How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout this project i have used new media technologies in which i have not used before. I used these different technologies in both the construction and research and the planning and evaluation stages. All of these technologies have helped me throughout my project to produce and present my work in different more professional looking ways.
BLOGGER:
For this project i have used http://www.blogspot.com/. This is a blogger that i have used to present and record all of my work. I have never used this blogger before but it is a very simple way of recording everything that i needed to. I used this for all stages of my project posting new posts for the different sections of my project.
iMOVIE:
As a group we began our editing on iMovie. This helped us to originally upload everything that we recorded into one place as we began to edit our scenes. This helped us to see what we would like our teaser trailer to look like using simple transitions. This was a fast and simple way to see what we would like our trailer to look like before moving onto using final cut pro to edit our final teaser trailer. I think that iMovie is very useful for a quick way of editing however, we decided not to use this for our final product because it is not what real media products use to edit their footage and does not have a large amount of editing effects ready to use.
FINAL CUT PRO:
As a group we decided to use Final Cut Pro. This is something that noone in our group had used before so therefore allowed us all to deveop our skills in a program that is used by professionals to create real media products. Therefore using final cut pro was essential to the production of our final teaser trailer. Due to the fact that none of us had used this program before it began to be quite a challenge to understand how to use it but this confidence grew as we spent more time on the program. Guidance from our lecturer and online tutorials also helped us to edit our trailer in a proffesional and simple way.
SOUNDTRACK PRO:
We decided to use Soundtrack Pro to produce some of the sounds in our teaser trailer. This again was a program that i had never used before so therefore helped me to develop my skills further. The program was very simple to use and had many different varieties of pre-recorded sounds that you could use or edit. This helped us when producing our final teaser trailer. This program was necessary for some of the sounds in our teaser trailer that we could not record on our own.
CELTX:
Celtx was a program that again noone in my group had used before. This program allowed us to create our teaser trailer script in a proffesional way. With help from our lecturer i began to understand how to use this program more so that we could create an effective looking final script. This also meant that in the future i can again use this program with no difficulty.
SONY LUMIX FZ38:
The Sony Lumix FZ38 was the camera that we shot all of our film footage on. I had never used a camera to film on before however one of my group members had. This meant that i could learn lots of new filming techniques and how to use the camera effectivly.
I also used other technologies such as Photo shop and a Nikon D300 that i have used before however, this project has helped me to develop my skills and become more confident with different programs and in more areas.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
After completing all three of my products i asked my target audience what they thought of our groups poster and filmed all of the short interviews on my phone. This is so that we could see what our target audience thought of the product that we created. Audience feedback is a valuable thing to receive, this is because it allows us to see what our target audience thought of our work. It also gives us valuable feedback that gives us things to think about when we next create products like this.
I filmed these interviews shown below with my target audience, this is so that i could get valuable feedback for my poster. Bellow shows the video of the feedback that i received, they are separate because they would not load all together because the file was too large. I asked all of them a simple question of 'Here is a copy of my final poster, what do you think of it?'. The videos below show some replies that i received.
I received feedback from various ages of people all in my target audience. Above shows the videos that i took of people telling me their opinions on our poster. All of these videos show people explaining that they thought that our final product for our poster is 'very good'. I had no bad comments about this product which shows that we put a lot of effort and thought into our final product. They also explained that the poster looked professional which is what we were aiming for.
I also decided to put a copy of my poster up onto www.facebook.com. This is so that i could get feedback through a different form of media. I didn't put any set questions up with the poster so that anyone from my target audience could comment on it with any of their opinions, good or bad.
Bellow shows a print screen of my audience feedback that i received through face book and gladly it is all positive. This shows that i have made a good product created through photo shop. I also got texts after putting this on face book telling me how realistic the poster looked and that they wished that it was being made into an actual film. This made me feel good about the product that we had created as a group and makes me look forward to producing more products like this in the future.
I also followed the same technique to gain feedback for our magazine cover by using facebook. The print screen of the feedback that me and Rhiannon recieved is shown below.
We left editing our trailer to the last minute due to bad time construction. Therefore i did not have enough time to film some audience feedback for my trailer. However i did ask some of my target audience there opinions on it which are written bellow.
Milley Haines:
'I think that the trailer is very realistic and in good time. The makeup and everything is done very well and my favourite bit is the dripping at the end because it looks so realistic. After watching the trailer it has made me want to watch the film.'
Joe Bain:
'I think that the trailer is filmed very well and looks very effective however you might have wanted to include some speech in it so that the audience could gain more information about the film to make them more interested in watching it knowing more about what it is about.'
Lauren Miller:
'The trailer looks good. It looks impressive for A level students to have made themselves. Its made me want to watch the actual film. Its clear that the trailer is advertising a horror film but you might want to put something else in between to link the horror to the beginning parts of the trailer more.'
All of the people that i have gained feedback from are in my target audience. They have given good points about my trailer as well as giving points for improvement that will help me when making products in the future.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
All of the products that we have created, our poster, magazine cover and teaser trailer all create cross-media advertisement for our film 'Obsession'. These three products can be used for what is called a promotional package. This is because all three of these different products are all advertising the same thing and are all helping to advertise the film to our target audience. 'Advertising is key to any buisness' as stated on www.webpronews.com/cross-media-advertising-2001-08.
There are also many other ways that our products could be advertised if they were being made into real media products. For example articles in the paper, billboards, being able to watch the trailer on the Internet and in cinemas, an official website and more. This would mean that by using cross-media advertising many more people from the public would be aware of the film 'Obsession' which would mean that our film would become more popular.
All three of my products show different parts from the film as well as showing photographs that would not actually be shown in our film if it was actually made. This is something that we found to be popular when making things such as posters for films. This creates more of an interest for the target audience making them want to want the film without giving to much detail away so that the actual film is still enjoyable and something new to watch. While the trailer shows moving images of scenes from within the film the poster and magazine are adverting the film by using different techniques. For example the magazine would allow the audience to read exclusive interviews from some of the cast and crew from the film and more.
Advertising is the best way to draw an audience together for a film. However, it can cost a large amount of money which could cut into a large amount of the budget for the film, but without the use of advertising there would not be a large enough audience to create a large enough profit.
Cross-media advertising means that things from all of our products need to show similarities. This is so that the audience can clearly show relations between all of the products showing that they are all advertising the same film. For example we have shown the title of our film on all three of our products, using the same font on all of them. Looking at the image bellow we can see a variety of different ways to help advertise a product and all of these things have to show similarities so that it is clear that they are all advertising the same film.
Another similarity between our products are the colour schemes. The colour scheme that we have used throughout our three products are using red, black and white. This is so that it fits in with the genre of our products which is horror. The dark colour of black links in with this mood while the red represents blood. We have also decided to use white for our colour scheme so that our writing stands out to our audience against our other dark colours.
All of these similarities are a way of showing continuity and looking back at all of our products, i think that overall we have created as a group a good selection for cross-media advertisement. I think this because all of our products show similarities between each other aswell as giving all the important information that is needed. Hopefully our target audience all think the same.
In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
During this project i have made three products: a poster, magazine cover and a horror teaser trailer. All three of these products have either used, developed or challenged conventions of real media products that we have researched into. Myself and my group all researched into different horror films looking at different aspects that were used in horror films. We analysed typical conventions and decided to use, challenge and develop these in our own products. This is shown through our initial research that we all individually took out before beginning to plan and make our own products.
All three of our products are all aimed at both males and females above the age of 15. This is so that our certificate for our film could be put as a 15. We found that this was typical of a horror film because most horrors are classed as a 15 or in some cases an 18. Our poster is the first product that we completely finished. We decided to create our own credits for our poster, this is so that we can use forms and conventions of real media products. This is because when looking into horror posters in more detail we found that they all had credits most commonly at the bottom. We therefore decided to put credits at the bottom of our poster however, we made these credits our self and therefore developed conventions by putting our own names and production company into it. We created our credits in photoshop, this is so that we were using the same software that real media products would of used for their posters. We also continued to use and develop forms and conventions of real media products by creating our own website and title of our film using a font from http://www.dafonts.com/. Using a font from this website also allowed us to develop conventions because people making real media products may create their own fonts.
We also decided to have a tag line at the top of our poster. By doing this we were developing typical conventions. This is because when looking at real horror posters we found that many had tag lines however some where at the bottom or above the credits. We also created our own tag line which was thought of together as a group to match what our film was about.
For the image that we used for our poster i decided to look into a lot of real media products. When looking at these real media products i found that some of them included images on the posters that do not reveal the entire character. A good example of this is the saw trilogy. All of the Saw films have posters that only show body parts shown for example in the images of posters that i have looked at. When looking at these horror film posters i also came across more posters that only include small parts of the characters, not revealing them completely for example 'Prom Night' and 'Jennifer's Body'. Using this technique produces a sense of intrigue for the audience as well as not giving too much invormation away before watching the entire film. This is why we decided to produce the image for the poster that we did. We decided that it was a nice idea to produce an image that does not show the whole character. This allows the image to be more to the point, using just the characters wrists and hands tied together with rope and covered in blood was more to the point as well as being a striking image that would immediatly grab the audiences attention also tying in nicely to our genre of horror. After shooting and choosing our final image for our poster we realised that the image was very explicit however, we decided that this would not be a problem because when looking at real media products i realised that many images that have been used on official film posters are also very explicit which alows our poster to look more realistic and use more conventions of real media products. Therefore, i did not think that this image would be an issue for our final poster and we decided to use it. The tagline for our poster also matches with the explicit central image and clearly shows the genre that we are aiming at. We also chose the release date of the film to be around halloween which we thought would be a good time to release a film of this specific genre. Examples of some of the real media posters that i looked at are shown bellow.
Looking at these posters that are existing real media products you can see the similarities and differences between them and our final poster which is shown bellow. It clearly shows that we have used conventions for example a central image, title of film, credits, tagline, website for film, release date and production company of the film. However, we have developed these conventions by shooting our own image, making up our own title of the film as well as the website and tagline. This can all be seen bellow.
When designing our magazine cover we looked at many real media magazine covers. All of these magazine covers were of the horror genre relating to what our own would look like. We created a title for our magazine 'HMD' standing or horror movie digest. This shows that we are using conventions of real media products by producing a title for our magazine however we have developed this by creating our own title and again using http://www.dafonts.com/ for our fonts. HMD is again aimed at both males and females above the age of 15. This is because this is the age of people that mostly watch horror films however some people under this age may also be interested so our magazine is also appropriate for people under this age to look at. We also used the same colour scheme throughout all of our products of red, black and white. We included typical conventions from real media products on our magazine cover such as bar code, price and the magazine issue number. Bellow shows a real media magazine cover side by side with the magazine that we created. This shows the direct comparisons between the existing product and our own. It also shows that we have used and developed conventions of a horror magazine.
When creating our teaser trailer we had many different forms and conventions to think about. For example we had to think about our target audience and the way in which we were going to portray our genre of horror to our audience. Due to the fact that this product was only a teaser trailer, we did not have alot of time so therefore had to put enough detail into our trailer so that our audience would be interested. Our main character in our film Ava is a very typical main character for a horror film. She is a pretty young girl who we see living her perfect lifestyle, applying her makeup and driving the car that i could only dream of having, until she becomes the victim when another girl is jealous of her lifestyle. We chose to shoot our trailer having most of it as Avas normal day to show the strong comparison between this and Ava getting taken as a hostage. This is similar to the trailer for 'Jennifer's Body' which begins shows normal everyday clips from the main characters lives which gives the audience a false sense of security portraying Ava's normal life before it all turns upside down. This means that for most of our trailer the genre is not clear, this creates intrigue for the audience as most of the main action is shown at the end of the trailer when Ava has been taken hostage allowing the genre of the film to be revealed at the end of the trailer, leaving the audience with something interessting and rememberable to take away with them, remembering from just the end of the trailer that it will be a horror film. The similarities between our trailer and a real media product of the trailer for 'Jennifer's Body' can be seen bellow, using and developing conventions of the product as well as the genre itself. The first video bellow is the trailer from 'Jennifer's Body' and the second is our own trailer that we created.
Linking back to my initial research into cross-media advertising, 'Advertising is key to any buisness'. Cross-media advertising is when different media companies advertise the same or different products. An example of this is using different products to advertise one same product for example our poster, magazine and teaser trailer are all advertising our film 'Obsession'. Cross-media advertising helps to advertise and promote different types of media to there different target audiences e.g males and females over the age of 15 that enjoy horror films.
There have been various changes that we have had to make throughout the production of our three products. Bellow shows a list of what we have changed.
Some outfits are different due to outfits not being available or having to shoot at any available opportunity so therefore our main character was not already in the costume that we had planned.
We have cut out our toilet scene because our trailer was too long and the scene also did not fit as well into the trailer as we thought that it would.
We also decided to cut out a scene where Ava was talking to her friend. This was because we didnt think that it fit in to the trailer as well as we thought that it would and also found it difficult to match up the sound to the movement of Avas mouth.
We also made some other small changes to our products which was understandable because these changes then made our final products appear better than we thought that they would of if we had kept strictly to our script and plans.
If i had to do this project again i would begin shooting at an early time so that as a group we would of had more time to edit our trailer. I think that this would of made our trailer look overall more effective and professional.
Once uploaded to this blog our soundtrack appears to have gone crackly aswell as our images not in HD as filmed. However, bellow shows our final teaser trailer that was edited on final cut pro.
