Evaluation: Question one

In what ways does your media product use, develop, or

challenge forms and conventions of real media

products?

In order to understand how real media products are conveyed and what forms and conventions they use, I had to research each product I was going to produce. The products included analysing professional film magazines, posters and teaser trailers.

I also then researched my target audience as every media product is aimed at someone, through this, I was able to create my focus group survey and my viewer profile. The ancillary texts and teaser trailers I looked at where the same genre as what I planned my media product to be, this helped me gain a greater insight to how to replicate it.

Here shows my teaser trailer using the conventions of a thriller real media product as I incorporated a lot of running scenes to keep the upbeat theme of what thrillers include.

Whilst analysing professional teaser trailers, I noticed that most had light and dark scenes, so due to the difficulty of filming in the dark I decided to keep all my scenes in afternoon lighting, therefore it is not bright light but not pitch black.

I noticed that one of my teaser trailers I analysed started with an establishing shot which is why I chose to start with this as I believe it sets the atmosphere for the film.Also, as my teaser trailer is set in an estate, the establishing shot helps my audience to relate to it as most people are familiar with an estate, being that they live on one or they know people that do.

I am aware that convention helps make the genre more recognisable which is why from my research I picked out certain aspects to apply to my teaser trailer.

One of these aspects is quick jump cuts which help keep the flow of the trailer and gives it a real sense of excitement.

Here are some screen gabs of the same scene but from a different angle where I used a jump cut to conjoin them.

Above is an image of my final poster for my teaser trailer ‘The Code’ I decided to follow the conventions of the posters I analysed by not putting much information about the film (release date and credits) as I believe this poster alongside the trailer will be released well before the film is finished.

Another convention I followed was to add a tag ling.

Here is my magazine cover. I chose to follow the form of total film’s magazine covers to give mine a more authentic look.By doing so, I used the masthead and selling line that Total film use and I also added a barcode, date and issue number.

Here is the copy of Total film that I analysed and as you can see I used the same masthead and selling line in the same place. I also placed two coverlines to the left so they do not obstruct the main image.

Here you can see the similarities.

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

I think my main product and ancillary texts are very effective as the theme is continuous throughout, therefore it is easy to link each piece together and make the connection that they are of the same genre.

For example, in my poster and magazine, I generally kept the same colours so they are easily identifiable.

Following on, I think the effectiveness works well as they portray a clear link as I used the same characters on each product. Also, the theme is a continuous one as my magazine and poster both show a grotty atmosphere and intensity.

Overall on the magazine we can see there is something going on by the look in the actress’ face. And the same with the poster, we question what is going on as to why she is sitting on a step looking over her shoulder.

Here we see a close up of the actress on the magazine cover. The expression on her face is gazing somewhere making the audience question what she could be looking at.

From the magazine masthead

From the poster title

Here we can see I used the same colour scheme from both ancillary texts to keep the link identifiable and also the dark colours help illustrate the mood and genre of the products.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

From my audience feedback, I learnt what type of product they would like which was a thriller with aspects of a conventional trailer, but also a bit unconventional to make it less predictable.

I found this out due to my research by conducting a focus group which consisted of 10 males as this was who my target audience was. I then showed them a professional trailer and asked what they liked/disliked about it and this was what I then applied to my own product.

A screen grab of my questions for my focus group.

www.youtube.comhttp://www.youtube.com/embed/4ugrmhiombc

Above is the URL of my teaser trailer where you will be able to view it.

The audience feedback I got was overall it was easy to tell the genre of the teaser trailer. However one went on to say they feel it is obviously a low budget film as the area it is set in makes it clear. He also said I could have done more to make it appear more professional looking as this would attract more viewers.

Another commented on the use of different camera angles to film the same scene. He said, “I like the way the camera jumps from one view to another as it gives a sense of reality like you are there in the film”

There was mixed reviews on the sound of a heartbeat over the trailer.

“I think you should have made it so you could hear the dialogue as there is obviously things being said like in the phone booth scene for instance.”

“I really like the heartbeat sound as it helps build up the pace of the trailer until it reaches a climax at the end where the phone is slammed down. Plus it makes you intrigued as to what is being said.”

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

For the construction of my final products, the main things used where Final cut pro (to edit my filming for the teaser trailer), Adobe Photoshop (to edit my magazine cover and poster) and a digital camera (to actually film the teaser trailer).

For the research and planning I used the internet search engine Google to find images of the professional magazine covers and posters, and I also used YouTube to find the professional teaser trailers I analysed. Excel was used to produce the graphs for my questionnaire findings, and slideshare for the photographic storyboard.

Here is the original picture I took for my poster. As it is too bright, I edited the colour on Photoshop to make it appear darker and give it a more gloomy atmosphere to fit in with my thriller genre.

I also added a glow effect over the picture to give it a more professional look that film posters have.

The final product of the poster and you can see how the brightness of the original picture has gone, for instance on the actress’ jacket you can see how much darker it looks.Using Photoshop I also added in the text to complete my poster.

The original picture used for my magazine cover, same light the previous picture was edited on Photoshop, however this time I kept the original brightness as I thought it worked well for a magazine.Instead I simply added on text in the forms of the masthead, main coverline and coverlines.

The comparison of the original picture to the magazine cover. As you can see the same colours were used for both magazine and poster and I used a yellow text to make it a bit more eye catching.

Here is a screen grab for the use of excel to create my graphs from the data gathered from my questionnaire. I then uploaded these graphs to the Wordpress blog.

Screen grabs of my final product of the teaser trailer which were cut and edited on final cut pro, then uploaded to YouTube and then to the Wordpress blog.

Overall I am pleased with my final products and feel I have used to skills I have acquired over the AS and A2 period to the best of my ability, and have also gained futher skills.

Yasmin Marriott-Dixon

A2 Media