Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Question 3 - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Question 4 - How did you use media technology in the construction and planning, research and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Questions

• Evaluation Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (Magazine) (Poster) (Trailer)
• Evaluation Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
• Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
• Evaluation Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and planning, research and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Question 1


Trailer
My trailer challenges forms and conventions of a trailer because with the release date I decided that it would be released on Valentines Day, where people would want to see a romantic film. I decided that release date because my film had some elements of romance within it because of the female characters obsession. 


My trailer used conventions by showing clips of the film that would keep the audiences interest such as the clip showing the male character tied up, making them want to see the film so they can find out how he got there.


I also looked at the music conventions trailers used, most used dark tones or high pitch sounds to create tension, I decided to use both of the these to create tension in various ways so the audience knew what certain sounds meant, such as the darker tones I used when text was about to appear on the screen, where as the high pitch sound plays when the girl is revealed sitting behind the boy after she has capture him. I also decided to use repetition because it would make the music re-memorable to the audience, making them know that music relates to my trailer.


Poster

I haven't challenged many forms and conventions when creating my poster. There are 3 main conventions used when creating posters, the film title, the release date and the names of those involved in making the film such as actors, directors, editors. I also added the films website to the bottom of the poster which isn't always put on every poster, but some viewers want to look at the films website to see if they can find out more information about the film. When analysing different posters that were of the same genre as the film I was making I looked at how they created the tension and suspense within the poster itself.


The first poster I took some inspiration from was 'Obsessed' because of its bold text used for the film title, making it stand out on the poster. As well as the main characters taking up a lot of space on the poster, not leaving much blank space, this also showed the characters status within the film. 


I also use a lot of conventions from the 'Single White Female' poster I analysed such as having the names of the two main characters names at the top of the page, with other people in the production names at the bottom. I also liked how they had some of the picture bright and others dark which added to tension because those looking at it would see something dark would happen in the film and that is what I did with my own poster making some parts darker than others. 


One thing I noticed in both posters was that the main character or characters was placed to one side of the poster and not in the middle which drew your attention to them first but then made you look more around the poster.

Magazine Front Cover
I also didn't always challenge forms and conventions of magazines when creating my front cover. I kept things such as the house style of film magazines who typically use red, white, black and grey, to represent the genre of the film.


I have used conventions that magazines such as Empire use, which is as well as putting the word 'plus' to show what else is inside the magazine they also put a plus sign (+). 


I then looked at the conventions such as placing of banners which tell the reader about more of the contents of the magazine and how the magazines separate them, with the Empire magazine using two diagonal lines where I decided to use dots but still keep the colours within my house style. 


From this Empire magazine I also saw how they used block shapes to align the text without having it touch the side of the page, which also stood out on the page because once again it was in my house style colours.


I also went with conventions when it came to the image, such as using a mid shot or close up, including the aspect of it including a prop from the film. After analysing some other magazine front covers I looked at how the image would effect my front covers. Most front covers I looked at had a long shot image, but this meant a lot of careful planning on placing the image so it looked right on the page and then having enough other contents to fit on the page without making it look to crowded or too empty. 


Then one cover I looked at had a close up of the character, which I decided would work really well for my front cover because of the camera being closer to her face you will be able to see more emotion. This also worked for me to be able to put the image behind the mast head because I was cutting off too much of the image, and not having to look at carefully placing text so it didn't take cover most of the image.




Evaluation Question 2
I feel the combination of my main product and my ancillary tasks has worked well because in each of the products I have contained a character from my trailer. I had to decide what character from my trailer I would put on each of my ancillary tasks, this added to the combination of my products because I wasn't using the same character on both products. 


I also payed close attention to the colours I used in all three products making them the same throughout, especially because of the symbolism the colour red holds throughout the genre with it either being love or blood.


The combination of my trailer and magazine front cover work well because the cover uses the tag line 'will her love lead to an obsession' which is similar to some of the lines used in the trailer. Also you see the female character holding the diary, which you would have seen her use in a previous edit of the trailer to keep track of the boys movements.


The combination of my trailer and film poster also work well because the photo is taken on set from one of the scenes which you see in the trailer. It also works well because you don't see how the character gets to be in the position he is in, leaving the audience to think about what has happened throughout the film for him to get there. Another combination made through my trailer and poster is that I placed the films website and release on both of them even though I have written the date differently they still both make impacts on the audience but in different ways. With my trailer it makes a lasting impact because it is the last thing the audience see when watching the trailer, where as with my poster it is in a small font at the bottom centre of the image and with it being in bold font and brighter colour it will catch the audiences attention, even where it is placed.


Evaluation Question 3
I have learnt a lot from the feedback I got from peers in lesson and a focus group I held after the third edit of my trailer.


I learnt from this feedback how the trailer makes them want to go and watch it because of it being released on an unconventional date as it is a psychological thriller. I have also learnt from my focus group about the age restriction of my film, such as depending on the type of action my film will contain and not just what they see in the trailer, as this will differ between the age it would be aimed at.


I also learnt how things I did effected my trailer such as length of clips with some clips being too long they caused my audience to lose focus. What I needed to do was cut the clips down and keep the trailer as fast paced as possible when it came to certain sequences to keep my audience engaged to make them wonder what was going to happen next.


After knowing that repetition was good for my soundtrack, because it built tension throughout the trailer, I had one section of music play all the way through the trailer. Which came across as too repetitive because it was no longer building the tension like I wanted it too. So after doing another edit I changed so it started, stopped and came back after certain clips. 


One thing I learnt from audience feedback about my first draft of my magazine front cover was about the picture I had used, they said to say my film is a psychological thriller my character looked too happy, so I took another picture of her looking further towards the floor to add more mystery which I then darkened too make it look more secretive. I had to be careful about the colours I used on my front cover because of the house style I used and I didn't want text blending into the photo. I also found I was over using the colour red and it wasn't being as effective as I wanted it to be because of it being the brightest colour on the page I wanted certain text such as my mast head and cover line to catch the readers attention first.  I then learnt things from my other drafts such as placing plugs and the where I should place them. 


Some feedback I had about my first draft of my poster was that the image was to plain and needed editing because I didn't make an impact on the audience. Also that I needed to reposition my title because even though I had placed it in a space on the page it too wasn't making an impact on the audience because it was too small and just didn't stand out enough. I then changed my image so you could just the character but I was told that how I had edited the image was good by contrasting the colours but the other image was better because you could see more of the situation he was in, which made the audience think. The feedback I had for my final poster was that the editing was good, as well placing of the image because with him being more to one side you can see more of the wall he is placed in front of. Also the placing of my text worked well with the title being straight through the image and the release just below it.


Evaluation Question 4
For my research I mostly used the Internet starting starting with Bubbl to create mind maps to help me decide what genres I could choose from. After choosing my genre I created a mind map looking at the codes and conventions of a Psychological Thriller letting me look at what I needed to include in my trailer.


I then went on to Google to look at posters for films of the same genre as my trailer was going to be for me to analyse. I also started looking at magazine front covers from Total Film and Empire, for me to look at how they were laid out and the type of house style they chose depending on what film was featuring as their main article. I also analysed ways they placed photos on the page to give me ideas. 


I also used You Tube to look at trailers of the same genre to look at how they structured the trailer to get the best clips in and keep the audiences attention.


Once again I used Bubbl, this time in my planning because I created a mind map of the themes that would be employed in my trailer. 


I created  my production schedule, location recce's, and my budget in Microsoft Word in my planning stage because I had to treat this as if I was actually creating these products in a real life situation.

The technology I used in construction of my making my trailer are iMovie (to choose footage to import), Final Cut Pro (to edit my footage and put clips together), Motion (to create the titles) and GarageBand (to create my soundtrack). 


After taking my footage I uploaded the footage to the Mac, then through iMovie I imported the footage I wanted to start editing. 


After importing the footage I started a new project in Final Cut Prop to start choosing the clips I wanted to use and start piecing my trailer together. 


Once I had an outline of what my trailer was going to be like I went into Motion and began to create my titles. I looked through many templates before finding one I thought would fit the aspect of my trailer, I chose a template that faded in and out to reveal the titles similar to one of the trailers I analysed in my research. I changed the font from the original template because I wanted a font that looked quite romantic because of the sub genre of the trailer, I also chose the colour red because it can represent the girls love and/or blood. 

Now I had got my completed trailer including titles I exported it into GarageBand where I could begin piecing together my soundtrack. I started by finding some loops that could fit with the genre of my movie such as looking at dark and intense loops as well as synths and strings to add tension to the piece. I also used Garage band to edit some of my movie soundtrack because there was some sound I didn't want the audience to hear, I adjusted the volume curves throughout the soundtrack to some points you could hear the music behind the footage and sometimes you couldn't. One point I did this was when I had the footage of the boy being tied to the chair being worried and breathing heavily so I adjusted to the volume so the music went quieter and the movie soundtrack louder. 


In the process of making my magazine front cover I used Photoshop. To start I added the photo I had taken and began to look at where I wanted to place the photo, to see if it needed cropping or editing in some way. The most editing I did with my cover photo was look at the brightness and contrast to make the image a bit darker, to add some tension to the photo. 


I then focused on the placing of my cover line because with every magazine I researched they would place their cover lines in different places to create different effects and to catch the readers attention in a different way. 


After this I looked at where I would place all my other text on the page such as my mast head which typically goes at the top of the page, but I also had to look at where I would be placing other text such as puffs and plugs. 


Which lead me to making the decision on if I was going to have any banners to fit in the other information about what else was included in the issue of the magazine because I couldn't just place the text on the page.


I also used Photoshop to construct my film poster because in the same way as I constructed my front cover I needed to look at the photo and see if it needed editing in anyway before adding text to it. I started with cropping the picture down because you saw part of the scene that I didn't want the audience to see as I wanted their focus to be on the character and the wall.


After cropping I looked at changing the shadows and highlights of the image. This effectively made the audience focus on certain parts of the poster more than others but also added some eeriness to the image.


And finally after editing the photo I started to place the text on top of it, moving it around till I got my film title where I wanted it to be so that it would also catch the audiences attention. I then added other text such as the release date, the website and the names of the main actors and other people involved in the production.


I have used various technologies throughout the making of this evaluation.


To start with I have used Prezi because of how I wanted to structure my evaluation with being able to create a very visual presentation as I can show more than one of my products at a time. My presentation is able to flow from one point to the next with ease because of the path creater, which allowed me to decide what the viewer sees next. Prezi also allows me to work creatively using various features such as the insert tool enabling me to add images from the Internet or my own files as well as YouTube clips without having to access the link separately. I have also added my own handwriting to the evaluation by using a graphics tablet which allowed me to add an even bigger personal touch.


I also used the image of an iPad to display most of my work in because it is a fairly new piece of technology that is becoming more relevant and well known by today's society.


Finally after creating the Prezi I used Quick Time Player's screen recording facility to record my voice over the presentation so I'm delivering it directly without the need for separate notes.

Madly In Love - Final Movie Trailer

My Final Magazine Front Cover