Obsessed: December 2009

Monday, 7 December 2009

Evaluation - Question 4

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

We used many media platforms, mostly the Internet to find videos, audio links, articles and images to research, plan and observe existing similar media products which helped us gain a greater understanding of what works well, what attracts which audience and the different conventions of the various platforms, whether it be a trailer, front cover for a magazine or a film poster.
To make our trailer we used imovie HD which allowed us to edit and add text and music to our footage. This was crucial because the addition of text to our trailer allowed us to get across to the audience our USP which is that the film is based on a true story. The addition of music was essential because the combination of sound and imagery/footage allowed us to create atmosphere and establish the correct genre. We used freeplaymusic.com to find a soundtrack for our trailer which gave us a range of genres and sub genres to choose from. This allowed us to find non-copyright music which gave us the sound we were looking for.
We used Adobe photoshop CS3 to edit our film magazine front cover and teaser poster and this allowed for a wide range of adjustments such as croping images, grayscaling them, manipulating the colour schemes etc. This meant that we could establish the notion of slasher horror through colour or the lack of colour. It also allowed us to be selective with generic colours if you like, such as reds, connoting evil, blood and gore; or the colour black connoting darkness, loneliness and death.
Throughout the coursework as a group we had to learn ways in which to overcome faulty technology and other issues. For example, the network that we used at college had failed to save our work a few times which hindered our progress ,however, we used portable USB devices as a solution which also allowed us to work from home and other location. Additionally, the website blogger.com failed to work on many ocassion which meant that we needed to find a way to get on with our work in the meantime and so we wrote what we were going to post on a word document so that we could copy and paste it into a post when available.
To evaluate our work we used facebook and twitter as platforms for our audience to gain information and coments on it. This was effective as these website are very popular and they reach out not only to the target audience but to a range of ages, genders and cultures. We also interviewed people who had watched the trailer or observed the poster or front cover. From these interviews we gained praise for our products and constructive criticism on how to improve our work. This was effective because it allowed us tolisten to feedback and reflect on comment bad or good. This is essential for large film companies such as Warner Bros. or MGM because it provides them with key information on how their audience want them to produce films which will then help them in the future when making later films.

Also used: Twitter, youtube and facebook

Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

This is an example of one of the interview that we did regarding audience feedback and we were happy to here the praise and the constructive criticism as it let us know where we went right or wrong. This interview in particular is good because the person we interview talks of the comparison that our trailer has with existing slasher horror trailer, which shows that the audience can see that there are clearly generic conventions displayed. He also talks of the good use of Adobe photoshop, commenting on the excellent attention to detail and comparing the grayscale we used to the Blair witch project.

Evaluation - Question 2

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

I feel that our teaser trailer and teaser film poster compliment each other well. With the poster being displayed a year before the films release and the teaser trailer being released well before the theatrical trailer and the film itself. We felt that it was important for both media platforms to be consistent with each other and so both the trailer and poster have the same tease, which is to withhold the killers face.

Additionally, we found that both of these media platforms were easy to promote through viral marketing using facebook and twitter to reach out to a worldwide audience. I feel that because the teaser trailer is short this allows the audience to identify without giving to much narrative away.

This means that the audience will be keen to discover further information surrounding the media product. This will lead to word of mouth promotion and the target audience is likely to visit the promotional facebook and twitter pages and watch the trailer on youtube. Therefore, when the poster and magazine are released, there will be an established audience that will already have some knowledge of the product and so the audience begins to familiarise with the masked killer.

Evaluation - Question 1

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

After researching teaser trailers and observing the conventions in comparison to that of theatrical trailers, we decided which conventions we wanted to use and which conventions we wanted to challenge. In the existing teaser trailer that I observed some chose to use a voice over, whereas others didn't. For example, the teaser trailer for The Last Airbender included a voice over which helped explain narrative, whereas the teaser for A Nightmare on Elm Streetdidn't use a voice over at all, just a soundtrack. In our trailer we opted not to use a voice over as we didn't want to reveal too much of the narrative and we felt that it would not be as effective or necessary. This is because we feel the purpose of a teaser trailer is simply to tease and to get the title of the product 'out there' an hope that people begin to promote the product through word of mouth.
When observing existing trailers we thought about what the tease was in each one and we realised in the Nightmare on Elm Street trailer that the tease was that we didn't see Freddy Kruger's scared face. This makes the audience want to see his face even more and this is something we wanted to replicate in our trailer. For example when our protagonist/ the killer takes a note off the wall, we arranged the lighting so that we could not see his facial features. The only time we see a glimpse of the mask is when the camera rotates around the killer and so this is our tease and a convention we used from an existing trailer.

I feel that we adopted some technical conventions, such as the use of rapid shot which are often found in teaser trailer. This doesn't give the audience a chance to understand narrative and allows us to withhold just enough information to keep the audience interested and willing to search for the film on the internet where they will come across our facebook and twitter accounts, so this links in the different media platforms well. We decided to challenge generic conventions, for example we used specific shots like the 360 degree panning shot of the protagonist which celebrates and amplifies his power which hasn't been seen in other slasher horror films.

For our Film Poster we decided to use a close-up much like the one in the Friday 13th teaser poster. We felt that close-ups bring the audience closer to the audience and it allows for attention to detail. We also made sure that the title was in large font. This doesn't strictly follow conventions of a teaser poster, as we see in the Friday 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street teaser poster where the main focus is on the character. The reason we did not follow this convention is because the 2 films I mentioned are pre existing and well known which allows them to leave out the title and still be recognisable, whereas our film is new and so we needed to get the title 'out there' and expose it to the target audience.

I terms of our film magazine front cover, I feel that we followed the conventions in respect to the position of the title. Our title is positioned in the largest font at the top of the page, much like the title for EMPIRE magazine and Fangoria magazine. This gives the audience a clear indication of what the magazine is about and for regular readers it is easily recognisable. One convention that we didn't follow was the use of freebies and competitions which is another method of intising the audience to purchase the magazine. The reason we didn't do this is because we are a new release and we don't have the demands of a big magazine publisher such as EMPIRE.

Questionnaire

1. Name three things you enjoyed about the teaser trailer
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2. Did you think our killer was convincing?

3. Why?

4. Did you notice any conventional aspects of a slasher horror movie trailer?

5. What were they?

6. Was our victim convincing?

7. Did the length of the trailer have any impact on your viewing?

8. What did you think about the pace of the trailer?

9. Was the narrative clear?

10. Would you want to go and watch this movie in the cinema?