Evaluation Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Here is a Prezi that we have created, we have used a voice over to explain everything that appears on the screen.

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We asked people to view our trailer and then took them outside individually to ask them what they honestly thought of the trailer. They each talked for about 30 seconds and gave their feedback, some positive and some constructive. I have inserted each of the clips below with the name, age, gender and ethnicity of each of the people we interviewed. We chose to do our interview in the form of a video as this allowed them to express what they personally thought of the trailer instead of purely ticking boxes of generalised answers. I did this to see if my understanding of audience’s had been effective wen creating the video; especially in targeting the right demographic. The audience we have aimed our project at are females aged 16-21. We did our interview of 4 females and then 2 males of the same age so we could compare the results between male and female, and hopefully have an outcome where the females have a more positive reception to the trailer. But also that males would also enjoy the film. 

PERSON ONE
NAME: Fariha
AGE: 18
GENDER: Female
ETHNICITY: Asian

This participant of the interview said that they really liked the soundtrack we had chosen for our movie trailer. She also linked this to the idea that it helped make it clear what genre the film was that we were promoting in our trailer. The conventions of the a fantasy soundtrack include that it is fast paced which matches the face paced edits. This is something this audience member also picked up on, she said she really liked the quick jump cuts between lots of different points of the film. She said that she understood the underlining storyline, however, the trailer still contained an enigma which would make her want to watch the rest of the film. She also said to us later on that she really liked that we had used lots of different shot and angle types which kept the trailer interesting. The final thing she notes on in this clip is that she really liked the use of the horse. We asked her after the camera was off why this was and she said she first liked it as it was in the conventions of the genre and therefore made it more apparent that it was a fantasy film, she also said that it isn't something which you would expect in a A2 piece of work and therefore made it interesting aside from other trailers she had seen from our A2 class. 

PERSON TWO
NAME: Sarah
AGE: 18
GENDER: Female
ETHNICITY: White

The next person we interviewed said that the genre of the film shown in our trailer was very clear which would enable the audience to understand what to expect in the film due to the generic conventions. She said that we stuck very closely to the conventions and codes of the genre which is something which helped to make the genre very clear. This has showed me the sheer importance of using codes and conventions within our work in order to create a strong sense of genre which will therefore determine if an audience wishes to see the film or not depending on wether they like this specific genre. She commented on that the editing ran smoothly and that other parts of our editing such as adding in colour filters and playing around with the lighting made the genre very clear and were clear in the respect of trying to create a sense of mood within the trailer. She said that she felt like she understood that the trailer was supposed to show a good and also darker side to the character at different parts depending on the lighting. She said that our actors are believable, as only one of our actors had done any previous drama work, it took a lot of takes to get content we were satisfied with and therefore this is something we would look into if we were to redo our project to create a level of professionalism. This audience member, said that she would have liked to see us work on the production company logo's more. This could possibly be done through the use of creating slightly more original ideas and therefore more time spent brainstorming ideas. The final thing she commented on was our soundtrack. She said we could have spent more time on it, and initially we were planning on creating our own instead of getting one off the internet. This is something we would consider if we were to redo our trailer. 



PERSON THREE
NAME: Amy
AGE: 17
GENDER: Female
ETHNICITY: White

This audience member started off by also saying that they really liked how the colour scheme of our video worked and that it therefore gave her a sense of what mood she was supposed to be feeling throughout the video. She commented on how they gave it a mystical effect, which was something we were aiming to create through our trailer. She also commented on the fact that she liked the fast paced editing, aside from it being a convention of trailers, fast paced editing is supposed to inform the audience that there is a lot of action going on as the fast paced editing. It also keeps the audience interested as it builds tension. This person also said that she really liked the end title and the title which appeared after that with the release information. She said it looked really professional. It was something I had spent a lot of time on creating and therefore this element of professionalism was something which I had discovered through a lot of research of other titles. She also said it matches the genre and therefore made sense within the trailer. The only thing she gave constructive criticism on was that a few of the scenes were slightly too dark. This is something we would have wanted to go back and re film is given the time to. We did try doing this on the editing software and succeeded for the most part but I believe we should have maybe spent a little more time on this. 



PERSON FOUR
NAME: Laura
AGE: 17
GENDER: Female
ETHNICITY: White

Laura, the girl we interviewed said that she managed to figure out the genre of the film straight away, just from the beginning of the trailer. This is really good as it proves to us that we have used the correct conventions to create the genre we aspired for. Furthermore she liked the way that we used the fade to blacks to split up the different scenes and that it made the trailer a lot clearer. Again this is a very strong generic convention of a trailer, so we are glad that she picked up on this. Furthermore Laura said that the fade to black built up tension throughout which again is positive as we aimed for our audience to feel tension. Lastly the sound effects that were used in our trailer didn’t seem out of time and place. We have grown a lot stronger with being able to add our own sound in over the top which has paid off. 



PERSON FIVE
NAME: Arif
AGE: 19
GENDER: Male
ETHNICITY: Asian

Arif, He believed that the colours on our trailer could have been slightly brighter, we’re not sure whether he meant we should have used a larger range of colours or that the contrast in the colour we had already used should have been brighter. However we couldn’t have added in too many bright colours otherwise we would have challenged the conventions of our genre. Arif enjoyed the pace of our trailer, which was great as this tells us that our trailer keeps people occupied, therefore they won’t be getting bored easily. Furthermore shows our trailer contains good enigma. Additionally, Arif believed that there was good continuity flowing all the way through the trailer, again this backs up our last point of the trailer not boring any audience members. This is what we want from our trailer. Lastly He mentioned that our production logos appeared really realistically on the screen, proving that we have managed to present our trailer in a professional way and the logos have professionalism to them.



PERSON SIX
NAME: Matthew
AGE: 17
GENDER: Male
ETHNICITY: White

Matthew. He really enjoyed the soundtrack to the whole of our trailer; the whole way through the soundtrack built up with tension and got faster. The sound bridges that were used with the voice over again worked really well and were a great element to our trailer. There are lots of different scenes within our trailer but we still haven’t managed to give anything majorly to do with the storyline away which Matthew picked up on. He specifically mentioned that he didn’t get bored which shows that our trailer was a very good duration length as well as containing capturing clips. Additionally Matthew spoke about the horse featured and how it was unique to any other A2 media studies coursework as it would be pretty difficult to film someone who knows someone who owns one. This captured his attention massively and enticed his emotions towards the trailer even more and builds up the fantasy genre as it could turn into a mystical creature. 

Evaluation Question 2

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

Evaluation Question 1

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

Final Magazine Cover

Audience Feedback on Pandora's Box Magazine Cover

We presented our findings to a group of teenage people ranged from 17 to 19. The people in this sample group were all female as we wish to aim our product at this demographic. Below is the notes we took when people were analysis our work for what they liked about it and what they felt needed improvement. 

Things that people liked about our magazine cover included the fact that it was quite simplistic, it was not overcrowded yet still contained all of the information which you would expect from a magazine cover. A lot of the audience really liked that we have a few graphic features on our magazine cover, such as the circle full of information and the small square saying "exclusive". They people viewing our magazine cover said they really liked how these graphic features matched up, they contained the same black colour theme with a small white line around then edge. These also go well with the titles, as they are also made up of lines. They did say that we should possibly move around some of the graphic features to make them fill up different parts of the page. 

The people viewing our magazine cover also liked the way the text and image overlapped, although they believed that we needed to move the title up as because of the layers within the image of Pandora and the tree she is hiding behind, it looks a bit off as the title lays behind the character head and not the tree. By just moving the title up a little bit it won't look so off. 

Something else that the audience said we could improve was some of the text, apparently it was hard to read from the distance they were looking at it and so we my stretch the text out a bit so that it is easier to read.

Other than this, people said our magazine cover was very good and that they especially likes the editing we had added to the photograph which made the image very apparent of the genre as we edited in things like shadows which are conventions of the genre. 

Analysis of Our Own Magazine Cover

Our First Attempt of the Magazine Cover

Magazine Name Survey

In order to get a name for our magazine which was popular with our target audience, I created a survey on surveymonkey to see which of all of the ideas we had had for out magazine title was the most popular. The first question on this survey was asking what the gender of the person taking the survey was. From the 5 people which we had answer the survey, two were male and three were female. This is fairly equal which shows that the results we have gathered are true of both a male and female gender. 

The next question is asking what the age of the participant of the survey. We had people ranged from 12 to 21 answer our survey, however the majority of the people answering the survey were ages 15-17. As our target audience is older teenagers, this means that we have our niche audience answering the survey and therefore the results will be more relevant. One thing we could have improved when creating our survey is people selecting their specific ages instead of an age bracket.

The final question is one about which magazine name they find the most appealing. Overall the most popular magazine title, with 3 out of 5 votes, is the title 'Outtake'. 

This survey could have been improved by us making the sample size bigger, asking more people to answer our survey for us. This makes sure that we have a definite representation of what this demographic finds appealing. However, due to time and finding people to answer our survey we only managed to get 5 people to answer it. 

Film Magazine Analysis: EMPIRE Inception

Film Magazine analysis: EMPIRE Skyfall

The History of Film Magazines

For as long as there have been films there has been someone writing about them. The concept of a film magazine started around the same time as the first film about 1896. 

From this first magazine there has been 7 main magazines that have carried on publishing (there are thousands of film magazines but I am focusing on the most influential and long running ones).

Cinematography and Bio scope Magazine. To call this a magazine is a bit of a push, it is more of a trade paper. It primarily discusses issues and developments relevant to people working in the film industry. This paper formed and discussed issues and developments within the film industry around the 1990's. This paper also included on certain films that were going to be released such as 'Dick Turpin's Last Ride To York'.  

The Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly started in 1907 and was another trade publication that focused on business developments in the world of cinema and provided short, snappy reviews of current features. According to the British Film Institute (BFI) it is a distant ancestor to today’s Screen International. Again this also included short brief reviews.

Variety (1905-present) Variety was originally a trade magazine that covered vaudeville entertainments. In those days it was based in New York city but in 1933 Sime Silverman, founder of the magazine, launched Daily Variety in Hollywood. The publication still exists in various forms, including Variety.com, and is famous for using its own form of “language.” Writers for other publications often mirror the terms used in Variety as, being the longest running film publication, they are considered pretty much the ultimate authority on film.

Movie line (1985-2009) originally published articles that were generally derogatory in their demeanor. One of the most sarcastic critics of all time, Joe Queenan, enjoyed a long and glorious reign as one of their chief columnists. An issue from August 1990 reports on how Charlie Sheen landed his acting debut in Grizzly II: The Predator way back in 1984.

Empire (1989-present) Empire is still the leading film monthly in the UK today and you’d be hard-pushed to find any self-respecting film fan without at least one or two copies lying around. Their very first issue got off to a cracking start taking readers through the life and death of cult character Freddy Kreuger and offering insight into how Wall Street star Sean Young got such a bad name for herself. The front cover featured Dennis Quaid and Winona Ryder posing for their roles in Great Balls of Fire – the 1989 biopic about Jerry Lewis.

Hotdog (2000-2006) Hotdog was, sadly, one of the shorter-lived film publications. It offered quite similar content to Total Film, putting a quirkier edge on mainstream movies. Favourite asides they specialized in included things like Movie Maths: “Se7en + Marilyn Manson x The Wizard of Oz = Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.” (September 2005).

Cjai Production Logo

To make our poster appear more realistic we decided to make a small logo for one of our production companies to place to the side of the institutional information. We created this logo on SerifDraw. It is made of text and then we drew the shape of a cloud surrounding it. This was to add depth to the logo however we didn’t want it be overcrowded as most production logos are pretty simple. It has been placed in white so that it matches the colour scheme when placed next to the white institutional information. The red line that appears underneath the word 'cjai' isn't actually a part of the logo, it is just where the software didn't understand what we meant by 'cjai'. The word 'cjai' stands as my nickname. 

Placing our Film Poster in Different Locations

Once we had finished editing our poster, we placed our poster on to different locations where a film poster may stereo typically be placed. This will allow our poster to be advertised to all members of public, of all genders and ages. However we decided to place it on a bus stop shelter because this is where a lot of teenagers are found, as they are use public transport because they haven't learnt to drive yet. Moreover teenagers is our target audience so this could capture their attention. 

This is our poster that has been edited on to a poster board at a train station, this is a a conventional place for film posters to be advertised as there is always members of the public waiting for trains and when people don't have anything to do, the poster will attract their attention which means they would have knowledge that the film is being shown in cinemas soon. 

Lastly I have edited our film poster on to a billboard that is located on the side of the road. This allows drivers who are driving past to view the poster and make them aware of the film.It would be placed on one of the busiest roads as this would allow a larger audience to view the poster, furthermore on busier roads means that there could be more traffic jams, so if there is one then the people stuck in the traffic jam would almost be faced to look at it. 

Editing the Film Poster

Analysis of Pandora's Box Film Poster

Feedback on Pandora's Box Film Poster

We presented our findings to a group of teenage people ranged from 17 to 19. The people in this sample group were all female as we wish to aim our product at this demographic. Below is the notes we took when people were analysis our work for what they liked about it and what they felt needed improvement. 

People really liked the image we chose for our poster. We were told that it made the genre of the film apparent and therefore there would be no confusion over the genre of the film. The image was also apparently very eye catching and would catch the attention of the audience against other images. The next thing people really liked was our use of image editing and the light coming out of the box which gave a mystical appearance which added to the idea of genre. The font was also pointed out as suiting the genre.

We received some pointers on how to improve our product. These included maybe changing some of the colours of the text to add more variation and make the text less boring and more eye catching. We were also advised to add actor names or logo's for the production companies to make the poster look more realistic and also to add more information to make it more interesting. 

Finished Film Poster

After showing our poster to a couple groups of target audience members, we received feedback that allowed us to improve the appearance of our film poster. Since these changes have now been made, here is our final finished poster.

Poster - Institutional Information

Based on what I have done while researching posters, it has been made clear that on the bottom part of my poster I need to have written some institutional information in a small font which tells the audience information about who is in the film and some of the people involved in the different stages of production, such as director, editor, costume designer and of course actors and actresses.

Here is the institutional information I was able to create using the editing software 'Serif Draw'. It contains all the names and jobs of the people involved in all stages of production. In the centre is also the date of release which is a larger font which makes it stand out and the website for the movie. This is a typical lay out which is a convention of most movie posters. I will placed this on the bottom of the poster which is typically where it is placed.

First Poster First Edit

This is our first attempt at making our film poster, I really think that the colour scheme go well together and all of the aspects are clearly shown. Once we get feedback on our poster we will change anything that isn't quite correct.

History of Film Posters

In the early days of film, there were no movie stars on the movie posters because most actors in films chose to be anonymous. These were legitimate stage actors who felt embarrassed to be participating in this new medium. The producers were thrilled, because they believed they could control the medium as long as there were no stars.

The earliest forms of advertising for movies included hand painted crates and sandwich boards. The turn of the 20th Century saw a world with a very high illiteracy rate.  Posters or advertising for any entertainment needed to have vibrant colors and pictures and a limited amount of words, so that the advertising could be understood by a large number of people, also this would entise the views to keep an eye on the poster to find out the information shown on it. 

In the early days of film, there were no movie stars on movie posters because most actors in film chose to be anonymous. These were legitimate stage actors who felt embarrassed to be participating in this new medium. The producers were thrilled, because they believed they could control the medium as long as there were no stars.

This could relate to Richard Dyers Star Theory, as the institutions creating the film wanted creative control over the product that was released to the audience, meaning that the audience sees the product exactly as the institution wants it to be seen. This could also link in with the encoding and decoding theory of Stuart Hall. The theory is about how media messages are produced, circulated and consumed. 

1910 saw in the era when the production companies saw that they could make money out of these “movie stars” and this brought about the release of movie posters with named actors on the poster.

In 1920 the focus had almost moved away from the film to the star completely (and so the Hollywood celebrity is created). The 1920’s were considered the golden age of the silent movie. Beautiful movie palaces replaced the movie theater. The posters of old were replaced by artistically aesthetic movie posters. Well-known artists were commissioned to design movie poster portraits of leading stars as the posters had to be painted or block printed. 

1930 was when the film industry really came into its own. Since the first motion picture in the 1890’s the film industry proliferated very quickly going from silent pictures in early 1920 and full feature talkies in 1930. However, 1930 also saw in the great depression, people thought that this would be the death of the cinema industry but it instead offered people a chance to escape from the horrible reality they were faced with. This rise in popularity in cinema meant that the big companies where churning out films and posters to match their latest motion picture.

The posters varied in sizes, and they experimented with different styles of letters. During the 30’s, the studios generally produced two styles of one sheet and half sheet posters, each with a different kind of art work. Paramount Studio posters were known as “Style A” and “Style B”. MGM used “Style C” or “Style D”. Universal Pictures were known as “Style X” and “Style Y”. Sometimes there were more than two styles released, especially when the movie was a major production. 

Then, in the late 1940’s, we entered a new arena: the age of television. By this time, TV had attracted a large number of movie goers, so the studios responded by reducing the number of films made. Many of the great directors and stars of that time found themselves out of contracts with the studios. This was a devastating blow to many actors.

With the coming of the 1950’s, and to fight the popularity of television, movie studios created more fantasy films. The studios that once produced the war movies were now making science fiction, comedy and grade “B” drive-in movies. Although the drive-in had been around since 1933, it reached its peak during the 1950’s with over 4,000 screens in the United States alone.

1960’s brought the boomer generation to their teen years. There were so many children from the post-war baby boom that a lot of the movies were very “teen” oriented. Teen idols from the world of rock and roll crossed into movie stardom. Elvis Presley became very popular at this time, not only for his music, but his movies. There were also a lot of “beach movies” with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. Action movies also became very popular and we saw the introduction of the infamous double agent, 007, James Bond

The 1970’s was  a launching pad to the era of the blockbusters of the 1980’s. Movies like The Godfather, Rocky, Star Wars and Star Trek were born. Although the posters of this time continued the use of photography, drawing and painting styles were sometimes used and famous artists like Ansel Adams, Frank Frazetta and Bob Peak created some popular posters of this time

The 1980’s was the age of special effects, which was the key to the success of The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, Back to the Future, Batman, ET, Ghostbusters and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

With the 1990’s came the computerization of special effects. Because of this, the 90’s brought two of the biggest money making films in history, Jurassic Park and Batman Forever.

Different Types of Film Posters

Known places for film posters to be seen are usually in populated areas, like train or tube stations, a lot of advertisements are placed on the escalators so that members of the public can view them on the way up or down while they're standing there. You see film posters of billboards, bus stops, in cinemas, so that when you are queuing to collect or buy tickets for one film, other films can be promoted at the same time, and on buses themselves.

Because of this there are many different sizes and shapes of posters which are required to be made for the promotion of films, especially big Hollywood block busters made by conglomerate companies. These companies have the accessibility and budget to create several posters to promote their film whereas smaller companies may create one or two posters which will only be displayed in a few spots and promoting on, the sides of buses for example, is very expensive.

The outline for our product is that we only have to create one poster to promote our film. I believe we will be creating a standard A4 portrait poster which could be used in a cinema, much like the posters on the last image I have placed here. Through researching many types of poster we should be able to draw up exactly what is required on our poster to make it a successful as well as interesting product. 

Main Plot Story of Pandora's Box

Film Poster Analysis: Avatar

I decided to analyse the film poster for Avatar because this is a very generic fantasy film.

Film Poster Analysis: Maleficent

I chose to analyse the film poster for maleficent because this film ties in with our genre.

Plot Ideas for Our Opening Trailer

We came up with some plot ideas which we would use for our film and therefore our trailer. As we were creating a trailer we need at least a basic outline of the entire plot for the film so we can express parts of the plot through the trailer. 

Final Product

Here is our final completed trailer. 

Editing of Our Trailer so Far

This is how far we have got with editing our trailer so far.

Where the Pandora Box Trailer May be Featured

To give my audience the easiest access possible to our trailer, I would allow it to be posted on sites that they are very familiar with and use often. Using social media to promote the film trailer will help to ensure a larger audience watch the trailer; furthermore this also encourages the use of web 2.0. Below I have looked into some of the websites or apps I could use to promote our trailer.

YouTube would be the first place that I would upload my trailer would feature. It has around 1 billion active users per month and 4 billion video views per day. Knowing these statistics would ensure that our trailer would be viewed by a wide audience. Additionally it's also simple to upload post and comment on the site, and the majority of my target audience will be familiar with how to use it as our target audience are teenagers. YouTube also allows convergence with other sites like Facebook and Twitter so it's an effective way of connecting all the promotion for my trailer together. Furthermore uploading our trailer to YouTube would mean people can share the trailer easily to these sites by the click of a button.

The main way to promote the trailer would be through the use of social media, namely Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Facebook has 864 million active users daily, Twitter has 284 million per month and Instagram has over 200 million per month. They are clearly all very popular forms of social media and so using them to promote my video would be an effective way of easily. These social networking sites are also free to use and can reach an audience of millions across the world. On Facebook, a page could be set up so fans can like the page to allow the film to start getting a fan base, furthermore this could ensure that people who may not necessarily like the fantasy genre film still see the trailer featured if they click on to the page created for the film. I would similarly make a Twitter account and post the trailer there too or provide a link to YouTube, demonstrating convergence. Instagram is a photo sharing app so I may post my ancillary texts on there or behind the scenes photos from shooting to promote the film and trailer. It does allow video uploading but only at a time limit of 15 seconds so I could post a preview of the full trailer and then provide a link to it. Social media will encourage people to discuss the video and therefore people may watch it even if it isn't what they would usually choose to consume.

Filming Diary: Day 5 of Filming

Filming Diary: Day 4 of Filming

Filming Diary: Day 3 of Filming

Filming Diary: Day 2 of Filming

Filming Diary: Day 1 of Filming

Shooting Schedule

Our shooting schedule was originally not harnessed down with dates, because we were unsure of our actors and time frames and when they were all available, we have later added in the dates of the days we filmed as we kept changing the dates around to make sure that both of us were free along with the actors we needed to use. This meant we had to film on a variety of days to film different people when they were free. Here is our initially shooting schedule:

Day one of shoot: 18th February 2015

ACTORS:

- Katie

PROPS/ EQUIPMENT:

- The box we have chosen to use for Pandora’s Box

- Camera

- Tripod

COSTUMES NEEDED:

- Pandora’s costume - blouse and leggings with a belt

Day two of shoot: 27th February 2015

ACTORS:

- Mufaro

- Katie

PROPS/ EQUIPMENT:

- The box we have chosen to use for Pandora’s Box

- Scarf

- Stick

- Camera

- Tripod

COSTUMES NEEDED:

- Pandora’s costume - blouse and leggings with a belt

- Mufaro’s character – black top and black trousers

Day three of shoot: 1st March 2015

ACTORS:

- Becky

- Katie

- Billy

PROPS/ EQUIPMENT:

- The box we have chosen to use for Pandora’s Box

- Knife, fake blood

- Camera

- Tripod

COSTUMES NEEDED:

- Pandora’s costume - blouse and leggings with a belt

- Becky – black and leather attire

- Other characters - black