Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The conventions of film trailers are that they usually start with an equilibrium and then the narrative makes a sudden change as there is a break in this equilibrium and the editing becomes faster, building tension. I followed this tension as the first part of my trailer shows the main protagonist driving away from the city into the countryside. The editing is slow and smooth in this sequence to give the impression of this equilibrium and everything is fine. This editing takes a sudden change as the man stumbles across a bag full of something of importance, as the editing becomes quick and jerky to create tension and grab the viewers attention. Nearly all of the thriller film trailers in which I have analysed before we filmed our trailer followed this convention so we decided it was a convention too important to break, therefore having to follow it.

We also followed the convention of hero and villain within mise en scene as the hero and villain can be easily distinguished by their clothing as the hitman is wearing smart clothing such as the shoes he wears, the coat and suit pants etc, where as the protagonist looks less established and more personal like he has a dented personality or bad personal issues. This can be detected easily by the audience by his clothes and simply the way he walks.

When editing the trailer we used lots of slow, smooth edits and fades at the start, before the break in the equilibrium. We also used longer shots to relax the viewers. Once the equilibrium breaks, the editing takes a sudden change and becomes quicker and rougher, building the suspense of the audience to an ultimate climax at the end of the trailer just before the credits as the editing becomes faster and faster. The music also helps create this tension as it also changes from slow and calm, at the start of the trailer and then builds up, becoming quicker and louder therefore making the trailer more cinematic.

Continued… Thrillers are meant to build tension and scare the audience, they

do this by certain techniques used through editing, cinematography etc. In our trailer we created this tension by using certain shots where only certain body parts can be seen and others are not revealed. The music/score also helps create tension and make the trailer more atmospheric. I chose to use the song, “The End” by the Doors which I think suits the on screen action and makes the trailer compelling and epic. This specific song is parallel to the on screen action as it is dark and depressing along with the narrative of the film. This helps the audience to be absorbed by the narrative and curious to watch the actual film.

I convention which we bent was that thrillers are normally situated during the night or in dull weather, our film is different to this as it happens in the day.

There is a big distinction which we tried to make clear in the trailer which is the link between urban and rural areas. The equilibrium scene is shot in a rural place and the main protagonist is shown driving away from the city but once the equilibrium breaks, the location changes to the urban city of Manchester.

Our trailer reveals some of the secrets of the film which is uncommon to usual thriller trailers as they usually are very mysterious and tell the audience a minimum of the plot. We broke this convention because we thought it was important to explain the basic idea of what is happening and the plot synopsis. Also the film is mainly about the narrative instead of the action although there are many action scenes and there are many different twists throughout which are not revealed in the trailer.

Q4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used many different new technologies when producing this coursework. Firstly we created our blog on the internet which can be accessed through a password. We then uploaded our screenplays and story boards onto the blog so the stages in which we went through can be distinguished. The film trailer itself was filmed on a digital camera and a memory stick instead of the old way which was using a tape which could often be unreliable. This allowed us to upload the footage quicker, easier and more reliable. To edit the trailer we used Adobe Premiere which is a new editing technique which allows the films to be created easily and hassle free. On this software, shots can be cut and shortened, the colour can be easily changed and there is a wide range of editing techniques such as fades and moving text.

During this project we have learned about digital photography. This is much easier than the old photography techniques and opens up many new doors as these photographs can be altered and manipulated using computer software such as Adobe Photoshop and Fireworks. When taking these digital photographs for the film posters and magazine cover, I chose have the actors actually performing movement to make it seem more realistic and the feeling that he is being chased to make it look more thrilling. I used many different camera techniques and compositions such as letting more/less light into the lens to give different effects. The photograph which I decided to use for the film poster was taken in a subway which I thought was very interesting with the lights and reflection of the water.

Continued… Once I had uploaded these photographs onto

Photoshop, I started to change and manipulate certain things of the photograph to improve it and create new meaning, for example, pathetic fallacy. I darkened the image and changes the colour slightly to fit the idea and mood of the film. I positioned the text and secondary images carefully around the image, making sure they do not distract the target audience from the main image. I decided to make the title of the film, “The Wrong Choice”, very bold and stand out as it is an important function for the title to be made clear to the audience and remembered. This is easy to do on this program as it consists of many different titles and fonts and many different effects which can be applied to the text. The Colours and contrast can be easily altered using this program and the images can be made transparent or cut into smaller images etc using the tools.

We have exhibited all of our work on a blog which we created. This blog can be easily personalised to suit our work. Using the blog is a much more efficient way of presenting the coursework because it can be accessed quicker and looks more respectable. We thought of a company name for the production of the film which is, Dutch & Co. We also uploaded all of the preparation work which we had done such as the research of other thriller trailers and posters, and then we uploaded the drawn story boards and placed them neatly onto the blog. The blog can contain many different media files which can be easily accessed so we uploaded all of the final products which we produced such as the posters, magazine cover and the “Wrong Choice” film trailer, to show what we worked to and achieved.

How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts? In order to create a successful film one needs to keep the

viewers interest on board at all times. In terms of camerawork this would come in the form of attractive and visually appealing shots.

CINEMATOGRAPHYHere we see a POV shot from the bag. It was placed to really provoke a feeling of shock within the viewer and also a feeling of curiousness as to what is in the bag. It also gives the viewer a sense of being involved I think.

Here we see an over the shoulder shot, in my a opinion a very aesthetically appealing shot. We purposefully chose to inflict an over the shoulder rather than a POV as we didn't want to viewer to grow any sort of connection with the villain (e.g. Put the viewer in his shoes), at least not within the trailer.Here we find another POV

shot however this time its from the point of our main protagonist. It puts us (unlike the last shot) in the shoes our who we’re watching, hopefully creating a relationship between both he and the viewer- something essential in any film in order to evoke emotions and create a successful motion picture.

Here we find an almost, birds eye view shot. It reminds me of something you might find in a slapstick comedy, where the person in shot would be sped up and would be accompanied by ‘wacky’ music. However this is anything but the case, never the less it is a very visually appealing and keeps the viewers attention.Again to keep the viewer

entertained we felt this shot should be included. We felt it was very rare and gave our work a cutting-edge feel, as well as it being visually nice to look at.

In an attempt to keep the viewers attention we tried to incorporate a variety of shots. Its important, especially with a trailer to try to excite the viewer. With trailers purposely designed to sell, we tried to shoot the most noteworthy parts of what would be our full length feature film, and this we felt is through the shots in particular.

EDITING

Here we see a different type of dissolve, one not very often used however we felt it suggests danger as the screen quickly jumps to white. We used this 3 times within about 2 seconds giving the sense, we thought, of a fast heartbeat. Something that would occur if you saw someone you thought would put you in danger.

I particularly liked this touch, the fact that when the sun visor is lowered the text appears, almost as though it is stitched into it. It, in my opinion an arty way of showing something necessary yet typically unfitting on any screen.

The cross dissolve simply shows a passing of time but also we felt it gave our trailer an element of professionalism being that trailers are renowned for their usages of cross dissolves.

The fade to black, a way of splicing together two shots, one after the other. It brings smoothness and an aspect of realistic filmmaking.

“Film editing is often referred to as the invisible art because when it is well-practiced, the viewer can become so engaged that he or she is not even aware of the editor's work”.

So it wasn’t too much of an aim to make our editing techniques as obvious as possible, something we feel highlights the quality of the cinematography more.

Then it comes to the constant usage of The Doors greatest masterpiece, 'The End'. From it's dark and moody beginning, with the subtle guitar and enthralling vocal, 'The End' takes us on a dark journey. Kind of like what we see on screen as we watch our main protagonist get dragged into a world and taken on a ride no one knows the outcome to.

SOUNDTRACK

What we’ve Learnt from our Audience FeedbackWe showed around 10 people our trailer. Each viewer

was in our target audience and they were asked to comment on certain aspects of the trailer.

Everyone agreed that they felt the idea for the trailer, eventually consisting of a full length feature film, was a original idea and was something that would fit in the thriller genre perfectly. This is that the storyline wasn’t overly complex and was simple to understand, a characteristic that thrillers should have.

Another point mentioned was the fact that our trailer was aesthetically appealing in terms of shots. They all agreed that it was this usage of shots that kept them interested throughout.

What we’ve Learnt from our Audience FeedbackOne point also generally agreed on however was the fact

that the choice of soundtrack could have been better. This was because they felt it was possibly too slow and didn’t build up enough of a tense atmosphere within them. One did point out however that the finale of the quick jump of shots (the gun being slid up the banister) did go some way in getting this edgy atmosphere, but not quite enough to a standard held by the rest of the trailers elements.

One viewer commented on the usage of POV shots throughout labelling them as being able to “give a real sense as to what is going on”. Also they allowed the viewer to “feel part of the narrative” which was a very positive point that I suspect any film would strive to get.

What we’ve Learnt from our Audience FeedbackAnother comment suggested that our trailer

didn't feature enough dialogue however it wasn’t a main concern as we really wanted to portray the narrative through actions and not words. We felt as though dialogue in a trailer, especially one of a thriller genre, would take away the tense and suspense atmosphere we wanted to create as it would slow it down.

The points would be considered if we were to ever make the trailer again however we were very happy with the outcome and so too were our target audience.