Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventions of not only different medias, but genres or 'labels' are easy to implement into works such as Trailers, Posters and Magazines. But what was challenging was to adapt and change these conventions which would overall create a unique package of media products based around our Film concept.

For example, in my film poster. I used the basic concepts of established film posters such as dark main images, taglines, billing boards, logos ect. which made it look professional as a whole without throwing the whole norm 'our the window' and adopting an avant-garde-style poster. I didn't do this otherwise people may be confused on what message my poster was trying to portray and so these messages wouldn't get across to the viewer.

Typical forms I used where dark, extreme long shot images to portray isolation and darkness to the viewer with the red text to invoke horror and gore. This is very typical of horror movie-type posters.

As well as adhering to the codes and conventions of most typical film posters, I wanted to challenge this in the form of placement within my poster. This can be seen in the place of where the tagline sits. This is isolated from the rest of the text of the poster to give a sense of eerie loneliness as it was faded into the dark.

In other forms, such as the Magazine front cover, I adhered to more typical forms of design such as using puns, titles, text and images in correct places. I felt that it was the best case not to challenge these forms and conventions due to the fact that it was very troublesome to get an almost perfect blend of challenging and normal concepts without it all looking like a cluttered mess.

The colours used in this magazine could say challenge certain aspects due to the fact that it is a Horror Special edition where a lot of black and white is used to conform to horror movie-type characteristics. Otherwise in other types there would be a lot more colour and different stylised fonts, but because I wanted it to look more different i decided to go with this way to challenge this form.

Another form that we adhered to certain forms is in the actual film trailer. Coupled with the minimalistic starting soundtrack (that was also featured on the 2000's horror-movie success, 28 Days Later) and the fast-paced cuts, we didn't want to be experimental in terms of challenging these conventions as overall it wouldn't make our film like the genre we wanted it to be.

The use of long-shots, close-ups, high/low angles and atmospheric build-ups also made our trailer conform to these typical traits of a horror film. The use of red text on our titles also backed this up considering the conotations of red is blood and anger. Throughout our trailer we have this 'unseen horror' of which leads to speculation by the viewer as to what it could be. Because of it being unseen in the trailer, this would want to make the viewer go and see the trailer as they are now curious as to what this is about.

In our trailer the location we used was a woodland area, this is typical for a lot of horror movies as they give a sense of being lost, isolated from the outside world and being hunted. This inconjuntion with out title - called 'The Woods' makes us think rhetorically 'is there something different about this 'Wood'?' which adds even more disturbance to our campaign.

The props we used such as rubber knives and fake blood gave a sense of realism to our trailer - to overall make it look more believable. We also used them because these we also typical conventions of horror movie trailers. In terms of camerawork, we used a wide selection of angles and shots to grab the emotion and atmosphere of the whole trailer. We also decided to use various high-angle shots to make it look like someone was watching the three friends, which again is typical in the horror movie genre.

The title font and style are quite gothic-like and is of red colour. This already backsup the fact that this will be a horror-movie trailer because of the pointed-font and - already stated - conotations of red used.

The storyline for our trailer is very typical to the style of what it will be:

• 3 friends go camping in the woods
• They hear strange noises
• 1 gets lost/disappears
• The others look for him and stumple across the helper
• The villian/enemy is finally defeated (with a few casualties on the way, of course!)

The trailer sets this up quite well as it jumbles some scenes so that it doesnt portray what the actual film would be like, whilst still retaining its understability. This is key as we don't want to give too much of what the film is about since it is only a trailer for it.

I believe that this trailer sucessfully shown the genre it was meant to portray - which was horror. This is because of all the similar conventions we used from existing trailers. For example, we used:

• Dark shots/Minimal lighting
• Close-ups
• Fast-paced cuts to create tension
• Blood/Weapons (not real of course)
• Typical horror-movie setting/storyline
• High-angle shots to show their vunerability, and that someone is watching them.

Characters are introduced by entering the woods and talking to one another. Here they a portrayed to be kind, fun, outgoing friends who decide to go camping one day. This therefore means that they have some sort of connection with the people wathcing the trailer as it looks like they can get along with each other. I believe this follows some areas of Propp's Narrative also as there are 2 heroes, a helper and a villian.

Propp's Narrative is also used in our trailer as the 'Old Man' is shwon to be the Helper and the Donor - who provides a weapon for the two friends to defeat the 'villian'.

Overall I feel that my products devoloped into following most traits of what both a horror movie looks like and how that should be potrayed onto different forms of media. I also believe in come aspects these forms where challanged to give this some sort of unique edge instead of being a very unoriginal campaign for my trailer.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I believe that the the combination of all of my prodocts together are very effective. This is because of the professional design, layout they follow and style they are all of. Another thing is the synergy used between various medias in magazine. First of all, the tagline 'he's waiting for you...' comes up in both the magazine and the poster as well as the same styled film title.

Some other forms of synergy that I used within my products are the social media links for which the viewer can connect with news about the film through the different social media outlets. Another piece of synergy is the production title used in both our poster and film trailer. This is to give the film more credibility as it is by a well known production house. The professional quality that all 3 forms of these portray makes this combination also very good through the use of standard design and following certain conventions that these should all have.

I also believe that the use of grayscaled images in both my magazine and poster give the whole theme of both medias a sinister and dark edge. This gives the viewer less to focus on, so that more infortant features of the images are shown. For example in my poster, the only thing that was properly clear on the image was the two friends looking at the mysterious building. Because of them two only being in shot it gives the connotations of isolationism and fear.

In conclusion, I believe that all together my different pieces of media create a whole professional marketing campaign fused with many forms of synergy throughout. This can be seen from all of the things stated previously as well as some of the fonts and colours used.


What have you learned from your audience feedback?

For our audience feedback we presented our trailer to other students, then gave them sheets to fill out with the following questions:

• In what way does this trailer remind you of other trailers?
• What are the advantages of this trailer?
• What are the disadvantages of this trailer?

Here are copies of the feedback forms that we recieved:

From reading over all of this feedback, I have came to the conclusion that we successfully implemented the typical codes and conventions of a horror film into outs. This is based on the fact that people said that our trailer reminded them of other horror films, and that they liked it because of certain elements - typical of that to horror trailers - that we put into out trailer. This included the soundtrack, the build up of tension throughout and that he has a cliffhanger at the end which would want people to see more of the film.

However, there are always disadvantages. These - although relatively minor - ranged from hard-to-hear dialogue and that not enough of the enemy was scene. Despite this, I believe that this audience research should a lot of positive feedback towards out trailer of which wholely outweighs the negative feedback.