Final Trailer

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

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

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

Film Poster - Final

Magazine Front Cover - Final

First Cut - Class Feedback

My class watched the first cut of our trailer and offered feedback on how to change it to improve it. These changes are small things which will make it more tense and more true to the horror genre, rather than more filming. The class also pointed out things they liked, such as the contrast between the 'chick flick' introduction and the horror scenes as well as the music choices and the connotations it comes with. They suggested we change a few things however and these include:

-Cutting the length of the trailer so it is much more tense and makes the audience on edge

-Adding more sound to the middle section of the trailer

-Putting in writing throughout the trailer to build suspense

Trailer - First Draft

Auxiliary Products Feedback

My teacher has emailed me feedback on my first draft of my auxiliary products, and this is what she suggested I change.

Poster
Girl in background – cut out needs work.
If you’re using stripes (like camera footage) then need to think about how this is displayed on poster (look at Paranormal Activity posters).
Credit block needs work – needs to be more complex, smaller, not on black background.
Tagline font is a bit bland.
Title – make bigger?

Magazine
Something strange happening with ‘biggest movie magazine’ text at top.
Think the chairs would work better on the magazine front over – you could use green/blue fonts and similar style of lined effect as poster.
This years’ best horror – punctuation issue.
Empire – needs to spread across page equally.
Price and date is out of line.
Unfinished.

Production Update

We have filmed all the footage we believe we need now and are focused heavily on editing. We are using Final Cut Pro well and with ease now, and are currently trying out different filters and effects to make our trailer as effective as possible. As we've gathered house of footage and refilmed some scenes, it is important to watch them all and see which is the most effective.

First Draft - Magazine Cover

This is my magazine cover, which I have completed the first draft of. I need to change the bullet on the front as it offers little information, and also add more information on the main story. My class have offered me feedback, in which they suggested manipulating the photo further to make it clear it is a horror film, however said the stylised approach worked okay because this is a magazine, which often focuses on the star rather than the film itself.

First Draft - Poster

This is the first draft of my poster. It is obviously incomplete, as I have to add a credit block and a tag line or review at the top of the page. This is an issue because of licensing at our school, and getting a realistic font is difficult. I have also showed this to people in my class and received feedback on my basic idea. People liked the layout, however said it lacked any fearful image which is typical of a film poster, so this is something I will change with the image in the background, by either taking a new one or manipulating this one.

Audience Theory

In our media lesson we have gone over audience theory and reminded ourselves of the key points. We have related these to our own trailer, for example according to the Blumler and Katz theory our audience would watch our trailer for escapism and entertainment. We looked at the Effects Model, and considered the impact our trailer and film may have on the audience. Due to the violent nature it may be considered to promote violence to the people who watch it, which is something we are trying to control by having a 15 age rating on the film. This being said, the Blumler and Katz theory implies that as humans it is in our nature to be violent, and by watching films such as ours we satisfy our need for it. In this way, our trailer influencing our audience would not be an issue.

Voiceover

We decided we needed to change the beginning of our trailer, as when editing the middle of our trailer has ended up being short scenes and we needed a variety. We decided to feed off the idea of this being a 'teen' horror film, as the song choice has made this clear. We looked at some comedy trailers and classic teen film trailers. A lot of them featured voiceovers, so we decided to use this convention. We took inspiration from the Mean Girls trailer, and decided we would introduce each of the main characters so there is a stronger focus on them.

'This is Victoria, she's number one in our class, head of the prom committee and captain of the  netball team - your classic over achiever'  'Megan - she's the gossip of the group- tell her anything and everyone will know by lunchtime' 'Ellie - if she wasn't my friend I would be scared of her' 'This is Emily taking narcissism to a whole new level, yet again' 'My best friend, Lauren- living up to the blonde stereotype' 'And my names Rosie' We were inseparable, until summer last year when everything changed.

Production Schedule Changes

As the filming as progressed, many changes have had to been made. Our actors have changed, and dates have been brought forward and pushed back. As well as this, our setting has changes, so we have had to budget in time to shots of settings and then film the rest inside other places. This is our production schedule which is annotated and has notes on as things have changed, as well as costumes and props which will be necessary for filming that day.

Magazine Front Cover Research

I have started looking at film magazines which are likely to feature my horror film, so that I can begin producing my own front cover. Ideally, the magazine would be mainstream as this is the target audience I am trying to reach. When researching, I found Empire magazine to be the most popular film magazine, while Film magazine also appeared frequently. The covers of both magazines appear to be quite dark and serious, featuring a main character from a film. Whilst the dark aspect of the front covers appears to fit in with my genre, there are not many examples of horror films being featured on them. Instead, they mainly have action films such as The Avengers and James Bond. When major films come out, such as The Hobbit or Harry Potter, Empire magazine does a complete feature on them with no other films featured. This is the style of magazine front cover I want to do, so Empire magazine will be the best one of me to recreate.