Wednesday, 12 January 2011
Friday, 7 January 2011
Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media texts?
The ways in which we used real media texts with our media product was by using internet sites such as YouTube,we used this site to watch different horror trailers to see what conventions they used to make their trailer hook audiences. We noticed that in these horror trailers that the main conventions were vulnerable characters, screaming, blood, wooded areas, an evil character and a character in distress. The trailers also started off slow and then as it when on faster shots were used. When creating our trailer, we tried to conform to these aspects. We used the woods for our location to create suspense and vulnerability, we used a scream to when our film title appears which is another horror convention. Also we had three vulnerable characters and the ghost ancestors would be seen as the evil characters.We looked online and in specific film magazines such as Empire to look at existing film magazines to see what type of layouts are used and what conventions are typically used to attract audiences to watch their films. We wanted to find out how horror film posters are different to film posters for other genre’s. By looking at all this we were able to use the conventions of a real film poster such as the placing of the name of the film as this conforms to the normal placing of the titles on a film posters and where the name of the film is placed ,the tag line that we use gives audiences a clue into what our film is about,this was influenced by the “Meadowoods” film poster. Our film poster challenges the conventions of a film poster because it doesn’t have an image of a character from the film. This was to create suspense which means audiences are more likely to know that this is a poster for a horror film. The film poster uses an image of trees which we darkened and smudged on photoshop to give it a dark eerie feel.
The text that we used was “Cracked” we chose this text because it resembled the plague because of the edging around the actual plague infection is an open wound which is represented by the cracks in text. We made the text white and reduce the opacity because to give a ghostly effect this represents the dead ancestors who have come back from the dead ,also it stood out against the dark background which was inspired by the “Silent Scream” DVD cover we also wanted the title to stand out so that the audience can tell the name of the film easily so that they know what the film is called so they can watch it when it comes out. We used a tag line as this conforms to the conventions of a film poster and “It’s Catching...” because it fits with the title of the film because when the plague was around it was highly contagious and looking at other film posters the tag line always fits with the title of the film.
We looked at film magazine covers such as various issues of Empire to give us inspiration on the layout of our magazine and what type of images and headlines we needed and where they were placed as we wanted our magazine cover looked as realistic as possible. To do this we used the conventions of a magazine such as having a bold masthead at the top of the page which is bold and stands out. We called our magazine “Review” because readers will understand that it’s a movie magazine because of movie reviews. We used white with an orange outline because it makes the text stand out more against the black background and the orange outline makes the text less simple. The magazine front cover also includes a a skyline which is a common feature of Empire magazine.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary task?
The combination of our main product and ancillary task was very effective because we wanted all three to looks as professional as possible and link together so we looked at existing products to make this happen to see how existing trailers linked with their film posters or magazine covers. We made our products link together by using the same font for most of the main text on the magazine cover, in the trailer and on the film poster this links the three together and lets audiences know that this font represents our film. We also kept a similar colour scheme on all three products using the main colours of red, white and orange. 
We didn’t use an image of any characters from the film on our film poster but instead just used an image of trees making the image dark and eerie this creates suspense and mystery. We used an image on the front cover of out magazine of a character that isn’t seen during our trailer this can create a feeling of mystery because audiences will want to know who she is and what her role is in the film especially as the cover line for the magazine is “Hollywood heartthrob does horror” which means that the this will make audiences want to see the film more also by using the phrase Hollywood heartthrob it means that the actress on the cover of the magazine is well known and famous especially since she made the cover of the magazine, mystery is also created in our trailer using the intertitles such as “Something’s coming”. The image from the film poster is a picture of the woods where we filmed our trailer which links the two together. The film poster has the tagline “It’s catching” which links with the image on the magazine cover because on the image on the front of the magazine she has caught the plague.What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We decided that before we would make our horror trailer, magazine front cover or film poster we would need audience feedback. We created a questionnaire so that we could create a good horror trailer that contained what our target audience would want to ideally see when they watched a horror trailer. From our questionnaire we learnt that the majority of people prefer supernatural as a type of horror, would expect to see just enough of the story so that they are interested in seeing the actual film, the location and music are the two most important factors of a horror film and lastly, music was the most popular answer when asked ‘what hooks you into watching a horror just from the trailer?’. We took all the results that we received into great consideration and this helped us a lot when it came to filming our horror trailer. For example, we thought a lot about the location of our footage as people said in the questionnaire that the location was one the most important things when watching a horror film. In the end, we decided to film our footage in the woods as it automatically gives it a creepy and eerie feel. Therefore, we already had the convention of a horror film as when people viewed our horror trailer they said that as soon as they saw the woods they knew it was a horror film. They also said that the music we chose for our horror trailer suited our footage well and matched the changes of speed we had throughout our horror trailer. We gained mixed reviews on both our Film posters and magazine front covers. People said they much preferred our film poster because it looked more realistic and left them questioning what the film was all about. Whereas, the magazine front cover didn’t interest them as much and didn’t leave much to the imagination. Throughout the trailer, we added inter titles which the majority thought made the trailer more exciting, anticipating and left them in suspense. We have learnt a lot from our audience feedback and questionnaire results. We have learnt that conventions are extremely important as this gives us the chance to ‘wow’ our audiences and play with what they expect and what they’re used to seeing when they watch other horror trailers. For example, quick shots and music are very important in a horror trailer as these are the main things that attract and intrigue audiences to go and choose to watch your horror film.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the construction of our trailer we used a wide variety of new media technologies. These included the use of final cut pro. We used final cut pro to construct the parts we filmed into a trailer. After filming our footage in the woods, we then transferred the footage from the camera onto the computer and then onto final cut pro. Final cut pro is very difficult to use and takes a lot of getting used to as there are many things to learn. However, using final cut pro so many times, we ended up getting used to it and in the end it became more simple and easier to use. After we got used to final cut pro we could then experiment and add some special effects to make our trailer more interesting to attract our audiences. We noticed that most horror trailers have special effects to interest their audiences and make the fear and thrill of the whole experience even better. Adding special effects in our trailer means that our audiences would not expect this to come which would surprise them and make them want to go and watch our film. We also included simple effects such as faster shots towards the end of our trailer, we did this to add tension and add to the convention of a horror trailer as we had noticed that in most horror trailers, the speed of them got faster and faster throughout the trailer.
Another new media technology that we used was Photo Shop. We used Photo Shop to create our film poster and magazine front cover. Again, getting used to Photo Shop was difficult again as none of us had used any of these new media technologies, but however in the end we all got used to it and was much easier to learn what specific icons did want from teachers and other students. Photo shop was much easier to use then Final Cut Pro, this was because we could fiddle around and click various effects and see what effect they had on our images, text etc. There were many effects that we used in our film poster and magazine front cover using photo shop. The effect we used the most was the fading and darkening of the background. This effect worked the most, as we had a simple picture of the woods as our background and then as soon as we added the special effect onto the image and faded and darkened it, it immediately added to the conventions of a horror film poster and magazine front cover. We also included 2 images of a wooded area and merged them into one to give it the effect of a shadow, ghostly or eerie feel and create an illusion. We chose a font that was found on Photo Shop. This font was called ‘Cracked’. We decided to use this font because it looked like we had used a special effect on the font and fitted in with the eerie theme we wanted to create on our film poster and magazine front cover to show that it was a horror film.
To make the music for our horror trailer we used Garage Band. We had to make our own music from Garage Band because we were not allowed to use music from sites such as YouTube etc because of copyright reasons. At first, we thought this would be very difficult and would not make our horror sound as good as it would have done if we could have used music and sounds off of YouTube. Garage Band was not hard to use at all, it was simply clicking specific categories and listening to samples of different sounds. There was a huge variety from sounds of vehicles, different screams, eerie sounds and instrumental sounds. All these sounds were very useful and it was a simple case of listening to them and putting them in an order and making sure they fitted correctly with our horror trailer scenes. It was very effective using garage band, because we could change the tempo, make the sounds go faster or slower and also change the order of the sounds to fit in with the trailer. The hardest part of using Garage Band was listening to the sounds and watching the trailer and trying to figure out what sound what sound best where and what sounds to use and not to use.
In the planning and research for our horror trailer we used many different new media technologies. For example, to present our evaluation we have used power points to layout our answers to the questions. This is to make our blog more interesting and eye catching and show we thought more about ways in which we can be more creative and use as many new media technologies as possible. We also used pages to write out notes and ideas we had when first creating our horror trailer to the very end when doing our evaluation. We decided to note down all our ideas on pages because we could save them as a document and come back to them every lesson and come up with more ideas and develop our horror trailer, magazine front cover and film poster. We also used Excel to layout our results from our questionnaire into a graph so they were easier to use and were also a more creative, presentable way of showing our results. In conclusion, we all feel that we have used a wide variety of new media technologies to improve our horror trailer, magazine front cover, film poster and to make our evaluation, notes and results more presentable and creative to view. We have learnt a lot from using these new media technologies.
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