Movie Poster

As you can see this is me and my partners designed Poster for our horror movie trailer. I will be explaining the reasons why we have used the particular text, font, sizes and colours for the whole poster. We initially chose to stay at two basic colours which is black and white and we done this to make it clear to our target audience of the film. We also added one image which is of the mask, this is also shown throughout the trailer as the main character. We added one piece of text, which was put out as a rhetorical question to our audience so they could gain a brief understanding of the movie. The colours all contrast well and are basic with clear fonts to read and not to outstanding by size.

Magazine Front Cover

This is the final version of me and my partners movie magazine front cover. This is less like our movie poster as we wanted to set out exactly what type of film we are showing and representing. From this, the movie trailer and the movie poster. We made this magazine dark and with much more outstanding text colours which all contrasted well with the black blended in background of the magazine. This makes it look much more scarier and sets out the impression straight away to the audience that it is a horror movie being shown. We added text which would attract an audience to read to find out in more detail about our movie. Alltogether we believed this worked well as the image blends in very well with the background and all the colours link and relate to the movie we are showing.

Evaluation

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

There are several examples of us as group using, developing and challenging media conventions. The first type of convention we used was the music within the trailer which we found on Youtube, it links too many other horror movie trailers which use similar soundtracks to set a scary atmosphere and to heighten the drama. This is a type of convention which is used in every horror trailer and if we chose not to use it, then it would make it much less scarier than if we did use it. The music which we found fit into our movie trailer very well, and linked to the story line we aimed to set towards our target audience. Whilst editing our movie trailer and inputting the soundtrack we found we had to edit the soundtrack to fit the frames of editing process we went through step by step.

The next convention we used a white plain mask which set a scary image throughout the trailer and the reasons why we used it was because as we planned our trailer we found that many scary masks and outfits had been used in the horror trailers to set a scary image and this is the reason why we chose to use a mask. The mask we chose to use sets the whole main storyline throughout and heightens the tension nearer to the end as we do quick shot editing to target our audience with horror media conventions which are typically found. We do not think that our media trailer could of developed into being as successful if we chose not to use this typical type of media convention then the horror side of the trailer may of not been shown as well as it did by using the mask.

Another type of convention which we used was quick shot editing, which is also a typical convention which horror trailers all have in order to increase a scary atmosphere towards the target audience. We used this type of editing nearer the end of our trailer which also helped to increase the tension which we aimed for our target audience to experience the full tension of our trailer with quick shots to the end of the trailer so they can be attracted to go and watch it in the cinema if it was actually let out as a new movie trailer to advertise a horror movie. As the quick editing shots are near the end we also left this to just be all shots of our characters and the murdering scenes which were showed very quickly and at the beginning of our trailer we put text in between shots to tell the story line a bit more and these shots were the longer shots. We used this as a very typical media convention as the beginning is usually building up, (Freitag’s triangle is a clear media convention example implemented in all trailers, including horror trailers), we started with much longer shots at the beginning and had text in between to represent the basic story line and we then moved onto having quick shot editing to heighten the tension of the horror trailer.

The last type of media convention we used was the camera angles which we challenged to have many different camera angles which would automatically link to a typical horror trailer. We showed many close ups to see clearly the faces of our characters to represent their fright throughout the trailer. We also used an unstable camera which is common in horror trailers. This again, adds emphasis to the trailer which is being viewed by the target audience.

Throughout our coursework we didn’t develop any of our own media conventions. However, all of the above are conventions which we challenged to create for our own horror trailer.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

In the construction and research within our coursework, there were several different technologies that we used. The first type of technology which we used was the internet, we used this to help us through the stage of planning our media coursework, and we used this as the start of for the construction of our media work as we had to research many different types of development stages which linked to movie trailer conventions being used.

When we were on the internet we researched Freitag’s triangle to gain an idea of how most trailers build tension and become successful to attract their main target audience. We used the Mac computers to input what we found onto our blog’s to also give ourselves an idea of how we were going to make our movie trailer become a successful horror trailer and to use typical conventions being used in many horror trailers today.

We also researched different types of movie trailers on youtube which was also a type of media technologies which was part of our planning stages. The trailers we found on this type of technology from youtube we found was The Grudge, Shooter and Super bad which were horror, action and comedy. We needed to do this in order to gain more of an idea of how many trailers are put together and then shown towards the target audience. Therefore this gave us a brief idea of how to construct and put together the stages of our horror trailer.

We used the Mac’s for several reasons. The first reason was to access the internet in order for us to research vital elements of our coursework. We also used them to access our blogs. Another type of technology which we used was our laptop which we downloaded Sony Vegas software. This is software which we used to edit our movie trailer and another technology which we used.

We also continued to use the Macs to edit and produce our movie poster and front cover of a movie magazine. On the Macs for this part we used Photoshop Elements to do this part of our coursework.

We also used the schools scanner and a USB to scan our filming schedule and transfer it to the Mac computers to then upload it onto our blogs. We then used blogger again which is proof of us using technology to help us succeed.

The planning and evaluation stages also consisted of us using media technologies; these include devices such as Microsoft word on a computer within our school and Blogger once more. This is due to us writing up our evaluation on word and transferring the documents onto our blogs. We therefore used no other technologies during our planning and evaluation stage. Throughout using all the technologies I have mentioned in detail above, we struggled too use some such as to scan photos to upload on to our blog, and we also found it quite difficult to use the Sony Vegas Software on our laptop, the reason is because it is quite different to the ones which you can edit shots with on the Mac computers. Therefore this took some time to get used to get used to and to start making our video successful through each stage.

What have you learned from your Audience Feedback?

Once we were involved in the editing stage of our movie trailer. Whilst we were editing we gained various different types of audience feedback, and found out what people thought about our movie trailer. We received a lot of different feedback from different people, such as from our Teacher to change the font and colour of the text we used in the movie trailer is it did not relate and contrast well with the action of the movie trailer. This helped me and my partner to edit this part of our movie trailer to change the font text and colour to relate much more with our movie trailer. At first the text was white and was ordinary text, we then both changed it to much more linked and contrasting ‘scary text’ in a dark red on a black background which straight away was a success. Another way in which myself and my partner learnt from Audience Feedback is that at the beginning of our trailer we aimed to follow the typical ‘Freytag Triangle’ which meant that we kept the shots at the beginning quite long and less action was involved and as it got further into the video trailer the shots got faster to build the tension, once again following the ‘Freytag Triangle’. We found from this part of our editing for our movie trailer that the shots at the beginning was a bit to long and some people advised us to shorten them to build much more tension and to not have the movie trailer becoming to boring for our target audience. Many people who analysed and looked through our movie trailer became scared, and this showed more success for me and my partner as this was our original aim before we even shot parts we were going to put in our movie trailer.

Me and my partner also had problems at the beginning of planning and starting our movie trailer as we had limited time as we had less time than most people in our year group, we spent a lot of time re-shooting as we found that no shots were working well with the storyline of our movie. Even though this is a negative part of our whole coursework we learnt from this and had tried very hard throughout to get all our work done to the best standard we could. Me and my partner also found that even though some of the audience feedback was negative it helped us initially to change all the parts which were reviewed and found. Therefore we have learnt in many ways from our Audience Feedback.

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

To start with in our movie trailer we have ensured that the font and text we used in our movie trailer was linked and related in different ways to the story line and the shots we put into our movie trailer. Firstly, the fonts which we used in our movie trailer were red and we put these in-between shots with a black background. The font we used was a horror type of font and we also found that it fit with the story line and the type of horror we were showing towards our target audience. The writing we used in-between the movie trailer all gave an explanation and part of the story line towards the audience so they could get a clear but brief understanding of the movie. We also made sure that we kept the fonts all the same, including the colour as it would help to not make the text to distracting for our audience to understand the brief storyline we were putting across. Therefore we kept the size, font, colour and background colour/image exactly the same throughout the in-between shots where we chose to insert the text edits. We found this was a very good way of keeping our audience engaged and aware of the story line and to not be distracted from the text than to the different shots which made up the horror movie trailer all together.

Cody and Izel Media

Re-shoot and Re-edit

During the process of designing and conducting our movie trailer we went through many different stages of shooting the film we looked to add into our trailer and then moved onto editing our trailer. We had to change many different areas of our trailer when we both watched through the whole trailer and found improvements which could be made to make the trailer much more better. An example of this is that once we decided where to put each movie shot from the video camera we filmed on we found that the text in which we inputted did not link or relate to the movie trailer we were looking to create, we then re-edited this from the writing being plain and white to being bold, and red which was also a scary type of font. Another example is that we went through many different days before we edited the trailer that the shots in which we had was not good enough from what we originally aimed to gain for the trailer so we shot many different characters which we chose and in different locations, so this was a very hard process for us as we had to re-shoot many times in order to gain the best type of shots we could have in order to start editing. The music side of the editing for the trailer was also a difficult process which had to be re-edited a few times in order to gain the best results as before so we then had to cut the music to fit in as well as it could with the movie trailer. we also come across another type of edit we had to look through as it came across to us and help from our teacher that one or two shots was too long which could result in our grade and the result of what we expected our trailer to represent to go down. this meant that we had to make alterations for the shots to be shorter and then to add in extra shots nearer to the end which would make it set a scarier set. throughout the whole re-shoot and edit of our trailer we found all the correct areas which needed to be looked into carefully and we then edited them to fit the purpose we aimed for our movie trailer.

Locations

As you can see from the images me and my partner Cody have taken and then uploaded to our blogs is a clear image of 3 main locations which we used in order to set the horror genre we chose to conduct for our movie trailer. Firstly the image which clearly states a school with a clear image of 'Goffs School' shown as the first image was done to set the main location of what type of characters were involved such as young, vulnerable people still in education and this was all linked to the type of story line we wished to create ultimately to set the horror scene with all the characters and where they were going to be located. The next image is of an alley way which also is another useful location we used in order to set a scary scene and this helped to make the horror trailer much more frightening for our target audience. lastly the next location image me and my partner within our A2 coursework uploaded is then inside the school which also sets the main location as the first image has already done but it makes it much more realistic and easier for our target audience to understand. Also the images i have uploaded are only some of the locations in which we used but they all set a type of scary atmosphere and make it clear to our target audience what type of trailer it is.