By Ria Popovic & Jordan Milson

Evaluation Of Media Products

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

Conventions of Film Conventions of Film MagazineMagazine

Layout

One Main Image/Story

Logo

Other stories

Masthead

Feature Famous People

Physically Attractive

Character

Conventions of Conventions of Horror/Thriller Film Horror/Thriller Film

PostersPosters

One main image

Editing: Credits, names of actors directors, release date

Title

Characters: Victim, Attractive character, Villain

Mise-en-scene: interior, exterior Haunted house, Haunted park

Camera editing: Tripod mounted shots, Low angle, high angle, Establishing shots.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

How We applied these to our products

Establishing shot of park and high angle of tree confirming the locations of the film giving an insight to the plot.

Close up of villains face

Use of mist/fog connotations of horror.

Font of title connotes old age rotten- like on grave stones anchoring with genre.

Mise-en-scene stereo typical scary exterior location of haunted park.

Black and white editing typical of genre.

Credits in bottom part of foreground typical of film poster.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

A. One main image

B. Editing: Credits, names of actors directors, release date

C. Title

D. Characters: Victim, Attractive character, Villain

E. Mise-en-scene: interior, exterior Haunted house, Haunted park

F. Camera editing: Tripod mounted shots, Low angle, high angle, Establishing shots.

How we applied these to our products

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

A. Layout

B. One Main Image/Story

C. Cover lines trailing

other stories

D. Masthead

E. Feature Famous People

F. Physically Attractive

Character

G. Graphics to create visual

interest

Conventions of film magazines.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

Film Posters and Film Magazines Conventionally use tripod mounted images at various angles such as high angles, low angles, mid shoots and close up’s.

Film posters location in the image are conventionally on set images, taken on the main location for the film.

Camera Shots and Photoshoot

Film magazines use several images to feature in the cover.

Images are Conventionally studio based.

Both samples of print work heavily use editing for their cover images.

How we used and challenged Conventions.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

Original images

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

Original images

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

Editing tools for film magazine editing

Custom Shape tool

Horizontal type tool

Magnetic lasso tool

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

Editing

Mist/fog effect

Back ground eraser tool

Select and move images

Horizontal type tool

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

Scary hidden shotsDark gloomy atmosphere creating connotations of Trees in foregroundCars in the shot suggests kidnapCostume suggest they are vulnerable e.g. school uniformObjects such as swings suggest murder or kidnapping.There is always one person who is seen to be innocentThemes are always murder, kidnapping or isolation and painLow angled shots to present superiorityHigh angled shots connotes vulnerabilityCommonly known for threat and danger Flash paths and viewsEvents that happen in unordinary stepsTripod mountedTransitions – Fast / Slow cuts, Zooms.

What you would find in a thriller trailer

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

Objectives of a thriller trailer

- Not to give to much of the plot away- Attract an audience, generate interest in the film- Create an atmosphere- Let the audience know what the film is about- Show what stars are featuring in the film- Let the audience know what production companies are involved in the film - Release date of the film- Teasing the audience- Show the films best bit

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

How we have followed these conventions-Used scary hidden shots to get a mysterious

effect.- Used Bushes and trees in the foreground to add a gloomy effect to our film.- Filmed at dusk so we get some dark shots when needed.- Our main character is dressed in a school uniform suggests she is vulnerable. Other character is dressed in a suit suggests that he is older and goes to work, more superior to the little girl.-We have followed the conventions of the themes of a

thriller film; our film is about murder and so therefore follows a usual thriller plot. Audience know what to expect. -One character is usually pursued to the audience as being vulnerable, we have followed this as the little girl is shown to be vulnerable. - Made our setting conotate isolation and threat. Audience will associate setting with horror and fear.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

How we have not followed conventions- We have used a park which is usually seen as a happy, peaceful place.- We have not always used unusual shots, some of our shots are simple to get more of a realistic effect.- Our trailer is very ambiguous and not in chronological order, We wanted to have this as it gives the audience an idea of what life was like before the horrific events took place. Makes the audience feel closer to the characters, like they personally know them.- We have used unusual props such as a roundabout to show that our setting is very alternative. - Compared to a Hollywood film we have operated on a very low budget, and didn’t have access to a-list actors.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

How our product is going to be similar to existing texts

- Our film trailer is the same as existing products as its based on similar plots of a thriller film. Our film is based on a murder which is a stereotypical story line of a thriller film.- We have also designed a logo for our production company this is also similar to ancillary texts.- Our trailer also has credits in between images and this is what professional trailers.

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

Genre theory

- Films can be classified as a result of our own perceptions; created through our experience of media texts.Definition of genre may differ from one person to the next.

- Steve Neale states that genres are instances of ‘repetition and difference’. He also argues that genres are ‘systems of expectations and conventions that circulate between industry, text and subject’.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms, conventions of real media products?

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

Question two

Image /Mise-en-scene: park features in film trailer so establishes location so gives audiences a insight into the plot.

Use of colour black and white: conventional of horror/thriller genre connotes mystery anchoring with thriller, doesn’t reveal all

Title/Font: consistent with featuring on film trailer linking the two products together.

Characters feature in all three to anchor with film.

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

How we linked the two print products

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

Characters: We have anchored all of our media products by featuring the main character in both the print and film; this helps the audience link the poster and the magazine cover with the film.

Image /Mise-en-scene: we used a main image of a park in our trailer and on our poster. This provides consistency and coherence and also allows the audience to establish the genre of the film. The image on the poster also links with the plot of the film. By making the audience aware of this, they may be more interested in watching the film and therefore generate more success.

Use of colour black and white: We used a black and white image on the film poster and also used these colours in the film trailer. This creates a chilling atmosphere, therefore adding tension and suspense for the audience, we have reflected the mood of the film on the marketing product, thus giving the audience a good understanding of what the film genre.

Title/Font: We ensured there was consistency by applying the title font to all parts of our campaign.

Planning and evaluating existing products (film). • Before planning our film trailer, I

looked at film trailers already in cinema. I looked at plots, camera shots, characters, make up and costume, composition and props.• I then wrote down what they all signify and connote.• I then had ideas about what my film could be about and wrote down some ideas. When we decided what our trailer can be based on we thought off all the things you would see in this genre, we decided to base our film on a murder of an innocent character.• We then as a team wrote down all the things we wanted to use such as props, characters and costumes.

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

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Question three

Why is audience feedback important?

- Audience feedback is very important as it lets you know what is successful about your film, poster and magazine front cover and what's not. The most helpful feedback is when your making your production so if something is unpopular with your target audience, you can change it and improve it to suit your audience.- Audience feedback is also important as it lets you know what you can improve on next time or even edit if you have the chance, it is also helpful as it gives you an idea about how successful your production is going to be. - Audience feedback can sometime bring negative aspects about your production but this is useful as you know what your target audience prefer. And this is the most useful information that will lead it our production being successful or not..

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Who am I going to ask and what questions will be useful?

-We are going to get the audience to watch our film trailer and look at our print products, they are mostly aimed at the same target audience. - Our target audience would be girls and boys, around 18 years that like to watch thriller/horror films. -Questionnaire and a film viewing for people in my year at school. Ask them if they like thriller films as there opinion would be most useful.- Ask a range of open and closed questions and quantitative an qualitative questions. - Use both boys and girls – Make research equal.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Closed questions; give a straight answer that you can put into a chart.

Open questions tell us more detailed information, but you cant compare this. For this question this would tell us what our audience enjoyed and the next open question would tell us what we can change to make it better.

By asking whether my audience would buy the film from the look of the trailer I know whether my film is going to be reasonably successful.

From my questionnaire I found that;- 80% would buy the film from the look of the trailer- 90% do enjoy thriller films- 100% wants to know what’s going to happen-100% would also watch this film by the look of the trailer

-One person said they enjoyed the shots, and the music from the trailer.- Another said the shots and music let them know it’s a thriller film.- The question what did you not like about this trailer meant that we could see what we need to change in order to make our film more successful. The answers were as follows;-The music at the end-Nothing- The shot under the tree (too dark)

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Pros and Cons of methodology

- Qualitative methodology is good as it explains a lot and holds a lot of detail. However with this type of data it would be hard to collect data out of this, you cant really scale it, use it to measure or use to it compare.

- Quantitative methodology is good as it lets you compare and you can also put this data into a chart. However with this, you cant get very in-depth information as you usually ask closed questions. It also doesn’t prove cause and effect.

Its best to ask both quantitative and qualitative questions to get the best information you can, you can then get a lot of descriptive data and put the data you find in charts so its easy to compare.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

evaluation stages?

Question four

We used internet blogging websites to collect and update our work. This is a modern portfolio more evidential and accessible.

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

The internet was an asset to our evaluation as it was easy to access our work by publishing videos and images on social networking websites enabling comments to be made; this acted as audience review.

An illustration of research we used the internet for was to find examples of real media productions to use as a comparison with our own productions.

How we used the internet

The internet was also used to research ways to resolve technical issues we had come across with editing software such as Photoshop and imovie.

Cinema websites and IMDB we constantly used to view examples of film trailers.

We also had to use the internet in order to send emails to organise crucial parts of evaluation such as meetings and film focus groups.

-Our blog helped us know where we were up to in our portfolio, it also helped us plan what we needed to do and how we could do this. We updated this as it let us evaluate our own work.

- The internet helped us research similar and existing products; we used pictures and trailers from the internet for our evaluation. This helped us as we knew what kind of things we needed in order for our product to be successful.

-We used the schools filming equipment to help us do our practice recording, we then used it in our real recording, we found this easier as we already knew how to use it to the best of our ability.

-We used our own digital cameras to take pictures of our location and I also used my own camera for the photo shot of our main character for our front cover. This was easier as I already knew all the setting of my camera, this gave me the advantage to make the pictures look more professional it also saved me valuable time.

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

-To edit our film we used apple macs, these were very useful as they let us edit to a professional standard.

-For example; Cut out bits of footage that we didn’t want to useAdd in transitions such as fadeChange the colour of the footage which could then fade in or out, Add flashes to our footage which made it look like a flash backChange the order of the footageAdd in non-digetic sound over our footageMake the footage faster or slower

The apple Macs were easy and quick to use, this saved us a lot of time.

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

Photoshop also came in very helpful when we wanted to create a magazine front cover, and the film poster, we were able to create a professional look from the editing tools. I used a background eraser, this enabled me to put pictures on top of each other so it looked professional.

When we uploaded our trailer on to you tube, it let people comment on it who are connected to the site. We can then gain feedback from people who have never seen our trailer before.

When we did our film focus group, we asked everybody to fill out a questionnaire, we then gathered information that came in very useful, we used these answers to make a few changes to our trailer that would make it more interesting for our target audience. We asked both boys and girls

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