Advanced Portfolio Evaluation

Rajbinder Dhindsa 13Lfi

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

real media products?

• My magazine front cover and film poster uses from and conventions of real media

products as they both use two texts and colours.• In addition to that the strap-lines, which are more important, are in a much

brighter colour, like a real magazine; in order to make them stand out more. Plus, like

well known magazines; such as Empire, the Masthead is slightly covered, which shows that it

is already established, well known and now has no need to be fully seen and like other

magazines the image is the most dominant on the front cover, and is in the top two

intersections.• More over, our Empire magazine has the image as a centre, so the strap-lines

fit around it, with alignment of all the strap-lines; this is a common layout for the

front cover of many magazines in general.

Film Poster (Mean Girls)

Our film poster

Typeface is conventional, and therefore used on our poster

Similar format, keeping the release date in a similar position, near the bottom half of the poster

Film title, positioned in the centre of the poster, as it is most

prominent and important, keeping to the conventions, as it

is also seen in the Mean Girls poster

The Main actress/actors names placed at the top of the poster, conforming to the convention of other similar film poster

The minor characters, featured but towards the background, showing they are of less importance to the main character in the foreground

Just as the convention shown in the Mean

Girls Poster, the minor characters are

put into the background, rather

than the foreground with the main

character.

TRAILERRRR

Trailer does not follow the 5 stages set by Todorov which is the classic narrative pattern. But our trailer consists of a narrative with many

interlinking storylines. For example, there is a number of problems in the narrative like the girl... See more’s revenge on the ‘popular’ boy and the ‘popular boys’ revenge on the other boy whereas Todorov

proposed only one disruption.My trailer does not have a voiceover but is followed through by music therefore not following the typical conventions of existing trailers. But the song is very upbeat and vivacious therefore can be stereotypically

associated with teenagers and is considered an iconography.

• Our film poster uses forms and conventions of real media products by having the main

characters on there and clearly stating the main information associated with the film on there; for example the title ‘sweet revenge’, the producers, etc and the actors

name, near the top of the page.• Also, most importantly both products, maintain the structure, and detail needed to, attract the target audience, of young teenage females.• In addition, the barcode is also commonly placed in the right-hand side, at the

bottom of the page; showing it is less important. Lastly the kicker is spread across the page, just below the image, giving it importance, as a reader would follow on from the

image down to the kicker.

The masthead is conventionally situated, at the top of the magazine front cover.

The cover image is positioned where the main focus is,

in the centre of the front cover,

abiding by the convention, our image is also in

the centre, slightly covering the

masthead; as it is already

established and well-known.

The barcode is commonly

situated on the left-hand side of

the cover, as you can see it

can be varying on its position

on that side, but still sticking to

the convention.

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

•I think that the combination of my main product, being the film trailer and ancillary products; poster and magazine front cover were quite effective as a combination promotion package.

•It has been successful as a combination promotion package because the genre of the film of being a balance between comedy and a bit of romance, consisting of the common features; being set in a high school and involving mild adolescent sexualadventure and conflicts with authority, were put across very well within all three products, even though only one is moving image, then images for the posters and magazines still represent and effective portrayal of what we aimed for.

•The aims of the film were to create a promotion package for a appealing British film comedy, which we don't see too many of these days, and it is far more of a challenge as it seems easier to create a American comedy, that would have gross potential, and I think with the right combination, we successfully met this aim, only because of the pattern all three products followed, in order to represent a certain genre to a certain target audience and to keep it flowing, like a real promotion package.

•The film poster and magazine were effective combination with them main product;

being the trailer as they all had repetition of a particular genre; being a ‘romantic comedy’, with a slight difference being that it is a British high school romantic comedy, which is a sub-genre in itself, but all three products adding something else, which makes it different but still nevertheless effective in reaching that target audience and representing that genre.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

•We learnt many things from our audience feed back to out film promotion package. These included, a main necessity that our target audience for our film promotion package was easily identifiable, as younger female teenagers.

•We also recognised that the font and graphics on our poster and magazine front cover help to signify our target audience, which was intended to a certain extent, and comparisons have been made with well known TV Dramas, such as Hollyoaks.

•The genre of our product is clearly shown, enough for the audience to know instantly that it is a Romantic comedy.

•Furthermore, our narrative, although confusing at times, since the trailer isn’t like the film would be a have one flowing story, it would seem that the ‘jist’ of the narrative can be recognised when watching out trailer.

•Also, I have learnt that as the audience, there is a possibility of making an emotional response to the products, as it is said to be ‘heart breaking’, as the relationships of the boy and girl are broken up, and the use of the ‘cussing’ battle.

• “I think this media product is very successful in achieving all its aims. Everything is clearly represented and contained many conventional elements, will are well implemented. I like the comedy elements to the romance, which gives it something a bit ‘different’ keeping you intrigued”. - This quotation from our feedback, clearly shows that the audience thought everything was represented evidently, and that there is a group or genre trying to be represented within our film promotion package, and we fit many conventions of ‘romantic comedies’ well.

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

evaluation stages?

• During my research stage of my film promotion package coursework, I used media technologies when researching similar products, such as trailers or magazine front covers, whilst using YouTube or Google in order to find previously material to base my work upon and help me guide me to keeping to the conventions.

• During my planning stage of my film promotion package coursework, I used media technologies when trying to plan my different scenes out as I planned by analysing previous promotion packages, which are seen on my blog, such as Mean Girls, etc. Also, I used media technologies when trying to test such shots, and when trying to get to grips with the new technology; such as video cameras, and adobe premier.

‘www. Blogger. com’ enabled me to set up an online blog, recording all my planning, research and evaluation

stages. This became helpful because it allowed me to plan efficiently and also

receive user feedback, which could then be implemented into my work and improve

the quality,

•During my production stage of my coursework, I used various media technologies which I hadn’t used beforehand. Such things included such programmes as adobe premiere, and the video cameras, as last year they weren’t needed, but this year they played a vital part in the coursework as we needed it to create our main product, therefore majority of our time was spent getting to grips with these two pieces of technology.

This is a screen shot from Adobe Premiere, the new software I used in order to produce my film trailer, which included elements in order to edit the volume of sound tracks, cut and capture selected parts of video and sound that were needed, and proved quite efficient in allowing us to put together various separate shots, in sequence.

These are the various layers, that were placed on top of each other to create a sequenced trailer, including all the needed elements.

This is a screen shot from Adobe Photoshop, I used this for the construction of my Film Magazine front cover, I already acquired the basic skills when creating my Hip-Hop magazine last year, but developed them further, when editing the pictures and adding the extra effects and layers required; in order for it to have the same structure of a normal magazine and conform to the film magazine general conventions

The vast amount of tools on the left hand side, helped me construct my final piece, as I used them to edit, cut and place images and various pieces of text together.

Here on the right hand side are the

various layers constructed to create the final

product.

•During my evaluation stage of my film promotion package, I used media technologies to help me to assess my work, by allowing for it to be readily available to other students, to analyse and give me feedback, which I then used within my evaluation of my own work.

This is my film promotion package production dairy which I created alongside my main blog, in order to keep a log of what I did weekly, once we started to produce our products. This piece of technology helped me with the evaluation stage, as it allowed me to think back and reflect on what exactly I did.