A2 MEDIA EVALUATION

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

The Mise en Scene suggest that the genre of the film is horror due to the close up of the female character as we can see her feared facial expression. The smoke could also suggest the wind which is not only a film convention but a real life ghost encounter story convention.

The colour scheme for the poster is very simple but striking to look at. The colour grey and blue are used mostly throughout the poster but in different shades, as well as using the colour white. This can be similar to The Woman in Black film poster due to the minimal text and the colour scheme.

As the website opens, there is an automatic pop up on the webpage which shows you the official trailer via a YouTube video. This then shows a good way to promote the film, as it straight away gives you the option to watch the trailer before you even look around on the website.

Alike to The Woman in Black website, mine will also includes a gallery page which allows the viewer to see different pictures taken from the film. This is another good way of promoting the film because it allows the viewer to see some freeze frames of the actual film which makes the viewer more interested and feel more in tune with the film.

Furthermore, it will be complying with codes and conventions of film websites because most of them have a synopsis of the film to give the reader an insight to what the film is about.

The website for Final Destination 5 first comes up with a striking image of the skull then immediately breaks out and goes into this image here. Then as you can see at the bottom there are different tabs where the audience can look at the trailer, synopsis as well as photos and clips form the film.

This then shows that Saba and I might not want to set up our website like this as this really highlights the horror side of the film as it can be quite frightening, however, it does clearly show the genre and meaning of the film within the website which therefore shows that the website is very eye catching and memorable towards an audience, which we would also like to do for our audience.

Saba and I have used and looked at many trailers from the horror/ thriller genre. We have watched trailers such as The Woman in Black, The Grudge, Final Destination and Gone. By looking at these trailers they have helped us to see what we can include.

Horror is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer, and the macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes. Thus they may overlap with the fantasy, supernatural, and thriller genres.

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

The fonts on the trailer are similar and so this can then show that my texts show consistency and fluidity which can therefore create a better and stronger brand image. This can also attract audiences because they will know where and what the film is about..

Looking at the trailer and the other two texts, it is evident that they are from the same film brand as I have made sure the fonts, the background colour and the colour schemes have been kept to a certain image.

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

The fonts I used for the names and slogan I quite simple however, effective as I didn't want to use too many fonts as this would be distracting. Furthermore, the font I used for the title suggests a haunting film and is striking to the eye.

The use of the stars also indicates the poster looks more professional. However, as this is my first draft I am still going to put in images one of the killer and one of ‘Heidi’ the main character as this will make the story seem more clear as well as raising questions for the audience.

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

I have experimented with a billing box at the bottom of the page which follows conventions, I have adapted the transparency of your images to they are more subtly incorporated

I have also added media icons as this is crucial and from looking at other film’s websites they also have this.

Also, I have equally moved the component parts so that the content is less heavily weighted at the top of the webpage. This webpage seems clear and carries on the brand image of my poster and the website as I have used a picture of the killer as well as using tabs so that people can click on them.

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

For our trailer, we have received both positive and negative feedback. The main concern for our trailer was that it lacked pace therefore the main problem was we had to cut scenes and put them together so that it increased pace and emphasises the thriller and chase side of the film.

Also, we had to re-shoot some scenes so that we can see of what the female lead is doing before the killer is there. As well as including a car scene so that the audience can see that it is a race against time which increase pace and also helps the audience raise questions therefore this can show our trailer is following conventions.

How did you use media technologies in the construction & research, planning & evaluation

stages?Research & Planning:

We first researched the horror genre to find it is a story in which the focus is on creating a feeling of fear. Such tales are of ancient origin and form a substantial part of the body of folk literature. They can feature supernatural elements such as ghosts, witches, or vampires, or they can address more realistic psychological fears.

I then had to see what the conventional settings, camera angles and iconography that are used in the horror genre e.g. Basements/ Attics/ LoftsIsolated communitiesHospitals

Camera Angles:High/ Low Camera Angles ( Affect – Power)Jump cuts

Iconography: Low Key Lighting ( High Key to emphasis shadows)Blood

Blogger, Slideshare & Animoto:

In Blogger, I have learnt to firstly upload new posts and also designing my blog to make it more eye catching and more attractive. It enables me to showcase all my work that I have made so anyone can see my work.

Slideshare is useful as this could be seen as an easier way to upload presentations of my work to embed them into blogger as this doesn’t take long and it makes the presentations look pleasant and readable. On Animoto we were able to share mood boards so that we can see other types of horror films so that we can see what we would like ours to include.

Saba and I decided that throughout the trailer we wanted to have a mixture of diegetic and non diegetic as we want to have some of the characters talking as well as having non diegetic sound which will hopefully be music that creates suspense and a thrilling sound as this can relate to the husband’s chase against time to save his wife.

From looking at freemusicplay.com, I thought that is was very useful and easy and simple to find what type of music genre and the subgenres because for example there was the ‘Style’ of music as well as the ‘Feel’ of the track as I thought that the feel of suspense/terror would fit with the genre of our trailer the most.

Soundtrack Research - Sound Cloud

Motion:

On Motion Saba and I were able to experiment with different fonts as there were a lot of options. However, for our first draft rough cut trailer the font was a live font meaning that it moved and then developed into what it wanted to say. But, from looking at audience feedback they were not keen on this font as the pace was too slow and was hard to read.

We then found another font with white writing and was bigger and bolder so that it was more visible however, we then showed this to other audiences and they said the font did not link well with the horror genre and looked like a western themed font.

Final Cut Pro, Dreamweaver & Photoshop

On Final Cut Pro we were able to use this to log and capture and edit the footage for our trailer. Saba and I found that editing was a challenge as we faced many problems such as our footage being unable to be captured on Final Cut Pro and also we had problems with Final Cut Pro actually opening.

We then had to use Dreamweaver to make our website go live. Dreamweaver was useful as we could see how the buttons work and also to make sure that it worked when we put our trailer on it.

Use of spot healing brush to take away pimples or blemishes.

Photoshop:

In Photoshop I created my poster and website. I have learnt to blend and fade images so that they blend into the background and well as use the crop tool to cut images.

To blend the background I used the pen tool to pick a point then blend the colour when pressing the paint brush.

FINAL PUBLICATIONS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hsr-5fW7A8