Evaluation and Feedback

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

When we first started to make our media product we gathered a lot of research about trailers, movie posters and magazine covers. This really helped us to establish what was expected from these productions. Also we were able to look at them and choose what we thought worked well and what didn’t work so well and thus we could put together what we wanted from our production.

For the trailer the conventions we followed a lot of standard conventions for thriller/horror trailers. The trailer starts slow and builds up into a fast paste montage of shots, this is an industry standard for making a trailer. Also at the end of the trailer after the name has come up there is an extra clip designed to intrigue and frighten the viewer even more, this is almost always used on horror trailers. Also we used the green screen at the beginning of the trailer which shows the age rating of the trailer, we felt that this would help to give our trailer more authenticity as all professionally made trailers have this. I felt that our trailer challenged conventions of most trailers by having no dialogue at all, This was a conscious decision as we felt that dialogue would have taken away from the horror of the situation. Also when we watched the trailer for the shining we were inspired by it as it has no dialogue and is only one shot, It does explain the plot at all but just tries to interest the viewer enough that they will want to see it.

When designing the poster and the magazine we again looked back to our research. For example we found that horror posters normally had one greatly edited image that would interest the viewer and so we implemented this when making our one. Also we put text at the bottom that showed; the Production Company, actors, director etc which is normally on film posters and so by us doing it looked more professional.

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

I feel that our main and ancillary products cohesively form a brilliant media package. The trailer, poster and magazine cover all have a very dark feel to them and all create the same sought of atmosphere and tone.

We used high contrast, slightly washed out colours when creating the film, we also used these colours when making the poster and magazine cover which helped in linking them all together to form an effective package.

When we made the poster and magazine cover we used a low opacity black brush to gradually make the edges of the photo black. This helped to give the idea that the sides of the picture are closing in on you, something that we felt linked well to our actual film.

From our audience feedback we found that all of the productions where engaging and interesting. The majority of the people we interviewed said that after seeing our complete media package they would want to see the finished film. This showed how the combination of our main product and ancillary texts where very effective.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We got feedback from about 15 different people, however we had problems with the sound on the camera when we interviewed the first group of people so there is only video footage of the second group.

We found that when asked the audience felt that there was stand out scenes that they thought where most effective and engaging. These where Jack swinging the baseball bat into the camera and the final ending scene where the killer opens the door and walks in as the pov shot focuses in on him. We found that these clips where a great way of making the viewer feel more engaged with the film as the point of view made it feel as if they where there. If we did it again we would probably try to put more shots like this in it.

The audience also like how well edited the film and sound where. The felt it really helped in the flow of the trailer to have the timing so well done. Also the eerie sound effects and culminating music where found to popular with our audience.

The audience couldn’t really find a least effective part of the trailer. Some said that the build up of suspense at the beginning of the trailer was perhaps too long. However  others liked this as it helped to build tension and fear which is what we intended it for. Also some viewers felt  that there was too many shots just of the antagonist and the protagonist separately and that they should have interacted  with each other more. We felt that this was a valid point and looking back we felt that we should have included more scenes like this.

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

Filming

When we filmed we used a Sony full HD 1080p camera. This camera used SD memory as the original camera that we used DV tape and broke whilst filming. Therefore we used a different camera that used a different memory system. The use of these cameras has taught me a lot about different types of storage device.

To research we used the internet a lot. We looked at websites lime IMBD and YouTube. We used IMBD to look at films we liked and find films that we would analyze. We used YouTube to look at and research previous trailers. This is a good example of web 2.0 interactivity.

We used Google Maps and Google Street View to help us find the locations that we would be using for our film. However with mine and Jack’s knowledge of the local area we already had some filming locations that we planned to use before we started planning.

Editing

To edit we used final cut express. Prior to our project I had no experience with final cut but now I am fully familiar with the tools that it offers. I learnt how to manage clips, audio and overlaying very well thanks to the use of Final Cut. Also I learnt a lot about exporting settings and hot to upload a video to YouTube.

Blogging

To blog we used BlogSpot. Managing a blog is not new experience for me but I have learnt a new thing or two about BlogSpot. Especially when my blog was removed and I had to desperately try to rescue it.

I learnt how to imbed videos and images and how to neatly set out a blog so that a viewer can easily understand what is going on.

Ancillary tasks

To create my ancillary task I used paint shop pro. I am already very familiar with paint shop pro but there is always more to learn. Paint shop pro is especially useful because of the use of layers and the amount of effects that a user can do which are vital for a film poster or magazine cover.