final evaluation 123

8/6/2019 Final Evaluation 123

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

conventions of real media products?

Main product

When trying to create my own horror trailer, I was very aware that there are certain powerful conventions and media techniques applied specifically to the horror genre.

Through my research into similar products I gained clear understandings of what

these conventions are as well as how and why they are applied. I felt it was important

to include as many of these convention in our own original trailer to give it

authenticity and also make it instantly identifiable to the audience as being within the

horror genre.

In many of the horror trailers we looked at, we found that a strong sense of

equilibrium was present, such as in the Gothika trailer where in the opening section

we see her contented and happy in her career. This was also seen in the hide and seek

trailer were we see the father setting up home with his daughter to start a new life. In

this trailer in particular the equilibrium at the beginning was exaggerated with over saturation of colours and fade to whites used to cut the scenes together. We applied

this to our own trailer. In the opening sequences all the colours are over saturated.

Bright colours have a connotation of

happiness and enjoyment, it also makes to

character of Katie appear rosier cheeked,

which has a connotation of childhood

innocence. The effect this has on the

audience is that they empathise with the

character and see her in completely

positive way and therefore don’t want

anything bad to happen to her.

We use many close ups in the

trailer as they are very conventional of the horror genre, they are used because they

are a brilliant way of showing emotion especially fear.

In these opening sequences we applied

conventional mise-en-scene to create equilibrium.

In the opening to the hide and seek trailer we

analysed, the little girls starts of in a floral

pyjamas, flowers connote femininity and in turn

connote innocence and vulnerability. In our

original trailer we have followed this convention;Katie is wearing a long floral dress. A long

flowing dress only adds to the feminine

connotations of the flowers and the effect of this is

that the audience view her as a vulnerable

character. The vulnerable victim character is a

strong convention of the horror genre. In all of the

films we looked at, trees played an important role

in the setting as they can be both beautiful and

scary, for this reason we chose to film at a nature

reserve and attempt to pass it of as the woods.

This means that we can change the feel of the piece very quickly, for example in the beginning the saturated colour of the trees makes them appear very lush and beautiful,



however when the mood changes the trees are darker and in stronger contrast to make

them appear more horrific.

When we are first introduced to the little girl character it was important that

the audience are aware that she is evil, but also it needs to be believable that Katie

would see her as innocent. Possessed or demonised children are common and

conventional in the horror genre. We achieved this through a combination of soundand camerawork. A close up of the little girls face is used, this shows her emotions

and shows that she is sad, the light

behind her head creates a halo effect

and her white costume connotes

innocence and it becomes believable

that Katie’s character would take pity

on her. However, this is contrasted by

the use of sounds, we used a

conventional suspense/evil non-

diagetic noise to create suspicion and

tension in the audiences mind andmake it clear that this is the turning

point in the film and that whatever the disequilibrium is, it is as a result of this strange

little girl.

Another close up is used when the two reach out to hold hands, when they

touch, the colour drains and goes into black and white, symbolic of life being drained

out, this confirms for the audience that the tone and mood of the trailer are about to

drastically change.

I also use conventional make up in the trailer to create horror, in hide and

seek when the little girl turns evil she starts wearing black and thick eye makeup, this

is a recurring convention of the horror

genre and can be seen in many horror

films wear the evil character wears

thick often gothic style make up or

clothes. I followed this convention but

it was not character appropriate for the

little girl in our story to wear proper

make up, instead with has thick lines of

make up running down her face, this

along with her tattered now tarnished

clothing gave her a connotation of being

savage or animalistic.Trailers in the horror genre have

a very specific style of editing, though

our research into similar products I

found that the clips tend to start of quite

long to establish the story, they then get

shorter and shorter until eventually right

at the end they are very short and cut

together very fast, this creates a sense of

action, danger and desperation. In these short cut together clips with see clips of Katie

running, with her dress now slightly tattered, I used a long shot of her running so that

the scare factor of the tall dark tress was present, as well as a tracking shot of her factwhilst running. This gave a blair witch, hand held style. The close up shows the terror



on her face and the hand held style makes the helps the audience put themselves in the

action as it feels as though they are running along next to her.

These scenes are cut quickly cut together with

scenes of the little girl to give the audience and

impression of a chase. I visually edited the footage

to make it more conventional of the horror genre.High contrast and blue tinges are used on all of the

little girl’s clips and this colour scheme almost

becomes her motif. I used a blue tinge as we saw

in the Gothika trailer, blue is a colour that is very

frequently used in the horror genre as it connotes

cold, isolation and terror. I also used a jump cut

on the footage of the girl to make her movements

more fragmented and jolted to make her appear

more of an anomaly, the audience will wonder if

she is even human.

Another convention we found was having black screens with text on, this was used in both Gothika

and Hide and Seek. They are used to ask

the audience questions which help them

engage more in the onscreen action, or to

help the audience understand the premise

of the film. I used these because as well

has helping the audiences understanding

and therefore viewing pleasure they also

help the clips flow from snippet to snippet.

Ancillary tasks

Poster

Film magazine posters have many conventions that are in place to help attract

audience to the film, there are also some more genre specific conventions in place for

horror films.

Conventional colour schemes in horror

film poster tend to favour toward red

blues and blacks, these colours all have

connotations of fear and danger, andlarge black spaces are used to insinuate

the unknown. I used this colour scheme

in my horror film poster and lowered the

saturation of the face to exaggerate the

blueness off the eyes. I wanted to draw

attention to the eyes because the eyes

show fear and identify the genre as

horror. I also increased the grain levels

in the image to make her skin appear

more gritty which connotes a struggle

and suggest she has been in danger.



A Strong convention of horror posters is a long shot showing both the victim and the

killer or villain, however a few of the poster I saw had chosen to use close ups of

either the villain or victim. I thought that this was much more effective at identifying

the genre as horror as a close up captures strong emotions that are then easily

deciphered by the audience. In our image we chose to use the victim as when we did

our audience survey, however we did want our villain to be hinted towards so we havethe Childs hands reaching around her face, this has connotations of being trapped or

captured which are strong themes in the horror genre. We used a traditional basic

layout which is conventional of all film posters as not to detract from the image, we

chose a simple white font again so the information was presented clearly without

making the poster to complicated.

Magazine cover

I chose to stick quite rigidly to the conventions of a

magazine front cover as I think that the traditional

layout and rules in place work well when trying to present information in a simple concise way that

allows the audience to absorb it easily.

My main image is in the primary optical area which

again is a close up, this time of villain. She is

obviously a character that belongs in the horror genre

and so my target audience of horror lovers will be

instantly drawn to it. The text doesn’t cut in to the

image and the page is left hand dominant which

makes the information easier to access and read. I

have used a variety of fonts to create variety on the

page and break up the text into smaller chunks that

are easier for an audience to absorb. The mode of

address on the magazine relates directly to my target audience of young movie goers

and horror enthusiasts.

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

When marketing a film, I think it is important to create a brand Identity as it means

audience can recognise your product much more easily and therefore it is much easier to create a hype around your product. To create a strong brand identity I tried to keep

a sense of continuity between my pieces.

In researching film advertising I found that one of the ways to keep continuity

was to have a series of pictures, all edited in the same way, these pictures could then

be used in a variety of

media products to

advertise the film, this

technique was

employed by the 2009

version of star trek

were all the photoswere gritty black and



white portraits, it creates such a strong identity and brand that

only a small star trek symbol at the bottom of the page is needed.

I chose to do this and it can be seen in my poster and magazine

front cover which both use close ups, edited in exactly the same

way. This style of editing then becomes almost the visual identity

of the film and people can see a photo edited in this way andknow that it is to do with my film. I broke convention by

choosing to not have a film font that is used in all the products,

that is because we couldn’t find a font that translated well onto,

screen, poster and magazine so in an attempt to not jeopardise the

effectiveness of each products I altered the font slightly on each

piece. The whole advertisement package is designed to gather attention from the film

and I think that if they were to be published they would be very effective. The

placement of the advertisements plays a crucial role in the success of products

advertising. The trailer would play in cinema’s nation wide during

thriller/horror/action films with a 15 rating as this will directly

reach our target audience who has already gone to see a film ina similar genre.

The magazine would be placed in newsagents as well as

supermarkets to give it the biggest exposure possible and reach

the widest audience possible and therefore create a maximum

hype around the product. The magazine would also feature in

music and film stores such as HMV and Virgin where film

enthusiasts are likely to be, again this is a good way of directly

targeting our target audience. There would also be an online

version of the magazine that would be advertised on social

networking sites such as facebook to people had listed films

and horror in there interests, this is directly advertising to our target audience as

apposed to spending money on people who aren’t our target audience.

The film poster would be blown up in large and displayed inside the cinemas

as well as smaller posters outside and around it. This means we can attract active film

goers and enthusiasts and also persuade those people to come and see our film. The

poster would also appear at train stations and tube station to give it maximum

exposure to a vast audience everyday. As well as this it would also appear on the

inside of newspapers and magazines (specifically film magazines such as empire).

Overall I think I have created a strong brand and identity for my product that I think

would advertise my film well and effectively.

What have you learned from your audience

feedback?

My target audience was a mixed gender group of

people between the ages of 15-21 with an interest in

the horror genre. Based on the feedback I have

received I think I have appealed to this audience

well. 100 percent of people who answered my

secondary questionnaire after seeing all my products

were in my target age bracket and out of the thirty

completed questionnaires I received 17 were fromfemales and 13 were from males. I handed my



questionnaire results to people who said that they

would go and see a horror film. Analysing the feed

back I have received I can see that my products were

more popular with female audiences, this may be down

to the lack of actual violence or gore that I show in

both my film and print advertisments, and that issomething I would consider revising were I to do this

topic again so that I could appeal to a wider audience.

100 percent of people said that all of my products were

easily identifiable as being within the horror genre,

which I think is a great success as it means that I have

clearly understood and been able to effectively apply

the conventions of horror, which was my goal. Whilst

the poster received nothing but positive feedback, 9

people felt that the shot used on the front cover of the

magazine was not appropriate and would have

preferred a long shot. However I do not think I wouldrevise this, because it is only under a third of the people who had a problem with this.

15 people said that the trailer needed to be more exciting and that the

equilibrium at the beginning went on for too long without much actually happening.

This is something that, on reflection, I agree with and would defiantly change if I was

to redo this project. If 50% of people have a problem with the trailer which is the

main source of advertising then it would defiantly be worth changing to attract a

substantially wider audience. Looking at the Blumler and Katz Uses and Gratification

model and relating it to my feedback, I can see that when taking in a horror film

trailer people want to be excited from the beginning and to get straight into the action

and whilst I think I fulfilled the Uses and Gratifications model when it came to

building relationships with characters eg. Katie, I think I let that go on for too long

and didn’t cut to the action or horror element until to late. However the fact that

people could easily identify that it was in the horror suggest that my preferred reading

was clear, and that I successfully applied Stuart Halls theory of encoding and

decoding. The information I presented to the audience through the use of connotations

and signifiers was easily decoded by my audience making the trailer easy to watch.

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

and evaluation stages?

Media technologies have been vital throughout my project. The main technology thatI have used is the blog. I found the blog a useful tool during this project, as I could

clearly see what work I had done and work needed to be done. It also meant that a

wide variety of people including my friends and class mates could see the work I was

doing and offer helpful advice and constructive criticism, and whilst I didn’t use the

blog to actively aid my research and planning it provide a good platform on which I

could present my findings and analyse them quickly and effectively. My biggest

criticism of the blog is that it wasn’t always easy to upload various types of files and I

found myself spending a lot of time I could have been being productive, converting

files into formats that the blog would accept.

The internet was a very important tool in the research and planning stage,

using tools such as YouTube meant I could access endless film trailers and similar products, but also using websites such as survey monkey meant I could directly ask



questions to a huge number of people and have to results fed back to me in an easy

understandable way.

During the actual production stages I used a wide range of programs and

technologies. I used a Canon Eos 550d to take the photos I required for both the

poster and the magazine front cover and then

processed the images on Adobe Photoshop.Using these helped my capture images and

then edit them in a way that I thought was

genre appropriate. I filmed on a canon video

camera using a road mic, and whilst this

camera was limited in features, the poor

quality gave a hand held Blair feel that I

think enriched the piece and made it seem

more authentic. I edited our film on I-Movie,

I-Movie was simple to use and gave a good

professional look to the finished trailer, however some techniques such as slow

motion and others were unavailable to us on this programme.

final evaluation 123

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