Evaluation

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

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 at the end of the trailer when the editing . 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 a piano with 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. The magazine cover consists of 1 main photo, this photo is of the main actor. This is very typical in movie magazines as they have to draw in the desired audience, making them want to know more about the film, therefore purchasing the magazine. 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. The actors names have been placed at the top of the poster, this means 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. The position of the title is towards the bottom of the page and does not distract the main image, however the audience will be drawn to this as the it is quite large and stands out on the dark background. These two ancillary texts are shown below:

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

By being consistent and using similar features throughout our media products we were able to create a ‘synergy’. This gave the audience a very strong recognizable link between each product. For example: we used the same font for the captions and the title of the film. We also used the same colour scheme throughout our products, this allows the audience to recognize what film the product is advertising at a glance. It is important for an audience to notice these links as this will help reinforce the idea of a synergy, helping to gain a wider audience and cementing the film name and features in their minds. I think that we have been very successful in linking our ancillary texts with our trailer and in creating a strong synergy throughout.

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• What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After showing the film trailer to members of the audience, along with the poster and magazine cover, they had given me some feedback on what they thought worked and what didn’t. By making a horror film trailer it was crucial that my target audience could immediately identify the genre of the trailer. Every member of the audience was able to pick up on this right away because of the music and the scenes featured in the trailer. Using dreary, dark lighting also helped to reinforce the genre of the trailer. By using a fast paced song towards the end of the trailer, the audience stayed interested the whole way through the trailer, which would help attract a wider audience in the real world. By using the music to help build suspense my target audience had told me that this was very well done as it did give them a slight clue that something was about to happen. From asking my target audience for their views I was able to clearly identify which features worked well and which didn’t.

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

To get the footage for the film trailer we used a high quality video camera and a tripod to make sure that the shots were clear, precise and steady shots. We used Premiere Pro to edit our trailer. We uploaded our footage and then used the best shots, by using this software we were able to use special effects on our shots and the transitions. We were also able to to insert still titles, these were very useful to us as we could insert captions to act as the narrator instead of having a boring, stereotypical voiceover. With the research and planning stages the main source used was the internet, I researched film trailers through YouTube, I noted the conventions they followed and how the trailers were set up, the pace of the film trailer was important, as well as locations, characters, mise en scene and setting. I researched film posters and film magazines through Google and the IMDB, I looked out for key trends between the posters and magazine covers in the horror genre in particular as it was most relevant to our project. With the evaluation stage the main media source was the Internet using YouTube to broadcast our final film trailer and then by using the embed code to paste it on our blog for final feedback.