Evaluation

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

Film Magazine Front Cover

















When researching into film magazines I discovered a number of conventions that most magazines tend to stick to; hierarchy of text, large image, coverlines, Z pattern layout, easily read font to establish brand, bold colours etc. I decided to adhere to most of the conventions as I aimed to create a cover for a conventional film magazine that features big blockbuster films and appeals to the mainstream film audience. I have used a large image of one of the stars to dominate the page. My actor is posing as Kate Winslet and so a large eye catching image of a very famous actor is a useful technique to attract the target audience. I have used bold complementary colours of red white and blue, the colours of the British flag, which connotes a patriotic atmosphere; this would appeal to a British audience but also other countries because British films do appeal to overseas.
I found that some movie magazines use a lot of coverlines and others use minimal amounts, so I decided to use an amount in between the two extremes. I used one key coverline but made it large so that it clearly stood out and went well with the image, then I used a menu strip at the bottom as a way of letting the audience know more about what the magazine contained. I have arranged my coverlines and masthead in the conventional Z pattern with a hierarchy of text; the more important text is largest, getting smaller with the least important text as the smallest. For this reason the masthead is the largest text on the page as the magazine needs to be easily identifiable so it stands out on a shop shelf. The next largest text is the main coverline “Kate Winslet in Nineteen Fifty Four” because this is what needs to entice the reader into buying the magazine so it needs to easily catch the reader’s eye. The menu strip across the bottom is smaller because although it contributes to the selling of the magazine it is not the key selling point so doesn’t need to be as big. The next smallest coverline is “Exclusive Interview”, this does not need to be as large as the other text on the page because the other coverline “Kate Winslet in Nineteen Fifty Four” attracts attention to it because they tie in together and its colour also makes it stand out on the page. The smallest text on the page is the price, because it is informative rather than audience attracting device and the tagline because it cannot be too big so that it looks like a coverline.

Film Poster

















Similarly to my magazine I decided to use the conventions of most film posters that I came across in my research. Firstly I included the names of the most famous actors in the film at the top, because this appeals to the audience that are big fans of certain stars immediately. I also used a large image of one of the main actors in the film for the same effect; however the image also plays an important part in conveying the narrative in one freeze frame. I constructed my image in Photoshop to show one of the main characters looking out a window with a shadow of someone with a knife being cast on the window, this is to convey the idea that she could be a murderer and the shadow shows her true identity or that there is a murderer behind her. This is a theme throughout the film; that there is a murderer and nobody knows who it is, so the general narrative is successfully portrayed in this one still image.
I used a colour scheme of red and black because this relates to the genre of the film, it is conventional of a horror, murder film to use these colours because they connote the theme of blood and dark atmospheres. I used red for the text and black for the background so that the text (including the actor’s names and the title of the film) is eye catching. This is important so that the audience know the title of the film when they want to watch it. I also included a credit block at the bottom of the poster because it is a legal requirement for posters to have these and so it contributes to the authentic look of my own poster.

Teaser Trailer
Our trailer is a murder mystery genre set in the 1950’s, there were certain conventions we used to make sure this came across to the audience. The first convention we decided on was that it would be black and white; this conveys the time period and an eerie atmosphere. The dark and shadowy look is typical of a film noir movie.



The mise-en-scene was imperative to the success of conveying the 1950’s setting as if we had included props from modern times it would ruin the realism of the trailer. We tackled this successfully by filming at a location that existed in the 1950’s and still kept its vintage appearance today, seen in number 6 of my screen grabs. You can see from the screen grabs below that we also controlled the costume, make up and lighting making sure they all kept with the 1950’s style and established the genre, for example, suits for men, dresses for women, low key lighting.
















We used a range of different types of shots; close ups, long shots, tracking etc, demonstrated in the above screen grabs, that were not in chronological order. This is a technique used in trailers to create enigma and a sense of confusion which motivates the audience to watch the film to understand the questions created by the shots on screen, for example in shot 3 of my screen grabs, what are they running from? The range of shots and editing also makes the trailer more eye catching and exciting. We included a rapid montage that sped up in time with the music which included shots 3, 4 and 5 above. The fast editing pace and range of ambiguous shots is effective in emphasising the enigma and thrilling the audience, this makes them more likely to want to watch the film.
From our research into teaser trailers we found that conventional trailers contained titles to portray the USP of the film and to give clues to the storyline. We included titles that showed the names of the famous actors, which were all part of the USP of the film. We also used the title in shot 2, to convey part of the storyline and make it sound more exciting as “Based on True Events” adds another element of mystery. We used a script like font and animated it to look as if it was being written. This was to connote the high class of the setting and the guests which sets an atmosphere in place; it also connotes the writing of the invitations. We included a title with the name of the film “Nineteen Fifty Four” to inform the audience so they know what it is they are watching. It is positioned at the end of the trailer so that it is the last thing to stick in the audiences minds.
The narrative is conveyed through the voiceover, images, dialogue and titles and images on screen. The voice over, sets the scene of the location and the setting, the party in the grand hall. So the audience knows the basis that the story is about guests at a grand hall. The images of people running, people dead, weapons and more, convey the idea of murder, action and a chase which are the key conventions of a thriller murder centred film. The dialogue shots such as “A word to the wise darling…don’t trust anyone” conveys the mysterious aspect of the narrative, so the audience know they will experience clues and confusion as to who the murderer is.

2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?












The combination of my teaser trailer, film magazine front cover and film poster works effectively. I have maintained brand identity and consistency across each text by using the same font for the film title throughout so that the audience knows that each of the texts are connected and are advertising the same film. I have also maintained consistency with the colour scheme; the trailer is entirely black and white so I have used black and white images for my film poster and magazine as well. The consistency through all my media products ensure that the audience understands that they are connected so they can act as a package to promote the film, which makes the promotion more effective than if it was just one type of promotion.
I have portrayed the numerous unique selling points of the film across each of the promotional products. These points include the black and white theme, the "Britishness" of the film, and the famous actresses. I kept all of these factors constant, however I have used an image of Kate Winslet on my magazine and an image of Thandie Newton on my poster. I did this because although the actress is not consistent, which would have been one optional way to combine the aniciliary products, I decided that the numerous British actresses emphasises the Britshness of the film. The fact that the film has British actresses and is set in Britain is a unique selling point, as British films are atractive for their stereotypical decadence and drama that they are assumed to contain. Therefore including both these actresses in separate ancilliary texts means that the Britishness of the film is better established. British films also appeal to American audience so this will not narrow the target audience, rather it will broaden it.

3) What have you learned from your audience feedback ?
Throughout the production of my promotion package we have been conducting audience research to ensure that it appeals to the target audience appropriately. During the initial planning of the trailer, film poster and magazine I looked into our target audiences expectations of a promotional package for a film. This helped me during the initial planning stage because it meant I could shape my ideas around what I already knew would entice the audience. Click here to see what I found out from my initial audience research.
When we had created a first draft version of our trailer we conducted a focus group to see if the audience could identify the genre and narrative and see if it interested them. We set our focus group up by choosing people from a range of ages within our target audience (15+) and a mixture of genders. We gave them a sheet of prompt questions for them to answer and expand on. Click here to see the outcome of our first focus group.
We repeated the focus group exercise with our final trailer including people that were in the initial focus group and people that had not seen the trailer before. Click here to see the outcome of our final focus group.
The focus group exercises were extremely useful because they gave us an insight into the audience’s point of view on our trailer and we gained an unbiased view on what we could improve and what was good about it. This meant we could develop our trailer using the feedback to make it even more engaging to the audience. As well as these focus groups we did a peer assessment exercise in our media class. We each took it in turn to critique each other’s trailers and gain some constructive criticism. This was useful in the same way as our focus group; we gained a fresh perspective on our work which offered ideas beyond our own and we could use some of these to entice a broader audience.

4) How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
New media technologies have been imperative to the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages of my A2 coursework. When conducting my research I used the internet to find out about real media products through search engines such as Google which led me to sites including Wikipedia and Internet Movie Database to find out information on statistics and definitions. I also used Google to find images of real film magazines and film posters in order to research into the conventions of these real media products.

Similarly I used YouTube to view some real media trailers and analyse them to gain an understanding of the generic conventions. In the planning stage of my coursework I used Adobe premiere pro to create an animatic out of the storyboard we drew up so we could gain a rough idea of how long we wanted our shots to be.

During the preliminary task and construction of our final media trailer we used the Sony HDV camcorder to film our footage and Adobe premiere pro to edit it into a trailer format. It was useful to get practise with this equipment before we constructed our final media trailer because it meant we could use it to its best possible ability.

We also used Adobe after effects to create the titles for our media trailer, this software made it possible for us to have animated titles that looked as if they were being written. To construct my poster and film magazine I used a digital camera to take my original images and Adobe Photoshop to manipulate these images and add layers in order to turn them into a poster and film magazine design. As part of the evaluation stage I have used www.blogger.com to display my blog so that I could include videos and images. I have used www.slideshare.net to host pdf files that I wanted to include in my evaluation.