1. G324 advanced portfolio,
Evaluation Media

2. Initial brief and goal given at the start of the
year.
As part of the promotional package, I need to create a few
different forms of media to successfully make it look
realistic.
Most importantly a 2 minute long film teaser/trailer
This will be filmed with a high definition video camera. When it
is all filmed I shall use software like Final Cut Pro to piece it
altogether into a plausible trailer.
Next will be the promotional magazine front cover for a film
magazine. Also I need to create magazine cover for my film.
Both these will be taken with a digital camera. This should be
edited with software like Photoshop to alter the images in
any way possible. After all the photos have been edited I
shall piece together all the bits to form my cover

3. Early on in the year, I decided that the genre I wanted to create a film
for was the action/adventure film. All my life I had watched many
films of that genre and loved the fast pace of the action as I never
knew what was going to happen.
Personally I always found the film posters and trailers of this genre to
be the ones that caught my attention mostly and that the
mainstream way of distributing a film trailer to the public via the
screen worked most effective for action/ adventure movies and
were the ones I remembered the most after leaving the cinema.
After doing a little research into who likes the genre the most, I
discovered it was a lot more appealing to a wide range of ages
than other types like thriller, historical or horror. Therefore I
decided that my age group could be anything from 11 years old
onwards. However the age I focused on appealing more to was
the teenage/young adult market as many film franchises aimed at
them are doing well at the moment. From these decisions I chose
the age rayting to be 12A as it seems to be the deafault age rating
for the genre

4. How does my film trailer challenge the
conventions of media products?
My media coursework's final products tend to conform to the typical
conventions of the Action/Adventure genre of film.
The trailer is set out in the traditional way a film trailer of this genre
is. The first half of the trailer builds up tension and suspense till a
certain point before being followed by a series o dramatic shots
accompanied by equally dramatic music.
I found my chosen piece of music by watching the trailer of of a
video game. I liked the music straight away as I felt that the
impact it had by drawing me into the action onscreen was very
effective. From this point I was curious if I could use this music to
have the same effect on the audience of my trailer.
The trailer consists of purely basic cuts. This decision was made in
order for the short, sharp cuts of the editing to be representative
of the fast pace of the footage and the music.

5. How does my film poster cover challenge the
conventions of media products?
Initially I spent the majority of my media lessons researching the
action/adventure genre. Although the trailers seem to follow a
similar pattern of how they are structured, the film posters are
less structured to a specific template. The images taken and
how they are used to compose the poster are subject to
personal preference and what an individual believes conforms to
the genre.
This greater freedom I had on the poster compared to the
magazine and the trailer itself was something I enjoyed. The
lower level of strictness the conventions meant that I had more
of a clean slate to create exactly how I envisioned my poster to
look. Although I wasn't quite sure of how exactly I wanted
everything to be laid out in the final draft, from the start I had a
clear idea on what I thought would be effective.

6. How does my magazine front cover challenge
the conventions of media products?
The magazine front cover could be argued to be slightly
unconventional as it doesn't feature the main character as the
main focus. Instead the main focus is on a battered looking
western-style wanted poster requesting the capture of the main
film character.
This tie-in to the film could also be argued as an example of a
form of convention many film magazines are starting to do
more. A new recent way of drawing the readers attention to the
magazine is, instead of just featuring a much anticipated film
as the main focus of the film, to dedicate the whole front cover
to it. This includes redesigning the layout, altering font style,
colour and size and sometimes making it holographic. My front
cover has followed this trend by having it dedicated solely to
my film.

7. How effective is the combination of your main
product and ancillary texts?
In my opinion my three forms of media work quite well together.
In order to keep them from seeming disjointed I have kept the
theme of a Wanted poster heavily present in all of them.
Throughout my pieces, I tried to keep a old-fashioned style
by creating a parchment looking texture to become my
wanted poster featured on the magazine front cover. I wanted
the old-fashioned style to stand out when surrounded by other
films that focus heavily on looking modern or futuristic in their
posters..
In all of my pieces, I kept to a very natural colour scheme by
sticking to shades of brown, red, black and grey to order.
Brown is a colour whose connotations are that of simplicity,
aged things and nature, all things I wanted my magazine
cover to show. The red represents the fire and anger that the
“government traitors”, the lead group of characters in my
trailer feel towards the antagonist group.

8. What have you learned from audience
feedback?
All the way through the project I have relied heavily on audience
feedback. My decision to make a action/adventure film trailer
was made through audience feedback in the form of a survey
and online research. When the time came to start to make my
three forms of media, I took what I had learned previously and
incorporated it into my first drafts.
As I experimented with what looked effective and what didn't with
each draft, I kept myself open to all feedback I got from people
and decided whether it would work well enough or not if
incorporated. My final draft of my film poster was amended
many, many times in the last few weeks as I, and my audience,
did not find it to look quite right.

9. How has new media technologies been used
in the planning and construction stages?
Initial planning stage
As previously stated on the previous slide, I used the internet
heavily in the initial planning stage. After creating an online
survey to see what genres of film the population liked best and
for what reasons, I turned to Youtube to watch some trailers of
that genre and note down what I liked about them and what
emotion it conjured up in me. I did the same for why I didn't like
it is that was the case as well. After about 3-4 lessons of doing
this I had created a fairly long list of film trailers and where
they appeal to the audience. After I had concisely researched
film trailers I restarted the process, this time browsing Google
for film posters.
From this list, I began to devise what I wanted to put in my film
trailer and poster.

10. How has new media technologies been used
in the planning and construction stages?
Construction stage
The creation of my film poster has been dependent on new media
technologies. As I have only used Photoshop for last year's
coursework, my skill level is very low. Therefore I decided to use
Youtube as a resource to teach me how to create certain images with
Photoshop. Through using a tutorial, I created a realistic looking
Wanted poster, complete with rips around the edges, parchment
marks and faded text. Not only was this building my confidence but I
was able to have full control over my project that otherwise would
possibly of had to be changed to something I could actually do on
Photoshop
The other way I used technology was by using my iphone as a mini
camera. If I was walking around and saw something that either
inspired me or I wanted to incorporate I would use it to photograph
the object then use the trend of convergence media to edit and e-mail
it to my computer.

11. Self-analysed conclusion
Personally I do not feel entirely happy with how my project
turned out. Although I am filed with pride when I look at my
handiwork and recall all the new skills I used and
incorporated into it, I feel like I could of done far better than I
did. My lack of familiarity with editing software such as
Photoshop and imovie and my lack of knowledge on the
subject of photography meant I had a disadvantage from the
start.
Because I frequently changed film poster and magazine cover
to how I wanted them to look, I overlooked the film trailer
and how much work that also needed for a good portion of
the time. This has led to me being less than satisfied with its
outcome. I feel that given more time, I could of smoothed
out the issues I have with my trailer and made it better. And
more as I imagined to to be initially.