Critical Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Originally horror movies used to be low budget, B movie productions, but the major studios started to recognise and respect certain directors, such as Hitchcock, Polanski and Kubrick. From the main horror genre, hybrids have been created when horror has been teamed with comedy, teen and other genres. They have also created sub-genres, in the form of vampire movies, and sometimes thrillers, slasher movies and suspense can also be recognised as there own form of sub-genre.

Most recently, in the past 10 years, horror movies have focussed on epidemic, and the end of the world, the taking over of the living dead, or zombies. They have also produced several films with the theme of possession of ghosts or spirits who are trying to get a message across or justice for their death. This is what we based our plot around.

For the main horror genre there are many conventions to which a film could be made, for example, the hero, the victims, the villains, blood, death, shadows and darkness, eerie music and isolated settings. In the beginning of Scream, Wes Craven uses a lot of the conventions in the first ten minutes, he has the victims, shadows and darkness, the eerie music and of course the blood and death, that come along with the villain.

Within the plot line that Tessa and I wrote originally, we used similar conventions, with an isolated settings, hero, villain and victim. When we made the trailer we tried to portray these, by using chase sequences, showing the threat of the villain and the setting is quite empty and isolated. The full story line for the film follows a simple narrative, very similar to that of Vladimir Prop’s narrative theory. Everything is ok at the beginning, creating an equilibrium which then becomes disequilibrium as the story progresses and things begin to go wrong. Then at the end when the story and problems are resolved a new state of equilibrium is established, where everything has become ok again, but different to that at the beginning.

If a film were to be produced and distributed, it would need to include forms and conventions of it’s genre to be taken on as a project. This is what is referred to as the winning formula, because this is what sells to the audience, and within the media industry audience is key.

For a teaser trailer, it should be under two minutes long, and intrigue the audience by using lots of clips and not giving anything away. To create a sense of intrigue within our trailer we kept our characters without identity, and we did not show the villains face, so that the threat of the villain is present, but the audience do not know who he is from the trailer.

To show the character and the function of the character we used to colour as a symbolic tool. For the villain his outfit was kept quite dark, as villains are usually wearing black. The ghost, or spirit character is wearing a white coat, this also symbolises her innocence within the storyline. The main character is wearing a red coat, this is two shows her importance within the film, but also to symbolise the danger or threat that she could be in.

According to Prop’s theory on character functions the hero is usually male, where as in our film, our hero is female. Although in our full storyline she becomes the victim and her brother becomes the hero by saving her, so our character functions switch.

We filmed about 30 seconds of each frame that we had planned, to cut down and use as lots of smaller fragments. When I did the editing I really wanted the cuts to flash, really quickly, so I left a tiny gap between each clip to create a black flash to separate the cuts.

I think we kept quite to the conventions that a teaser trailer is supposed to be, when we exhibited the trailer both times, the audience was not sure of the storyline, which I think is a positive as a teaser trailer is designed not to give much away, and too keep an air of mystery about the film.

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


A teaser trailer or trailer is used by the distributor to help market the film, and to create an intrigue about the film prior to its release. A teaser trailer is usually released several months, sometimes a year, before a film is due to be released.

The posters would be seen in cinema lobbies, and would not be shown until nearer the release date, this helps create appeal, and capture audiences. The distributors would decide whether or not a film would have a wider poster campaign in the form of billboards and magazine advertising etc.

The magazine special issue, would be apart of the pre-release press campaign, the distributor hires a PR agency to set up interviews for magazine and television with the stars of the film. Which helps create a buzz around the film and ensures it captures not only the intended audience, but also the ‘drop in’ audience, who would not necessarily go for the type of film being promoted.

The distributor’s have to ensure to the exhibitors that they will gain profit from their film, so having a tight advertising campaign helps them make sure they will capture audience attention. This means completely covering the media in their products, so that audiences can not get away from it. This is total saturation; the distributors make sure that the film is everywhere and is totally absorbed into the media, making it difficult for the consumer not to know about it.

Having the posters and the magazines working alongside the trailer creates a synergy completely dedicated to establishing an audience and ensuring ticket sales, and profit. It is a clever marketing tool, along with saturation that makes sure that their job is done effectively, and that everyone makes a profit.

The combination of our ancillary texts with our trailer, I think works really effectively. If this were a real film these media texts would be seen daily by consumers.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
As a group we decided that our target audience would be 15- 19 year olds, after we had completed our initial research we created a survey to find out what our preferred audience like and dislike about horror movies. This helped us establish what the audience wanted and to come up with ideas that we knew the audience liked. We also used audience feedback after making drafts of the trailer and the posters to see what we could do to improve, and to really make sure that the audience got what they wanted to see to a degree.

The audience is really essential because they are the consumer of the product. Within the film industry, films are sometimes made to winning formulas because institutions know what sell, and they know what the audience wants.

If the institutions an distributor’s did not find out what the audience wanted the film would not sell, and they would not make a profit, so they established forms and conventions for genre’s based on what they audience want to see.

There are many different theories on audience, and how the audience receives and understands the text. One theory is that there are two types of audience, a passive audience, who just sits back and relaxes to watch the film. They do not take in the information, or process it, for example a passive audience watching a horror film already expect to see blood and gore and everything else that makes a horror film.

The other side of audience is the active audience, they take in the text, they read it and they make an understanding of it. They engage with the film, if an active audience was watching a horror movie they would be trying to figure out what was happening, and taking in the information, and picking up on the clues.

In my opinion if someone was a passive watcher, horror movies would not be their thing, as most horror movies have an air of mystery and twist to them, and the audience has to keep up with the film and watch it attentively.

When we first showed our trailer we found that people had no clue what so ever to the plot of the film, and so we had to add more clues in, as we went too far the other way and did not give the audience something to engage with.

Although if we had not exhibited a draft version of the trailer we would not have found this out, so audience, and the audience feedback is important in the film industry to ensure that a film is being perceived in the way they wanted.

How did you use new technologies in the research and planning, construction and evaluation stages?
During all the stages of the production the internet was a helpful resource, we used a blogging website, (https://www.blogger.com/start ) to set up a production blog (http://lyndsay-apb-horror.blogspot.com ), so that we could log what we were doing and so that instead of a folder with the project laid out in it, it was all easily accessible on the internet.
Within the research and planning stages of the project, using the internet for resources was quicker and easier than looking through multiple books; I also practiced using Adobe Premier Elements 1.0, for making a short slide show/ video on the history of the horror movie genre.

When it came to filming, we used a Digital Video camera to collect all the footage we needed. Tessa learnt how to use it more efficiently than I did, as she was the one who was filming. Although we could have used a memory card, which would have been a lot quicker and easier, we used a tape to film with. We put it straight on to the computer using the FireWire cables, and straight into Adobe Premier Elements 1.0. Practising using this software and getting used to it was difficult, I had to figure out how to cut the clips down, add sound, and take away the sound off the original footage.

However once I had got used to how to add in effects and everything, it wasn’t hard to use the programme and create the effect that I wanted.

I also used Adobe Photoshop 3.0 to create titles and the posters, I had used this programme before so I knew how to do what I wanted, and it was only a matter or revising it and remembering how. It didn’t take me long to get the hang of it and design the posters.

On this project I used Macromedia Freehand to create the magazine cover. I had used this software programme before on my As project, but my use of it was quite primitive and was not very skilled, on this project I spent a lot of time practising so that my magazine cover could look the best it could, and so that it had a more professional quality about it.

I also used a programme to edit the sound effects called Audacity; I didn’t do much except for cut down the sounds or lower the levels. It did take a while to learn how to add the echo effect which I had to look on the internet for how to do it.

Audacity and Adobe Premiere Elements were the only two new programmes that I had not used before, so it was quite interesting to learn how to use them. Using all the programmes that I have used before but learning how to do new things on them as well as revising the basics helped me build my skills with these technologies along with learning new ones. It also helped me think about how it would be done professionally, and the similar techniques they would use when making the products I have.

Creativity

When a film is being made, the distributors create advertising campaigns using the posters to promote the film.
Tessa decided that she would get creative and put our posters onto the side of a bus, and on bus shelters, as that is places where film posters can be seen.
She took the posters that I made and adapted it to put it on a picture of a bus that she found on Google images. Then she did the same thing with a picture of a bus shelter.Tessa used Adobe photoshop to create the adverts.
Tessa and I decided that this would help us to see what it would be like if our film was to be produced and made. We also thought it would be a bit of fun, but I really like the outcome.
The pictures are on Tessa's blog :
http://tlh-advancedportfolioblog.blogspot.com/

Final Cut

This is the final copy of the trailer, after we had our second lot of feedback we took on board what people had said, although we had a much more positive response, I decided that there was a couple of things missing.
I decided that I really wanted to put the titles onto the moving image, but previously I could not work out how to do it, so I went onto Google and searched 'how to put text onto image using adobe premiere elements 1.0' and found a page which showed in an easy way how to do it. http://www.adobe.com/tips/preelpseintegrate/pdfs/preelpseintegrate.pdf
Once I had worked that out, and found a good font which Tessa said should be a handwritten style font, as it would look like a diary entry or a letter or something, so we settled on a font called Rage Italic.
I then decided that I wanted to put some extra sounds onto the trailer, some dialogue, but not much. So me and Tessa borrowed a mp3 sound recorder off of one of our media teachers. We found a quiet spot in the school so that we we're not disturbed and recorded Tessa saying 'I never have and never will believe in ghosts', 'hello', 'is there anybody there' and also some heavy panting and a scream.
Once I had copied thes onto the computer, I used a programme called Audacity to mess around and see what I could do with the sounds.

                                                    

I then put these sounds into adobe premiere elements, and slotted them into my trailer. I was really happy with the over all effect, and Tessa agreed and was also really pleased that we had finally got the trailer the way we really wanted it.

Feedback for final Trailer and Poster

We asked 15 students, a mix of female and male and the ages between 16-18 our questionnaire. The first time we gave in our feedback forms, there was a few people absent from the class so this is the reason we have a few more additional numbers from last time.

Question One:
Did you enjoy the Trailer?

Question Two:
What part of the trailer grabbed your attention the most? (Please tick one)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Question Three:
What did you like about the trailer?
There was a mix of answers, and this is what some people had said:
- The editing (faster)
- The story, gave more info
- Good use of sound effects
- More clips included
- Good use of colour

Question Four:
What did you not like about the trailer?  
Some people didn’t say anything about not liking it, but some people gave some criticism;

- Didn’t think the slow music went with the pace of the trailer
- Removed some clips from the last trailer
- Text was too fast
- Footage was shaky and blurry

- The font was too ‘fun’
- Shouldn’t have used the word ‘loft’
- Didn’t understand the concept
- Wasn’t eye catching enough
- Needs to be more ghost like
- The scream didn’t suit the trailer

Question Five:

If there was anything that could be different about the trailer what could it be?
There were some people who did not suggest anything, but there was some suggestions as to what could be different:
- Change the sound, more diegetic, add some dialogue
- Slow down the text
- More clues to the plot
- Change the font
- Should say ‘attic’ instead of ‘loft’
- The original ‘red eyes’ part instead of the new one
- More narrative
- More ghostly
- Longer
- Should have been darker, so that it was creepier

Question Six:

Which trailer did you prefer and why?
Everyone has said that they like this latest trailer, and there was various reasons:
- Just generally better
- Flowed a lot better
- Text was clearer - Gave more insight to the plot - More intriguing
- More effective - More diversity of clips
- Looked more professional
- More concise

Question Seven:

How much does the poster relate to the trailer?

Question Eight:
What is the most eye catching part of the poster? (tick one)
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Question Nine:
What did you like about the poster and why?

There were various things about the poster that people liked:
- More fuller
- New Titles
- Good use of colour
- Good use of Imagery
- Good layering
- Text stands out
- The editing/effects of the images
- The ghost
- The background
- More eye-catching
- More intriguing
- The text looked creepy

Question Ten:
Is there anything about the poster you don’t like?

Some people said that there wasn’t anything that they didn’t like, but there were a few suggestions:
- Didn’t like the second poster because the use of identity didn’t fit with the trailer
- Image to faint
- Text looked unprofessional

Question Eleven:
Is there anything you would change about the poster?  
The answers here were similar to the answers to the previous question.
 
Question Twelve:

Which poster did you prefer and why?
Many people liked the newer posters, and there were various reasons:
- More fuller
- Preferred the back to back image
- Better use of imagery
- Lack of identity is intriguing
- Having two posters is better than just the one
- Preferred the poster with the ghost behind her
- Text is better
- Back to back was a better poster because it looked more clear
- It was symmetrical and well balanced so it doesn’t overload the top or the bottom with information

Question Thirteen:

Would the film trailer and poster make you want to see more/ find out more about the film?

 
 
 








Question Fourteen:
Is there anything about either product you would like to say?
Nobody had anything more to say on the trailer or the posters.


The feedback on these final products were much more postive than the first lot of feedback that we had sent out. Everyone preffered the pace of this newest trailer and the shorter clips. There were some people who said that they still didn't understand the trailer, and that it should be longer, but as I have said previously, it is a teaser trailer and it is supposed to be short and not give much of the plot away.
There were some smaller suggestions like adding dialogue but I liked it having no dialogue because it went along with the lack of identity throughout the trailer, there was also alot of people who didn't like the poster of the girl facing forward for these same reasons.
Another think I disagreed with in the feedback was that someone said we should have used the word 'attic' instead of 'loft' but I thought that 'attic' was more american, and saying it in a british accent was too pronounced, and that the word 'loft' had more of 'fft' sound on the end, sounding more creepy.
Although overall I had practically no negative feedback on the posters.
If I was to make another trialer, I would probably slow down the text, and have a faster pace music to go along with it, because I think the slower music makes the footage look slower even tho it isnt, but other than those points most people liked the trailer and the poster.

Poster Alterations

Like the teaser trailer, our poster had some constructive feedback, so we decided to make alterations in light of this.
As people had said with trailer the font needed changing on the poster as well, so we used the same font;

I also corrected the spelling mistake that I had made on the first copies of the trailer and the poster.
I made this final poster in the same way I made the first one and I added some film listings and the age certification, people had asked for us to use this on the poster, although when I looked back on my intial research for film posters they do not usual include this.
I tried to make the white coat more opaque and ghost like as this is what people had said was the problem, Tessa suggested that I cut out the faces from the hoods, making them look empty and more creepy.

As Tessa had previously suggested the layering of the two characters over eachother for the magazine cover, I decided to use this to make a second final poster, which will give people a choice, and through my research I found that most films have two or more promotional posters.
I made this second poster in the same way that I have made the previous ones;

We will be taking this for second and final feedback with the trailer.

Alterations to Trailer

After we got our feedback we decided to make some alterations to the trailer.
We had a lot of comments of the font that we had used on the first trailer, that it was not clear, or that it was difficult to read, so we found a new font on http://www.dafont.com/ :

Another thing that we decided to do was add in some more titles, because alot of people had said they were not sure as to what was going on, but we still thought that it was a TEASER Trailer so we did not want to give too much away. To solve this we came up with a couple more clues:

Hopefully this will give away some more clues as to what is happening in the trailer.
Another problem was that the clips were to reptetive and that they were too long, so I went back into Adobe Premier Elements, to add the titles and to make the clips shorter, and quicker. I also varied the clips more, and took out alot of the clips of the swing, because there was a lot of feedback saying that there was too much of them.
Once I was happy I exported the trailer, after I did this  I realised I had not changed the contrast and brightness of the clips to create the strong colour balance. So I re-exported it for the final copy. We will be getting more feedback on the final copy of this, along with the final copies of our poster to see if people like the alterations we made.

Magazine Feedback

We showed our magazine cover to our media class, 12 students, males and females and an age range of 17-18.

We asked them the following questions:

Question One:
Did you like the magazine front cover?

Question Two:
What did you like about it?

Question Three:
What didn’t you like about it?


Overall majority was pleased with it, but there was a few points said:

- Too crowded
- Not enough colour
- Image didn’t work on the layout
- Layout too simplistic

Question Four:
Would this cover make you want to read the magazine?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Question Five:

What changes could be made?

Seven people said that they would not change anything but there were a few people who said small alterations could be changed:
- Needs to be more enticing/ attention grabbing
- Image could be brighter
- More interesting font

From this feedback we can gather that there is not much about the magazine cover that people did not like, so we will not be making any major alterations as the majority of the people were happy with it.
There was only small things like brighter image, more interesting fonts and maybe a little less crowded that people said they did not like about it.
People liked the colour and the image the most off of the cover, with a few people preffering the text and the layout.

Teaser Trailer and Poster Feedback

This is our teaser trailer, we showed it to our media class, along with our poster for the film, we gave them a feedback form to fill out once they had finshed watching the trailer and here are the results.
We asked 12 people of the ages between 17-18 and a range of male and females the following questions:
Question One:
 1- Did you enjoy the Trailer?

Question Two:
What part of the trailer grabbed your attention the most?
(Please tick one)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Question Three:

What did you not like about the trailer?

There was two people, who said there wasn’t anything they didn’t like, but there was a variation on what people didn’t like:

- Some Transitions seemed off
- Didn’t understand what was happening
- Slow paced
- Didn’t intrigue/ captivate audience members
- Lot of fading (?)
- The font
- Shaky/ Blurry
- Footage was repeated a lot
- The beginning with the eyes

Qustion 4:
If there was anything that could be different about the trailer what could it be?
Again there was much variation on what people thought could be better about the trailer:
- White coat girl needs more
- More explanation as to what is happening
- Faster/ shorter clips/ pick up pace
- The font should be changed
- Less of the swings/ more clips
- Better quality
- Eyes needs to be quicker

Question 5:
How much does the poster relate to the trailer?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Question Six:
What is the most eye catching part of the poster?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Question Seven:
Is there anything about the poster you don’t like?

Five people said that there wasn’t anything about it that they didn’t like.
There were a few points that people did not like:
- Too bare (but liked it)
- Font is hard to read
- Use the villain on the poster
- Colours are too bright/ distracting
- Kept to simple/ not enough information

Question Eight:
Is there anything you would change about the poster?

Two people said that there wasn't anything they would change about the poster.This is some of the things that people said that needed to be changed:
- The white coat girl more ghostly
- Age certification/ film listings/ more information
- Image of the villain
- Different font
- Text more spaced out
- Tone down the colours
- Spelling mistake to be changed
- Darker background
- The girl in the red coat (?)

Question Nine: Would the film trailer and poster make you want to see more/ find out more about the film?

Question Ten:
Is there anything about either product you would like to say?

There was a range of answers for this question with good and bad points:
- Effective use of non-diegetic sound
- Well made
- Doesn’t give enough information
- Colour is well used and effective
- Good background on the poster
- Effects of the text were good
- Change font
- Colour used well for symbolism

From this feedback we can see where changes need to be made, like the font needs to be changed so that it is clearer, we need more information on the trailer and the poster. We need to vary the clips on the trailer and make them shorter and more fast paced, to keep the attention of the audience.
There was a couple of answers which were not rellavent or that I did not understand, as someone had said we used to much fading, but we did not use and fading transitions when we made the trailer, and when we asked people what needed to be changed about the poster someone answered, 'the girl in the red coat' but did not say what about her needed to be changed.
There was a few people who said that the colours were too bright, but there was enough people who liked the colours to counteract this.
Overall I think if we changed the fonts, and the pace of the trailer, and gave more information that we would get a more postive feedback.

Film magazine Ideas

For our own magazine cover featuring our film, I decided that I wasn't going to recreate a magazine that already exsisted, so I came up with an original one, I named it Raw.Film, becasue the music magazine that I created during the As project was called Raw.Music, so I thought it worked for both.
To create the magazine I combined my use of Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Freehand. I used an image of the characters, which I edited the background in photoshop and saved in tiff. format.

I then put it into Macromedia Freehand and worked on the fonts and text to go with the imagery. I exported it as a Jpeg. file:

As this was just an initial idea, I was not overally thrilled about it, as it is very simple, plain and quite dull.
It doesn't grab the attention or jump out at the reader.
When I looked back and the covers of the real magazines I decided that I would do a second magazine cover to make it look more like a magazine.
I went back into adobe and used the park image that I used for the park, but instead of the characters back to back, Tessa suggested that I over lay an image of the white coated girl ontop of the red coat girl, and make the opacity so that the red coat comes through the white.
I used an image of the white girl with her hood up and her back to the camera, and an image of the red coat girl facing the camera.

I used the same technique for cutting and changing the opacity, and I used a font from the generic fonts, called Magneto.

I then flattened the image and converted it to Tiff. Then I imported the image into Macromedia Freehand and worked on the rest of the text there. I decided to go with a white and gold/yellow for the accents, as these went with the black and white background.

I went back to adobe to crop down another smaller image to include on the cover, and to crop down an image of a barcode.

Once I had finished it I exported it to a Jpeg. File:

I prefer this one so much more to my original ideas, because I think it looks so much more like a movie magazine now and I prefer the image and the colours I have chosen as they work much better together, and I think it is much more eye-catching.

Movie Magazines: Empire

Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008. It is the biggest selling film magazine in Britain, consistently outselling its nearest market rival Total Film and is also published in Australia, Turkey and Russia. Empire organises the annual Empire Awards which were sponsored by Sony Ericsson until 2009 and are now sponsored by Jameson.

Editor: Mark Dinning
First issue: July 1989
Company: Bauer

This cover again contains all the conventions, and is much more crowded than Total Film magazine.
The use of different fonts adds some depth to the cover, and some diversity, giving the eye somethign to grab hold of.
The image of the joker is a very well known and striking image, and they have chosen the colours to go with it really well.
I really like this cover because it really stands out, and the text works really well with the imagery.

This cover is different to the first one with the way they have arranged the text on the cover. There is also alot of smaller imagery, which can also attract the eye of the reader.
Again they have chosen the colours really well to work with the set of images.
I don't like this cover as much as I liked the previous one because I think there is something a bit dull about it, it is probably the fact that the main text is in a grey colour which doesn't really grab the attention, although it works well, I prefer the first cover I looked at.

This one is really simple, I like the text going straight across the middle of the cover, I think it is really effective, but the colours used are really dull, and not very eye-catching. This one is really plain and it looks scarce and not as crowded or exciting as the others. Out of all of them I dislike this one the least. I think the change of font works as a way of breaking things up but even the image is a dark photo so over all I don't think it is very exciting.

Movie Magazines: Total Film

Total Film, published by Future Publishing, is the United Kingdom's second best-selling film magazine. It offers film and DVD news, reviews, and features. The magazine was launched in 1997 and is published every four weeks (13 times a year).

Circulation: 85,031 (2008 average)
First issue: 1997
Company: Future Publishing

To get some ideas for my magazine cover I looked at some of the covers for Total Film magazine,
 

This cover includes everything that a magazine cover should, it has the title, and the price and the barcode. It has a main feature, which the image on the cover is rellavent to, and it tells the reader what other features are included on the magazine.
The layout for this issue, is quite simple there is not alot of text on it as the image takes up alot of the space, but I think it really works.
 
 
 
 
 

This one is a similar layout, but there is a little bit more text because the image does not take up as much space. Also becuase it is the same magazine it will be a similar layout, as magazine's usualy follow a layout for each issue, making it recognisable and the reader is familiar with it when they read it.
This cover is much more striking than the one before but this is because the image is in colour and I think it is much more eye-catching than a black and white image.
 
 
 
 

For this one they have changed the layout slightly, the characters are infront of the title, instead of behind, but this is because of the image, and the title would have covered the faces of the characters.
It's also different becuase of the positioning of the text, where as before there was centered main text, on this one all the main text is aligned to the left.
There are smaller images on the cover, making it look a little crowded but not as simply laid out like the others.
I like this layout because I think along with the smaller images there is more to grab the attention of a reader.