Evaluation Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Q4

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback? (not complete-need help with this one)

Throughout this year when creating my film trailer and ancillary tasks, audience feedback has been a very important part in developing my products, it has played a very important role as my target audiences opinions on my products are the main thing I look at and take into consideration when designing and creating them. This is because my audience tells me what they would like to see and I try to achieve these things tailoring my products to what my target audience wants to see.

When creating my trailer I created a drafted an original version that showed the basic outline of what my trailer would look like and also outlined a basic plot. I then showed this draft to my target audience who gave me advice and their preferences on how to improve it.

From the feedback that I gained from this draft, I discovered that changing some of the things that my audience told me to change actually benefited my trailer a lot, having these opinions on my trailer made me realize that certain features on my trailer were not as good as I thought and that other peoples ideas and improvements hugely changed the outcome of my trailer for the better.

As a class in school we went through each other’s trailers, all the students in my class were 17-18 years old, which is within my target audience. They gave me further improvements on my trailer that I could make, an example of one of these improvements is that my trailers inter-titles had a different and unusual font compared to my actors names that had a different font as well, they did not like this so as a result I changed them and have since asked my audience what they think the new inter-titles look like, the majority of the class preferred the newer inter-titles compared to the old ones. This is very pleasing as it means my audience likes my trailer much more than they originally did, meaning if showed to a much larger audience then the majority would like it and would hopefully like to go see the film, which is obviously the main aim of a trailer; to go and get people to see it.

As for my ancillary texts, I printed out copies also asked students within my target group what they thought of them, I also showed students my products on my computer screen. They all had opinions of their own over my products, but over all picked up on the same points which were: Different use of colours, different use of fonts, different positioning of the image and the general layout of the products. When talking to people about my magazine a recurring feature that kept coming up in my audience’s comments was how my magazines masthead didn't suit the magazine and how it didn't flow well with the visual syntax of the page, In response to this I have now changed it to a more appropriate font that not only goes well with the rest of the page but also fits in to the style of a film magazine masthead instead of looking like an out of place piece of text.

Final poster with improvements

Draft final magazine with improvements made

Evaluation question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts?

Final DVD cover improvements

This is my final DVD cover, throughout the process of making this cover I have found it much harder to make than my other texts as it required a lot more time and thought to create. Not only did it involve more text on it but the general process of designing the cover took a lot of thought. When creating this I looked at existing film magazines, such as 'Empire' magazine, this was a huge help as it allowed me to take inspiration from existing media products to aid the construction of my own product. I tried to keep the front cover of my magazine simple as I did not want it to be too crowded with information because when I did my audience feedback a common criticism was that existing products had too much text and pictures on  the front of DVD's which made it unappealing to look at. The back of my DVD cover however has lots of information on it, this has gone down very well with my audience as they thought it had a very authentic and professional look.

Evaluation Question 1: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

Created with Padlet

Before creating my media products I did a lot of research into existing film trailers, mainly within the slasher horror genre, I looked at film trailers like Scream and Nightmare On Elm Street. This allowed me to gain a wider knowledge of the various conventions that are featured within them. Within the first 15 seconds of the film trailer an appropriate audiences slide and also an production company logo. The audience slide lets the audience see who is able to watch the film and the company logo lets the audience see who the production was made by, this is a very important convention as it also promotes a company and if the audience recognizes the company and perceives it as a well known and trusted company the will have more faith for the film and trust it to be a good quality film. 

The first shot in my film is an establishing shot, this shows were the film is set or a focused location with importance to the film, I have challenged this convention however as I haven't included a huge establishing and it does not appear for very long like most films, the most important feature within my shot is the text on the building which reveals that it is a school. As the trailer goes on I have adjusted the brightness and contrast of shots to make them appear darker this is to give a darker atmosphere to my trailer and emphasize that it is a horror film, this is a common convention for the horror genre is general as darker colours are always related to horror films and are interpreted by audiences as being 'scary'. 

I feature lots of objects withing my trailer like weapons and also Nathans mask, the mask is a very common convention of horror films, especially slasher films. Masks are used in lots of slasher films to make the character look more frightening but also to hide the identity of the character, this is the exact reason I have followed the convention as I feel it does just that within my trailer. With out the use of the mask within my trailer I think that it may not be viewed as a horror at all so I find this a crucial convention.

Around mid-way in my trailer my shots begin to get faster, I did this to create a more exciting and thrilling trailer, many horror films do this as people already know the general underlying theme of horror films so many shots are shown to reveal all of the best moments to attract audience members towards the film> I have used this convention to do this and also to make my trailer fast paced and jumpy to show the audience that it is an exciting and thrilling horror film. 

I have gone against some conventions however as I have not featured a lot of gore or blood within my trailer. Gore and Blood is always associated with the horror genre but I did not use as I felt that my trailer did not need it, it obvious when watching my trailer that it includes gruesome deaths due to how i have filmed it and the general story line behind it all, I made sure that my shots changed quickly so that it leaves it up to my audiences imagination especially considering there is a gruesome noise at the end of my trailer but a black screen at that point, leaving it up to my audience to imagine what it is like will hopefully make them want to see my production more. 

New sound on my trailer

http://www.soundjay.com/tv-static-sound-effect.html

Here is a sound that I have added to my trailer, it is 'white noise' that I heard when a TV looses signal and geos off channel, this played for only short period of time when my production company logo appears and is played when it goes from white to black to go along with the colour transition. I have put this in my trailer at that point as I want it to make people jump or to at least put more attention towards the trailer as it is quite a sharp, loud noise that many people find disturbing and uncomfortable any way.

DVD cover progress

Final billboard

Draft billboard 2

This is my draft billboard, that is almost complete, I decided to change it from having the writing in the middle and pictures at either side to information and name at one side and a picture on the other as I feel it creates a simpler and more effective billboard, when I researching billboard I noticed these same conventions were used in real life billboards. I have tried to keep it simple by not having too much text on the billboard, as you can see the largest text is the name of the film and the release date which are the 2 main things people will be looking for when looking at a billboard, for example where billboard are normally placed is on the side of roads and spots on roads were there are usually frequent congestion so that drivers can see  the advertisement clearly, when someone is driving they are only able to quickly glance at billboards before returning their attention to the road so i made these 2 features the largest for this reason so that possible target audience members who see this will be able to notice it.I have also included a rating on my billboard featuring my music magazine 'seat 32'.

Draft billboard

Partly finished Slashtag trailer

Final trailer

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Slashtag poster

Slashtag poster draft

These are some of my draft posters, I was experimenting with fonts, sizes and coloursd when creating these, I have clearly used the same image and title logo but they are both very different with there fonts and colour, my final poster is also on my blog and I will explain what my final ideas were on that within the other post. I decided to go for face image in the middle of the poster as it is a common covention that appears in most horror film posters