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

During the planning and research I was using Blogger and YouTube  to research films, posters and magazine covers. YouTube helped me discover typical codes and conventions  I have a number of posts with evidence of this. I used Google to find images of magazine covers and noting down techniques used to express the film on the magazine. 

 I used YouTube tutorials to help me edit my work. This helped me greatly as I  gained knowledge in Photoshop and Final Cut.

All editing was done using college and home facilities. To edit the trailer i used Final Cut Pro. I included video filters such fades, dissolve. I used video generators such as bar and tone, TRC, Viewfinder, Overlay edits. All these had a huge effect on the trailer and have definitely improved the quality of the work. I used various edits in photoshop to help me produce my magazine and poster. These included blur, overlays.

Shooting footage onto a DV tape is complex compared to an SD card, this is because log and capturing can waste time and the footage isn’t as clear as it would be on an SD Card.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

  I have uploaded my film to YouTube and twitter but still have not had many responses.  People who watched the film while me and my group partner spent time in the editing suite, had given positive responses. After showing it to a group of BTEC Media students I received a few texts saying (INSERT PICTURE).

Most of the audience fed back and from this i learned that the majority of viewers jumped at the ending which built the cliff-hanger. The majority understood what genre it was and they established the narrative by the end of the trailer which is spectacular to know.

A point was made out to me when the sound of the dialogue of the hand held shots were drowned out by the soundtrack/sfx. This delayed a editing session because i had to re arrange the sound as the sound on the clip was poor. Eventually managed to audio boost and put a vocal boost on the sound which surely made it better. (PICTURE)

The audience liked the soundtrack as it was put together with numerous alarming sounds and the “ring around a rosy” gave a intensifying effect.  The sounds of the scream are very alarming and loud which draws in the audience to fix their eyes on the screen. While this is happening the suspense is building and the majority of the audience jumped when it cut from the hand held shot to the girl crawling to the camera alongside the evil laugh.

Another thing the audience helped with was the selection of the name. Our initial pitch included an questionnaire and we gave the audience a choice of names that they think would go along with the film. We had a numerous amount of suggestions and we stuck with “Possessed Little Nicki”. While transforming the footage we came across the name “The Lost Trail”. This fit with the story line and the trailer. (PICTURE)

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

Creating three different products means that I need three different promotional strategies to help attract the target audience. Each one of my products has a target audience of 15-25. They target this audience alternately reflecting from each product in the campaign. My trailer is aimed at people who like horror films and like see mystery between groups of teenagers. The products do not directly set an effect on anyone until they are actually shown it. I showed the same person my magazine cover and asked if they would watch the trailer and they said no.

 I then showed them the poster and they said yes.

Another way of targeting the target audience is advertising it next to another leading seller related to by ether genre or category. this is a hypodermic needle effect in the sense that this is a way of injecting the message that the film is advertised next to best seller so it must be watchable. this will draw in the consumer and it can also have a knock on affect as word of mouth will attract more audience.

 Both products included the same title same background but the magazine was not persuadable. Attracting the target audience takes time and advertisement. Using pages on face book and twitter trends to promote the film helps the campaign in many different ways. One of these are that a lot of people have access to internet and they use social networks sites so why don’t we make it easier by making a page on Facebook to do with The Lost Trail. The only motif recognisable will be the the main images in the magazine and the poster which will unify the trailer. The forest background is used to collaborate a scene from the film which shows the girl walking towards the camera in the same motion.

The lighting in the trailer is very dark and to keep the same continuity I used dark images for my magazine and poster. This also goes along with the codes and conventions of a horror trailer. The font used in the magazine and the poster are similar and have the same sort of effect. They both have a skinny crooked old style looking blemish to them. They help unify the film campaign and within my project, the use of ancillary texts in my project is vital. It expresses a unique insight of the trailer and it makes the audience understand the storyline.

The Lost Trail Teaser Trailer

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

Teaser trailers are made using various fast shots to build the tension in the audience. This is done to stay within the generic codes and conventions of teaser trailers. We had to create a 30-90 second teaser trailer, magazine cover and a movie poster. We were allowed to produce any genre and we chose horror. We will be using the internet to publicly produce our film using YouTube and selecting students to watch the teaser trailer and give feedback.  This is a way of attracting the target audience. The characters aim to resemble young college students. I will be using the characters on my magazine cover, movie poster and our advertisement campaign.  Working alongside me is my partner Somah Koye. http://somahg324.blogspot.co.uk/

The trailer is around 60 seconds long and the total of clips that we have used are 39, including the name of the film, the actor’s names, camera footage, newspaper articles concerning the murder, the production company and name. Most clips were re used in other areas on the timeline to give a flashback effect (SCREENSHOT). The film narrative is shown but does not entirely reveal the main story. Teaser trailers are made to “tease” and it is what I want to achieve. The main star of the film is not revealed in the trailer. We see a few shots of her but they do not give away the narrative behind her. The main transitions used were fades and cross fades. These where because the rest where just jump cuts. I used a number of video filters and effects too help stay within the conventions. These ranged from a viewfinder over the clips. 

 

Static effects and bad TV was an effect I grew to like from reviewing the film “The Ring”. These all made the footage on the timeline bond together and start to piece together. I have uploaded the footage onto YouTube which is where we intend to grab the attention of our target audience and promote our film. We stuck to the general conventions of a horror teaser trailer as in using dark filters over footage, keeping a spooky soundtrack to help bring about the conventions. The use of video effects helped build the suspense in the film as the cutting from shot to shot involved multiple shots between them to create the effect it has. I used a bars and tone effect to add little tweaks to improve the trailer. When it came to designing the poster I drew up a few ideas and reviewed other film posters such as Paranormal Activity and Sinister.  

 These helped me choose the colour I wanted the image I was going to place in the poster and other things like my font etc. I used video tutorials on how to make posters using Adobe Photoshop and slowly but gradually built up my poster. I wanted to go for a plain but attractive poster as most posters nowadays state main things like actor names, release dates and an image from the film etc. I included relevant information such as the actor names, release dates etc. 

Choosing the main image was tricky but it fell together after endless hours in the editing suite. The two images I used where used to their full potential to give the best possible outcomes for both the magazine cover and poster. Choosing the name of the magazine was not as hard as I expected it to be. I used two different magazines and converged the names into one suitable for my magazine. The colours used are generic horror associates. SCREENSHOT Colours such as gray, black, red, white where the main colours used on the poster and magazine. I chose this because I wanted to be realistic in the work I produced and this was a way of my media product using the generic codes and conventions of a real likewise media product. 

Poster

My Magazine Cover