1. Evaluation: Question one

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop, or
challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
In order to understand how real media products are conveyed and what
forms and conventions they use, I had to research each product I was
going to produce. The products included analysing professional film
magazines, posters and teaser trailers.
I also then researched my target audience as every media product is aimed at
someone, through this, I was able to create my focus group survey and my
viewer profile. The ancillary texts and teaser trailers I looked at where the
same genre as what I planned my media product to be, this helped me
gain a greater insight to how to replicate it.

3. Here shows my teaser trailer using the conventions of a thriller real media
product as I incorporated a lot of running scenes to keep the upbeat
theme of what thrillers include.
Whilst analysing professional teaser trailers, I noticed that most had light and
dark scenes, so due to the difficulty of filming in the dark I decided to keep
all my scenes in afternoon lighting, therefore it is not bright light but not
pitch black.

4. I noticed that one of my teaser trailers I analysed started with an establishing shot
which is why I chose to start with this as I believe it sets the atmosphere for the film.
Also, as my teaser trailer is set in an estate, the establishing shot helps my audience
to relate to it as most people are familiar with an estate, being that they live on one
or they know people that do.

5. I am aware that convention helps make the genre more recognisable which is
why from my research I picked out certain aspects to apply to my teaser
trailer.
One of these aspects is quick jump cuts which help keep the flow of the
trailer and gives it a real sense of excitement.
Here are some screen gabs of the same scene but from a different
angle where I used a jump cut to conjoin them.

6. Above is an image of my final poster for my teaser trailer ‘The Code’ I
decided to follow the conventions of the posters I analysed by not putting
much information about the film (release date and credits) as I believe this
poster alongside the trailer will be released well before the film is finished.
Another convention I followed was to add a tag ling.

7. Here is my magazine cover. I chose to
follow the form of total film’s
magazine covers to give mine a more
authentic look.
By doing so, I used the masthead and
selling line that Total film use and I
also added a barcode, date and issue
number.

8. Here is the copy of Total film that I analysed
and as you can see I used the same
masthead and selling line in the same
place.
I also placed two coverlines to the left so
they do not obstruct the main image.
Here you
can see the
similarities.

9. How effective is the combination of your main product and
ancillary texts?
I think my main product and ancillary texts are very effective as the theme is
continuous throughout, therefore it is easy to link each piece together and make
the connection that they are of the same genre.
For example, in my poster and magazine, I generally kept the same colours so they are
easily identifiable.

10. Following on, I think the effectiveness works well as they portray a clear link as I used
the same characters on each product. Also, the theme is a continuous one as my
magazine and poster both show a grotty atmosphere and intensity.
Overall on the magazine we can see there is something going on by the look in the
actress’ face. And the same with the poster, we question what is going on as to
why she is sitting on a step looking over her shoulder.
Here we see a close up of the
actress on the magazine cover.
The expression on her face is
gazing somewhere making the
audience question what she could
be looking at.

11. From the magazine
masthead
From the poster title
Here we can see I used the same colour scheme from
both ancillary texts to keep the link identifiable and
also the dark colours help illustrate the mood and
genre of the products.

12. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
From my audience feedback, I learnt what type of product they would like which was a
thriller with aspects of a conventional trailer, but also a bit unconventional to make
it less predictable.
I found this out due to my research by conducting a focus group which consisted of 10
males as this was who my target audience was. I then showed them a professional
trailer and asked what they liked/disliked about it and this was what I then applied
to my own product.
A screen grab of my questions
for my focus group.

13. www.youtube.comhttp://www.youtube.com/embed/4ugrmhiombc
Above is the URL of my teaser trailer where you will be able to view it.
The audience feedback I got was overall it was easy to tell the genre of the teaser
trailer. However one went on to say they feel it is obviously a low budget film as
the area it is set in makes it clear. He also said I could have done more to make it
appear more professional looking as this would attract more viewers.
Another commented on the use of different camera angles to film the same scene. He
said, “I like the way the camera jumps from one view to another as it gives a sense
of reality like you are there in the film”

14. There was mixed reviews on the sound of a heartbeat over the trailer.
“I think you should have made it so you could hear the dialogue as there is obviously
things being said like in the phone booth scene for instance.”
“I really like the heartbeat sound as it helps build up the pace of the trailer until it
reaches a climax at the end where the phone is slammed down. Plus it makes you
intrigued as to what is being said.”

15. How did you use new media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?
For the construction of my final products, the main things used where Final cut pro (to
edit my filming for the teaser trailer), Adobe Photoshop (to edit my magazine
cover and poster) and a digital camera (to actually film the teaser trailer).
For the research and planning I used the internet search engine Google to find images
of the professional magazine covers and posters, and I also used YouTube to find
the professional teaser trailers I analysed. Excel was used to produce the graphs
for my questionnaire findings, and slideshare for the photographic storyboard.

16. Here is the original picture I took for my poster. As it is too bright, I edited
the colour on Photoshop to make it appear darker and give it a more
gloomy atmosphere to fit in with my thriller genre.
I also added a glow effect over the picture to give it a more professional
look that film posters have.

17. The final product of the poster and you can see how the brightness of the
original picture has gone, for instance on the actress’ jacket you can see how
much darker it looks.
Using Photoshop I also added in the text to complete my poster.

18. The original picture used for my
magazine cover, same light the
previous picture was edited on
Photoshop, however this time I
kept the original brightness as I
thought it worked well for a
magazine.
Instead I simply added on text in
the forms of the masthead, main
coverline and coverlines.

19. The comparison of the original picture to the magazine
cover. As you can see the same colours were used for
both magazine and poster and I used a yellow text to
make it a bit more eye catching.

20. Here is a screen grab for the use of
excel to create my graphs from the
data gathered from my
questionnaire. I then uploaded
these graphs to the Wordpress
blog.

21. Screen grabs of my final product of the teaser trailer
which were cut and edited on final cut pro, then uploaded
to YouTube and then to the Wordpress blog.

22. Overall I am pleased with my final products and feel I have used to skills I have
acquired over the AS and A2 period to the best of my ability, and have also gained
futher skills.

23. Yasmin Marriott-Dixon
A2 Media