1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In the brief of our coursework we were asked to produce 3 media products: a film magazine, a horror poster and a horror trailer. My research about existing media product’s conventions inspired me to produce my own products and the development and production of my products would be based on my research. The first step I took for the research was to go on youtube and look at the trailers and posters from the horror film I have seen, these were: The uninvited, Disturbia, What lies beneath, On missed call, The blair witch project, Saw, Amitville, My bloody valentine, Paranormal activity, Wolf creek, The crazies, The strangers and Final destination. This is what they have in common: blood, death, victims, villain, isolated settings, evil, darkness, monsters, haunted houses, killing, weapons, storms, chase sequences, violence and screams. Some of these findings I decided to use them for my own media products.
TRAILER
To produce our trailer, we were mainly inspired by “The uninvited” trailer (Shown above). We wanted to create a similar storyline, but at the same time we wanted to challenge its conventions by creating our own ones. Our aim was to make it realistic so the audience can identify with it and to create suspense as in my questionnaire SUSPENSE was the kind of films the majority of my audience would like to watch.
Firstly, we followed the convention of using text to outline the story. This is why we decided to put little of dialogue so the trailer did not become too narrative. The following trailer if from “Teeth” and it inspired us as well to include narrative text:
As I said above,we wanted to follow some of our findings from our research, therefore, we thought that BLOOD was a very important and one of the main symbol of horror so we include a scene of some hands full of blood as the last scene of the whole trailer so the audience ask themselves “who where these hands of? and why they were full of blood?”. The following video is from “My bloody valentine” trailer and we could see some hands with blood:
We also decided to include a VICTIM throughout our trailer, as in “the uninvited” trailer, we did this with the main character “Lucy” (Me) and we did this by showing her isolated on the first scenes of the trailer, then another scene of her talking to her psychologist, then she is running alone through a hospital, then she was having trouble sleeping, etc. In addition, we use the convention of DEATH by filming a scene at the graveyard. A VILLAIN was another finding from our research and we tried to show it at the end of the trailer where there is a guy hiding something by throwing it to the river, this could be an evidence of a murder he did, we also try to include here a WEAPON which the villain used for the murder and he was hiding it. STORMS we tried to show it with filming during cloudy days. HUNTED HOUSES we tried to include it in our trailer through the scene of “Lucy” (Me) when she is tidying her hair up, you can see clearly that she is in her bedroom and suddenly she moves and you can see that someone appears on her back and then disappears again. The following video from “Amitville” trailer is an example of hunted houses:
We decided to add “COLD SPRING PRESENTS” because we found it in “The uninvited” trailer along with “Disturbia”.
However, one of the conventions we challenged was that the name of our trailer UNREALITY which was shown close to the middle, and in “the uninvited” trailer, and several other trailers, there name of the film is shown at the end of the trailer.
We also decided to create a sense of disorientation in the scenes in the cantine when Anna is walking and suddenly the next scene a different girl is walking whereas Anna is just standing.
POSTER
To create my own poster, I was again inspired by “The uninvited” poster. I followed some of its conventions and I also followed some other poster conventions. Firstly, I decided to use a similar picture because I wanted to hide the identity. I did not use a window because I wanted my to be original, so I made mine as the girl is looking at the audience and make the audience question where the girl is and why is she looking at them. The audience could see that she is in a creepy place because of the trees and with some sort of fog. The obscured face is creepy because if the audience stare at the face they could feel that the face will come out and scare them. Another convention I have used was the creepy font and I could find this in most of horror posters. For example:
Furthermore, I also decided to include some font in red colour to represent blood and death. I found that this is a common convention of horror posters. The following poster is an example of this convention:
Most of horror posters have dark edges so the audiences focus on the middle of the poster. I have decided to do this in mine so the audience focus on the girl. I also think that this is a technique to make the poster look dark and also to make it more look black and white. The “Amityville” is one of the horror poster where I found the dark and shaded edges:
In the amytyville poster there is a tag line below the name of the film, and this is a very common conventions of film posters and I decided to use it by putting “what you don’t know may shock you”. My poster also includes the release date of the film which is a common convention of film posters. However, I have included the “names of the characters” and this is not a common convention, but I wanted to challenge it so I included them on the top of my poster with a creepy font and red colour and this connotes that this characters may either died, kill or be evils in the film.
MAGAZINE
For my film magazine, I was mainly inspired by “Total film” magazine. I have found this front cover which specifically matched what I wanted to produce because it is promoting a horror film. One of the findings from this magazine front cover is that to promote a horror magazine I could include a creepy and scary picture, as Total film magazine does by including an evil model with blood in her hand. So I have chosen the same picture I have used for my poster because it is scary and also because I wanted the promotion of my film to work well and keep consistency. However, I did not want to have exactly the same image of my poster because I thought it would be too simple so I decided to take rid of the black around the girl and the background. I also did this because I did want my magazine to be over charged with too much as a background and it would not work well. One of the conventions I used from Total film was the use of shapes, I decided I wanted to include shapes in my front cover and I also wanted to challenge this convention so instead of using an arrow. I used the symbol of a movie reel to represent more the genre of my magazine. Furthermore, the name of the film that my magazine is promoting (UNREALITY) has a big size of font because normally most of film magazines does this to grab the audience’s attention, an example of this:
What I wanted for my film magazine was to make it creepy with the image but at the same time to keep it professional as a film magazine. I did this through the colours and type of font I have used for EXCLUSIVE and for the other headings, because they suit film magazines. I have only used a creepy font for the name of the film and this matches the image. Another convention of film magazines that I have used was that they all include a small description under the name of the film that it is promoting. This is to persuade the audience to read about the film inside the magazine. For example:
All of these 3 film magazine front covers placed the model in front of the name of the magazine and I did the same. This is to make the film important and significant and also it means that the magazine is popular and even though the audience cannot read the name properly they know which magazine is. A common convention which I used was that magazine front covers normally include bar code, price and date of issue, I did this because I wanted my film magazine to look professional.
2) How effective is the combination of your main product (trailer) and ancillary texts (Film Poster, Film Mag Cover)?
I consider that the combination of my main product and ancillary texts work well because there is a consistency throughout them. There is a link for a number of reasons. First, the text I included on the poster and the magazine with the name of the film, is white and the font type is bold for both, and the text I have used for the trailer is also white and with bold font. The images I have used for the magazine and the poster are very similar. The tag line is a very important link of the 3 products because in the poster I put “what you don’t know may shock you”, then in the magazine I put “exclusive interview with the directors” and then “what you don’t know ABOUT THEM may shock you”, and there is clearly a link there. This tag line goes with the trailer and the name UNREALITY because if something is unreal you find it hard to believe. In the text we put that something happened that changed the relationship with this 2 girls, and what happened may shock the audience. Lastly, I think that my 3 media products create a a sense of suspense and fear. They leave questions to the audience and the audience may want to find out more. The hidden identity of the girl in the poster and the magazine, and then in the trailer not knowing what happened between these 2 girls (sisters) and who the killer (if there is) really is, leave intrigue to the audience.
3) What have you learned from audience feedback?
I have learned from the audience’s feedback what should I improve for my next media production in the future. It helped me to understand what is good or whats bad of my trailer, poster and trailer andto identify my weakness and strengths as well. In addition, the audience feedback was so useful not only to understand more the common conventions of these media products, but to understand and gain knowledge about what really makes the audience happy and what they are expecting to see in media products. I have realized how vital this is (what satisfies the audience) for any kind of media text because the audience is the aim of media products and in order for the products to be successful and effective, most of the audience’s needs or wants should be met. Producers need to know this before releasing any kind of media text. We learned that we cannot think or focus only on our ideas and on what we think, but to think about the audience as well. I think that that was one of our mistakes. For instance, we realized that only us could understand the storyline of our trailer very well, because for the audience was difficult and they thought that “the storyline was vague”. The audience thought that some of the scenes did not make sense.
On the other hand, I thought that that the picture I used for the poster and the magazine did not match very well the name of the film unreality. However, I have learned from the audience’s feedback that the picture I used was successful and effective in terms of being scary. In order to be more successful and effective when promoting a film, every media text needs to work well with each other and must have a meaning in relation to the name of film and what the film is about.
Overall, I have used audience feedback to measure the success of my objectives. They said that there is a suspense in my trailer, that it was interesting because there is a variety of scenes and locations and that the text helps the audience to understand he story, this tells me that my objectives were successfully met. However, I was disappointed as one of my most important objectives which was to create fear (to meet an important horror trailer convention) was not as successful because the audience thought that it was not scary and they did not feel fear about it.
4) How did you use technologies in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation stages?
For the construction, research planning and evaluation I have used a number of technologies. These were: blog (wordpress), the internet (google), youtube, filming equipment, imovie and photoshop.
Research
For my research, the main technology I have used was google and youtube. I mainly researched about existing media products. I used youtube several times to look at other horror trailers and to find horror music/sounds. I researched on google to find more information about horror and common conventions.
Construction
This is the stage where I used technology the most. Photoshop was extremely useful when designing and producing my horror poster and film magazine; I used several of its features that I needed to make my products to look how I wanted them to look.
Imovie was another software that we used for the editing of our trailer; it helped us to add special effects and music that contribute in meeting horror conventions.
To film and produce all the scenes that we wanted to include in our trailer we used 3 equipments; a filming camera, a tripod and a microphone. However the microphone was not always available for us to use therefore we struggle to hear the voices/dialogue in some of the scenes. The tripod made our shots to look more professional. In addition, we used digital camers in order to take pictures during the filming of our scenes.
Evaluation
For this stage, I mainly used the blogs technology. It was easy to use and to understand. I also had the opportunity to make screen shots of my work and show this as an evidence in my blogs. The blogs were so useful in terms of writing every detail about every stage of the production of my media products. In my blogs I not only included screenshots, but also videos, images from internet and a graph from my questionnaire. I used youtube to upload my trailer so I could show it on my blogs as well.
