EVALUATION - Question 4

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

EVALUATION - Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback has been a vital factor in ensuring that we have created our media products to the best of our ability. Last year my audience feedback was very useful, as I started out with a whole different idea for my film opening that I ended up with at the end of the year. The original idea and film opening didn't end up being that appealing to my target audience, so I changed it and ended up creating a media product that was favoured by my target audience. Therefore, knowing how important the audience feedback is has encouraged me to improve the trailer, poster, and magazine through getting audience feedback and editing our work to please our audience.

Name: Emma
Age: 18

Emma states that she would engage within the film if it was so actually become a product. She states that the editing within the trailer was to a high and professional standard. This means that we were able to coherently produce an effective trailer that contained good continuity editing. She explains that the music was really effective and that it tied in well with the action on screen. I can therefore state that, the music not only fit well with the production, but it also enhanced what was happening within the trailer and made the trailer more exciting, engaging and furthermore, it made the enigma codes more prominent. Emma states that the two actors names in the top corners of the film poster could have been made bigger and bolder, just so that they didn't fade into the background amongst all of the different colours used. I agree with this and if we had the opportunity to go back and change this I would. 
Our magazine clearly adheres to all of the conventional research that a magazine should contain as this audience member states that the poster is both professional and contains all of the things she would expect too see on the cover. 

Name: Robert
Age: 19

This person stated that they like the trailer due to the generic codes and conventions of a trailer, which is the fast pace that it has. Not only is this a convention generically but it is also something that the action genre must abide by. 
He goes on to talk about improvements and he states that we could have adapted the sound more because at some points the sound can be quite loud and vice versa. 
Robert then discussed our ancillary products, we asked him what he liked and what he thought needed to be improved. He liked the image of the science lab that was taken from that scene and overlapped with our character. From this image he was able to identify that the trailer was about a girl with a rare blood type, this shows that our ancillary products represent the film effectively. Furthermore Rob critiques our magazine front cover and states that he would like to know more about the characters. I personally feel that this image allows some sort of identification about the characters from their positioning. Rebecca is stood at the front which indicates that she is the protagonist, because she is centred people are most likely to focus their attention on her. 

Name: Ben
Age: 18

This audience member stated that the soundtrack used within our trailer was useful in aiding the action on screen, as, it enhanced the different atmospheres present throughout the trailer, such as, tense, which in retrospect is a good thing for an action film trailer especially as a majority of the scenarios happen during disequilibrium (Todorov's narrative theory) so the audience will want to know what is going to happen next.
An issue which has been frequently referred to throughout the development of this product is the poor recording of the dialogue. However Ben does bring to light, a new critical analysis. He states that the audio was clearly recorded inside when the characters were clearly outside. As we are not a high budget company we were unable to record a piece of text outside without it resulting in having an extremely poor quality, if we were then this would have been something that would have been constructive criticism for us. 
Ben points out that the caption 'What if you had to run to protect your blood?' underneath the title 'TYPE Z' he felt that it needed to be more prominent. He suggest the use of a different font and even having blood dripping down from it, which would link the two ancillary texts more because there are blood splatters over the masthead and the film title. 
Amongst other points Ben states that on our magazine cover he like the use of the blood as it gives a personal quality to the magazine, it isn't just a generic one, the main focus inside is this new film, 'Type Z'.

Name: Sophie
Age: 18

Sophie says that she felt the trailer to be really 'invigorating', this is something that we strongly wanted our audience to feel and this was achieved through the multiple locations, shots and angles. Our trailer was commended for our high quality, however, Sophie states that this high quality could have been kept consistent if only the news reporter scene didn't look so poor in quality. The news reporter scene was probably a scene that we struggled most with. With our first draft we were told that it didn't look professional enough, so we changed it, upon changing it we were then told that it didn't look realistic. We then found an app which we placed the recording on, we were aware of the low quality but the choice was either to have a non-professional scene or a low quality one. 
The font used on the film poster is a font used on our other ancillary product and is used within the film trailer, Sophie stated that the font used really reflected the content of the film being advertised. Finding the correct font that reflected our genre was something that we spent a lot of time on because you tend to get fonts that completely do not reflect a genre of a really, gothic, horror type of font. From analysing our trailer and ancillary products Sophie was able to find a strong link between them all, just from the font used. Finally, the magazine front cover, she said that the magazine looked really professional, a product that you would actually see being advertised. One thing that Sophie said she would change about the magazine is the 'Jack Black' section. I agree with her, everything on the magazine looks like it has a purpose for being there, whereas this caption stands out significantly because it doesn't look as interesting and purposeful as the others.

Name: Tinika
Age: 18

This audience member stated that she liked the trailer because it has a sense of fluidity about it. Even though trailers are not suppose to have a sense of chronological order they are not suppose to be randomly placed, each scene needs to have a purpose within the trailer, this is because some scenes may be more heightened in a dramatical sense than others. Therefore, scenes need to be strategically placed in order to captivate an audience and leave them wanting more. 
Although we have been bought up on the poor quality of sound on numerous occasions, this audience member states that she felt that the actual dialogue itself worked really well. It is important within a trailer that you don't use too much dialogue, this is because it can give too much of the plot away and because the action on screen may lose affect.
We are further commemorated on the synergy between all of our products due to the same text used throughout. Furthermore, we were praised on sticking to the conventions of a film poster, including things such as, a credit block and a release date. Finally Tinika states that on the magazine she liked the use of the blood splatter as it alluded to the plot of the trailer.

Name: Elijah
Age: 18

This audience member states that we have stuck to the action genre conventions as he says that our trailer was very fast paced and full of a variety of quick shots. From our genre research this is something that surrounded the genre significantly. As you can gather a majority of the people within the trailer are 18 but they all play characters of varied ages. The protagonist plays a character who is 19. Elijah likes the fact that we chose to have a protagonist similar to his age as he can relate to the character more, relation such as, emotions. My partner and I purposefully wanted a protagonist of this age, for this exact reason. 
The decision for the chosen shot of the film poster was to give the impression of someone running away, this is the encoded meaning, and because Elijah is the preferred reading for this text he clearly identifies this. 
My partner and I made sure that, on the magazine cover, that the two characters were the most prominent so that they were the main focal points. Finally, this audience member was able to notice the link between the blood (and the red background used) within both ancillary products and the trailer.

EVALUATION - Question 2

Evaluation Question 2 from Monique Jackson

EVALUATION - Question 1

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

Final Film Trailer - TYPE Z

Analysis of My Own Magazine Cover

Final Magazine Cover

TYPE Z - BLOOPERS

These are some of the bloopers that we have from filming our trailer. Some of these clips aren't in the final trailer because they either didn't work when we tried filming them (e.g. some are not in focus) , or we ended up cutting them out because we filmed better shots and had to make space for them.

Film Poster Edit

We have edited our film poster onto a bus stop advertisement and a train station advertisement. This is because these would be the way our film would be advertised to our target audience. Our target audience is teenagers/young people, who use public transport often, so the poster would catch their attention.

Train stations and bus stops are common places for film posters to be advertised. This is because when passengers are waiting for their train or bus they will most likely be bored and so the film poster will most likely distract them and attract them.

Analysis of My Own Film Poster

Final Film Poster

After constant criticism and feedback about our poster including things such as:

• The layout
• The positioning of text
• The chosen text colour choice

This is our final product:

TYPE Z - Draft 2

Stereotypes of Characters

The protagonist of our trailer is a young white female with blond hair, this challenges the socially normal stereotype which is normally a young, white male. Furthermore, the protagonist of our trailer is usually the character who is classed as the 'dumb' one that dies first. This character is usually the most vulnerable and innocent, who seems as though they would not be able to handle them self in tough situations. However, throughout out trailer, through the use of varied shot, angles and dialogue this character is portrayed as strong and powerful. This character does have a moment within the trailer where she is portrayed as being vulnerable but with her strong willed personality she is able to overcome this.My decision for choosing this character as the main protagonist was done on purpose because I wanted to be able to challenge normalities.

From my research, it is males who mainly engage in action films. Applying Laura Mulvey's 'The Male Gaze' theory to 'stereotypes of characters' could mean that there will be an increased chance in men engaging with the trailer because a female protagonist is more pleasurable and satisfying too look at, opposed to a male.Another challenging stereotype is our antagonist who is not visually seen a lot, but he does play an important part.This character is a young,black male. Black males, just like the white blonde female are usually one of the first characters to die, however this doesn't appear to happen within our trailer. He obtains a high status within the film and has a dominating presence about him.

Film Poster - DRAFT 1 - FEEDBACK

We presented the first draft of our film poster to a group of teenagers aged 17-19. The people in this sample group were all males, as this is the demographic of our target audience. Below is a photo of the notes that we took whilst the sample analysed the poster and discussed what they liked and what they felt could be improved about it.

People really liked the image that we created for the poster. They said that they like how the science lab is layered on top of Rebecca and how the images fade together. They also liked the chromatic effect that we used on the image, as it gives the poster a more polished look. Also, they liked that Rebecca looks as though she is trying to get away because it helps show that the genre is action.

They also liked how the release date was visible in big, white text because it means that it is easy to find our when the film will be released.

The sample also liked the font used for the billing block, as it looks professional and resembles a real film poster billing block.

As well as this, they approved of the production logos at the bottom corners of the poster because they add to make it look more realistic.

Finally, they also liked the font of the film title, as it is big and bold so it suits the action genre.

Some improvements that were discussed were the addition of a BBFI certificate logo so people know if they will be able to see the film when it is released. Another improvement is changing the colour of the film title to a lighter shade so that it is more visible on the background image. Also, a big criticism was changing the colour of the headline and billing block, as they were barely readable. However, we explained that because there are so many different colours in the background image, black works the best. To this, the sample suggested adding a border around the film poster so that the text is visible. As well as this, people also suggested that we take off some of the names at the top of the film poster so that only two or three names can be in a bigger font and stand out more. Lastly, we got some feedback to put the caption under the film title all in one line.

Magazine Cover - DRAFT 1 - FEEDBACK

We presented the first draft of our magazine cover to a group of teenagers aged 17-19. The people in this sample group were all males, as this is the demographic of our target audience. Below is a photo of the notes that we took whilst the sample analysed the cover and discussed what they liked and what they felt could be improved about it.

One of the main things people liked about our magazine cover was the big, bold font that we chose for the magazine title. They liked the grey gradient that we applied to it that gave it a rustic look to suit our genre. As well as the magazine title, the group also liked the film title, as they noticed that we used the same font on the poster.
As well as this, a few people said they likes the "couple of the year" caption. They said it resembles something that would actually be put on the front of a magazine for a new upcoming film.
Another favoured trait was the way the characters were a different colour to the red background, because it makes them stand out because they play important roles in the film.
The group also thought that the black banner on the top right corner of the magazine cover was good because it looked professional.




On the other hand, many of the group did not like the 007 caption, as it did not look professional and looked somewhat out of place on the magazine cover. However, they also criticised our placement of the other captions such as the "their most in-depth interview" caption. 
The sample also could not see the date of the magazine, nor could they read the caption on the banner on the top right corner. 

Overall, the sample really liked out magazine cover, as the image colours, images and fonts we used suited the action genre. The main things we must change are the sizes and content of the captions.

Film Poster - Institutional Information

Whilst researching film posters and what is included in them, I have found that at the bottom of my film poster I must include some institutional information in a small font. This should tell the audience some of the actors and actresses who are in the film, and some of the people involved in different stages of production including the director, producer, editor, composer, costume designer and writer.

Here is the institutional information that i have created by using the websites 'Bighugelabs' and 'Befunky'. It contains most of the names I listed above except the editor and costume designer because we didn't want to include too many names. The release date of the film is also included on top of the billing block in a bold, red font because it can catch viewer's attention. I also added the production logos that I created in the bottom left and right corners so we can show the companies who made the film. The BBFI '15' certification is also included so I can show who will be able to view the film once it is released. This layout is very typical is how a lot of film posters choose to show institutional information.

Magazine Cover - DRAFT 1

Here is my first draft of the magazine cover:

Film Poster - DRAFT 1

Here is our first draft of the poster for our advertisement campaign:

Magazine Cover - Editing Process

Film Poster - Editing Process

Poster editing from Sarah Nurse

Sources:

https://www.befunky.com/

https://bighugelabs.com/poster.php

Magazine Name Survey

Survey research from Sarah Nurse

Magazine Name Tally

In order to decide what to name our magazine, we decided to come up with three names on our own that we liked. We then asked 20 17-18 year olds in our year group to pick their favourite one using a tally chart. The most favoured name was 'REEL', therefore it is most likely the name we will use. However, since the number of people who chose reel was only 2 away from the number of people who chose lens, we will do a survey using survey monkey to determine which name to use as our final choice.

EMPIRE Magazine

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(film_magazine)

Film Magazine - Conventions

Film magazine covers follow conventions that are similar to those of general magazine covers. From looking at various magazine covers and doing research online I have comprised a list of codes and conventions that are used on the majority of film magazine covers:

• MASTERHEAD - These feature on all magazine covers and are usually placed at the top centre of the page, telling the audience which magazine it is. It should be the largest text on the cover and often is in bold capitals and colours so that it can stand out and be more eye catching for the audience.
• IMAGES - Magazine covers always include a main image that will take up most of the space on the page. The main image will usually be a mid-shot, but can vary in shot types, and it should also reveal what the film is about (e.g. a still of a lead character taken from the movie). Film magazines for big films that include Hollywood stars will most likely have them as the main item on the page and use them as a selling point for the movie. Sometimes, other small images are included on the cover to show other movies or interviews with movie stars.
• BUZZ WORDS - These are words that catch the audience's attention, as they make the magazine stand out from the rest. For example, using words such as 'exclusive' make the magazine seem like it is the only one with the exciting and complete inside story that no other magazine has.
• ANCHORAGE TEXT - This type of text will tell the audience what stories will appear in the magazine. For example, short, snappy titles that reveal what will be inside the magazine, or quotes taken from interviews inside of the magazine. It will be far smaller than the masterhead but is quite large on the magazine cover and may overlap with images.
• BANNER - This gives overall information about the magazine and what can be found inside.
• BARCODE, DATE, ISSUE NUMBER, PRICE - These are elements that are included on the front cover of all magazines. The date and price will appear very small, but still bust be included for the audience to see.

Different Types of Film Posters

Popular places for film posters to be seen are bus stops, billboards, buses, train & underground stations and cinemas to show future film releases. There is no limit on where films can be advertised on film posters, as they are a physical thing. Because posters are advertised in various places, there are different shapes and sizes of them that are created to promote films. Films advertised in public with film posters will usually be big, Hollywood blockbuster films, produced by conglomerate companies. For example, a big film may advertise on the side of a bus or a bus stop, as this is expensive and they would have the finance to produce multiple types of posters. However, a smaller film may only be able to produce one poster and promote it in a few locations. Below are some examples on where film posters can be advertised.

We only have to produce one film poster to promote our film. We will create a standard A4 poster that could be used in a cinema, as the photo above shows. Since we have researched different types of film posters we should be able to produce a poster that has everything that it is required to have, so that it can be a successful product.

IDENT DESIGN - Black Tape Productions

Here is a slide show on how I created one of our production company logos.

Here is the clip I used to create the logo:

Here is the final logo:

IDENT DESIGN - Blue Arrow Productions

 Here is a slide show on how I created one of our production company logos.

Here is the final product:

Sources:
https://logomakr.com/

TYPE Z - First Draft

This is the first draft of our film trailer. A few shots that are not in focus need to be re-filmed. Additionally the sound for our dialogue must be re-recorded, as when we were filming we chose to record the sound using an iPhone 6 in the actors' pockets. This meant that our sound ended up being too muffled and inaudible, so we will re-record this in a sound proof room so the audio is clear.

Day 4 of Filming

Day 3 of Filming

Day 1 of Filming

Day 2 of Filming

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment from Sarah Nurse

Filming Schedule

DAY ONE: 11th February

ACTORS:

• FREYA
• REBECCA
• SOPHIE
• GYING

PROPS/EQUIPMENT:

• Camera
• Tripod
• Papers
• iPhone
• Backpack
• Gun

COSTUMES NEEDED:

• Rachel's costume - smart, professional clothing
• Jessie's costume
• Leo's costume - suit with a trench coat

LOCATIONS:

• School - Common room
• School - Canteen
• Sophie's House

DAY TWO: 18th February

ACTORS:

• GYING
• RAVI
• SOPHIE
• MONIQUE
• DWIGHT

PROPS/EQUIPMENT:

• Camera
• Tripod
• Phone
• Gun
• Goggles & lab coat

COSTUMES NEEDED:

• Leo's costume - suit with a trench coat
• Hayden's costume - all black tracksuit with black bandana
• John's costume - smart suit
• Dr. Jackson's costume - lab coat and goggles

LOCATIONS:

• School - Media room
• School - Science lab
• School - Office
• School - Common room

DAY THREE: 25th February

ACTORS:

• REBECCA
• DWIGHT

PROPS/EQUIPMENT:

• Handcuffs
• Gun
• Camera
• Tripod

COSTUMES NEEDED:

• Hayden's costume - all black tracksuit
• Alex's costume - black leggings with t-shirt

LOCATIONS:

• School - PE closet

DAY FOUR: 28th February

ACTORS:

• REBECCA
• GYING
• DWIGHT

PROPS/EQUIPMENT:

• Camera
• Tripod
• Guns
• Fake plant
• Table and chair

COSTUMES NEEDED:

• Leo's costume - suit
• Hayden's costume - all black tracksuit
• Alex/s costume - black leggings, white t-shirt

LOCATIONS:

• School - PE field
• East Croydon - Car park
• East Croydon - Alleyway

Equipment for Filming Trailer

The camera we will use to film is a Nikon D3200. It is able to film in high definition, as well as do things such as zoom and time lapse. We can also change the colour settings or the brightness when filming in dark places. It's quite small so it isn't a hassle to carry around and it is good to shoot with because it is easy to travel with; the fact that the camera is lightweight works as an advantage to us, because when carrying out steady cam shots its easier to hold still, allowing us to achieve perfect shots. This is good for us because we will shoot outdoors in a variety of different shots and angles, so we shouldn't find it to be a difficult task.

Here is the tripod that we will use. It is a Hama Star 63 Tripod. It is adjustable so that we can get the shots that we want by changing to different heights and different angles. It also has a handle so we were able to pan and tilt when needed. 

Since we do not have a microphone to use, we will use an iPhone 6 to record the dialogue for our trailer. It is not the best quality but we can record voice memos and insert them into our trailer whilst editing. This is because the camera won't be able to pick up the sound loud enough when filming when the character is too far away.

2D Logo Designs

Together, we have created two production logos to use for our the start of our trailer. The names of the companies were chosen by students in our school from a questionnaire (seen in a different blog post). Both idents are very simple to read for the audience and reflect the action genre by including big, bold fonts and using dark colours.

These 2D designs will be animated and used in our trailer.

Blue Arrow Productions - Ident Design

We have used Serif DrawPlus X6 to product our trailer ident designs. The first we created was 'Blue Arrow Productions'. We started off by getting a stencil tool of an arrow and tilting it slightly to the left so it's diagonal. Then we took a brush tool int he colour blue and filled in the stencil.

We did not completely fill in the stencil so there are a few small spaces that aren't brushed in to give the arrow a rough look. The genre we chose is action and we wanted the ident to mirror that so that it looks uneven and harsh. At this point we decided to make the shade of blue a bit darker as well; we also took another stencil that resembled splattered paint, filled it in blue and added it on top of the arrow so that the ident is more eye catching.

We also made splattered paint design darker (navy blue) so that it would be more visible on the blue arrow. 

The final thing that we did was make the logo look more whole by adding two circles around the blue arrow and adding the word 'productions' at the bottom. We chose this font because it is big, bold, and fits the action genre because of its block letters. The word 'productions' was added at the bottom because we wanted the name of our company to be obvious; since there is already a blue arrow in the logo, we wanted the audience to know that its a production company.

We will add a background and animate the ident before we put it in our trailer so that it can be more engaging for the audience.