Jouvan: Evaluation 4

Planning and Research (Development and Pre Production)     


My group members tackled a different aspect from this particular evaluation, I was responsible for tackling the planning and research  aspect.

Blogger is a publishing service where our groups work was presented. This  website technology stored all of   our posted images, links, videos and our movie products. Blogger was an easy to use software which I found relatively easy to present my work on, i was familiar with Blogger as i used it to  store my AS media coursework. The below screenprint shows the Blogger dashboard and the posting page.

  

I used a blackberry curve 8520 to take pictures during the  beginning of my coursework, I took pictures of test film shots where our group member Harry was acting in, these pictures were posted on Blogger by using a blackberry usb which allowed me to transfer the images I took to Blogger http://ctkmed1.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/preliminary-filming-images.html . Other website technology we used to present our work was through social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to reach a large audience and update our progression. 

I used a variety of media technology software during my coursework, Microsoft Excel was one which I used mainly for audience research results to create graphs as a way of presenting my work. Below is an example of how I used  Microsoft Excel as a media technology software to present my work. 

  

Below is a video I recorded which shows how I used the internet to research example film posters, magazines and teaser trailers by using internet technologies such as YouTube and Google search engines. 

YouTube was very effective and useful in my groups planning and research work because it allowed us to upload test shots which could then be posted onto Blogger. Our group also found YouTube useful when researching teaser trailers because YouTube has a large variety of teaser trailers to watch from. The video below shows a video which my group uploaded to Blogger from Youtube.

Another media technology which my group used were scanners, my group used scanners during our planning and research work in order to transfer sketches to Blogger, the following link is an example of a sketch we scanned and uploaded to Blogger.  http://ctkmed1.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/magazine-drafts.html .

Jouvan: Evaluation 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Each member from my group have tackled the following question, I will also be tacking this question by focusing on the statistic feedback  my groups media product received and explaining what I have learnt from it. 

YouTube was a very useful internet technology we used to display our teaser trailer to our audience to view and to leave feedback on our teaser trailer. From our audience feedback we found on an overall the audience liked the teaser trailer as the majority of comments written were positive, for example one person made a comment saying that they liked the quick cuts and the captions used in the teaser trailer. We did however get some positive criticism from an individual who said the teaser trailer music could have been synchronised.

We also found from our like/dislike status bar that 6 people liked the teaser trailer and only one person disliked it. From this we can tell that the majority of people viewing our teaser trailer liked it in comparison to people disliking it which shows that our audience view our teaser trailer positively. 

The above image shows the age group our teaser trailer is mostly watched by, from this information we found out that our audience is watched by younger people and this could be our target audience if we were to make an actual film from our teaser trailer. The image below shows that our teaser trailer is viewed mostly in Great Britain.

Jouvan: Evaluation 2

During the production of my main products it was essential that that magazine, poster and teaser trailer and ancillary texts had effective continuity. The combination of the product and ancillary texts needed to have effect continuity in order for the audience to know the main products are related and to enable the product to be easily recognisable when promoted.

My group included key features from our main products to keep continuity throughout the production of our main products. The victim was included in all of the product’s we creates which allowed the audience to know the magazine, poster and teaser trailer had a relation related.To keep continuity in the our main products we used a specific font which would be used for all of our products, the titles appearance did change in different products for example in the magazine a stoke effect was used as you can see from the screenshot below however the same font was used to keep continuity throughout our main products. Another tool used for continuity in our main product was having the same costume used by the character, the character wore a grey top in all of our main products to make the film more recognisable.

Another use of continuity was the colour scheme in my groups main products, our ancillary texts all followed a black, red and white colour scheme. This colour scheme was initially used as a way of connoting horror as these are popular colours used in real media products.

Above is an example of the film ‘The Dark Knight’ which was released in 2008, the image shows how a real media product uses continuity in their products, from the image you can see how they used similar colour scheme, font and title font to make the products recognisable. 

Our main products all have a sense of continuity to make the audience become familiar and recognise that each of our products are connected. It is also important to promote our main products in order for them to be seen and reach a large audience. This brings me to the topic of cross media convergence,this is a good tool to make our ideal audience see our products in the marketing section of our work which will persuade them to watch the film.  Below are some examples of how my groups products will look when advertised.


Bus stop

Newspaper

Billboard 

Jouvan:Evaluation 1

Teaser trailer 


My groups teaser trailer developed, used and challenged real media conventions. Our teaser trailer used real media conventions by being less than 80 seconds long, our teaser trailer was 54 seconds long and most real media teaser trailers last between 30 to 80 seconds hence why our teaser trailer used conventions.

Our trailer used music which is another example of how we used real media conventions in a teaser trailer. Music was used in our teaser trailer to create a horrific atmosphere for the viewers. The music used in our teaser trailer was non diegetic music which started of slow and increased in pace towards the end of the trailer. In addition I used ambient sound to get certain background sound such as the ‘finger cut’ in the teaser trailer.

Another convention my media group used was including captions into the teaser trailer. We included captions as a way of persuading the audience and creating suspense and tension.  This is a common feature used in real media teaser trailers.

I also used conventions of real media teaser trailers by including props into the trailer. In the screenshot below you can see that my media group included many props in the teaser trailer. We used these props because they are found in Slasher trailers and we wanted our teaser to be as realistic as possible.

Other conventions which our teaser trailer used was including blood in the trailer, this connotes the Slasher genre our teaser trailer was centred on. We also included the film title and the film release date at the end of the teaser trailer. This is the order of how real media teaser trailers include the information and we followed this.

The teaser trailer challenges conventions in real teaser trailers because it uses a black victim and a black antagonist.  Many teaser trailers use white characters in their trailers however ours challenges the convention. We challenged this convention to make our teaser trailer unique in comparison to real media teaser trailers.

Our teaser trailer developed conventions by the teaser trailer being set daylight, most teaser trailers are set in the evening and tend to be filmed when it is dark. We also challenged conventions by having the main character in a unique mask which covers his face. The majority of teaser trailers don’t show the antagonist however ours does but a mask is used to keep the antagonist face covered.   


Poster

Firstly my group’s poster uses conventions of real media products by using a layout style which the majority of real horror posters use. The layout of our poster is very similar to the sub-genre of horror our poster is related to (Slasher). From the images below which show my groups poster and Friday the 13^th poster it is evident that our poster uses real media product conventions by following the same layout of a Slasher poster. From analysing the two posters below you can see that the tagline is at the top of both posters, the main image is in the middle, the title, credits and logos are positioned at the bottom of the poster. 

The poster also uses real media product conventions by having the font of the title in red. It follows conventions as red is a connotation of horror and red symbolises blood, danger, power and pain which are all connected to the horror genre. In addition many Slasher posters use red coloured text for their poster title for example '30 days of night' which is below. ‘Face your fears’ is the name of the font which was used in my groups poster which I downloaded from dafont.com before making the font red specifically  to follow real media conventions in order to make it look more realistic. 

My group’s poster also followed real media conventions by using a tagline. Our poster has a tagline which Slasher posters use to persuade the audience into watching their film. Our tagline followed conventions by being short, catchy and leaving the audience in suspense. 

Another convention my group used was including our company’s logo at the bottom of the poster. My group also included credits in our poster, credit is a common feature included in real media posters and I tried to make the credits on my group’s poster as identical to the real horror credits in order to follow horror poster conventions. From the images below of my group’s and Nightmare on Elm streets poster credits you can see that they both use a small font size and follow a row by row format pattern.

Our poster also follows conventions because it uses low key lighting in the main image and uses a serif font style for the tagline, film title and credits.

My groups  poster challenges conventions of real media products by featuring a black antagonist and a black victim.  Most horror film posters rarely include a black antagonist and mostly include white characters. In addition our poster challenges conventions as the victim in our poster is a female and most horror posters use the antagonist as the character in the main image of the poster.

Our poster developed conventions of real media products by using a medium shot camera angle for the main image, most posters use close ups or long shot camera angles for their main image however my group decided to challenge this to make out poster more unique.Below is an example of a real horror poster which uses a long shot for its posters main image.

The poster also developed convention as it uses 'coming soon' as a date , this entices the audience as they are unaware of when it will be shown.  Real horror posters use actual dates such as Halloween 2007 and  Saw iv which poster release dates on their posters are below. 

Magazine front cover 

My group’s magazine uses conventions found in real media magazine by including a bold, red and large masthead. Another convention used in the magazine is the use of a colour scheme, the majority of real media magazines follow a strict colour scheme to make the magazine consistent. My group followed a red, white and yellow colour scheme.  We also used conventions by including a main coverline and coverlines in the magazine, the main coverline was significantly larger than the other coverlines in order for viewers to know the main topic the magazine is about. My group also used conventions found in real media magazines by including a timeline below the masthead and also on the barcode.

The magazine challenges real media conventions by including a black character in the magazine, most magazines use which main characters in their magazine. Another challenge was that we included a victim in the main image, real media magazines usually use the antagonist for the main image in their magazine.

My magazine develops conventions found in real media magazines by including a puff, a puff was used in the magazine as a way of advertising a prize which we did to persuade the user to buy the magazine. Magazines don’t include puffs but we developed it by using a blood stain shape for the puff details to be included into instead of a sticker shape which some real magazines use.

Another way the magazine develops conventions is by using a plus sign instead of including the text. This was done to make the magazine more informal and attract a our ideal audiences which are teenagers.  

Shooting script 2

Shot 1.
'Slasher Inc Presents' caption will be displayed on a black background with a cloud effect.

                                                                                            Sound: Non diegetic,haunting tone

Fades to:
Shot2. Exterior, High key lighting
Dolly shot of door opening at a long shot.

                                                                                            Sound: Non diegetic,haunting tone

Fades to:
Shot3.
The caption 'what if one night' will be displayed.

                                                                                                                 Sound: Non diegetic

Fades to:
Shot 4. Interior, High key lighting
Close up camera shot of victims hand chained to a bar.

                                                                                        Sound:Non diegetic, Ambient sound

Cut to:
Shot 5. Interior, Low key lighting
Cut-in shot of antagonist sharpening his weapon.

                                                                                                              Sound: Non diegetic

Fades to:
Shot 6. Exterior, High key lighting
Tracking shot of the antagonist sharpening his weapon.

 Sound: Non diegetic

Cut to:
Shot 7. Interior, Low key lighting
Close up shot and steadicam of a digging fork being scrapped across the floor by the antagonist while he walks towards his vitcim.

  Sound: Non diegetic, Ambient sound

Cut to:
Shot 8.
The caption 'Your darkest dreams' will be displayed.

 Sound: Non diegetic

Cut to:
Shot 9.Interior, Low key lighting
Close up shot of the antagonist attempting to handcuff the victim to a bar.

 Sound: Non diegetic, Ambient sound

Cut to:
Shot 10.Interior, Low key lighting
Close up shot of the victims finger on the antagonists scissors.

 Sound: Non diegetic

Cut to:
Shot 11.Interior, Low key lighting
Close up shot of the victim vigerously moving her hand whilst chained to the bar.

 Sound: Non diegetic, Ambient sound

Cut to:
Shot 12.Interior, Low key lighting
Close up shot of the victims finger being cut off  by the antagonists.

 Sound: Non diegetic, Foley sound effect

Cut to:
Shot 13.
The caption 'Came to reality' will be displayed.

 Sound: Non diegetic

Cut to:
Shot 14.Interior, Low key lighting
Medium shot and dolly camera movement of the antagonist walking towards the camera.

 Sound: Non diegetic

Cut to:
Shot 15.Interior, Low key lighting
Close up shot of the victim moving her hand whist chained to the bar.

 Sound: Non diegetic,Ambient sound

Cut to:
Shot 16.Interior, Low key lighting
Medium shot of the antagonist approaching the victim and placing his hand on her head.

 Sound: Non diegetic

Cut to:
Shot 17.Interior, Low key lighting
Medium shot and dolly camera movement of antagonist walking towards the camera.

 Sound: Non diegetic

Cut to:
Shot 18.Interior, Low key lighting
Medium close up of the antagonist holding up the victims head by her hair and looking at her.

 Sound: Non diegetic

Cut to:
Shot 19.Interior, Low key lighting
Close up shot of antagonist picking up the victims finger.

 Sound: Non diegetic

Cut to:
Shot 20.Interior, Low key lighting
Medium close up of antagonist twitching.

 Sound: victim scream

Cut to:
Shot 21.

The caption 'A beautiful nightmare' and 'Coming soon' will be displayed.

 Sound: Non diegetic

Cut to:
Shot 22.Interior, Low key lighting
Medium close up of the antagonist using his weapon to make a slash movement.

 Sound: Silence

Evaluation question 3

Adeola's Response

As part of our post-production feedback I got three friends to watch our teaser trailer and send me their opinions via BBM. As shown below the pasted the link to each of them and requested feeback. I chose to use the Blackberry Messenger software on Blackberry because it is a popular smartphone amongst the age groups of those 18+ which is our target audience for our teaser trailer. I use an application called Screen Muncher to capture the feedback that i was given.

Based on the feedback that I have received I believe that the teaser trailer worked really well especially the false finger cutting. It was a successful aspect within our trailer that came across and chilling and scary; the impacts that a horror teaser trailer are supposed to have.

Through our post-production feedback we learned that there was room for improvement within our trailer. We challenged a convention when we decided to use high key lighting but this may not have worked as effectively as we thought it would. Darkness instantly connotes fear and that is what horror is all about. I believe that is one of the area's that we could work on if we was to do the project again.

I also viewed the comments that was left on our youtube account in relation to our teaser trailer. Based on this information it was clear that the teaser trailer worked quite well but there where small areas in which other people had different opinions about. This is perfectally understand because everyone has a different expectation and standard of what they expect to see in a teaser trailer. 

This was the reaction of one of my peers to our teaser trailer. The part where the finger was cut seems to be effective as a scare.

Elizabeth's response:

To gather my post production feedback from people about our groups film poster and magazine cover, I sent the following email to people to attaching a copy of these two media products.

I asked five females and five males all between the ages 17-20 but for this I will be evaluating four responses. Generally the feedback I got was positive and however there were some suggestions on how to make improvements in the future.

Here, the receipt says that he finds our pieces quite plain but he does think they look good and suitable to the horror genre. Funnily enough Jordan says he hasn’t seen a plain black background used on a film poster before and he thinks it worked well. Personally I am surprised that the black background was new to him as I would have thought that that was typical of horror film posters. Jordan goes on to say that he would go and see our film which is of course good to know.

Secondly, I have Sally’s response she also said she found our film poster quite plain however she did like the image used. She also said that our media products look suitable for the genre but she feels that unlike the film poster, there’s nothing really original about the magazine front cover. From Sally’s response to the final question it seems our accompanying teaser trailer would determine whether or not she’d go and see our movie as she does not seem fully convinced.

The feedback received from my next participant was generally very good. Emmanuel found the use of red on our media products ‘really eye catching’. He thought our pieces looked suitable for the horror genre and that we never broke and conventions of similar products out there. Emmanuel is as well interested to see what our teaser and film have to offer. 

Last but not the least, the fourth respondent I will be analysing is Yasmin. She gave some positive feedback too and she too does not think we broke any conventions.

Horror film title ideas

Above is a spider diagram of our groups title ideas for our horror film, we brainstormed all of our film title ideas and collectively decided to use 'A Beautiful Nightmare' for our film title because we thought it was the most appealing and appropriate title for our film.

Final teaser trailer

Here is a link to our teaser trailer, 'A beautiful nightmare'.

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation question 1: In what ways does your media production use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


Elizabeth's response

At the start of this academic year we were assigned groups and given three tasks as part of our A level coursework. Between us we had to construct a teaser trailer, film poster and front cover of a magazine all of the horror genre. Our group decided to explore the slasher horror genre. Popular films of the slasher genre include the SAW sequels, Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream.

First and foremost, teaser trailers are simply short trailers that are made   to 'tease' the audience. These teaser trailers are used to market an upcoming film (or a number of other media) usually released long in advance of the final media product. Teaser trailers generally last between 30-60 seconds and they usually contain little to no footage from the film. They are created to stir a buzz about the film whereas actual trailers give you more of an idea of what the film will be like.

Before creating our horror film teaser trailer there were a number of things to take into consideration. Firstly, we brainstormed different ideas and then when we had decided on a story line, a storyboard was constructed. After we decided on which of our group members would act in our teaser trailer then when we got hold of the required props we then filmed. As we anticipated, at first filming wasn't as easy as it seemed particularly getting the lighting right. To give us an idea of the type of trailers that are most successful we looked at a number of trailers via YouTube. By looking at these examples we got an idea of what elements worked best in trailers. Taking the SAW 3D teaser trailer for example, it was 57 seconds long which means it kept within the conventional time frames of teaser trailers. This teaser trailer consists of a large number of quick cuts, fades in and out,  close up shots to name but a few. The deep, sinister tone of the voice over helps set the horrific tone.

The film poster we constructed

The poster that was constructed for our coursework stuck to a few conventions of real media products however it also broke a few. Across the top of our movie poster is the tagline for our movie which is 'dreams can come true'. This tag line relates well with the title of our horror project 'A Beautiful Nightmare'. The colours used are also suitable to the genre of film we were working on as red, black and grey are colours that can be related to the horror genre. Similarly, the same red colour that was used for the tag line is also used for the posters masthead, working effectively to create an authentic look. The font used for the masthead is called '...' and it was selected and downloaded from Dafont.com after careful deliberation. It seemed like this particular font was most suitable as the effect on it made it look like blood dripping. This font is similar to that of the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' one. The main image is of a young female victim who is being muffled from behind and therefore enforces her vulnerability and helpless predicament. We don't even have to be told that the person doing the muffling (the killer) is a man.  This is another convention we upheld as in horror movies the majority of the women tend to be portrayed as helpless  and senseless individuals, even the pose of the victim connotes this.  Our teaser trailer does not back up the convention of slashers as the survivor is often female like in the movie Halloween and the killer is a single male for instance in My Bloody Valentine.

 

Movie poster of 'My Bloody Valentine' (2009)

A print screen from the trailer of the killer from 'My Bloody Valentine'

Along the bottom third of the poster, there is a billing block/credits which gives acknowledgment to the media companies that had a big impact on the film and also the names of the actors. Also under the credits instead of actually stating a film release date we chose 'COMING SOON' has been put in a big font right in the centre which draws some attention to it. In the bottom right hand corner of the poster we put the production company's logo and this is definitely a convention of film posters.

 

Right under 'COMING SOON' at the bottom of the poster, the website of the movie poster has been inserted and this is also another convention we upheld. 

Websites from the movie posters of 'Paranormal Activity 3' and 'I Am Legend'

By adding the website of a movie, it can allow people to get more information on the movie in more of an interactive way. The movie trailer will be available on the website as well as photo galleries and general information on the movie.

The film magazine front cover we constructed

One thing we never did was have the victim covered in blood in our poster or film magazine front cover but in the actual trailer we used "blood" as it would not have been of the slasher genre without it. To make up for the lack of blood used in the image, we used a lot of the colour red on both our poster and magazine cover. Using the colour red was necessary as this is the colour of blood and blood is a key thing in not only horrors but particularly in slashers. The film magazine front cover constructed by the group is called 'Slashings' and this is of course inspired by the horror genre we chose to develop. The use of green, red and black (amongst a few other dark colours) is a convention of horror film magazines and this can be seen on well known magazines like 'Fangoria'.

Similarly to the Fangoria magazine cover and many others we looked at, we used only one main image. The victim imitating a scared, shocked expression. She looked rough and her messy hair to create a sense of unease and discomfort. The magazine cover itself mostly upheld every other convention of a magazine cover with a big and bold masthead. This font was chosen carefully as it has somewhat of a sharp and edgy look which was suitable to use as in slashers dangerous objects like knifes and saws are used so there is a correlation.

A main cover line is used with the name of our movie trailer 'A Beautiful Nightmare' in the same font from our trailer and movie poster so it becomes a logo and 'Interview with 'victim' Adeola' in a bold, big size as it should be. There are also a number of other cover lines, a puff which in this case looks like a splash of blood, a bar code, date and issue number of the magazine and of course the magazine's website. Along the top of the magazine cover, a strap line was added.

Additionally, the most obvious convention that we went against was using a black killer as in most of British/ American horror movies it's fair to say that the killer tends to always be a caucasian male. Also as the victim is black too, this may subconsciously affect the audience of our film. When creating our trailer we never chose our actors so as to attract an audience of just an ethnic background but we used them as they were the nominated actors in the group.

Adeola's Response

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

A teaser trailer is made to help create an audience base profile and inform the public that the film is due to be released. 

During our A2 course we had to create three final pieces;  a horror teaser trailer, a horror magazine and a horror movie poster. The horror teaser trailer will be broadcasted via YouTube to the public and the horror poster will be used to help advertise the film.  The purpose of the horror magazine is to feature the horror movie and help market the film to potential viewers. 

Before we could begin our teaser trailer we had to focus on the pre production stage. As a group we knew that we had to research into the codes and conventions of a horror teaser trailer. The first step was to go on youtube and watch the production of slasher teaser trailers. We focused particularly on scream and saw.

Scream was directed by Wes Craven who worked alongside by writer Kevin Williamson. We gained in-depth knowledge as to how to create a successful teaser trailer. We learned that a teaser trailer doesn’t give away too much about the plot of the actual film but it is there to entice the audience and attract their attention as the actual film is in production.

The first step of the production was to film our teaser trailer. This process was quite demanding and difficult but once the group got use to the equipment it became easier. Also as part of the pre-production of our teaser trailer we watched many other teaser trailers and researched a list of their conventions. Some of the typical horror conventions that we found was in most trailers the main character always survives. In our teaser trailer we challenged and developed this convention based on the fact that the main character dies and the villain wins.