unconventional because my villain represents horror and the zombie represents thriller.

Poster In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products My poster does not challenge the forms and conventions of other film posters because it follows a similar layout. On each of the posters I have on this slide, they all focus on one object, an object that has a direct link with the films title and story (Although the images on my poster do not link to the title, they are of great relevance to the story) . The colour schemes of the posters are very similar. I have used a very dark background and so have the other posters, they also feature the colours grey and white – With one using the colour red for extra effect. My poster and “The Ring” poster both have a slogan that sounds like it is directed at the reader. This makes the poster more threatening and gives a more clearer view of what the film genre is. At the bottom of my poster I have the text which tells you about the cast and crew of the film, as well as the production companies – This is seen on the other two posters. As well as this, I have a website and some company logos – This too, is conventional Overall, my poster is conventional with unconventional aspects thrown in. The faded image of a face in the background is unseen in other film posters but the arm is in other posters as they all have something to focus on – A threat.

DVD Cover In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products As like my poster, my DVD cover doesn’t challenge any forms or conventions of other DVD covers, instead, it goes with the flow. When you compare my work with other DVD covers you begin to notice some common traits. On the right of the pictures, the front of the DVD covers there is the main image related to the film. The image usually displayed here is very similar, if not the same, to the poster – I have gone conventionally and made sure that this is the case with my DVD cover as well. Oddly enough, the text on my cover is at the bottom whereas on “The Ring” it is in the middle, and “Devil” is at the top. This shows that the title of the film can be placed anywhere and still remain conventional. The other DVD covers pictured do not have a review from a person on front but on my blog I have a post which shows that the Paranormal Activity DVD cover has reviews on the front [Link] . As well as this, my DVD cover has the main actor’s names as well as the director’s – This is present in “The Ring” cover, but only the director’s name is on the “Devil” cover. On the left hand side of the pictures, the back of the DVD covers, the content is more or less the same, showing that my back cover is quite conventional. The major differences are the layout of the information – But that seems to change from cover to cover anyway. My DVD cover back concentrates more on the story – This is the effect I wanted as my trailer is very story related. The spine of my DVD cover also has an age rating where as in the other two pictures, they do not. This is something that just happens to be on these two as the age rating is something that is very conventional for a DVD cover. Overall, my DVD cover follows the general traits of other DVD covers that I have researched into. Other than some minor differences, all the relevant information seems to be present.

Magazine Cover In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products I would say that my magazine front cover is rather unconventional and tends to challenge and develop the forms and conventions of other magazines more than my other products. The first thing that you see when you look at the magazine covers is the picture that is used as the central item. The image used on my magazine cover is immediately different because instead of it being central to the magazine, it is at one side – This is something that I chose to do because I want to keep the mystery element there in my magazine cover. The next thing that people tend to look at is the title of the magazine, to the right I have used ‘Empire’ magazine as my example magazine. Compared to these covers, my magazine is conventional as it puts the title in the same place. I tried my title in many places before settling on the middle, I needed it somewhere that was space efficient and still looked professional. The information around the outside of the picture is what is seen next – I have stayed conventional with this information – using subtitles and blocks of text underneath. The information at the bottom explains what else is in the magazine, written in the same font as everything else, as well as the barcode. My magazine also has the issue number and date – Something the other magazines do not have. Overall, my magazine cover goes for a more conventional layout – Even though some aspects develop conventions – Such as my main image being displayed to the right, instead of being central.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? My main product links in with my ancillary products because of the fonts used and the images mirroring a scene happening in my trailer (Pictured below) From my trailer The reason why the images on my magazine and DVD covers are different to the trailer, is because I wanted to make the ancillary products more threatening and scary – Through these products I can only portray one image and so I decided to use one that will shock the people who look at it. My poster uses a different image, the outstretched arm and the faded image of my protagonist in the background, I did this because when the arm is not stretching out to anyone, it puts the viewer into the position of the poster and shocks them more.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? My products also use the same text font and style – I did this to, again, link all my products together and make them more effective. I needed to make it clear that all my products were for the same film and other than the images, the text was the next best place to start for this. I went through many fonts to find the one that I liked – As you will see on my blog. I wanted to font to look sensible whilst keeping it’s cold look and sharp tone (Representative of the trailers setting). Magazine DVD Poster Trailer

What have you learned from your audience feedback? I tried to get audience feedback as often as I could on my products, and the feedback I got was often very helpful and enabled me to continue the production of my products whilst keeping my target audiences ‘wants’ in mind. Some of the negative things they pointed out are listed below. The key is listed below too, click [Link] to be linked to my blog for the feedback. Trailer feedback [Link] – Poster feedback [Link] – DVD cover feedback [Link] – Magazine cover feedback [Link] – Overall My peers told me that my original cut of my trailer needed to be longer, and so would be a good idea to film more scenes, I fixed this problem and went out to film more. My audience did not like the music in some parts of the trailer as it cut off abruptly and sounded wrong; Not only this but my video transitions were doing a similar thing and my peers pointed out that the transitions needed to be smoother. A couple of my peers didn’t think that it was scary enough to be a trailer for a horror film and that I need to add more scary scenes and less action scenes. They commented on my title font being tacky, I changed this immediately as the text is a very important part of my trailer. It was said after my first draft that there was too much space around the edges of my poster and that it would be better if there was a picture of some sort of texture there. Just like my trailer, my peers said that the font was too basic and didn’t represent the horror film that I am advertising. Some of my audience commented on the lack of a slogan – This was something I was quick to add because I thought a slogan was a brilliant idea to represent my film – “Don’t fall asleep” was my final decision. After my first DVD cover draft, there was some confusion among my peers as to why there was a settee in the woods. It did not server the purpose I originally put it there to serve. A main point that people pointed out was that it just wasn’t scary and looked far too friendly, when compared to other DVD covers, even I agreed. After my first draft of my magazine cover, peer feedback told me that the image used, although good, needed to be darkened a little bit because it is too bright to represent a horror film. I was told that the image also needs to be moved over because the arm is on his shoulder and this needs to be exploited more. My audience also told me to remove the “today” bar from the bottom because it was just taking up space, looked tacky and did not match the theme that I was trying to portray . Overall, my peer feedback helped me a lot because they could point things out that perhaps I did not notice because I was making them. As my peers are a similar age to me and the age group my product is for, they were the perfect people to give me feedback.

Construction and Research How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Trailer When I was in the researching stage I used the internet to look videos that I could evaluate, this required going to many websites. When I wasn’t on the internet, I was looking at trailers on DVDs. When I had done the research I used Blogger to upload it all. To record and edit the footage for my trailer, I used a couple of media technologies – Both hardware and software. To record the footage I used a camcorder equipped with a tape, and a tripod. I used a computer to store the footage on, to do this I used a fire wire cable to get the footage from the camera to the computer, as well as some software – ‘Pinnacle Studio 12’. From there, I used Pinnacle to select the footage I needed and then exported the file to my memory stick. I then used my home computer to edit the footage, using the ‘Adobe Premiere Pro CS5’ free trial. I used blogger to upload my footage online. Ancillary Products During the research stage I used a computer and the internet to find pictures that I wanted to evaluate, to do this I needed to visit many websites. I posted all my research to Blogger. When I was making my ancillary products I had to use some designing software and so used Macromedia Fireworks 2003 for school, and then at home I used the Adobe Fireworks CS5 trial so that I could continue work. When I needed to take photographs for the products, I used a digital camera, then used a USB cable to transfer to the computer and a memory stick to take them home. Adobe Premiere CS5 Pinnacle Studio 12 Adobe Fireworks CS5

Planning How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Ancillary Products When planning my products, I used Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 and the Adobe Fireworks CS5 trial for working at home. I used these products to plan because I needed to create drafts of my ancillary products. When I had done the drafts I uploaded them to Blogger Trailer When planning my trailer I had to make a storyboard. I drew the storyboard frames out in Macromedia Flash 2004/Adobe Flash CS5 trial and then copied them over into a Microsoft Office 2003/2007 PowerPoint presentation so that the frames are easy to flick through. To post the storyboard onto Blogger I had to use SlideShare. Microsoft Office 2007 PowerPoint Adobe Flash CS5 Blogger Adobe Fireworks CS5

Evaluation How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? For my evaluation I, again, used Microsoft Office 2003/2007 PowerPoint. I used the school computers to do this on. When I was done, I used SlideShare to upload the file and then I embedded it to Blogger. As well as this, I also used a camera to record an interview that I did with a friend where I was asked questions about my trailer. Microsoft Office 2007 PowerPoint Slideshare Blogger

Evaluation - A2 Media Coursework

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