Evaluation questions

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



The genre of my film is a bad (comedy horror) horror film, which normally follows the story of a character who faces some low budget monster.
I the majority of bad horror movies the setting is in a remote location, to show the characters as being isolated from the outside world, creating a sense of the characters being hopeless. I decided to also do this with my film, setting it in a remote location away from the world, and the school field and the forest like area that is available to me from there also adds to this as in a woods it is darker than the rest of the world, creating a greater air of terror for both the character and the audience of the film. One of the best parts of using the school is that there are a few shots where it can look like the field is on the back of a remote science building, which the monster that terrorizes him throughout the film is from.


I developed the genre by making it so that the character is part of the team that created the problem, not just some random bystander who gets into a random situation of which he has no idea how to deal with, but as Cai was on the team that made it he stands more of a chance against the unseen monster.
However I challenged the genre by making it so the monster is never seen throughout the film, or the trailer, we only ever see the things from its point of view and even then it still feels bodiless as we can't see any arms of the monster from it, the only hints with to the origin of the monster are what Cai tells us throughout the trailer.


How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?



I feel like the combination of my main product and that of my Ancillary texts is effective, as I used the same fonts throughout each piece, I also did the same with the effects that I used on the text via Photoshop to add an extra level of depth to the text in the ancillary text. However, I didn't always use the same font as when I was making the magazine title I used an entirely new font for “Screamaphile” as after all the magazine itself is made by a different company to that of the trailer and the poster.
The main colours that I used in the texts was: Black, Red, Blue and a Gradient of Blue and black together to create the sense of the letters being frozen over as that is a key aspect of my movie.


The feedback I received on them was overall positive as the audiences thought that they complimented the film trailer nicely and acted as good marketing for a fictional movie.




What have you learned from your audience feedback?



From the audience feedback I learned a lot about my main product and my ancillary products. Thankfully the feedback was positive towards my film. The main points that I learned from my feedback were that:
  • I had made a funny trailer that would get people to watch the movie if it did release.
  • The trailer feels like a genuine trailer even though it is for a mostly comedic movie.
  • The music blends into the film and adds a new layer of depth into my film trailer.
  • I had left enough of the plot open to allow everyone to keep wondering what happens enough.
  • My use of Mise en scene was effective.
  • My use of camera angles also is effective.
  • The magazine cover feels like one that would actually be published.
  • The poster looks like one that would belong in a movie theatre which is mainly the look I was going for.


After surveying people who are in my target audience I have learnt that they would go see the film if I released it based off of all three products put together as they have created enough intrigue in what is going to happen in my film.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

In the research stage of production I mainly used YouTube to research what other movie trailers in my chosen genre are like so that I know how to effectively base my trailer off of it. I then googled to find how most of the posters of films in my chosen genre are constructed and what media conventions they use to help construct their poster, I implemented the majority of these aspects into my poster as well. Finally I looked at other magazine front covers that reviewed films like zombeavers so that I know how to make a serious looking product out of something that isn't serious at all. I had also looked at the typography of the examples of the posters and the magazine cover so that I knew exactly the type of colours and fonts that I was going to need for my ancillary texts.
In the planning stage of I made a lot of rough digital versions of what I wanted to make, so that I was able to effectively map out how I was going to do what I wanted to do. At first I started with three main ideas for my magazine cover and my poster, but after time I refined them down into one plan each and then took this to create a template that I used to create the ancillary texts.

In the construction stage of my coursework I used many different technologies to create the whole project. To film and take the photos that I needed for my film I mainly just used my phone as the camera isn't as good as some cameras that I would have access to as I thought that this would emphasise the purposeful badness of the film trailer and ancillary texts. The editing I did of the trailer was all done on adobe indesign CC as that is the industry standard. The voiceover that I did of my film was also recorded on my phone through the inbuilt microphone and the microphone app that comes preinstalled. The ancillary products were created on Adobe CS2 as that is the one that I had installed on my laptop at the time. I had also downloaded a lot of fonts through the website Urbanfonts, the vast majority of the typography is achieved through fonts that I had found on the website. 

Poster Development



I started with the base picture of Cai I wanted to use as the picture for the poster, I also added it to a black background so that I could add the starring text to it,
 I then added a brown filter to the picture to give it a feeling that it looks like a old tea stained piece of parchment
 I then added an artificial glow to the 2x6 as that is a key part of the film, and its previlant in the trailer a lot as one of the key hooks
 I then added a vignette to the poster and as a resulting action of this it fits into a lot of the modern posters for films, it also gives the feeling that Cai is in a spotlight.
 I then added name of the film to the poster with no effects on it.
 I then added a gradient to the text, of blue and white to make it look like it is freezing over.
 I then added the base red text leading into the pun that I later add into the poster
 I added the word cold, to finish of the pun, with no actual effects on its.
 I then added a glow to the word of cold to make it stand out of the poster more
 I then added the text of who is in the film at the bottom.
 Lastly I added when the film is "actually" being released, instead of the vague tell of the film being released just this year, I added it with just a gradient in the same way that the title of the film is just to create the same sense of the feeling of it freezing over.

Magazine Development


I started with the base picture and cropped off the top and bottom of the picture to make the chosen image normal magazine size.
The next step was to add the mastline with the claw marks on them, which is to create the title of the magazine, to create the claw marks, I layered the claw marks on top and erased the text to create the effect of the claws cutting into the text.
The next step was to add the main cover line to the magazine, I used the same text from the poster to make sure that the text was identical.
After this I added the barcode to the magazine, which also includes the price of the magazine on it, secondly I also added the cover lines to the magazine, to highlight other parts of the magazine.
I then added a picture of Cai, the main actor of the film, to the main cover line, to highlight who it is that is talking, To create this affect I added a picture of Cai to a ice texture, and then added a circle around the images and erased the rest of the texture and picture of Cai, I then resized the image to make the overall image the desired size
Lastly I added the dateline to the magazine cover. I also added the effects to the matline, Creating the effect of the drop shadow on the mastline.

Final Cut of my Movie trailer.

The main difference between this cut and the first is the new footage added, and the choice to change to letterbox for the footage, as I thought that makes the overall footage appear more like a modern day trailer, as that is a convention of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6oGojMsntc&t=2s

Storyboard

The main six scenes from my trailer.


First draft of my movie trailer.

https://youtu.be/qtccLkoraxY

Drafts of the poster and magazine.

In this google drive folder are the photoshop files for my poster  and magazine drafts, so you are able to see how I have achieved each part of them.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B--YnDEh-D3lcWpqaU5mLU1QQXM?usp=sharing