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

Throughout the making of all my products I used a lot of technology. Through the research and planning stages I used Youtube a lot. Youtube was very helpful as it allowed me to see previous teaser trailers from real life films like dawn of the dead and I am legend as well as other media students products that they had made in the past. This helped me get ideas for my product as well as see the expected codes and conventions that are seen in horror films, especially zombie films. Last year with my AS coursework all my of my work was recorded in a book with pages of documents and the odd photo, this year I have used blogger to record my work, this has been very helpful. Because of using a blog instead of hand writing everything with the chance of error i could write on the computer with the help of spell checkers and saving the work. But what Blogger really stood out for was that i could present my work alot better than if i was to do what i did last year. It allowed me too add images and videos to my pieces of work to help make my point clearer as well as making it more entertaining.

When constructing my teaser trailer, filming the footage was probably the most important thing. I filmed using a Sony Handycam, this did allow me to do all the basics of filming but in reality if i was to ever make a professional media product the equipment i would be using would be alot better. I think this did effect my media product as it could have looked a lot more proffesional had i been using higher quality equipment. That said it would have been a lot more expensive and harder to learn how to use. Once I had filmed my product i uploaded it onto an apple mac, this piece of equipment is probably one of the best around for making homemade style movies. Once uploaded onto the Mac i would use the application Final Cut Pro, this with the power of the Mac would allow me to do loads of things to edit  my footage to make it look as proffesional as possible. Last year for my coursework i used the programme Imovie to edit my work, its a very easy programme to use, but its also very basic, therefore that's why this year i switched to the more advanced programme. Final Cut Pro allowed me to crop down the footage and put it into order, and then use transitions, effects, filters and sound effectsvto make the footage effective. The problem with Final Cut Pro is as its a more proffesional programme than iMovie it was a lot tougher to use, and my knowledge of how to use it did restrict me into only using fairly basic effects. Had my knowledge been stronger, the programme has a large amount of power and i could have made my product to a very high quality.

On the Apple Mac i also used an application called LiveType. This was a great tool that allowed me to create titles and text, I used it to make the title of my film that was shown in the trailer and the production company sequence that also show in the trailer. With this programme you could choose from a huge library of fonts and then edit the text to look pretty much exactly how you want it, then you could add on animations to the text to make it stand out and look very proffesional.

When creating my two ancillary products I used to programme Photoshop. The great thing about this programme is that it's easy to use for both proffesionals and amateurs and the possibilty of what you can create are almost endless, meaning you can create a very high quality piece of work. I had to create a film poster and a magazine cover, I found the programme most effective when i was editing the main zombie character, but it was still very useful to use to make some of the smaller parts that just help make the product look that little bit more like it's a real product. As i was fairly new to the programme i couldn't do some of the really advanced stuff that can be done but i think it helped me create two proffesional looking products.

When evaluating my product I again found Youtube very helpful as it meant i could upload my teaser trailer, and anyone in the world could watch my trailer and comment their opinions of what they thought of my product. In theory this would have been brilliant for feedback, but in the end my trailer didnt get many views even after i advertised it to people to watch and give me feedback. I also uploaded all 3 of my products to Facebook to try and get some feedback from people but again there was not much of a response.

Without these technologies my product wouldn't even be filmed yet, let alone have sort of editing. So i have definitly used a large amount of technology and found it really useful, yet with a bit more knowledge towards the programmes i'm sure my products could have been even better.

Evaluation- What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After creating my teaser trailer my media class (aged 17-18, my target audience) gave me a lot of feedback towards my product. A lot of the feedback would be very helpful if i was to make another media product, or improve this one.

A lot of the feedback i received surrounding my teaser trailer was very positive, with a lot of people saying they thought it was clear what the trailer was about. There were also a lot of suggestions saying ways in which I could improve the product, a lot of people said they thought the start scene was quite dull, as not much was going on and it was just a character doing things you would do in morning getting ready for the day ahead. This was meant to be done for effect so that it completely contrasted with the later shots, I personally thought like my feedback that it wasn't shot effectively enough and it didn't look like it went with the rest of the trailer, so it probably did look a bit 'odd' and out of place. Another concern was that a large amount of the people i asked for feedback from said they thought the ending was strong, or shocking enough. I had hoped when making my trailer the whole thing would be a build up to the big shock ending, yet again i agreed with my audience and did feel that it wasn't that scary and probably wasn't shot and edited well enough.

I asked twenty people for feedback from my product, and all of them are also doing a media course so their views would be constructive and they would know what they're talking about. 19 of them did say they found my trailer entertaining which is very positive for me. But i have had a lot of feedback giving me counstruvtive criticsm on things that i could perhaps change. These views from my peers have helped my alot, and if i was to edit my product further or make a new one i would make alot of changes:

• When filming my product i think it would be a lot more helpful if i was to use stronger equipment to help with some of the tougher shots, to therefore make my product look alot smoother and more effective. I think this would help with ending and the start scenes.
• When editing my product i think my final cut pro knowledge was not strong enough and i sometimes struggled to do some of the harder effects that could of made my product look alot more proffesional and even helped make the trailer scarier and more shocking.
• If i was filming again i would film alot more footage, as when i made mine i only filmed a limited amount of footage, and if i had more i could of made the trailer slightly longer which would of helped with the narrative.
• From my audience a lot of them said they thought the trailer should of maybe had a voiceover to make it seem more like a trailer, i also think this would of worked well to announce the dates of the film and made it seem more proffesional.

I also got the 20 people who looked at my teaser trailer to look at my ancillary tasks so i could get any feedback on them. I was very happy that everyone who looked at my magazine cover were really impressed. There were alot of comments on the strength of the editing on how the main character looked very scary, and people said they thought that it actually looked like a real, proffesional made magazine cover. This is very positive feedback, i was happy with the product aswell so i probably wouldn't change anything. However there was a bit more criticism towards my film poster. Although alot of people liked it, some people thought it was a bit too dark, and not enough was going on. I can see where they are coming from and if i was to spend some more time on my poster i probably would edit it further:

• I would add more text as at the minute there is just a title, a date and the credits at the bottom of the page. I would add some quotes from magazines and newspapers with ratings of the film.
• There was a lot of blank space on the poster which did make it look a little bit plain. To fix this I would make the main image larger so that it stould out more.
• A few complaints were made about the font of the title as a couple of people said they couldnt make out what it said. The H and the U in the hunted title did like quite similar so i would probably use a new font.

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

I feel my 3 final products have an effective combination to work along side each other and advertise my film. It could be said that my teaser trailer doesn't link to my poster and magazine cover, as on the cover and the poster it shows a zombie whereas a zombie isn't seen throughout the trailer. However this was done for effect, like in the film Independence day it wasn't revealed until just before the films release that Will Smith was the main character in the film, as he wasn't even shown in the teaser trailer. I thought that if the teaser trailer was to be released before the poster and magazine cover it would be effective to not show a zombie throughout the teaser trailer to keep the audience guessing about what is causing the disappearances in the film. Then the poster and the magazine cover would be shown closer to the release of the film, this would draw alot of attention the film as it would make it seem as there is a whole new part to the narrative and interest the audience into watching the film, and also help with the synergy of the film, potentially increasing the income.

The two ancillary tasks clearly link together, as both the magazine cover and the film poster have the same zombie as the main feature just in different poses. This adds a sort of consistency so that if people saw an image of that zombie they could link it back to the film. The dark colours used in both the poster and the magazine cover are very important, by repeated use of these colours it helps reinforce the horror of the film.

Ancillary Task- Poster

 

 This is my final product, i made the product using photoshop elements. The main image in the centre is representing the horror conventions of the film, it features a character in the centre with bloodstained clothing and blood around the mouth, it also features an agressive pose which makes the character seem like he has an intention of malice. I used photoshop to soften the edges of the image so it would blend in with the black background to make the image alot smoother. For the title and date i downloaded a font called Killing Ants, I thought it looked very different to standard fonts and stood out, it also looks like it has rips in which I think would link well with the type of film as it could represent it had been ripped and scratched by the zombies.

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

My media product uses the forms and conventions of a real media product as it incorporates a main male protagonist, whether it be male or female pretty much every film will feature a main hero character that the film will revolve around and there's no difference in my product. This character will often have something that has gone wrong and he needs to fix it for example Robert Neville from I am legend is a very similar character to mine of Matt Duke as they have both lost their families and are trying to survive a zombie outbreak. Another character shown in the teaser trailer is the news reporter, i got this idea from the 2004 remake of Dawn of the dead, it has a scene with the news reporter talking about the zombie attack and warning people to stay inside, I thought this would be an subtle way of helping show a bit of the narrative with out giving everything away. This developed conventions as often trailers will have a voice over helping explain what is happening, whereas mine tried not to make it completely obvious but helped the audience realise what is happening. There are many general horror conventions that are seen in lots of horror films, my teaser trailer features a few, for example the setting is quite stereotypical to horror with a deserted eerie looking place like a forest. My trailer also shows the use of weapons which are often associated with action/horror films.

My magazine cover uses alot of conventions from real covers, i based my cover largely around the layout of a Total Film magazine as you can see from the two pictures below (right is real product). They have a lot of things in common like having a main figure that has the centre of attention with everything else based around him. The placement of titles and smaller details like the bar code and price are all in similar places. I challenged the conventions though as normally the magazines will feature the hero on the front cover, but i featured one of the zombies, complete with editing.

I tried to stick to alot of the more general conventions that are expected with a teaser trailer. Because teaser trailers are released a long time before the film actually releases, the teaser trailer should try and capture the audience and interest them further so when the film does come out they remember it and want to watch it. I have tried to do this by not giving everything away; when the audience watches my trailer without knowing anything about the film, they should hopefully wonder what it is causing these disappearances and want to find out, therefore interesting them further. However I did challenge some conventions, often these trailers will be all out action trying to really grip the audience however with mine to begin with it starts quite artistic and just has shots of a person doing things that you would generally do when you wake up in the morning and get ready for the day. There is no speech and is quite quiet apart from the noise from the actions, this leaves the audiences quite confused to whats actually going on and what its advertising, and should hopefully incense them into wondering what its actually about and become interested.

With alot of film posters, generally they will be made very bright so they stand out from far away so people will notice them. I've challenged this convention as my poster is extremely dark, and the main picture is not completely visible. I did this for two reasons, the first was because I thought it would look different from the average posters you see and would look aesthetically pleasing, the second was because i thought the dark colours will represent to the audience that it will be a dark film, and these dark colours show the conventions of a horror film. However without the dark colours of the poster, it would follow the general conventions of a film poster by featuring a main image that has something to do with the film, a title, a date and credits. There are alot more things that are expected to be on a poster normally like taglines or ratings from newspapers but I thought I would keep it simple.  Below my poster is compared next to other posters and instantly it does look different because of the colour differences, but apart from that it does feature alot of similar conventions.

Final Product- Teaser Trailer

This is my final teaser trailer after filming and editing. Throughout filming and editing i have tried to stick to my original idea in an attempt to make a trailer that looks like a professional piece which sticks to conventions of real teaser trailers. Without using professional equipment or actors i think overall the product has came out quite well and looks quite effective in places.

Ancillary Task- Magazine Cover

One of my ancillary tasks was to create a film magazine front cover. I decided i would make a cover in the style of total film magazine, they often have one large character on the cover with everything else placed around it. My initial idea was to feature a large zombie on the cover with titles and information placed around it. I started off by dressing up a person to look like a zombie for a photo shoot, I put fake blood all around his mouth and down his t shirt to make it look like he had just bitten somebody, and gave him a t shirt with rips in to help show the zombie effect.

 Once the photos had been taken they were ready to be edited using photoshop elements. Firstly i cropped the background so it was just the zombie figure and then used some filters to make the colours a bit more standout. I then used the blur tool around the eyes to make it look like they were glowing and help make them really standout. Next i used a filter to make the red of the blood stay in colour whereas the rest of it turn to black and white, this really made the blood standout. Finally I created the background, i decided for it to be plain black as this would contrast well with the white of the zombie but have a glowing white cirlce behind the zombie just to give extra emphasis on it being there and help it standout. It would then be ready to be made look like a magazine, so i started off by putting in the title of the magazine.

Once the main Total Film title was cropped and in place it was time to do all the smaller headings and sub headings. I used the Arial font for these headings, the larger titles where in red to go with the blood on the page whilst the any other text was in white, so it could be read over the black background. Finally all the smaller details needed to be put in place to help the realism, so i put in barcode, a price, an issue number and a date.

 Overall I think it looks good and definitly looks like a real film cover. The use of the contrasting black and white and the bright red definitly makes the cover stand out and would get noticed from a glance if it was on a shelf.