1)In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
After doing a lot of research on the horror genre I was able to expand my knowledge on the typical conventions featured within this genre, which I then used to create a film trailer, film poster and magazine cover following these conventions. I feel that I have achieved making a successful trailer by following these conventions. For example by using captions instead of a voice over. I also think that our trailer will attract the right audience as the slow editing used helps to build up tension and suspense for the climax at the end of the trailer. It also doesn’t give away too much of the plot which I have also found to by quite typical. The music also followed these conventions as it begins with a slow eerie tempo, which then speeds up as the editing does, helping add to the effect. The magazine cover consists of 3 photos, both of the actors (ryan and stacy) and the location of the film. This is very typical in movie magazines as they have to draw in the desired audience, making them want to know more. By using interesting stories and including other upcoming films this helps to achieve this, however it also helps to bring in a wider audience. For the poster it has one large photo covering the background. I have found this to be typical in horror film posters as this makes it the main focus of the page. The text and logos used are placed at the bottom which doesn’t interfere with the main image. As the caption is at the top the audience will automatically be drawn to this making them want to know more. By having a website on the poster this allows the audience to find out more about the film. This is a typical convention with any film poster. The position of the title is more towards the bottom not distracting the main image however the audience will be drawn to this as the blod font stands out against the background
2)How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
By being consistent throughout our products we was able to create a ‘synergy’. This gave the audience a strong recognisable link between each text. For example: we used the same font for the captions and the title of the film. We also featured the house on each of our products. 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 reminding them which film this is. I think that we have been success to link our ancillary texts with our trailer and create a strong synergy throughout.
After doing a lot of research on the horror genre I was able to expand my knowledge on the typical conventions featured within this genre, which I then used to create a film trailer, film poster and magazine cover following these conventions. I feel that I have achieved making a successful trailer by following these conventions. For example by using captions instead of a voice over. I also think that our trailer will attract the right audience as the slow editing used helps to build up tension and suspense for the climax at the end of the trailer. It also doesn’t give away too much of the plot which I have also found to by quite typical. The music also followed these conventions as it begins with a slow eerie tempo, which then speeds up as the editing does, helping add to the effect. The magazine cover consists of 3 photos, both of the actors (ryan and stacy) and the location of the film. This is very typical in movie magazines as they have to draw in the desired audience, making them want to know more. By using interesting stories and including other upcoming films this helps to achieve this, however it also helps to bring in a wider audience. For the poster it has one large photo covering the background. I have found this to be typical in horror film posters as this makes it the main focus of the page. The text and logos used are placed at the bottom which doesn’t interfere with the main image. As the caption is at the top the audience will automatically be drawn to this making them want to know more. By having a website on the poster this allows the audience to find out more about the film. This is a typical convention with any film poster. The position of the title is more towards the bottom not distracting the main image however the audience will be drawn to this as the blod font stands out against the background
2)How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
By being consistent throughout our products we was able to create a ‘synergy’. This gave the audience a strong recognisable link between each text. For example: we used the same font for the captions and the title of the film. We also featured the house on each of our products. 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 reminding them which film this is. I think that we have been success to link our ancillary texts with our trailer and create a strong synergy throughout.
3)What have you learned from your audience feedback?
After showing the film trailer, along with the poster and magazine cover, to my target audience, they had given me some feedback on what they thought worked and what didn’t. By making a horror film trailer it was vital that my target audience could immediately identify the genre of the trailer. Most of them pick up on this right away because of the music although some had commented that i could have been a thriller. By using dull colours also helped to reinforce the idea that it was a horror trailer. By using a fast paced song towards the end of the trailer, it helped keep the target audience intrigued and on edge, which would help attract in the particular audience. 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 warning that something was about to happen, but they didn’t know what. From making a horror film trailer and asking my target audience for their views I was able to identify which worked well and which didn’t. However as I didn’t show a draft trailer to my audience i wasn’t able to improve on some of the comments made. But by learning from my mistakes I know that i will be able to produce a more successful trailer by consulting my target audience more often.
4)How did you use media technologies in construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
By taking media as an Alevel option I have been introduced to a variety of technologies and the skills required. For my research and analysis I used youtube. This easily allowed me to upload the trailers and my analysis to my blog. This helped give me more of an insight on what is typical within the horror convention. As I have much experience on youtube i had found it very easy to use especially when it came to upload my own trailer to publish on my blog.
By using google i was able to find film posters and magazine covers which helped me to find out the more conventions of the horror genre, but through posters and magazine covers. Again as i use google quite frequently i found it really easy to find what i needed.
The construction of our film trailer we used a video camera and tripod, which was provided by the school. As I have had some experience using a video camera I was able to improve my skills in some areas of filming. By using the macs, we was able to upload our footage onto the relevant computer ready for editing. To take the pictures for the magazine and poster we used a still camera. As I have my own one, I found this was quite easy to use.
For the editing we used adobe premier pro. As I have had more experience with imovie i found it quite difficult to edit, however after a couple of lessons it soon became more clearer on how to use it and i was soon fascinated on how much could be done eg. Changing the lightness of a clip. To create our film poster and magazine cover we used photoshop. I have used photoshop since GCSE media so i was able to produce these quite quickly. Although i have had alot of experience with photoshop I feel that my skills are still improving in this particular area.
For the planning we was introduced to using a blog. Because I am used to planning through a folder i found this area very interesting. I haven’t had much experience with blog, I wasn’t really sure what i was doing but after publishing a few posts i quickly caught up on how to use them. As we had easy access to them, it allowed us to do anything we wanted pretty quickly. I prefer them to folders as i find that they fit in more with media, as you can easily use various technologies (eg. Google and youtube), they are easy to use and I was able to clearly see each stage of my planning.