In what way does your media product use,develop, or challenge forms and conventions for real meida proudcts?

After conducting a large amount of research on the horror genre and the conventions of this genre, I was able to widen my knowledge on the typical conventions and features within this genre, which I then put to use to create a film trailer, film poster and magazine cover using these conventions. I feel that I have succeeded in making a film trailer by following these conventions. For example we did not use a voice over, we decided to use captions instead, i felt that this added to the tension and made the trailer more mysterious.I also believe that our trailer will attract the our target audience as the slow editing used at the start of the trailer helps to build up tension and suspense for the climax.

For our film poster we used the same image as the film poster but added a little extra detail of the pram and a silhouette of someone running. Unlike the film magazine which has a lot going on the film poster is just advertising our film so we wanted to add a few more pieces to make it more interesting and more mysterious. We changlled normal film poster conventions for again having the main images as a location piece and not have any of the characters in image.We wanted to change the normal look of the horror genre and make ours more of the un-known than the known. This is shown through out the whole project. We didn't challenge the conventions with the title and information layout of the poster. The title is at the bottom and the font matches the quote at the top giving the audience something to think about and also giving away the genre of the film. Just by having the outer glow of the title the genre can really come through to the audience. Also we have the information at the very bottom on the poster keeping in with what would be the legal rights but not taking much of the main attraction up.the end of the trailer when the editing . Our film trailer uses captions which are widely used in many popular film trailer's today. These have been used in order to help explain what is going on and give a little hint into what the film contains. Along with this, it helps to appeal to the target audience and add a edgy twist to this modern adaption. Whilst researching various trailers we made a mental note of what exactly was included in individual trailers we then incorporated various aspects into our trailer thus using and developing conventions of real media products. I believe that our trailer does not give away a large amount of the plot which I have also found to by very common in trailers in this genre.The music also followed these conventions as it begins with what sounds like a babies music playing in a slow tempo, which then cuts to a piece of music with heavy drums, this alerts the viewed of the turning point in the trailer where the action begins. So I haven’t changed any conventions in my film trailer which I feel is a good thing. If I did change a lot of conventions and dramatically changed the typical genre style of a horror trailer then the audience wouldn’t recognise a lot it.

The magazine cover consists of 1 main photo, this photo is of the main loacation. This is not very typical in movie magazines. As normally they would have to draw in the desired audience, making them want to know more about the film, therefore purchasing the magazine, and this mostly done by using an actors face. By using a location as our main photo for the magazine we have challenged conventions. This is a good way to challenge conventions due to it being a big part of the promo work and maybe it might become more common to have location shots for a film magazine and having our images as being iconic. By using interesting articles and including special features about new and upcoming films, this helps to attract the target audience, however it also helps to bring in a wider audience. The poster also has one large photo covering the background. When researching into horror film posters I found this to be very common as this makes it the main focus of the page and attracts the audience's eye. The main text and logos used are placed at the bottom in order to stop interference with the main image.Normally The actors names would have been placed at the top of the poster, meaning that the audience will automatically be drawn to this as it is separate from the other features making them want to know more if they are fans of these particular actors. Though again for our front cover we have challenged this and just kept the main image as the location, as the audience should want to known more about the film without knowing the actors in it. So challenging conventions in this case is a good thing.All in all i feel that i have challenged the conventions when needed to excite the film media industry but when not needed i have kept my designs simple.

How effective is the combination of your media products and ancillary text?

The combination of our media product and ancillary text is very strong. The cinergy of 3 media products together that are similar and link together is a lot stronger than each product standing alone.

in order to promote our film trailer, we produced a film poster which could be seen in the cinema's,billboard or maybe on a bus stop. And also a film magazine front cover which could be sold in shops among magazines like empire.

Promo -

For both the promo work we decided to keep a similar theme to the film trailer so that the audience can link them all together.

We chose to go with a simple film poster so we could reflect the genre of the film and also to keep the mystery of the film and having the audience not know what will happen and not even the characters faces.

We have used the same font for the copy in our film trailer as we have on the poster and magazine front cover. Also the picture we used for the poster and also fim magazine front cover is very closely linked to the trailer and therefore as soon as you have seen both, you know that they are about the same thing and part of the same campaign rather than completely separate items.

Above are two images, Image A is a shot taken from our magazine front cvover, Image B is a section of our film poster. As you can clearly see the font we have used with the iconic outer glow on all the text and also the 'nightmare' font which is on every piece of the media products to link together. the text is esy for the audience to identify that all three are part of the same advertising campaign and immediately associate this font and style of writing with our film.

We also used the same basic image for all the promo work but changed it very slightly so that they linked strongly together and also that the audience would remember the hopefully iconic image.The image we used was to reflect the film trailer as the picture was taken in the location of where we filmed the whole of the trailer. The picture shows the mysterious, and the un-known which again is reflected in our film trailer so this was a big link with the media proudct and ancillary.

Film trailer -

With the film tailer we again linked the title text at the end and also applied the same font and outer glow to the website names and the words 'coming soon'.

What have you learnt from audience feed back?

After showing our audience our film trailer,film poster and magazine front cover we gathered a lot of information from them and how they felt towards our media product.

We learnt that many of the camera angles that we used were very professional and they looked difficult to film. This was shown in shots such as having the camera on the floor while the car drove past. we wanted the camera angles to looks difficult,different and hard to film as it gives the audience something better than just having a boring straight steady shot.

They also commented on the great loc

ation, as it was different from just having it filmed in school or in someones house like the other film trailers done in our year. As the location was the woods it had a lot of different elements that we used which was the highlight of the whole trailer and also the main theme in the promo work.

We also leant that people enjoyed our trailer and would go see it in the cinema because it looked good due to the mise en scene that we had created for example the clothing, the appearance, camera angels and the locations. The audience also felt that the editing of the trailer looked very professional due to the quick cuts,fades and also the title and backdrops. The comments said that the film trailer looked very mysterious in the content and didn't give much away which they enjoyed most.

Our choices of characters were m

ost suitable for our film trailer as the audience had said that the characters were suitable for the trailer due to there passion for acting.

We were told that in the trailer, the characters enthusiasm in looked realistic with what they were doing e.g crawling on the floors,crying.

However, one comment that we did receive about the trailer was about the set out of the fats passed part of the trailer. However, overall, the audience had given us positive feedback and we were happy to take. The last thing we learned from this was that in the film trailer was that the audience wanted something different with a horror trailer.We know this for the future.

We asked people how they felt about your poster and they said that the title could look alot bolder and better with actors names in to fill the page up so we used there adivce and changed your poster for the better.

With the promo work mostly the feed back was good due to professional look on the film poster done by me and also the magazine cover. The main comment was the image that we used for both pieces of promo. They also liked the photoshopping that was used to add the pram ect. The best part they said was the font work as it matched everything that was meant to be associated with the film trailer, and this was also obvious in the magazine cover.

With the extra parts of the front cover of our film magazine they said looked very professional and said that it would catch there eye if they saw it in the shops.

A lot of comments were that The overall feel to both promo pieces were the same as the trailer being mysterious and not giving much away. again matching the trailer but also adding anohter piece to it.

Overall we received many positive comments about our and how we constructed it all together. We received many positive comments about the accuracy and timing of the scenes of the cuts.

How did you use media technoligies in the construction,reseach,planning and evaulation stages?

Throughout this whole project, there was a wide range of technology that was used in order to construct, research, plan and evaluate my project.

Research: For the research we used a lot of the internet to look on youtube and look at other examples of previous years work. I used my blog to put up polls to ask the people what they like in horror trailers

and also there media work. By answering the polls we could get a better idea of what people wanted and also having an easier way of getting the answers.

After we completed all of our research and had a pretty good idea about what each media product had to include and also what the audience wanted, we then wrote a list in our book so we could keep going back to

it to remind us as well as the pictures we had already uploaded to our blogs which we analiysed and reviewed reminds us as well.

Planning: We all started by doing our own mini trailer on a sheet of paper to see all 3 o our ideas and how we could use a bit of everyones ideas. We then plan our trailer by using a sheet of paper that had a grid set out, we then manually drew our own initial idea's then came together as a group to decide our final idea's for our horror trailer which includes captions to explain why we done this

and how. We then scanned our storyboards using a scanner which then copied onto a memory stick, which we then c

opied from the memory stick onto the mac we was using. After uploading our storyboards, i created a mood board for the genre of film that the groups trailer would be.

Constructing our products:

Trailer:The first use of technology to construct my media project was a filming camera that allowed us to film

all the footage we needed for our tiler.This was a HD camera so the shots looks really clean and focussed nicely. To keep the camera

steady we used a tri-pod which came i handy as som

e of the roads.

We created our trailer usi

ng, premiere pro.We uploaded all of our footage onto premiere pro but before we did anything we looked through

all the shots it all and deleted some of the scenes that didn't come out so well. Before we uploaded the footage and start editing we had to uploaded the music we wanted from YouTube so we dragged the file into premiere

pro and cut it to the length we wanted it.We then dragged each bit of footage chosen into the upper lines and cut them to the length we wanted them.

We then added cross fades and dissolves so that all of the shots blend into each other. For the title and the coming soon i used photoshop to create the picture and added that into the permiure pro.

Magazine,poster:

To create our film poster and magazine cover, we used photo shop to do most of our main editing and we used a number of different techniques including the douge tool and the lasool tool to cut out pictures with no outlines so they look professional and good quality. From creating a magazine cover last year we had pretty good skills on photo shop and i also use photoshop for my other Alevele's so i was the best person to create our promo work. We used of the Internet to rescaled some of the pictures for our film poster and mostly copied and pasted images from the Internet for t

he advertisements of other films being promoted and used the magic wand tool then rescaled it and moved it around the page for where it looked most suitable. We changed the colour of the 'R' for the masthead our magazine cover title, we did this by using the wand tool again and then changing the colour so that only the one letter was a different colour and i didn't go over the edges and make it look untid

y. We already had our main image so all i had to do was fit everything eles around it.

Creating the film poster again we used photoshop to do all the work for us. I took the image from my Photography work that i originally had and thought that it was a suitable image for our film so i used photoshop to change the brightness and contrast to fit the description more. After the mian image of the location was perfect i got the silhouette and pram from the internet ad again used the magic wand tool to place them where i wanted them. I got the font from a website called dafonts.com and used the wand to

ol to make sure the outline was perfect. I also used the photoshop for the rest of the promo work to make it perfect.

Evaluation:

For my evaluation i used my questionnaire which i put onto my blog with the research questions.

To put this onto my blog i went onto the design, gadget, and added in my questions and changed the date when the poll is over so there is long enough for people to answer. I also asked people face to face to get there reaction and also so they could tell me what i needed to improve in detail and not over

a blog.

The main web

site i used for all of my blog work was www.blogspot.com, where i posted all my planning and researching

as well as the final products. I used a number of technologies for the planning, research and construction of my media products, from studying media last year also helped me to complete my media work this year alot quicker as i would not have know how to use most of the pro

grammes. by using all of these technologies and programme's on the macs i believe that the group's media trailer and ancillary task's have came out looking professional and therefore reflect the quality onto the amount of hard work put in.

Audience feedback.

Do you feel that the trailer would make you want to go see the film in the cinema?

100% of the people that answered the poll said that from watching our film trailer the would want to go see our final film. This shows that our mis-en-scene,editing,story-line and camera shots obviously looked impressive as people would watch a how hour and a half film based on just our trailer.

Is the location approprite for the film?

Again 100% answered that the location was appropriate. i feel that the reason for this is because the woods give a very scary and edgy feel the the whole trailer which matches the genre of our film.

Do you feel our trailer could be improved?

There was one maybe in this question which was answered, and we wanted to do our project to 100% of our ability we asked the person what we could do to improve the whole round look of our media product. They said that next time maybe run the trailer more smoothly and also maybe add a little actors dialogue. so with this information next time we will add and improve those things to make our product better than last time.

Do you feel that our film magazine would attract you to buy the magazine?

After having 100% say yes to the question we wanted to know why they would buy it and what attracted them to the magazine so that next time we could do the same sort of design,image,impact ect. they said that the most attraction was the main image as it was bold, edgy and something that has never been on a film magazine, as normally they have the main characters and not locations.

Do you feel our film poster is affective?

Again like another one the quesions someone answered could be better and we asked how this could be improved and why they thought this. They said that maybe have a charcters face in the poster would give the audience more of an idea of who will be acting in the film as some people know the talents of actors by there face and not there name. We will take this into considerations next time with the desgin of the poster.

Do you like horror trailers to tell a story?

2/3 said that they wouldnt like a horro trailer to tell and story due to there being no mystry to what your seeing as you'll know whats happening before you see the whole film.

Do you like to be shown a mixer of sex's in your horror trailer?

Again there was a majority on one answer. They mostly answered no to the question showing that people dont mind having all girls or all boys in there trailer as maybe there might be a reason be hind having an same sex trailer.

Do you like to know the deatils in film trailers?

2/3 people said they dont like to know alot of detail in there horror film trailers. This could mean the details into the film or the information about the film e.g dates,ages. Im taking this question as deatils into the film story line so maybe i should have written the question better. Like our film trailer we havent let alot of the sotry line or where the film is going to go.

Do you like to see the antaginist face in the film trailer?

There was a mixed feeling about this question as out of the 4 people that did answer this question half said no and the other two went for yes and also i dont mind. In our trailer we didnt show the attackers face as we thought that it would be giving a lot away and thats what we didnt want as our theme was all around mystry.

Whats the best name for a horror film?

Out off all the names we could have picked from everyone voted for 'The last drive' which we did use for our film trailer.

Editing process.

I wanted to talk about the process of editing and problems we had, how we got through thoses problems and also the good things about the software.Once the footage had been uploaded we went through each shot and wrote down which shots we liked and at what times to make things alot easier later on. Then we dragged the shots we liked into the editing/work area which is shown in the photo. we then editing/cut each individual shot which was written on the sheet and we also done them in order to how we wanted the trailer to look like. while we tried to get this to the standered we wanted it ment changing effects such as lighting,speed,colouring. To use these's effects we had to select them from the toolbars and drop down menus on the left hand side on the screen shot above. As the software was quiet complex we didnt quite know how to do this so had to fiddle around and make a few mistakes before we got the shot in the way we wanted. We mostly used the brightening tool and also to tools tospeed and slow down the shots to give a profesional look. By using this tool it allowed the trailer to look more fluent and that time hadnt gone forward or backwards unless we wanted it to appear like this. Because we shot the trailer all at night we didnt need to use the darken tool as it was dark enough to have the scary feel to it.After we had edited the first few shots we went back and looked over our detailed stroyboards to see if the editing was going to plan and aslo if we needed to do re-shots.Once we had put our shots in order to the shots we liked and wrote on the detailed story board we dragged the shots into the work area and started cutting. the mistake we made was that we started editing before we uploaded the two sound tracks and cut it to fit the music. So we had to roughly start the editing again after we heard the sound track and watched the shots at the same time.When we uploaded the sound tracks we knew that we didnt want the whole thing so we had to cut both of them to the times and the sections that we wanted from.To do this we used the Razor tool on the right hand side of premier pro and marked out the sections we needed to cut out. This was a very difficult and time consuming process as we needed to match the music to the cuts and also previous piece of music. This needed to be perfect so that the audience would assume the song was fluent and sounded correct when played to our trailer and the cuts. Although this was frustrating and errors were made at time, we learnt how to better our new skill and edited our sound track to how we wanted it to sound.Next we began adding in still title slides that displayed captions to help the target audience follow the storyline, also by the captions and the effects we done with them could make the trailers atmospher alot more edgy.Once we had our basic trailer with the shots in order with captions in the correct place we began to watch our trailer through and see what improvements needed to be made. this include things like fades and maybe more quick cut clean shots to perfect our trailer.

we edited in a few shots of famous film making company logos to first fill out a few seconds of the trailer but also make it look professional. the fades we used with them made it run smoothly.

The captions we wanted to add took us a while to figure out to do and also how to cross fade them,add colour to a certain part of the text ect. The most difficult was to fadeing them and making them appear with the music. the way we got round this was re-playing that part f the trailer and keep changing the text around to see what could match.

We wanted the title to make a big impact so that the audience remember it. So i made the font and outer glow on photoshop and put it in as a picture onto the editing softwear. Then we made the picture fade in and out very slowly which gave a great look and went really well with the music. This part of the editing was very easy compared to the captions we had trouble with earlyer.

After the title we wanted a last action shot which would stick in the audiences minds as would first few shots like any trailer. so after the title we edited in a shot of jade getting dragged by her hair. this shot had talking over it and also was too fast for the music that we was going for. so in the editing we had to remove the talking, slow the shot down and put new music over it. this as difficult

The last shot of the website and information was easy and the same construct as the title yet not as big and effective as the title.

Analizing my film poster with Pro film poster

I wanted to analize my film poster in the same way i compared my Magazine front cover as again i wanted to see what ive done well and what i could imporve on for next time.

Title: I wanted the title to bold and readble on every poster so i had to choose the font carfully and also had to text out diffrent methods to have black writing on a black main image and finally came up with an out glow which made it readble. Also another reason i wanted to have the outglow was to have the title looking like a car head light is shinning from behind it as its called the last drive and we use the car headlights alot throughout the trailer.
The last exorcisum's font is nearly the same as mine though its on a dirty white back ground so its readble. The title is in the same place as i feel that we both wanted to have the main image as the fouce to catch the audiences attention.

Main image: Both main images are very diffrent due to the story line though with my poster ive chanlenged conventions. Most horror film posters and other genre's have a clear image of atleast on of the characters in the film. But with my poster i wanted to keep it very mystriouse and the picture i took of the location done that all for me with the trees and the long winding lane.
I didnt just want the location as my main image i used a sillouhet of a man running to represent the gilrs running in the trailer and also the protagianist running towards something. I also wanted the pram in there just like the trailer as the pram is the starting to everything thats happend. Even though i changlled conventions i feel that the main image looks very effective.

Quote: Most film posters have a quote or a saying which gives the audience a hint or glimpse into what the film might lead onto. This is very common in horror film's as they want to make the audience a little on edge just be reading it. Like my poster and the one shown as the example both the quotes are at the top of the page as it will be the first thing you read just like a trailer going: image,caption,title.
With my quote i wanted to keep the audience on edge so the words death gave me that edge. I also hightlighted it the same as i did with the title to match and also make sure it was read able.

Actors names: The first poster we done we didnt have the actors names in it as we thought it looked better without but after we had some feed back and looked more into horror film posters we relised that maybe using the same font and low outline to have the names in wouldnt look so bad and would fit in, and it did. With the example film poster it doesnt have the names though i still think there both as effective, just ours has a little more information.

Imforamtion: We didnt use alot of information as we thought it would be a poster before the trailer came out. Though same with the example poster there is not much information on there aswell. We both has company names and logos at the bottom which keeps in the legal guide lines if this was real.

Analising my Film Magazine and Pro Film Magazine

I wanted to compare my Film front cover to a profesonal to see how well i done or what i need to improve for next time.

Empire is one of the most respected film magazines standing today so i thought this would be a great expamle to compare from. I also took one of there front covers with a horror theme running through it.

Main image: The main image of Empire shows part of the loaction and a charcter or a prop from the film. With my own front cover i have also shown location,prop and charcter though my own image is alot darker. Both main images take up the whole page with the masthead ect over the top. Most film magazines do this so i feel tha my own front cover looks quiet realistic.

Masthead : As most masthead's there placed at the very top taking up most of the top part of the page. There also always in the same font every issue though sometimes the colour may change due to the main image behind. Mine and empire magazines mashead is very simalr with the placing of the name as it will catch the eye on the shelfs. Also the colouring we have both used (red) will add to this.

Selling Lines: Selling lines are always the same on every magzine e.g Heat: Best celb mag, Mercury: Hertfordshires news. With empire they dont have a selling line that is the same every week but for this they have 'The 500 greatest movies of all time'. This selling line is big and bold and even over lapping the Masthead so its the first thing the audience read drawing them in.

My selling line is under the Masthead 'First horror film magzaine' as i wanted the audience to first read the title and then assicatate the title with the selling line. Not the other way around.

Cover Lines:My cover lines are quiet small and tucked away as i wanted the foucs to be on the film not the other articals in the magzine. For most magazines this is the same but for this issue of empire there is only 2 cover lines which are quiet large and draw your attention away from the main image. So for this issue Empire challenged conventions by doing this by for my front cover i thought that challenging conventiosn might be a little diffulct as i wanted to foucs to be on the main image.

Barcoade: Both bar codes are tucked away neatly to give room for more import thins such as masthead,coverlines and the main image.

Final Film Poster.

Final Film Magazine Front Cover.