How Effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts

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

Audience Feedback For Products

When asking students in my school what the thought of my film poster these are some of the comments I have received:

·         I like the simplicity of the colour scheme as it allows the characters to stand out more.

·         The black eyes on the male looks really scary and it really draws my attention to the poster and makes me want to watch the movie.

·         The poster looks quite professional and really good.

·         I don’t really know who’s the villain in the movie, as there is a ghostly guy in the background but he is , kind of hard to see in but the guy in front has black eyes? But it is still really scary.

·         I like the demonic symbol on the poster as it really relates to horror.  

The comments I received were overall quite good and showed me that my poster did fit some conventions and overall achieved its aim of enticing my audience and creating a scary horror poster. One of the comments I received was that they found it hard to see who the villain in the movie was due to the fact the male in the background is really hard to see and the male in the foreground has black eyes. I chose to have the poster this way as I wanted the male in the background to be seen as the ghostly figure and wanted the male in the foreground to be seen as possessed. This I hope would entice the audience and possibly cause confusion, which may entice them more. However I went back to the poster and changed the male’s eyes and made the male in the background more prominent. I then asked the same person again what they thought of the poster and they said it ‘it didn’t look as scary and the male in the background no longer looked like a ghost and made it harder to see the other characters’.

By asking my target audience what they thought I was able to get a clear idea of what I could improve on and what was good already.

When asking students in my school what they thought of my horror magazine these are some of the comments I received:

·         I think the magazine looks really good and professional.

·         I like the fact you can’t see the villain yet you can see someone getting dragged away it makes it more appealing.

·         There isn’t too much writing which means the picture is still the most important aspect of the cover.

·         The colour scheme is a little boring the black and the white looks good but could have looked better if there was more red to relate more to your genre.

The comments I received were overall good and showed that my target audience liked the magazine front cover even though the magazine may be seen as somewhat unconventional. For example my magazine front cover showed one of my characters instead of the villain this is somewhat unconventional of Horror Magazines. One of the comments was that there wasn’t any red on my front cover. However I chose not to have too much red as the red has connotations of blood and in my trailer there is little blood due to the fact it’s based on demonic possession.

When asking students in my school what they thought of my trailer these are some comments I received:

·         Trailer looks really good, suits the genre nicely.

·         I like the demonic symbols that pop up, it looks good with the poster.

·         The editing wasn’t great and the quality of the actors could have been better but I still like the trailer.

·         The dragging scene at the end was good as it made me want to know what happened after. 

·         I like the summoning bit, I think it looks good and the editing of it works really well.  

·         I like the fact it’s in a school.

As you can see overall the feedback I got was really good and showed that the research and planning I did paid off. As you can see from some of the responses from my trailer fit certain conventions of other trailers such as the idea it leaves the audience in suspense and wanting more. Although all the comments I received weren’t as good as I hoped but these comments are useful as they will allow me to edit my product to fit the audience needs and wants.

The audience feedback I received was extremely useful and allowed me to understand what features of my products my target audience liked and what I could improve on to make my products more conventional of the horror genre or what I could improve on to suit my audience needs and wants.

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

One convention I used in my media product was Todorov’s narrative theory. I chose to do this as I believe his theory is conventional of most if not all films and therefore should be a key feature in my trailer. The equilibrium in my trailer is the scene where the students are entering the school and searching around the school as at that moment in time everything is as it should be (normal). The disruption is caused by the students using an Ouija board to try summoning a spirit. I believe choosing to use this theory made the future scenes of the spirit scarier as they were being compared to the equilibrium scenes. Due to the fact my product is a trailer there is no attempt to repair or restore a new equilibrium, again following the convention of a typical trailer. Another theorist is Propp. I think the characters in my trailers show little resemblance to Propps character functions although in my poster it seems as if the females are cowering behind the male, although this is not a function of Propps theory it is somewhat conventional of other horror movies, following the idea that the females are scared and the male has to protect them. Although the eyes of the male are black possibly suggesting he is possessed therefore making it somewhat unconventional of other media products as he is meant to be protecting them.   

Another convention I chose to adhere to was the age rating at the beginning of the trailer. As I believed it may my product look more professional and also due to the fact I choose a horror, I chose a rating that was “Restricted” to make it as realistic as possible.

Another convention was fact that I mentioned my production company at the start of the trailer.

Another convention I have used was having a flashing image being shown during my trailer. I got this Idea when watching the sinister trailer and they had a very fast image appears, relating to the movie. I have chosen to do this as I feel it breaks up certain scenes and can be quite eerie when watching.

Another convention I have is that just after the credits role for the trailer, I have tried to make a scene which scares and surprises the audience. This has become more and more conventional in recent years.

One way my poster challenges the conventions of a real media product is that on most posters they only show the villain or possibly one of the characters looking scared or afraid. However on my poster it shows all the characters who are seen in the movie as well as the villain although the villain visibility is quite poor due to the way I edited the poster. This is unconventional as it seems as if the villain is being overlooked and is showing the characters to be more important. Furthermore as I stated before the male character eyes are black, possibly showing connotations of evil and therefore making it seem as if there are numerous plot twists. I chose to have my character staring at the audience (direct address) as I believe it makes the image more intimidating and makes the poster in general seem scarier.  Another convention on my poster is the billing block at the bottom of the poster, this is important as it makes my poster seem more professional, one problem I faced was that due to the fact I had a small cast and crew the billing block was rather small and I believed due to this it look amateur. Another convention I followed was the….just above the title of the movie.

Final Trailer

Final Film Poster

Final Magazine Front Page

Potential Images for my Magazine or Poster

Progression of Poster

Progression of poster from kristinacsm

Progression of Magazine

Progression of magazine from kristinacsm

Conventions of a Similar Product

Billing Block

Colour Scheme Ideas

Film Magazine analysis

By looking at the two different types of music magazine, one more mainstream and the other more specialised I was able to see the codes and conventions of a film magazine, therefore enabling me to decide if I am going to stick to the codes and conventions of a magazine or subvert the conventions and choose to structure the cover in my own way.  Due to the fact I am making a specialised magazine I am likely to adhere to the second magazine more .From my template it is clear that I am going to make my magazine cover quite conventional. I have chosen to structure it similarly to the first magazine ( Total Film ) as there are certain aspects of the mainstream magazine I find appealing , such as the layout as I believe the second magazine looks somewhat more clustered than the first as on the front cover of the first magazine there is more space around the main image and the cover lines are smaller thus making the main cover line more important. 

Poster and Magazine Layout

Potential Script

Paranormal After School Activity

 Potential Script

Shot 1

S: So is this the school?

J: Yeah...

W: Doesn’t even look that Scary 

S: What did they say happened here again?

J: I heard some boycommitted suicide after school in one of the classes

B: Well let’s go and investigate then

Shot 2

Shot 3

B: Where are the others?

J & W:  *making loud noises on the floor below…move camera around school from second floor and then focus on them two*

W: Hurry up I think we have found it

Shot 4

J: This place is vile

B: It’s not that bad
W: It’s perfect

Shot 5

*Text Appears on the screen*

Shot 6

B: Hey watch what you’re doing

W: Stop worrying I aint gonna break it and anyway I think this is the room *Kicks the door*

S: Do we really have to do this?

J: Stop worrying

*W&J start kicking and throwing stuff around, S is kind of disgusted. S stands in the corner alone, move camera on to S and away from W&J*

B: You ok Shan?

S: I don’t wanna do this anymore

W: Why? We are here now so stop moaning

Shot 7

B: This should work

S: Can we just hurry this up

*All hold hands around the table*

J: So how does this work?

W: Just Wait

*Everyone’s hands slowly move in to the centre of the circle*

W: Ohh Shit its working

S: I don’t like it

B: Will you better not be taking the piss…

J: I agree with Shan we should leave

*D appears next to the group, then the lights turn off suddenly and the girls scream and run out as they do so the camera is knocked on the floor*

Shot 8

*Camera is fuzzy as it hits the floor, you can see W legs as he’s standing up*

W: Guys wait; it just got interesting…Guys

*Turns the lights on as he leaves the room*

Shot 9

*Camera is still on the floor, we see a small dark figure in the room crouching down on the floor as he raises his head slightly he vanishes *

Shot 10

*Text appears on the screen, Based on a true story*

Shot 11

*Walk in the room and pick up the camera*

B: You’re lucky it still works

*W follows with A&S behind him*

W: It weren’t my fault was it if the girls didn’t run out none of this would have happened

J: Don’t try and blame us

S: I didn’t wanna do the stupid thing in the first place

B: No one made you

S: Shut up Ben, let’s leave…I wanna go

J: So do i

W: What? We just got started

*Door slams shut, W runs over to the door, J&S scream as door slams*

Shot 12

J: Open the door

W: It won’t open

B: What do you mean it won’t open?

W: Come help then instead of just commentating

S: I told you we should have left

*S starts to get upset and A comforts her, as I step close to the door it is pushed open and W drops back, BSJ all scream*

Shot 13

*Start to walk out turns around and sees E standing at the end of the corridor*

B: Ohh Shit, run

*Pushes door wide open and starts to run*

Shot 14

*W is running behind B, loud panting as I am running, camera is moving frantically as I run*

W: Run

Shot 15

*W vanishes from behind me, loud yell is heard, I then drop and scream, camera drops with me, image is blurred *

Shot 16

*Boy in the corner of the room, hear a camera sound effect, she slightly looks up in the direction of the camera, he then disappears*

Shot 17

*suddenly he appears in front of the camera, loud scream follows, roll credits* 

Film Log

Scene	Date	Location	People Involved	People In Scene	Props and Clothing
1	13/12/2012	Fotball Pitch	Willam,Shan,Deji and Joy	William,Shan and Joy
2	13/12/2012	School Entrance	Willam,Shan,Deji and Joy	William,Shan and Joy
3	13/12/2012	Inside Scool ( 2nd Floor )	Willam,Shan,Deji and Joy	William,Shan and Joy
4	06/12/2012	School Classroom	Willam,Shan,Deji and Joy	William,Shan and Joy	Chairs and Taples
5	06/12/2012	Drama Studio	No one	No one
6	06/12/2012	Drama Studio	Willam,Shan,Deji and Joy	William,Shan and Joy	Ouija Board
7	13/12/2012	Editing Text In	No one	No one
8	06/12/2012	Drama Studio	Willam,Shan,Deji and Joy	William,Shan and Joy
9	06/12/2012	Drama Studio	Deji	Deji	Long Black Jacket
10	06/12/2012	Drama Studio	Willam,Shan,Deji and Joy	William,Shan and Joy
11	06/12/2012	Drama Studio	Willam,Shan,Deji and Joy	William,Shan and Joy
12	06/12/2012	School Corridor	Deji	Deji	Long Black Jacket
13	13/12/2012	School Corridor	Willam,Shan,Deji and Joy	William,Shan and Joy
14	13/12/2012	School Corridor	No one	No one
15	13/12/2012	Drama Studio	Deji	Deji	Long Black Jacket
16	13/12/2012	Drama Studio	Deji	Deji	Long Black Jacket

Story Board

Concent Form

Title of Project: Filming the trailer of "Paranormal After School Activity "

·         I have been provided with a letter explaining the research project and I understand the letter.

·         I have been given the opportunity to ask questions and all my questions have been answered satisfactorily.

·         I am aware that I can contact Ben Taylor if I have any further queries, or if I have concerns or complaints. I have been given their contact details.

·         I understand that participating in this project will involve :

o   Being Filmed

o   My voice being recorded;

o   Photographs being taken of me.

o   Filming and Photos may possibly become edited

o   The work will be published online

·         I consent to having my voice recorded/ a video taken/ photographs taken during this research.

·         I understand that the researcher will be able to identify me through the filming process.

·         I am aware that the information collected during this research may be put online or on the school database

·          I understand that I can withdraw from the research at any time without penalty.

·         Any injuries or altercations that may occur during the time of the filming is not the responsibility of the Director (Ben Taylor)  

I freely agree to participate in this project:

NAME: ____________________________________________

EMAIL: ____________________________________________

SIGNATURE: ______________________________ DATE: ____________

Trailer Analysis (MAMA)

The film trailer begins with a somewhat unconventional start as it seems to begin with disequilibrium however in recent years it has become more apparent for example Sinister (2012), as it shows two small young girls in horrific conditions. One of the girls is sitting on the other shoulders, which may be seen as the “norm” and somewhat playful of young children. However due to the conditions they are in and the way in which they have chosen to stand it is somewhat unnerving and eerie. As an audience we can see how they have lost their childlike innocence and how it has been replaced with something dark and sinister.  Due to the mid-close up we are able to see how dirty and malnourished the children are as and as an audience we are wanting to help them as we feel sorry for them, this is somewhat leading us into a false sense of security as we know little about the reason they are like that.

Here we can see the start of the equilibrium. The use of the mid-close up allows us to see the children in a clean room with a white bed cover, the use of the bed cover being white could suggest purity or could be used to juxtaposes the previous location and emphasise the difference between  them and how things are getting better. The child hugging the man may show her desired to be cared and loved however her facial expression remains somewhat neutral and almost fixed which is unconventional of most hugs. Also due to the fact we only see one of the children hugging the man it may suggest that there is a difference in character between the two siblings and how the younger child may be unwilling to let the man into her life suggesting she is somewhat of a problem.

   

This we have the start of a small disequilibrium which is the youngest child kicking and screaming in the female’s arms, she then slaps the female around the face amongst all the kicking and screaming, this is emphasized due to the quick cut in the scene and the sinister non diegetic music playing. Following this jump cut, we hear the female’s voice overlapping to the next shot saying “there is no way I am ready for this” from this we can gather as an audience that complications are arising and the situation is becoming worse. The use of having a lot of empty space around the two emphasizes the point that the young girl is distressed and struggling with the female.

 We now have an attempt to resolve the disequilibrium by having the doctor talking to the young girl, the way in which she is sitting could suggest she is somewhat possessed due to her posture and the way her eyes are fixated, this may suggest a theme of this horror (Demonic Possession). From the low key lighting used it makes the image seem ominous and makes the audience focus solely on the doctor and young child and in my opinion mainly focus on the way in which he is leaning towards her offering help the way her body is positioned is like she in unwilling to take his help, which may confuse the audience as there parental instincts would be to want the child safe and yet she is unwilling to take help.

The final shot we see the two young children sitting at a table together, with the youngest staring at towards the audience with a large grin on her face as if she is happy to see someone or something, this unnerves the audience as we are unable to see what she is looking at making the thing or person more scary. Shortly after her smile we hear a very childlike laugh which is amplified and played over creepy music. This makes us change our opinion of the child as she seems to be a part of the problem arising in the house and almost seems to be enjoying it.