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

Blogger: Being able to use Blogger while researching and planning my trailer allowed me to keep track of all my progress and see where all my work was, this was a much more efficient way of storing my work and it was easily accessible from home and at school. As it was linked with my Gmail account it also let me access stuff easier like my trailer. Once we had finished the draft of our trailer I simply clicked the video button and searched for it on Youtube which then meant I could link it from my blog. A useful thing Blogger does is that it allows you to keep your posts as drafts before posting them which let me edit them and take as many goes as I want before posting them as well as letting you change the publication time. 

Adobe Photoshop: I used Adobe Photoshop for my magazine cover, poster, evaluations and briefly for our production company logo for our trailer. Coming back to Adobe Photoshop from last year meant that I had to re-learn my skills especially that we were now using an updated version of the program. Remembering little shortcuts like CTRL + T to re shape images were useful as well as holding SHIFT when re sizing it meant that I wouldn't lose the quality of the pictures by stretching the images. This came in handy when creating my nine frames for evaluation 1 and also when inserting images into my ancillary texts. Other tools like the hand crop tool meant that I could precisely crop images of my characters going onto my poster and magazine cover without them looking unprofessional and the blending options tool meant I could give certain objects glows, shines, shadows which allowed me to differentiate different things on my magazine connoting important things and not so important things. Other simple things on Photoshop like having multiple layers to use made it extremely beneficial when wanting to put something into the foreground or background or even merging layers together to move them round my product. Overall without the use of Adobe Photoshop my ancillary tasks would of looked very unprofessional.  

Adobe Premiere Pro: Adobe Premiere Pro is the software that we used this year to edit our trailer with, this is a change from last years course as we used Final Cut Pro to edit our teen angst. At first this was quite challenging as none of us had used it before but with help from a technician we learnt the basics of the software and then figured out the advanced techniques for ourselves. An advantage of using two different software's over the 2 courses means that we are now able to say we can use both software's rather than just one. Adobe Premiere is very easy to use and relatively similar to Final cut in the simple edits as you can zoom into your timeline letting you cut your clips at split seconds (crucial for making a psychological thriller trailer) and you can also detach any music you want from a clip and put somewhere else or simply delete it. Making intertitles were a little harder as on Final Cut they had pre-made ones which you could simply add into your timeline but on Adobe Premiere you have to make them yourselves starting from scratch, in a way this was more effective as it let us be creative with our titles and we were not limited to anything.  

FreePlay Music: I used Freeplay music to search for various tracks to use over our trailer, this website was perfect as the songs are free to download and also copyright free. The website allowed us to pick a few different tracks for our product to choose from which meant we could try them all and see what worked best. It is very easy to download the songs and can be put on a memory stick and straight into Adobe Premiere Pro. These are the 4 tracks that we initially selected for our trailer, Nightprowler, Nightprowler (Reprise), Outbreak and Wrongful Payback. After narrowing it down we decided to use Outbreak for the first part of our trailer then Nightprowler to act as a crescendo for the end of the trailer.    

iPhone: I used my phone to record my voice-over for Evaluation Task 2 as I thought this would be easier than using an actual voice recorder. By using my phone it made it much more simpler as once I had recorded my voice-over I simply saved the recording then used my linked Gmail account on my phone to send it to myself and finally receive it on the computer where I could edit it. Once edited and cropped all the unnecessary speech out it was simple to just put over my product.  

Facebook: We used Facebook to communicate with each other while in the planning stages of our film and when filming. Facebook Messenger came in handy as it allowed us to talk to each other while deciding where to film, what to bring etc. By using this it meant that all three could communicate at the same time. Without this it would of made it very complicated and a much more lengthy period trying to talk to each other all at once.  

HD Camera: This is the HD camera we used to film our trailer, it is a Panasonic 1080p camcorder, with the camera being HD it meant we could record a good quality picture. Also the camera was digital which meant that it didn't have to be constantly plugged in as this would of made it awkward to film and also be a safety hazard. Essential to making our trailer, we were allowed to take the camera out of school and film whenever we wanted. This allowed us to film in various locations and at various times of the day, critical to our genre as thrillers are normally associated with being in the dark with lots of low key lighting aswell ultimately being set at night. The camera had a light fitted to it which meant we could film in the dark and have a spotlight on if we needed, we did use this for one part of our film as Owen walks towards the door at the end of our trailer. This was effective as it is stereotypical of genre. By creating this spotlight on Owen it meant that the audience knew he was the antagonist in the trailer.  

YouTube: YouTube is a website which allows anyone in the world to upload whatever content they want within their rules and regulations. Once we had completed and finished our trailer draft we uploaded it to YouTube for everyone to see which then meant people could also give us feedback. We then uploaded the finished product. This was simple as Blogger and Youtube are connected through my Gmail account. Youtube also came in handy when researching thrillers and psychological thrillers as it let me analyse trailers which meant I could get an understanding of the stereotypical conventions for the genre. Using Youtube was my main source of researching and planning trailers as it quick, free and easy. 

Gmail: Using Gmail while creating my trailer was very useful as it allowed me to share content with the rest of my group so I could send things like pictures across for my poster and magazine cover or sending the trailer to each other wanting feedback on certain changes that someone may had made. Not just sending it to others but my self as it let me do work from home as I would often send work home and finish touching up certain areas. 

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

We got feedback from our class mates and teachers on our trailer, by having these two different types of people meant we would get various opinions on our product. By having our teachers analyse it it let them use their experience to tell us what they liked and what they thought could be improved and by having our classmates give us feedback was also useful as they are the appropriate age for our target audience which we aimed towards. All this feedback meant that we could improve on what we couldn't see when making it as most of time while working on a product for a long time you cant see through what needs improvement. Below are some of the improvements that we got from our feedback suggested for our trailer. 

"The overall trailer looked too much like a film opening"

To fix this we split up the trailer by adding more intertitles to direct the narrative and also made the trailer a lot faster by speeding up cuts and made sure that the pace was the stereotypical speed of a trailer for our genre. These changes certainly made our trailer more conventional.

"Add more diegetic sound" 

We initially wanted our trailer to be mysterious by having as little diegetic sound as possible but it soon became clear from the feedback that it was the narrative was a little unclear so we changed this and added diegetic speech of Owen's parents when he was received his exam results and then stormed off. This made it much more clearer that he was under pressure from them.

"Make Owen look more aggressive and controlling" 

To do this we added footage of texts from Owen to show the audience that he was controlling, we also made the speed of him putting his foot in the door much more quicker as before it didn't look very aggressive, by doing this it made him look more possessive which is the what we wanted to create initially.  

"Add more colour to the intertitles"

When we first created our intertitles we had just a white text on a black background but people thought this was too plain and didn't really show off the genre we were displaying. So we decided to change it up and have a red colour on one significant word on each intertitle, this connoted the more violent side and also Owen's aggressiveness.   

The other feedback I got was for my ancillary tasks.

Film magazine cover - "Change barcode size"

For this change I simply moved the barcode on my magazine cover from being vertical to horizontal then changed the size, initially this was done just to fill space but I understood from the feedback that it would look a lot better the way they suggested it and therefore moved a few things around.

"Make characters bigger, fill the empty space"

After I had finished my product of the magazine cover I got feedback from my teachers saying that I could do with changing the size of my characters to make them bigger. This is because before there was a little empty space above both characters, also by enlarging the characters emphasises that the magazine is about my film and that these two characters will be the main stars within it. Giving a clear indication to readers about the narrative. 

"Detach Under Control Special! from 3 images"

This was pointed out to me after the first draft and had gotten feedback from our classmates, they thought that it could be quite confusing to people who hadn't seen a trailer for my film. 'Under Control Special' looked liked it was linked towards the three images of other films I was advertising on the front cover because of the same style font and colouring. Therefore i detached the red block colouring behind it and placed it above the 3 images making it much more clearer for readers. 

"Change text size and placing of Jared Taylor interview"

This was featured in the corner of my magazine near the barcode and included 4 lines of writing about an exclusive interview with an actor in my film. Feedback thought that having a different number of words on certain lines didn't work. For example I had 3 words on the 2nd bottom line then just 1 word on the very bottom line creating a sense of confusion and unprofessional look. To change this I equaled out all of the wording and lettering to make sure it fitted a square, then I could perfectly fit it into the corner of my magazine without it looking out of place or weird. 

Poster - "Change 4 stars to 5 stars"

On my original poster I included reviews at the very top in each corner which had 4 star reviews, feedback suggested I should stop being modest as this wasn't very realistic and change it to 5 instead. They also said by only having 4 stars may give the impression that my film isn't very good either so this was also a reason for the change.

"Review websites/magazines too large"

Also on the poster below the star rating I had reviews from various newspapers, magazines and websites. The feedback I was given was that the writing of these companies were too large and to make them smaller while increase the size of the stars to emphasise the reviews. This made much more sense as by having the stars bigger than the actual reviewer entices audiences to see the film as straight away they know that it has been given good reviews. 

Evaluation Task 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancilliary texts?

The genre for our film is a Psychological Thriller, the genre is similar to just Thriller and Horror but instead this is more in depth and focuses more on getting into the mind of the audience rather than just shock them with jump scares. When planning our trailer we needed to consider the age rating of what the film was going to be and because our film would be a Psychological Thriller we knew that we would be including scenes of possible violence, threat, some scenes of horror and overall conventions of what make a Thriller. Things like suspense, worry and terror which meant that we wouldn't be allowed to give it a too low rating although we wanted it to appeal to a large audience. This is why we have gave it a 15 rating, it allows us to attract a wider audience so that people don't have to be at the age of 18 to view our film. These are some of the points that we are focusing on for our target audience

One of the most common elements that I used in my trailer, poster and film magazine cover was the use of dark colours. I used mainly reds, blacks and greys in my texts to ensure my audience knew that my product was a psychological thriller and that it fitted well within the genre. The use of low key lighting in my trailer also complemented this along with the inter titles which was a red font on a black background.

I decided to use Owen and Katie on my magazine cover as these were the main two characters in my film, I had Owen dressed in black clothing and to look quite menacing which connoted his darker personality while Katie to be dressed in a grey top as this looked innocent as well as her pose of looking down towards the floor to show the conflict between the two. Although on my poster I decided to use all three characters as I thought this would reveal more towards my target audience therefore enticing them to watch the film. By using all three characters across my texts it made sure that the audience weren’t confused when they saw all three star in the trailer.

Yes, in our film we have a few different relationships within the three characters. In our narrative we have Owen and Chloe who are dating then we having Katie who was in a previous relationship with Owen and finally Katie who is best friends with Chloe. I feel that these come across pretty clearly in our trailer due to the inter titles. One of the intertitles reads “A controlling boyfriend” while another reads “An interfering ex” so this makes it very clear to the audience what the relationship are going on within the characters.

The narrative that I tried to get across in my ancillary tasks was the conflict between the characters. On my film magazine front cover I used Owen and Katie to show the tension between them as I had Owen looking down at Katie but on my poster I used all three with Owen in the middle addressing the audience which was breaking the 4^th wall. By doing this it gives a clear and understanding narrative to the audience that he is the antagonist while the other female characters will most likely be victims. The mise en-scene of Owen is dressed in black who again connotes his evil side.

By using these generic conventions of thriller like the male antagonist and female victims, people who are fond of the genre will enjoy it and also because of the limited dialogue in the trailer it leaves the film to be mysterious which will entice viewers. The threatening images of Owen and innocent poses of Katie also represent the narrative as intimidating which could catch the eye of our target audience. 

The film conventions that I emphasized in my texts were mainly the thriller genre as my film is a Psychological Thriller, on my magazine I decided that I would advertise this genre more than any other. To do this I used dark low key colours mostly on my poster and then reds on my magazine plus fonts such as Orator Std for the main title on my print texts and this font for my main title in the actual trailer which connoted this even further.

One main synergistic feature of my texts is the similar fonts. I used the same font above my masthead on my magazine front cover and the same intertitle in the trailer that displayed the film name, this can be effective as people will remember the name and font and associate it with our film. The use of the same images throughout my texts also let the audience know that they are all linked plus the red colours throughout all my texts.

We changed our production company logo when creating our film to fit the genre we were filming, before we changed it we used the Mise-en-Power logo from last year which I created for my teen angst. After adding this to our trailer we decided to change it and now we have a new logo created to fit the Thriller genre which links more our film. Our new logo is called Cold Vault Studios and features black and blue colours on it to suggest it is more linked to our genre than the old one.

Overall I think that the effectiveness of my products worked well together and ultimately linked which was one of the major factors when producing these texts. The use of conventions such as similar style fonts, same uses of colours plus synergistic images worked well and overall I believe that these would entice my target audience to becoming consumers.

Evaluation Task 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of Conventions from real media products

1. Font

The title featured in our film trailer is 'Under Control', we choose this because it is the name of our film. We choose to put this at the end of our trailer as this is stereotypical of the genre because it then stays in the mind of the audience after viewing it. We had this in a white font on a black background, the use of white font in a Thriller isn't so common as they would normally be in a red or darker coloured font, this means we challenged the conventions of the genre. An example of a commonly used title would be 'The Last House on the Left' as they display the word "House" in red meaning that the house will most likely play a big part in the film.

2. Camerawork and Editing

For camerawork and editing I used the close up of Chloe's phone to show the audience how controlling Owen was over her, in our first draft we did not include this but felt after watching it and given feedback we should add this as it helps towards the narrative. Most trailers would probably use a montage to show this information but because it was a thriller we thought a quick snap to the phone and then back to narrative would work more effectively as it makes the audience question it and actually think. We used forms of conventions here as this can be seen in real film trailers like 'When a stranger calls'.    




3. Production Company logo

We decided that our production company logo would feature at the start of our trailer, stereotypical to many other trailers of most genres. Our production company logo featured a mainly black colour scheme with an influence of a cyan blue and white twist. We used these colours as this connoted the "cold" from our name and also more mysterious theme to fit our psychological thriller genre. The word vault also connotes that there is something mysterious behind it. 

4. Intertitles

For our intertitles in the trailer we used the font Orator Std which was the same as our main film title. Instead for the intertitles we used a red font on significant words and a white font for the rest on a black background to connote the more darker side to the narrative and to imply whats going on in the story. For example the word "Ex" is in red telling the audience who that character is and possibly a threat within the story. This is common in some trailers but can be done differently by making a word in capitals to signify it.

5. Settings/Locations

This longshot shows Owen walking in a urban area towards Chloe's house, we choose this as it wasn't very common of thrillers. Normally the victims house would be in an old abandoned place or deserted area like in 'The Last House on the left' but we felt that setting it in a place the audience would be familiar with and be able to relate with would make it feel more uneasy for them and create tension as they know that it could potentially happen to them. We did this with other scenes aswell as many of them take place in various locations around the house, something similar to 'Paranormal Activity'. By creating verisimilitude in our film makes it more believable to the audience and too by using conventions from real media products.  

6. Title

In this frame it shows the title that we created to use in our film, our title is very simple and is called Under Control. We choose the name as it directly incorporates into the narrative as Owen is trying to control his girlfriend Katie while his ex-girlfriend is getting in the way. We used the font Orator Std and had it in a white font on a black background. By having this quite simple we thought that it gave all the focus to the actual title and nothing else, this way people will be able to remember what its called. By us also choosing to have a relatively short product name it once again makes it re memorable for viewers. This is stereotypical of many thrillers with either one or two word titles, films such as Insidious, 1408, The Strangers and Paranormal Activity.  

7. Poster

In this frame I choose to show all three characters on my poster. Using conventions of real media products like 'Before i go to sleep' and 'After Life' it lets the audience know who's in the film and potentially what role they will be playing. To do this I made Owen wear dark clothing and have a serious face to show that he was the antagonist in the film aswell as having him centred of the poster sticking with generic conventions of many thriller posters. I posed Chloe and Katie either side of Owen to show the audience that they would be the victims of the film and had them posed side wards towards Owen. This is because it gives exposure to them while Owen is quite unknown and you don't really establish much about him from the picture overall challenging forms of conventions by keeping his identity relatively hidden. 

8. Costumes and Props

This mid shot shows the clothing that Chloe and Katie wear in the film, the clothing that they both wear are stereotypical for their age aswell as the genre as it connotes them as innocent because they are the victims in the film. The white on Katie shows purity while the grey and browns on Chloe show her maturity and sophistication, probably a reason why she helps Katie in the narrative. Owen however is dressed in black to show he is the antagonist while also displaying he is aggressive. Like in many thriller films the antagonist is normally a dominant male like Owen while the victim is normally a damsel in distress female type character like Chloe. This is developing conventions of real media products such as When a stranger calls when the victim is the girl on her own in the house and the stalker is a man.   


9. Magazine Cover

For this frame I choose the lower half of my film magazine cover, this is because this particular part follows conventions of real media products with the small images of other films being advertised. I took inspiration of this from Total Film magazine as I had researched this before and I wanted it to look as professional as possible. I decided to change it up from Total Film though as theirs were placed at the bottom so I decided to place mine further up and slightly slanted to make it look more innovative and different to others. This bottom part also includes institutional information like the barcode which I felt looked good being placed there instead of in the bottom of the magazine like many others. I also featured advertising of exclusive interviews inside my magazine conforming to real media products like Empire magazine who do this. The use of words like plus, exclusive and special are stereotypical of many magazines as this draws attention to the reader enticing them to buy it.  

Levi Strauss - Theory

Levis Strauss devised a theory that all narratives include some kind of binary opposition. Some examples of binary opposition are good vs evil to strong vs weak to male vs female, these are just a few of many. In my film we have used 2 binary oppositions, good vs evil and male vs female. In our films case the people representing good are Katie and Chloe because of how young they are and the fact that they are the "victims", these two characters are stereotypical teenagers which suggests their innocent. The evil in our film is Owen, this is because he is the antagonist and stalking Katie during the film. The other binary opposition is fairly well shown with Katie and Chloe being the female while Owen being the male. The stereotypical view here is that Owen is more dominant than the two females and the females are weaker which could suggest the binary opposition of strong vs weak in our film. 

Laura Mulvey - Theory

Laura Mulvey's theory suggests that women are portrayed as objects in film and that they are seen from a heterosexual male perspective, the camera would focus on female parts of the body like hips or legs which would be taken into view sexually and possibly stereotyping. This could apply to our trailer as the main victim in the film is a female character, this could be seen as a stereotypical damsel in distress type character which also connotes innocence towards the female character. Because our character is based around the age of 17 we didn't portray her in Mulvey's vision but instead leaned more towards the innocence side and the typical damsel in distress. 

Film poster

 This was my initial poster creation, I had just Katie featured on the poster but I thought it looked too minimal and needed more. I liked how certain fonts on the poster were in red and went well against the background as this made them much clearer. Feedback also said that only having 4 star rating reviews seemed like the film wasn't very good as I tried to be modest so I did change this. 

This is my final product that I created, straight away you can see that I changed the images to feature all three characters. I thought by doing this it gave more understanding to the narrative by having them all on there, it also made much more sense having Owen, the antagonist centered while the female "victims" on the sides facing inwards. I also changed the stars to 5 and added reviewers while making the stars a little smaller. I then moved the names up above the characters heads and put 2 lines between them all separating the three. This was taken from inspiration from the posters I researched. Finally I changed the wording around with the release date moving to the bottom of the poster surrounded by the billing block and another tagline with "when you are" continuing on from "how will you escape".