Evaluation Question 4- How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research, planning and evaluation stages.

Construction stages

Using Imovie:

Evaluation Question 3- What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback for me and my partners trailer, our poster and magazine:

The audience feedback I have gathered has been really helpful in the development of my media products. I have been collecting audience feedback at the beginning from pitching a story line in the research and planning stages. Here are the cases where I have used audience feedback.

Audience Interviews:

At the start of the process I filmed audience videos to see their expectations from a film trailer which is where the base of my ideas came from. The interviewers told us what was expected from the horror genre such as the fast pace of a horror trailer, what interests audiences to see a horror film and what is typical background music. We learnt that the possession/stalker element would be a good and interesting idea to develop for our plot.

Audience Interviews:

 

These are two audience interviews which i edited on an IPad app called 'FilmCut', i couldn't download the actual video so i recorded it separately.

Questionnaires:

Me and my partner created questionnaires across our college peers to find the typical codes and conventions of a horror trailer. This included asking if people would prefer a lot of transitions between shots, the ages which we found would appeal to 16+, with an even score of the gender who would be interested in our trailer. A helpful element which we took from the questionnaire was whether to use a handheld camera throughout our trailer, which we found people liked the sound of.

Feedback from the Media Class:

We pitched our trailer ideas to our college tutor, it was then decided that our first and more in depth plot would be more realistic to create, and was overall the better more thought out idea. We then took these ideas and filmed a short sequence of flash back scenes, of our main character in a mental hospital. After viewing this to the media class we received helpful feedback with improvements being to make the fact that she is a mental hospital more clearly. An element of our trailer which the class really liked was the fast pace editing which we then developed and worked on through the whole trailer. After 3 viewings to the media class of our trailer to show our progress we were given help for improvement each time and strengths to expand, the feedback from our class was really helpful and influential throughout the whole trailer.

Social Network Feedback:

Throughout the whole process of creating the productions I often asked people from my target audience to give feedback on my work through Facebook and twitter. This helped gather the opinions and again make changes were needed and also decide the names on my film, magazine name and production company logo/name. I found it really helpful getting social networking feedback on my film poster; I struggled to make my poster fit in with my other products so the suggestions received helped me a great deal.

Overall Progress and Work Class Feedback:

Through the year I gathered feedback of my Trailer, Magazine and poster from my class and social media which were very helpful in the process of creating my media products and was very influential regarding the genre, and representation of my products.


Trailer commentary:

This is our trailer commentary showing our trailer before social networking feedback and after. On the first cut of our trailer majority of the scenes are flash back asylum sequences and our animatic storyboard. We took the advice and areas of improvement from our media class which can be seen on our final trailer.

Evaluation Question 2- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Representation of Character:

On my trailer I have included the main character to look strange and relatively villain-like. Whereas on my poster and magazine I have shifted the focus to the sub-main character to show a different character point of, and a more vulnerable point of view. The supporting character on my poster and magazine looks innocent and vulnerable which represents a control from the trailers villain main character, from the photos her posture and pose make her look like a victim and from the trailer we see that she has been manipulated and 'turned mad'. I decided to change this point of view to give an element of mystery and question for the audience. I used dark colours and shadows throughout to show the genre to be horror/thriller.

Good vs. Bad:

We can see elements of the good and bad characters in our trailer, Harriet (short haired female) to be not necessarily evil, but suspicious looking due to the strange looks she gives and the flashback shots of her in a mental asylum. We also see a montage of shots of another character who acts as a supporting role, as a victim. We here over the montage a doctor’s voice saying 'she’s turning others mad' this suggests that Harriet has manipulated her and turned her insane. The divide between good and bad isn’t over ally clear in our trailer because you could argue that Harriet isn’t intentionally a Bad character, just mentally unstable.

Location:

The main location featured in my trailer is the college, various college rooms and corridors because the setting and story is in a college which worked well. The asylum scenes were shot in a small room in college which we altered with a sheeted table to look more horror relatable. We also filmed some sequences in the woods to show a change of location and a more diversity of locations. The location for my poster and magazine just required a white wall for the background. I chose not to have a busy location because I wanted the only focus to be on the character, and because she is a hospital patient there wouldn’t really be any other appropriate place to capture.

Colour and Lighting:

The colour and lighting I have used is very dark and low key throughout all of my work, I have done this to give a clear portrayal of the horror genre I have chosen. Although during the mental asylum scenes the room seems quote light because of the white walls, but the grain and green tint over these shots relate to the hospital feeling. There are a few scenes outside in woods which are lighter than the others because it was day light, but I think the wet ground and the trees made it look relevant and spooky even in the day. My poster and magazine related well to the horror genre because of the black/white/red colour scheme which is often seen on horror related products.

Text:

The texts and fonts I used for my poster, magazine and trailer are all very similar and simple, this is because due to the fact I am doing products relating to horror, the other elements are all very busy so I thought simple plain texts would contrast well. The colour for the fonts stuck to the three colour rule of red, white and black with small elements of grey on my poster.

Evaluation Question 1- In what ways does your media products use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation 1 from bethhawley95

Trailer So far

This is our trailer so far. We have yet some to make some slight changes to the sound and play around with more appropriate fonts  for the title slides. We also need to add a slide with steel tongs production information.

Poster to date

This is my poster to date, it is near completion with just some small tweaks and changes to make. I think the final outcome of my trailer is effective in showing the horror genre while relating to my trailer 'The grim truth'.