Evaluation: How does our Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Refer to your planning and research of similar texts.

Evaluation: How effective is the combination of your Film, Poster and Magazine?

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

All the work we've completed has looked at the conventions within the media industry. The posters and magazines in particular were solely focused on the standard conventions of horror film posters and magazines and how they were created, represented and portrayed to the audience.

For our poster, we looked at many well-known movies to create our poster on. We looked at the different magazines for Texas Chainsaw Massacre to show how they have changed over time. We compared the 1974 film poster to the modern day posters for the film franchise. This helped us to judge what the modern features and conventions of magazines are and what we should include to make sure it looks sleek and up-to-date with modern times. We also studied Friday the 13^th’s poster so we could compare another large film franchise and their styles of posters. By comparing the two sets of posters, we saw the common themes. For example, dark colours as background, lots of red as the blood, not too much text (but any text to be white or red) and a large main central image to grab the attention of the audience.

Right at the beginning of our work, we instantly looked at two movie posters to create initial ideas of how ours would look. We analysed ‘The Thing’ and ‘The Amityville Horror’ film posters, which were slightly different from common conventions. They both used the same text colours of either red or white, whilst not having too much text. However, ‘The Thing’ used the masthead to show the main central image in the font. This was interesting, but it wasn’t very typical of the industry and so we didn’t use many of its features. ‘The Amityville Horror’ poster also went against the common themes by using some different colours. The lighting on the building in the background makes it stand out, but the green tint isn’t common for horror posters. On top of this, the masthead was quite a thin font, which was different to the other posters we have looked at because it doesn’t stand out as much and so doesn’t attract the audience as much as a larger font. We used these posters to create our own poster right at the start, where we tried to use the common conventions from these posters.

By the time we were creating our final posters, our idea of the conventions had been fine-tuned and so our posters could be more conventional to the industry. A conventional poster is beneficial to smaller media companies as it helps the audience associate the poster with the industry. A bizarre, unconventional poster may be more difficult for the audience to know the genre just from looking at the poster, and so may not help the film get viewed.

For our magazines, we studied ‘SCREAM’ in great detail, as we wanted to look at a magazine that works with our genre. Scream class themselves as the number 1 horror magazine and so we wanted to use the conventions they had to create our own horror magazine. ‘SCREAM’ used a large main central image with puffs neatly down one side with a standout border. We wanted to create similar effects for our own magazine front cover, and so we created a sleek front cover with text down the right hand side, neatly boarded off from the main central image. We had the title along the top with the pricing and the website, and the barcode in the bottom corner.

We also looked at some other magazine front covers such as Empire and Match Of The Day. We used our analysis of Match Of The Day to look at how they displayed puffs to advertise the rest of the magazine. They placed puffs randomly around the front cover in different shapes to fill the empty spaces. They made sure the front cover was full of colour and was very eye-catching. However this didn’t particularly help with our magazine front cover due to the largely different target audiences (kids vs adults) and genres (sport vs horror). Empire magazine was more relevant to use. They used a large central image that spans the whole page and goes behind the text, with headings down the side to display the content of the magazine. We used the ideas of Empire to help with the layout of our magazine to make sure it looks sleek and professional.

For our film, we looked at a few short films, some stop-start animations, YouTube videos, film segments and many film trailers. Each of these helped our production in different ways, so we could collect the common conventions and then create our work with these conventions in mind.

The trailers were useful as it focuses on the editing in great detail, helping us because a short film needs to be like a long trailer so it can keep the audiences attention. We also looked at a few YouTube videos to look at editing techniques so we could utilise FinalCutPro better. By looking at the editing in detail, we were able to improve our work and make it far more professional.

We looked at stop-start animations so we could get some ideas as to how we would incorporate elements into our film smoothly. Once we decided on the conventions of the stop-start animations, we studied the key ideas as to how to film it. Then we were able to begin our plan of what to film, where to have the camera and golliwog, and how to keep the golliwog in position whilst filming.

We used segments from other films such as 'Kingsman' to focus on music. We needed to ensure we had correct music to the scene, but also considered the use of contrapuntal music in our production. We know that music plays a big role in a film to engage the audience and create a specific mind-set for the audience. The soundtracks need to be engaging to make the film more gripping for the audience. The conventions of music were that the edits were timed with the beats, and the music is load but fades at the end.

Overall, our film, poster and magazines interlink nicely to create a strong, initial brand image for ‘Oblivion Productions’ because we used the same colour schemes and similar styles throughout all our work. On top of that, our work should appeal to lots of favourites of horror films as our work looks professional and so appeal strongly to the audience. The posters and magazines hopefully will attract the audiences to watch our film and boost the overall views of our production.

Evaluation: What have you Learned from your Audience Feedback?

What have you Learned from your Audience Feedback?

From the audience feedback, we received both positives and negatives, which will allow us to improve our work in the future if we had time to do them again. We had three people in the focus group, Charlie, Chloe and Abbie. We asked numerous questions such as there opinions on the poster, magazine and short film; whether they noticed a colour scheme throughout our pieces, and how we could improve our short film, magazines and posters.

The three girls noticed the colour scheme of black, red and white in our posters and magazines, which helps to portray the horror genre of our work. They said that they instantly knew that our work was of a horror genre and that it would be very hard to mistake it for another such as comedy or romance. Abbie said that the black and white symbolises the good and bad of the plot, with the red connoting blood, which makes it clear that the posters are of a horror genre. This is a positive to us and we can use this to ensure all future work we do uses strict colour schemes of a few colours and so it looks professional and not just a random assertion of colours.

Chloe said that our magazines and posters looked very professional, but could do with being more 'busy' like the one we recreated from Scream. Charlie agreed and went on to say that they were plain and didn't give enough information, as they would've liked. All three of them preferred our third magazine, which was our recreation of Scream. Abbie particularly liked the blood splatters we used to border the puffs and how it looked full. This tells us that in the future, we want to make sure the magazines have a very busy front cover with lots of text and images to help draw the audience’s attention and keep their interest. Charlie mentions how the non-busy magazines might fail to attract the audience as much, which could be an issue for future productions if the magazine doesn't turn heads.

On the posters, Abbie liked how the eyes contrasted with the black background and the effect that it gives to the audience. She liked how they pierced out, staring at the audience who look at the posters. Chloe liked how the posters created a moody atmosphere, which helped to represent the genre and show what the film could be about. As an improvement, we were told that we should have used different elements for the different posters to show more elements of the short film, rather than just focusing on the protagonists and golliwog. For our next production, we would make our posters more varied from each other, hopefully showing more cast members and more elements of the short film.

For our short film, the girls liked our utilisation of the drone and the different camera angles it provided for our short film. Abbie and Chloe both really liked the stop-start animation in our production. They thought that it wasn't too overpowering as it was in short bursts, helping to ensure it wasn't boring for the audience, and changes the dynamic of the film. This feedback will encourage us to use more camera angles in our future productions to keep bringing new perspectives of scenes for the audience. It has also told us that the combination of stop-start animation with normal footage worked well together, with Abbie even suggesting we used more. However, Charlie mentioned how we need to ensure the camera stays perfectly in place for all of the shots to ensure that there isn't too much movement of the camera which makes some of the photos look out of place.

Overall, we will use this audience feedback to improve any future work we complete. We understand how important the audience is to the media industry because if the production does not get seen, the company will not make any revenue. For a small company like ourselves, we want out work to get to the wider audience so it needs to appeal to them and meet their needs. By taking onboard the criticisms and advice, we can hopefully improve our work so that the audience enjoy our work more and so we get more views, but also improve our brand image as to making good films.

Evaluation: Media Technologies in the Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

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

Golliwog - Final Cut

Poster 2

We have kept the poster quite empty of text and made sure it is very visually appealing so that it can attract the audiences attention. This poster we have used the same colour scheme once again, but have included more red along the bottom next to the golliwog. The red along the bottom gradually fades into the black so it looks smooth and thus professional.

The main central image is of the golliwog, with the body being half on the left of the poster and the arm coming in towards the middle. The golliwog is a brighter red than the red at the bottom so that it stands out above the background. The blacks of the golliwog are harder to see, which connotes that the doll is hiding and could be right infront of you hiding in the darkness and you can't see it.

The masthead is a patchy and frail font that looks similar to blood. The red text of course connotes blood and danger, but the font also suggests blood as it isn't a solid bit of colour, with parts in each letter missing. Below the masthead is our production name and the names of the two actors. They are also red, matching the colour scheme. At the bottom of the poster is 'Out Now'. This text is black and contrasts the red background. The font used is again thin and frail, having lots of sharp points and corners, even on the letter 'o'. 

On the right hand side of the poster we have included a film review from scream magazine. We have five white stars with the small piece of text. We included a review as it is quite common for films to show the certain reviews that rated the film well in the hope that it would increase sales. We have used the five stars to make our film seem really good to the audience with the hope it sparks interest about our work.

Poster 1

This is our poster for our short film. The main central image is of the two protagonists standing back to back. Above the two actors is a very dark image of a golliwog, with lighting around the eyes and mouth to create an eery effect. We also used an inner shadow to make the eyes and mouth fade better into the background from the bright colours. 

This poster we decided to put the masthead near to the bottom. Although this is slightly unconventional, it makes the audiences key focus be of the golliwog and the two protagonists. The title is in a blood red colour. The font creates a sense of danger as the lines around the letters are not perfectly straight, but rather wobbly and scruffy. The long thin lines that the font creates at the end of letters could hint at the end of the road for the two characters. Below the masthead are the names of the two actors, Rory and Peter. We used the same font as we did the masthead as well as the same colour.  Their names are below each of them in the bottom corners,away from the middle as we want the attention to be more towards the 'OUT NOW' and our production name to hope we can create a brand for ourselves and increase our sales.