1. Media Evaluation
By Dan Jefferies

2. Question 1
In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?
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3. There are a lot of conventions that are used in a psychological thriller. The best
way to create a psychological thriller is by following these conventions and
adjusting them so they have there own twist on the work. There is no rules in
following a genre when producing a film and therefore the conventions must
have been analysed and followed in a way that the producer sees fit. The
conventions can be analysed by looking at these important areas;
• Camera Shots, Camera Angles and Camera Movements
• Mise-En-Scene
• Editing
• Lighting
• Sound
These categories must be thoroughly analysed. For example when producers
analysed camera shots they will need to analyse the type of the shot (i.e. a
mid-shot, a close up etc.) the length of the shot, the transition into the shot and
the transition from the shot.
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4. My media product is a psychological thriller and
therefore has followed the conventions of the genre.
However this doesn’t mean that I have stuck to these.
I have also chosen to develop and take these
conventions further. In this evaluation I will be review
what I found out whilst doing research and planning
and how this was taken into consideration when
working on the construction of the film trailer, poster
and magazine cover.
My film trailer is called “Trapped Like a Rat”.
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5. The first convention in the trailer that I followed was that there were
short camera shots within the trailer. This is found in such film trailers as
Mary Harron’s “American Psycho”. This can be seen below. This was
developed so that I have longer shots at the start and eventually very
short shots at the end. This will increase the tension and the audience
will feel the danger that the protagonist is going through. The one thing
that was a bit of a problem with my trailer was that I did not have a lot of
time and didn’t manage my time as well as I could of therefore there
wasn’t as many short, sharp shots as to what was planned. There were
various film trailers that I saw these in and as stated before one this can
be found in various trailers such as “Shutter Island” and can be seen in
“American Psycho” shown here.
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6. Another convention for psychological thrillers is to target the audience’s
emotions and aims to scare them with the characters within the plot of
the film and this will be done by having characters that create intense
and scary moments. This sort of thing can be seen in such films as the
character Dr Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lambs”. This
character is known for being a psychiatrist and a cannibalistic serial
killer. He is famous for his saying and the noise he makes. In my film I
don’t necessarily have a person like this but the unknown figures who
trap the protagonists in the house create a similar sort of personality of
that of Dr Hannibal Lecter and is aiming to scare the audience. This
follows the convention well.
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7. The third convention for psychological thrillers is that they use low key lighting to
help them convey the plot of the film when the film is at a scary point or wants to
build tension for the target audience. This is shown in various film trailers as “Shutter
Island” where the trailer is reaching its final moments and the audience see the
protagonist being jumped on by an unknown antagonist. This is shown below. I have
used low key lighting throughout the majority of the trailer and this would have
improved the quality of the film and made the film trailer a lot more conventional.
The trailer has scenes which are filmed at night and therefore this instantly makes
the film look more conventional. If the trailer was to have been shot in the day then
the film would have lost its conventions that it contains and would be almost
unrecognisable as a psychological thriller. Psychological thrillers are so successful
because of this one convention because it tends to play on the humans primal fears.
As a species, humans are all genetically fearful and find the dark unnerving.
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8. The final trope I identified is that editing in psychological thrillers is fast paced and
depending on the film situation then the editing will be done to match the occasion.
For example in “Silent House” as the film trailer becomes more scary and frightful to
the audience then the titles, camera shots and sound speed up in pace. This can be
seen below. The editing will be fast paced if there is something scary and the film is
trying to create tension. This would have been very effective for my trailer however
the problem that the group had was that I had not allowed enough time for the
editing and this was down to my poor time managing and this would have to be
assessed and adjusted for another project like this.
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My poor time management skills have now
led to trailer losing some of the conventions
however there are still some fast pace short
shots in the editing such as when the
protagonist sees the blood and the shots
would be almost parallel with his heartbeat
so as it increase the shots become shorter.
In the actual film itself there would be the
same sort of thing happening throughout.

9. I used the above posters to analyse what I needed to included in mine as the conventions of this
genre. I concluded that they all use the Barthes theory of Enigma codes and Action codes on the
basis that they all use the images to have the audience asking the two questions and that is
“Who are these characters?” and “Are they okay?”. In the case of “The Others” I believe that
audience I made to feel interpolated into hoping that Nicole Kidman’s character will be okay and
that is just from looking at this poster. I feel that this crosses over into Morley’s Theory of Cultural
Competence because she is a woman many will see her as “vulnerable” because of the dark
background. This is likely to be the male audience that will see this more than the females
because of stereotypical views of men seeing themselves wanting to look after females on their
own in the dark. This sort of theory can also be seen in “The Ring” poster. Where as when the
audience see Di Caprio’s character in the “Shutter Island" poster they would view him as being
frightening and strong despite also being on a strong background. The “vulnerability” of a female
protagonist is what I have used in my posters in the attempt to drag in my audience. I felt that
this made my poster look more professional.
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10. I analysed the two magazine covers shown above and one thing that I noticed that I had the
same was that even though they were showing two different film genres the type of font that went
with it goes well with both. They both have a similar font and this can be seen if you compare the
“M” in both magazines. They use a sans serif font which would if replicated would mean that I am
following the conventions. The rule of thirds is followed in both magazines and this is something
that I needed to achieve follow the conventions of the genre. By looking at these two magazines
it is clear that I could do a professional standard of magazine myself by making sure that I had a
good masthead to attract the audience and this would be helped by designing it with the rule of
thirds being followed and avoiding the magazine being “cluttered”. Another clear convention I
have needed to follow was by making sure that I had a hierarchy to my text so that the readers
would view the important parts of my magazine first. It is clear by looking at these two magazines
that there is no clear guidelines for how to have the hierarchy on a magazine but to make sure
that it looks tidy, professional. Therefore when I created my magazine I made sure that I had a
hierarchy but took time in organising it to reach that professional standard.
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11. Question 2
How effective is
combination of your main
product and ancillary
texts?
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12. This is a very difficult question to answer because of the fact that my
promotion package has parts that do not relate to each other. This is
because of a constant on-going battle with my illness called Emery
Dreifuss Muscular Dystrophy I was unable to contribute as much as I
was hoping to creating the trailer with my group and therefore once I
managed to get back on track with controlling my illness then I was able
to create my own trailer.
This means that I have had to do my poster and magazine on
my original group’s film trailer called “One Step Till No Return”. However
I have had to do my trailer as a film produced by myself individually
called “Trapped Like A Rat”. Therefore my ancillary texts (my magazine
and poster) will not be able to relate to my film itself. However they do
follow in the same genre (Psychological thriller) so when I mention that
my magazine and poster refer to the film well then this will be my
original film “One Step Till No Return” and not “Trapped Like A Rat”.
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13. 13

14. My magazine has a clear message about the film
and shows that this is not a “rom-com” film. It gives
the representation of a psychological thriller straight
from this image. It clearly portrays a “masked man”
coming up behind this girl. The image that is being
shown to the audience on this magazine has a red
tint to it and has been modified to signify blood.
Psychological thrillers are renowned for a lot blood
and therefore throughout these three items there
would be a lot of red in the tem to make sure it
followed conventions of the genre. The fonts used
elsewhere on the magazine match this and show a
similar sort of colour. However on the red tinted
image the text still stands out to the audience but at
the same time does not drag the attention away
from the image. The logo on the right hand side of
the magazine is the official film logo and is the one
that would be seen in the film and the trailer.
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15. In my poster I have used the same image as in the
magazine and this will create a brand identity throughout
my promotion package. However I have got a different
masthead for the poster to the one that is seen on the
magazine. I felt that this one worked better with the image
itself. This masthead is still the same in colour and is red in
font. This is because I want the audience to see the name
of the film immediately. This is my main reference to the
film and then once the audience have seen the image
matching with the masthead then this will reference to the
film as this image is part of a scene from the film. I have
included the credit block at the bottom of the poster and
this shows the roles of the team making this film and then
finally the tagline references to the film and creating a sort
of enigma with the audience. This will help the audience
into interpolating with the protagonist and feeling sorry for
her. By using this tagline I have created a brand identity in
the sense that it hints immediately at the fact that it is a film
about abduction. All of these references will appeal to the
audience and will want them to see the film itself.
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16. MAGAZINE
On the magazine I have use the large image on
the front cover to draw in my audiences
attention. Once they had been drawn in I then
hoped they would be excited to watch the film by
all of the short snappy captions on the front
cover. The image of the magazine signifies to the
audience that this film will be about abduction
and therefore will be likely to be rated at a
minimum of a 15. This is because the audience
tend to find high amounts of blood in abduction
films. It is clear that as it falls neatly into a
category it is likely to attract “Mainstreamers and
Aspirers” (Young and Rubicam) with the majority
of the audience being teenagers. As it is a clear
teenager protagonist and an unknown age of the
antagonist it is going to be easier for either
teenagers to relate to or parents with teenagers.
As these are unknown actors in the image then
its clear that this would not have a high
production value and therefore as tis is the case
the film is likely to be a lot more relatable for
teenagers and therefore this will be the main
audience.
POSTER
My poster’s most iconic feature is the
image which is the same image as the
magazine and therefore creates a large
brand identity for the film itself. This
should be the way to entice the audience
to watch. With any tagline its important
that the entice the audience further and I
feel that I am achieving this with this
tagline. As both the magazine and the
poster have the same image and use this
to attract the audience the most then it is
likely that the poster will have a very
similar effect in enticing the audience to
watch the film and should attract the
same audience.
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The use of unknown actors
will appeal more to
audiences of the same age
as they can relate to this
more.

17. In my promotion package it is obvious that Barthes theory of Enigma codes and Action codes can be
applied to this work. I know this because on the magazine and the poster I have made a clear point to
the audience to ask “Who is this masked antagonist?” and “What does he want with this female?” This
will make the audience want to watch the film because they will be wanting to see what this film is
about. Which is the crux of the enigma code. The theory of the action codes can also be applied to this
because there is look of fright and vulnerability in the female protagonists eye therefore will signify to
the audience that something bad will happen in a later event. I feel that the use of enigmas are
important for both my magazine and poster because this is the main way to engage with the
audiences feelings as there is no audio or movements.
As for the trailer I can also apply this theory to it. It was easier to create an enigma with this
because I can combine the use of sound and camera shots/movements. The main enigma to my
trailer is that the audience will be asking “What has happened to the female protagonist?” and “How
much danger are the characters in?” This will attract the audience to watch this film at the cinema as
they will feel interpolated with the characters and will emphasise with them to make sure that they
come through this. The main example is when the male protagonist goes to the shed and returns with
all the blood on the wall. Once he opens the door this creates the action code for the film as it signifies
to the audience that he could be about to go on a quest/hunt.
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The immediate moment
where the action code is
created in the trailer.

18. Different Film
Logos
Different Font
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19. As I had a big problem with my time management I have not been very consistent when
producing my poster and magazine. This has now created the problem that could have been
easily fixed had I given myself enough time in advance.
All of my differences are clear for the audience to see and there is no clear similarities for the
audience other than they have the same name and image. This meant that the there was not
a big of brand image as I was hoping to have and therefore if I have allowed myself more
time then I would be able to have improved this and made it clear that these belong together.
Obviously both the poster and magazine refer to the film trailer before I had to split from the
group and therefore if I had a matching trailer I could carry on this brand identity across to
the trailer too.
The first difference was that I was using two different film logos. The official one was on the
magazine. This clearly worked on there but I felt that it didn’t look correct on the film poster.
For these reasons I have had to sacrifice my brand identity slightly to make sure that my
poster was professional and presentable.
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Different fonts used on the
magazine and the poster. If I
had used the same on both
then this would have
improved brand identity.

20. The third thing which did not follow a “housestyle” from one slide to the next is that I did not use
the same font for both the magazine and the poster. I had this problem because I created my
magazine on Microsoft Publisher and I created my poster on Adobe Fireworks. Therefore they
do not have the same fonts available for use.
In conclusion, it is now clear that I have no housestyles to my work and the audience may not
be able to associate the products with one another.
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If I had created my magazine and poster on the same
piece of software then I could have increased my brand
identity.

21. Question 3
What have you learned
from your audience
feedback?
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22. Over the whole process of this project I have used various forms of audience feedback to
improve my work or when the audience feedback was taken at the start I used this information to
plan well for what I was doing. I used feedback such as polls on my blog and focus groups once
my project was concluded. A good form of feedback that I have used was by asking for peer
feedback.
The reason that I have used these types of feedback is because they are easy to use
and easily accessible for me. The results that I got back from these was helpful as I knew what I
either needed to do, what I needed to improve and even what I needed to change. By using the
feedback to improve my project and the work involved in it I have been able to make my products
to the best of my ability with the time I had.
I had used various polls on my blog in an attempt to have my poll taken by a wide
range of people as my blog is online it is accessible by anyone. A question that I asked was
regarding my magazine masthead and that was “What would make a better name for a
magazine?” This gave me instant feedback to help me with my ancillary texts. This helped me
decide on the name of my magazine and gave me a good basis to work off of.
22An example of my polls on my blog.

23. Also I had included a poll with the question of “Do you think my trailer has met the conventions of
a psychological thriller?” and “How do you feel I could have improved my poster?” Both of these
polls had answers that would help me to improve my work and make my work look more
professional in terms of producing a poster and a trailer to the highest of quality.
When my promotion package were finished I got together a focus group to discuss how
they felt that my work had met the needs of my audience and how it also met the needs of the
genre. This focus group was able to give me feedback on how they felt the trailer made them feel
firstly as an audience and secondly as an peer assessor. Finally we moved onto how the ancillary
texts were effective in promoting both the trailer and the “film” itself.
Throughout this project I took on as much peer feedback as possible and asked them
for there opinions on my work . This was vital as they were able to tell me what looked better in
my ancillary texts and they were also able to tell me how to improve it in there opinion.
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24. For my polls I have now been able to gather the results of them and alter what has needed
altering and to perfect what has needed perfecting.
I have been able to decide on a name for my magazine by following my audience feedback. One
of my aims from the start of creating this promotion package was to make sure that I followed the
conventions of the genre and made it look as professional as possible. Therefore by asking my
second poll on the blogs I have been able to evaluate whether I did or not by my audience
looking at the whole promotion package. I felt that from the results received that I had done this
despite a proportion of my audience feedback saying there was “room for improvement.” Finally
on my last poll the audience felt that I could have a more clear image to make the poster more
effective as a whole. I felt that this was a very valid point from my audience however I felt that it
was not necessary to do this. I felt that I could have this image as it was still maintaining the
enigma (Barthes) in the poster.
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25. For the questions I used closed answer options on my polls to make my results easy to evaluate
however they will not be able to give me the best answers to my questions as these came from
the focus groups in my opinion. My focus group felt that there was no real brand identity to my
texts. They felt that the magazine, poster and trailer were good as individual pieces however as a
promotion package they felt that it didn’t have a clear brand identity to the package. If I had
managed my time management a lot better then I would have been able to alter my ancillary
texts to make the whole package have a clear brand identity.
Overall, my focus group made the decision that they felt the promotion package was
good as a psychological thriller package but they felt it lacked brand identity. They felt that the
trailer was a clear psychological thriller and that it was frightening with the extreme sound volume
changes. They felt that had I managed my time management better then I would have a much
more professional trailer.
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26. Question 4
How did you use media
technologies in the
construction and research,
planning and evaluation
stages?
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27. I used various technologies when creating my promotion package. Firstly in the planning
and research stage I used Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer Websites (such as IMDB),
Blogger and YouTube to help me research for example I needed this technology for
researching my conventions of genre. This was a good combination of software to use
for this as I was able to research my genre conventions and then assess these and
evaluate these in Microsoft Word. This technology made my research and planning
easier to show because I had an easy bit of software which allowed me to compare and
say how I will apply it to my own work.
By using these pieces of software I have been able to allow my research to be
more thorough because I am using software that I am very confident in using it. When
using the software to research there was one very big problem I encountered and this
was that I was not able to use the Internet Explorer once the Internet went down and
therefore I wasn’t able to use this to do any research and therefore caused me real
problems.
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28. I found this software really useful to use with the resources available as it was
to collect my findings, then assess the findings, evaluate them and then decide
what to include in my final promotion package. This software was the best I had
available at the time to do my research and planning.
In the construction stage I used a higher variety of software to help me
with my promotion package. I used a camera, Microsoft Publisher, Adobe
Fireworks, Pixlr.com, an iMac, iMovie, Internet, Blogger and YouTube.
I felt that this software that I used was of a much higher standard than
my research and planning stage. However I felt that I was still a little restricted
with what I could do when creating my work. Firstly though my work was easy to
create but wasn’t of a poor standard but there was definitely room for
improvement.
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29. The camera I used was a decent handheld camcorder that was good for shooting the
trailer that I wanted. This allowed me to shoot my work without any problems. The only thing that
could have been improved was by using a higher-quality of camera which would allowed me to
shoot in higher quality. However as the trailer was designed to be shot in a “home video” format
then this was better to use this type of camera.
Microsoft Publisher was the best software to be using to create a magazine. This is
because I was able to cut, copy and paste (i.e. I was able to move the masthead around to have
it in the exact position that I wanted and make sure that with my layout I was following the rule of
thirds) as well as drag and drop text and images with ease. By using this software I have been
able to create the best magazine I could with the software available. The other option of software
that I could use was Adobe Fireworks. However I felt that for designing a magazine cover then
this was more of an appropriate piece of software to use.
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30. For creating a poster I have used the software Adobe Fireworks as this was a stronger piece of
software to give a clearer and more prominent poster. This is because I was able to edit the
image in this software (i.e. I could alter the brightness of the image and make it even darker than
before) and then add my masthead, credit blocks and tagline to this after. This was very
appropriate piece of software to use because I was able to use because the fonts available were
a lot more professional then you would find on other software such as Microsoft Publisher.
Whilst creating my promotion package I was always looking to optimize and improve
any images that I would be using. This gives my promotion package the chance of the look of
the most professional standard with the software available to me. I used Pixlr.com to help me
with this editing because it is a free, easy to use, online image editor. This software only had one
downfall and that was that I needed the internet to be able to access it and therefore there was
times when I was not able to use this piece of software.
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31. To edit my film trailers raw footage I used an iMac with iMovie to help me to create my trailer. This
was also the best film software available and gave me a professional looking film trailer. Another
piece of software that I could have used would have been Windows Movie Maker but this would
have looked awful and would have given my film trailer the effect of being created by a “GCSE
student”. Using this I was able to add effects to the footage such as changing the lighting, the
speed and adding in transition slides.
The final pieces of technology I used in the construction stage was Blogger and YouTube. These
were good to use because I was able to exhibit it in a couple of forms. By using blogger I was
able to engage with my audience in the form of polls and adding comments to the blog. I felt that
it was very important for my audiences to be able to see my construction work as well as my
evaluation and research and planning. I felt that there was nothing better that would allow me to
show my whole promotion package to my audience.
I felt that YouTube was a great way to exhibit my trailer to the audience I was able to
share it on the worlds largest video sharing website. As my target audience are likely to be
“Mainstreamers and Aspirers” (Young and Rubicam) then by using one of the most “in trend”
websites to exhibit my promotion package then I am directly engaging with my audience.
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32. Finally, in the evaluation stage I was using only a few technologies to help produce and exhibit. I used
Microsoft PowerPoint to do this evaluation. This was good software to use as I can make it so it has
multimedia text in it and that I can make lots of comparisons in the promotion package and assess
how I have done and how I could have improved it. As for other software I could have used then I
could have produced all of this on iMovie but not as easily accessible for as doing it on Microsoft
PowerPoint.
Within my evaluation I have been able to record videos from YouTube using CamStudio.
The only problem that I encountered was that the quality of the video was pixelated at times and that it
would not allow me to record sound. This meant that I wasn’t able to show examples as easily as I
wanted to in my evaluation.
When I finished this I used a site called Slide Share to make it so I can transfer my
evaluation PowerPoint to my blog. This enabled me to engage with my audience as they could see
how I felt I did with my promotion package and they could comment on this on the blog itself. For it to
be Slide Share it was easy to use as all I had to do was download the file onto the site itself. As far as
I know this was the only easily accessible way to do this.
To copy it onto my blog I needed to copy the embedded code to my blog using HTML option
when creating a page. I was using Blogger still and the same blog for this as I just added it to a new
page. Overall, the blog was the most beneficial piece of technology to myself as I was able to exhibit
the whole of my promotion package to the “world” as anyone can now access it and view what they
want.
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33. Links to Videos Used
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GIsExb5jJU – American Psycho Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3woSuuzQuc – Silence of the Lambs scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iaYLCiq5RM – Shutter Island Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo3fyTbyft8 – Silent House Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMw_vobZsRc
My Trailer: Trapped Like A Rat
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