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Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning & evaluation stages? Planning & Production

In the planning and production stages we used a various amount of media technologies to aid us in our creation of our main product and ancillary texts.


Planning:


In the planning stage we practiced using the different types of cameras available to us such as the Canon EOs 400D camera. We also used the internet to study certain conventions wheich we were going to apply to our trailer, this was more beneficial than say looking through books in the LRC as the internet has a broader ranger of information available to us.
We found that we wasted much less time when we went filming for real because we were already familiar with how to set up and use the equipment by being taught how to use it by our teachers. After being taught how to set up we found that it took shorter to start filming, this is because instead of our teacher setting everything up all of our group could and so time was saved.
Other media technologies we used include the website surveymonkey.com. With this website we were able to discover what elements we were going to include by surveying people on their preferences.
As we were planning to shoot we decided it wise to take pictures of our filming location with we could constantly refer to as a visual aid to how and where our filming would take place. The camera we used to take pictures was a Canon EOS 400D camera. Below are some pictures of our filming locations which are seen in the trailer.






We also used Facebook and Text messaging to ensure group members knew dates for filming and what equipment/props/costumes were needed. Here is a picture which illustrates this.



We used a computer scanner to upload our storyboard ideas onto blogger so each of us could view them whenever possible. This helped in our planning as it allowed us to share our ideas on how the film trailer would work out.
On the website blogger.com we also planned all our uploaded work by first saving them as drafts. This allowed us to continually edit and change parts of our work,
Another technology we used was Microsoft Word, we used this program to write much of our drafts before copying them onto blogger, this was very efficient.


Production -Trailer


During the actual production of our film trailer, magazine and poster we used a variety of media technologies. for our trailer we used a Canon EOS 7D camera to film our trailer shots. We also used hand held flashlights to improve the lighting in the building we were filming in, however since they were hand held this meant they would always be slightly moving and so would ruin the shot so we decided not to use them. The lighting was generally poor within the building and not enought light was going into the lens, we soon found out it was because the ISO count on the
7D camera was low. We then changed it by increasing the ISO count and our visuals then greatly improved. Adjusting the ISO count also helped outside to prevent over exposure. Since we were taught in 1st year how to apply the white balance, it was easy to apply it when filming
We believe that we used the equipment very efficiently and because of this we had a quick production time which greatly allowed us to move on to post production ahead of time.
We also thought that it was very important to count in and out for each time filming as this enabled us to have pre and post roll footage.
The microphone on the 7D camera prvoed very useful so there was no need for extra microphones to record sound, we greatly benefitted from this.


Production - Poster and Magazine


We also used many media technologies when taking the photgraphs for our film poster and magazine. We used a Canon EOS 400D camera to take our pictures as this camera is of high quality and would allow us to have good quality photos.



We used special lights to brighten the images we were taking. we attached a 60cm soft box to our lights and a Bowens Gemini Esprit Flash. We also connected this to a Bowens radio trigger so it would create a flash every time we took a picture. We also used a circular reflector to reflect light from the lights and from the flashonto the subject in the image. this helped give the image a good light and prevented unwanted shadows forming. the positioning of our lights at high angles also helped.
While using the lights and other equipment we were aware of the importance of following health and safety rules and so worked very carefully. For example when using the lights we made sure that wires were always tucked away and secure to prevent people tripping over them, we also kept a safe distance from the hot lightbulbs. We also never left any piece of equipment unattended.
Altogether we believe we used media technologies very effectively in the planning and production stages and were able to produce professional work due to our use of these technologies.


We had to do some research on the genre horror for us make an appealing teaser trailer, poster and magazine front cover. The research that was done was looking at 5 different sub genres of horror and looking at different examples of these sub genres. We also looked for different teaser trailers on YouTube; by doing this we was then able to decide what type of sub genre we wanted to create.

YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005.

The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, Vevo and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.

YouTube helped us as a group in many ways. We were able to upload our teaser trailer on to there and link it to other social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter. YouTube also allowed us to view other teaser trailers that were also put up there, so we therefore could collate ideas to produce a good trailer.  

For preparation, I also looked on YouTube for tutorials on how to use ‘FINAL CUT PRO’ (the programme we used to create our trailer)

For research we also used a site called ‘SURVEY MONKEY’ where we could make a survey to ask people via Facebook, Twitter and more social networking sites.  We then were able to collate the results into a table so we could see what people had answered. With this research we able to make a teaser trailer, poster and magazine front cover that our target audience liked.

Survey Monkey is a private American company that enables users to create their own Web-based surveys. An enhanced paid product and services are also available. The company's offices are located in Menlo Park, California and Portland, Oregon. The company was founded in 1999 by Ryan and Chris Finley. In April 2009, the private company was sold to a private equity consortium with Dave Goldberg named as the new chief executive officer.

The editing software that we used was ‘FINAL CUT PRO’ and this was the main software we used to create our teaser trailers. Our main aim from using this software was to create a professional looking teaser trailer that we could then promote to different audiences using different platforms such as social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Another software that we used was ‘GARAGEBAND’, we initially used this to make the soundtrack of the trailer. We had to decided what type of music we wanted whether we wanted intense or soft. We had to try and fit our music with the trailer. We decided that the buildup would be gradual and sudden; this was to cause tension and mystery. We used instruments such as the piano to create this.

To create the film poster and magazine front cover we used the software Photoshop. Without this we couldn’t make the poster look original and professional.  We used different types of brushes such as the blur tool and the smudge tool, so the writing would blend into the picture.  

Many of the fonts that we used came from ‘DAFONT.COM’, this is because they had a variety of different types of fonts that would look on the poster and magazine front cover, which would make it look different. Many magazines do not just stick to one font but they use a diversity of them to make it look creative. Some of the fonts are free so we decided to look at the ones without copyright on them and the ones for public use.

Q3. What have you learned from your audience feedback? Youtube feedback & Conclusion

From our audience feedback on our trailer and magazine we have learned much about how our audience felt about our trailer, poster and magazine.
From comments and likes on youtube and facebook we have learnt that many people are impressed and like our trailer.
For example here you can see a comment by someone on our trailer:



From this we can learn that the first of many people to later comment highly enjoyed our trailer. This person gave us parts that they like and also gave us a criticism, this helped us greatly because it let us know that certain people from our audience expect more tension in a trailer than the amoun ours had. However since we decided to challenge the convention of tension her criticism lets us know that we successfully challenged the convention of horror trailers create much tension. Also since this person wanted more close-ups this lets us know that the audience most likely prefer not to see too much of the setting in a horror teaser traile. This may be because they want the trailer to show as little it can of a movie so as not to spoil it. They seem to have really liked our choice of music and sound effects and the timing of it, this lets us know we captured this aspect of the traditional horror trailers. The person also mentioned that they would have liked to see more blood, this also informs us that we have succesfully challenged the convention of bloody shots and gore without straying from the horror genre.


Evaluation


To evaluate all of the feedback our group has received it is fair to say we have had all positive comments with the majority highliting all the good things they liked about it. This let us know we both challenged and used certain conventions for our horror trailer to make it as original as possible. Constructive criticism that was given greatly helped us in understanding how our audience received our products.
The main areas that we could have improved include the words on our magazine, by this I mean how they much they stand out ad how they are seen. For example with our magazine one person mentioned how we could have made the date on our magazine stand out more and also the subheadings by giving them a white stroke. Here is a picture of the comment:



Another thing we could try to improve is to have more close-up shots in our trailer so as not to give away to much of the setting to our audience. Doing this could potentially increase their intrigue of our trailer and want to find out more about the setting of where the girl is in the film and go and see it.
When we asked six people to give their views on our poster and magazine many of them commented on the darkness of our poster and how it should be a bit more brighter. If we had more time we would definantly take into consideration the comments we have received when editing our products. We would focus on the criticisms and try to further increase the authenticity of our main product and ancillary texts.


For some of our audience feedback we held a screening of our trailer in one of the media classrooms. We got some good feedback from some of the people who attended the screening.

We also filmed peole for some feedback relating to our film poster and magazine front cover.

The feedback that we had from different people, helped us to think about what we could have improved if we had the chance to do it again.  I could have made the music more daunting to make our trailer more of a horror as it hasn’t got any of the bloody aspects to it, we could have made more posters to advertise the film. 

Q2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Magazine and trailer

Comparing the magazine with the trailer, I believe that product and ancillary text are effective in the combination.

The same person who stars in the teaser trailer is the same person who is on the front cover of the magazine, this is because we didn’t want to confuse our audience by using different characters that were not as important as the main character who is in the trailer. In addition, the setting the girl is in on the front cover of the magazine is one of the shots used in the teaser trailer. This makes all of our products look effective because it shows continuity and the audience can recognise each product as they each have similarities.

The company logo is used within the film poster and the teaser trailer but is not used on the magazine front cover, this is because the company logos’ are rarely used on horror magazines as it doesn’t just feature one film but it features games, events and stories. However we did use our company logo to advertise on facebook .

 Throughout the magazine front cover and the teaser trailer we have used simple fonts, such as copperplate gothic light and Trajan pro, we done this so there would be continuity all the way through our products and ancillary texts. Our reason for this is because we believe continuity links products and allows audiences to know that they are all promoting the same film.

 

We used cross promotion for our products; people are now able to view our teaser trailer from their smart phones such as Blackberry’s and Iphone’s, they are also able to get the company logo, film poster and magazine front cover on their phones which therefore creates synergy. By this different people are able to view this from outside their home. This also creates a way for the company to become more accepted by different audiences in society. As technology in an information rich nation has become infused in the global village of digital technology which means people are more likely to communicate on various platforms such as the internet.

We have done this by using Facebook (making a group and posting  the poster, trailer and magazine front cover also keeping people up to date).

We also used YouTube to promote our trailer. This was our main one were we uploaded our trailer, so we was able to see the amount of views that we had overall, we linked this to facebook and twitter.

Overall, I believe that people were able to tell the brand identity of our company because of the cross promotion that we used and also because of the continuity between the magazine front cover and the teaser trailer, we done this via the dark colours, fonts used and the same character. This allowed us to create a constant horror image for all three products which was similar and easily relatable. 

I believe that the combination of our main product and ancillary texts was very effective when it came to promotion of our trailer and the media products as a collective. I think this because of many reasons, one being how our poster makes the audience wonder why fingers being crossed is so important in the film. Then when they see the trailer they realise that she needs hope in escaping and so must keep her fingers crossed. By saying on our poster "Make sure you keep your" we try to make the audience build an understanding of the character personally and sympathise for the character and keep their fingers crossed for her. Then when our audience see the trailer they have more knowledge of the situation and can understand the character's desperation and struggle. By also having "keep your fingers crossed" in the trailer we keep the continuity by refering to the poster and keeping your fingers crossed.

To promote our trailer, magazine and poster we used cross media promotion via platforms such as facebook and youtube, we uploaded the two images and linked the trailer. With our products used the same type of lighting for both images and for the trailer. We first uploaded our poster to facebook which we would use to promote our trailer. We had quite a good reception of our poster and it made much people want to see the trailer.

We used an ink jet printer to print our large A2 copies of our poster and magazine. We showed many people our Poster and the all showed interest in our teaser trailer and wanted to see it.
Our combination of three was also quite effective due to us having the same main person in all three products. This allowed us to have effective continuity. 

By having the same actress in the poster and trailer it allowed people to speculate since you cannot see the girl 's face in the poster. So it was effective in making our audience question if it was the same girl and how she ended up in the state she is in the poster.

Our trailer and poster had a significant continuity with each other, in the trailer you can see our actresses desperation and in the poster you can see that shes been caught somehow. Our trailer depicts a trapped girl who wants to escape and our poster depicts the same girl but has now been caught, tied up and abused. This is a very effective combination as it acts as a reversed timeline since we showed people our poster first, so we showed the girl already caught by an anonymous antagnoist and then released a trailer showing events prior to her capture. 

I believe this was very effective in that it gave the audience an interest as it is shown to them alternatively and so they seek further knowledge and want to know and see the events that happen after her capture. By showing the poster first it made people wonder why they should keep their fingers crossed for the girl, they wanted to know more, and by having these words repeated in the trailer it gave people an understanding of her situation and why they need to have thier fingers crossed. 

I believe this greatly contributed to the effectiveness of our main product and ancillary texts.
Altogether I think the combination of our main product and ancillary texts was very effective in promoting our trailer and creating an impressive and professional product as a whole. All our products interlink with each other and can be seen as connected to the other two products when looked at.

Q1 In what ways does your media production use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products-poster and magazine

For the magazine front cover, we did not challenge the conventions of horror magazines instead we used and developed the conventions of a horror magazine. As our task was to make a horror magazine, we decided to do some research on the theme horror and the main magazine that we found was ‘FANGORIA’. We decided to use this as our main inspiration for making our magazine.

The majority of horrormagazines such as ‘FANGORIA’ use distinctive fonts for the mast head. They also use sharp geometrical shapes as it can connote evil. Also the colour of the fonts is red which stands out to the target audience. The denotation of red is just a colour but the connotation of it is blood, love, danger and death.

We wouldn’t really say that our masthead is very distinctive, but the font helps it to stand out. We used the conventions of a horror magazine as our masthead is a geometrical shape and the bottoms of the letters are open which makes it look sharp. The font also looks like it has been written in blood because it looks like it is dripping. The colour we used for the font is a bloody red which connotes danger, pain and death. The name ‘SLASHER’ also helps to make it distinctive to the target audience.

Our poster also uses and develops the conventions of real media products; however it does somehow challenge the conventions also.

The image that we have used on our film poster is not shown throughout the teaser trailer; in the teaser trailer we have not used blood or ropes and the female is not sitting down either. The reason we have done this is because it draws the audience in to know what the film is about. We have also used this image because it is of someone with their fingers crossed and our film is called ‘FINGERS CROSSED’ and we thought this went together very well.

Many other horror posters do this also, they use an image that is not in fact from the film, an example of this ‘FINAL DESTINATION’ who use a shattered mirror like skull as the image.

The conventions of a horror poster is darkness and mystery and in think we used this convention very well as our poster has that sense of darkness and mystery because you do not know why this girl has her fingers crossed and why she is where she is. Another convention of horror films is to invoke the audiences hidden worst fears, these can include being watched, stalked, alone, trapped or abandoned. We thought we would use and develop this

convention by depicting these elements with the girl to allow the audience to have a deeper and more personal concern for; I believe that we use this convention within our film poster as it portrays fear and loneliness.

Many horror film posters use simple fonts such as copperplate gothic light and Trajan pro, this is because it stands out and makes it look professional, the colour of the font on many posters is either white or red which is used a lot in this genre, because of what it connotes. We decided to use this convention also using a serif font; we realized that it made the poster more realistic and original. The colour that we used for many of the fonts of the poster was white because it stood out more and made the poster come to life.

When making our film poster we greatly adjusted andconsidered the conventions that make a film poster what it is and those that make a horror postertrailer what it is. From doing this we were able to craft an ideal film poster which has many conventions which identify its genre and much which boost its originality and appeal. We believed doing so would give us high reception fromviewers and make our poster as genuine as it can be.

By developing and challenging conventions of real media products i have have been able to develop my creativity skills, My group and I was influenced by different conventions of media products to ultimately create products of our own. Doing in depth research enabled us as a group to challenge conventions which would enforce creativity.

Our trailer and magazine uses, develops and challenged froms and conventions of real media products in a various amount of ways. Firstly with our magazine we decided to develop on the conventions of the horror magazine 'Fangoria', we chose this magazine because we believe it is a really respected and high quality magazine which we be could to analyse and incorporate.

This is a picture explaining our magazine and conventions associated with both magazines and horror.

We really admired the film strip which is places horizontally showing what’s inside the magazine. We decide to incorporate this to add a more authentic feeling to our cover. The convention of an awe-inspiring image you always see on horror magazine front covers is something we noticed. In many horror pictures the character in the image is looking at the camera, we decided to incorporate this convention into our magazine front cover as it adds much depth and intrigue. One way in which our magazine front cover challenges horror conventions is that our cover image is not gory, bloody, violent or fleshy. We decided to have a more simplistic image of Grace staring at the camera with a piercing look which gets to the reader. We know this because we asked a few people their initial feelings on the front cover and their replies all included the chilling feeling the piercing look gave them. We developed on the idea of horror magazine titles being bloody and gory by applying a dripping blood font and making the text red. While the heading does not stand out, our image does and it’s a convention for horror magazine covers to have an image which draws the reader in and allows them to know it’s a horror magazine which is why we decided to do this with our cover. The font of our teaser trailer name on our cover was used because after analysing horror magazine front covers we realized that there is the convention to have an original, fantasy-horror type font for the main heading. The font greatly worked and fits well with the cover so we decided to use it in our final draft. We thought to instead make our heading fit into place at the top next to the date and price box rather than to make it like the fangoria heading which overlaps the film strip. Our reason for this is because we thought it looked cleaner and more professional than the professional magazines composition. We also decided to challenge the convention of having a victim, the killer or the monster as the character on the cover image and have the main actress instead, we thought this would allow people to relate to the story more and sympathise with the emotion she emits from her face and eyes.

We thought it would be good to put stars in between each subheading because this is something more commonly seen on action movie magazine covers and so challenges the convention of horror magazines. Many magazine covers are color co-ordinated, we use this convention by keeping our colours down to just red, white and black which go well together. It is a convention for horror magazines to have low key lighting so we thought we would make ours original by challenging the convention by having high key lighting but also with parts which are low key. We decided to go for a mix of using conventions and challenging and developing them so that we could create something which is original yet still identifiable as to what genre it represents.


With our teaser trailer we decided to take an alternative take for the final production, we at first filmed much shots where our camera was stationary or on a straight track inside our college building. In our reboot we took our setting to an abandoned children's school at the back of our college, we thought that the building had a very horror-like feeling and was unclean and damp. This is what we were looking for as abandoned run down places are a convention for horror settings such as the Saw series and it really complimented our new-born vision for our trailer. With our trailer we decided to challenge the convention of Horror Teaser trailers by having a less bloody and less gory trailer, we done this because we wanted the horror of our trailer to be less physical and more psycological. This helped our trailer to be less predictable and more original, an example of this type of Horror is The Silence of the Lambs.

In our trailer we do decided not to have too many quick cuts, instead we chose to use fades and transition effects to change shots. Our reason for this is that we thought it would better create a feeling of horror through a rising suspense rather than through a quick tension. An example of a quick cut, high tension horror film trailer is The Collector:


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Another common convention of horror films is to have a female lead actress, we decided to follow this convention as we believe it authenticates our trailer and allows the audience to connect more by having an innocent, female, distressed character who they can relate to and have sympathy for. Also, at one point in our trailer you can briefly see a female following our actress, we decided to make the follower a female instead of a male as we wanted to challenge the convention to give our trailer an added sense of originality and for it to be different. An example of a horror film with a lead female actress is the film [REC].


We also challanged the horror convention of our film taking place at night, we done this to make it alternative to the usual horror which takes place at night. With it being daytime there is a better sense of abandonment and desertedness when it is morning but no one else is around and you are all alone. It also adds tension about the actress being alone and the killer being anywhere, possibly watching her every move.Another convention of horror films is to invoke the audiences hidden worst fears, these can include being watched, stalked, alone, trapped or abandoned. We thought we would use and develop this convention by depicting these elements with the girl to allow the audience to have a deeper and more personal concern for. Which would ultimately make them recept our trailer more positiively.
Horror films also have the convwntion of captivating and entertaining us in an emotional way. We used this convention by our trailer being a sequence of the actress, by hearing her distressed and desperate words and her body expressions which captivated our audience.
Horror films genreally tend to shock, scare, entice and alarm viewrs
A convention of teaser trailers of all kinds is to have very little plot or storyline given in the teaser. We decided to follow this convention as we wanted to ensure a sense of confusion, awe, unknowing and enticement.
During a teaser trailer snippets of infliction of pain are introduced to attract and ensure that the horror representation is implied, we decided to go against this convention and to have longer shots which are out of the ordinary which will intrigue the audience.
When making our teaser trailer we greatly revised and considered the conventions that make a teaser trailer what it is and those that make a horror teaser trailer what it is. From doing this we were able to craft an ideal trailer which has much conventions which identify its genre and much which boost its originality and appeal. We believed doing so would give us high receptions from viewers and make our trailer as authentic as it can be.