14. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? I feel that the combination of my main product and ancillary texts was effective at achieving the desired effect of making a trailer of the horror genre that attracted my target audience. The colour scheme that I focused on was red and black. I thought that by keeping the colour scheme throughout my main product and ancillary texts, the audience would associate them together. The prominence of the colours in all three would also help the audience to associate those colours with the film and when they see the colours during their daily life they automatically would think of the film. All three products showed the main character. By doing this I thought it was effective as it allows the audience to recognise the character when they see her in the poster and magazine cover and link her to the film.
16. Audience feedback Having asked 20 people to watch my movie trailer and note down the positives and negatives of it, the results were mainly positive suggesting that the trailer was successful at making it attractive and appealing to the target audience. I collected the feedback and typed it into a table. I grouped repeat comments such as ‘good edit’ as one so as to not sound repetitive in my feedback. From the feedback it can be gathered that the editing, including the special effects and music, was what was most enjoyed by the target audience. As these were added in post-production it could suggest that without them the film wouldn’t have been as appealing to the audience. There was a mixed reaction as to whether the pace of the trailer worked. I had planned to have a slow pace so that it would seem more eerie however some people had commented that it was too slow. I felt that the pace was in time with the music and therefore did seem to fit well. Some of the negative feedback though relevant, I felt was a bit out of my control. ‘night was too bright’ I was unable to do anything about the night being too bright as the streetlights in the residential area where I filmed were unable to be turned off. However, taking this point into account, I could have edited the lighting after filming, but I felt the streetlights gave the trailer a more realistic feel.
17. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Technology plays a major part in peoples live, and it’s part has got greater in recent years as technology has expanded. I found the process of constructing my product very interesting as I was able to experiment with different types of technologies at all stages of the product. During the research and planning stage of my product I was able to create a blog in which I could upload my work on to keep it organised and on display. Having used blogs before for social use, I felt very capable at uploading my work on to the blog and understanding how to add links and embed objects such as videos.This is where another type of technology became involved. Youtube, a video uploading website, gets millions of hits per day. I found using Youtube useful during the planning and research stage as I was able to view trailers online, embed them to my blog and analyse them. This would have proved difficult to do ten years ago, when this type of technology was unavailable and therefore the only places you could view trailers were at the cinema or on television. During the construction process of making my trailer, I used a digital camcorder and tripod to help film. The process of using the camcorder was fairly simple as you only need to learn what the different buttons do to know how it functions. During the editing process of my media trailer and ancillary projects I used computer software to carry out edits. To edit my filming for the trailer I used a program called iMovie which was included on the iMAc laptop I was working on. I found iMovie to be a good program to edit with as I was able to cut, add sound and edits with ease. This helped to give my trailer a professional look. When creating my movie poster and magazine front cover I used Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. Having used this product before for previous media coursework, I felt I knew how to use it. I found it useful in editing colours and removing backgrounds to give the poster a more authentic feel. Overall I feel I have learnt a lot about how different technologies go into making a film trailer and that it takes a lot of time and effort to achieve the desired effect, but as you get more experienced with the technology you begin to learn the different shortcuts that help making it seem effortless.
![In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? By analysing existing movie trailers of the horror genre I was able to gain an idea of the typical forms and conventions that they use. I explored four key areas during my research stage. These were: Mise en scene, camera, editing and sound. From my research I was able to discover the different forms and conventions of horror trailers represented in each area. Mise en scene Examples in existing horror trailers People asleep Empty houses Blood How I developed them for my own trailer The victim’s friend is asleep on the sofa when she hears a scream. Danger seems to occur in my trailer when the victim is alone in the house. There is blood in the bath. Sound Examples in existing horror trailers ,[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)