A2 Media

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

Kamel Sethi

I think that the combination of my main product and its ancillary texts are quite effective as my target audience will easily be able to spot the distinct links of the theme/genre between my all of my three products. This is very important because as films are released, the audience is targeted by the upcoming attractions which are seen through a trailer or poster which may persuade them to purchase a film magazine where you can gain more information on it.

I showed my Horror trailer to members of the class and other random members of the public. The response was very positive as most people enjoyed our fast paced soundtrack and the fast cutting scenes technique which they thought was the codes and conventions that are used in real life Horror trailers e.g. “Halloween” (2007). However, I also gained some feedback which helped to improve my final media product, I was told by many people that our soundtrack was getting in the way of the dialogue scenes. This was shortly improved by lowering the tone at certain scenes which helped to understand the dialogues more clearly.

After I printed the poster of my film I decided to take it to the cinema and ask audiences and staff members what they expected the film to be about. Every member that I questioned immediately spotted the genre as horror due to the use of black and red colours which give an indication of blood, darkness and violence. The imagery of a person who looked quite horrific, the title of the film “Death Sense” and its tag line of “The Killing Begins”. This helps to provide very important feedback to know that my poster in not misleading which some film posters may be.
However, I also received some criticism on the use of colours of my fonts, as the main title is in white whereas the tag line is in red. This leads to more concentration on the tag line than the main title itself which could lead the audience confused or may not even remember the name due to there being a bigger attraction towards the tag line. These types of feedback are important as you are able to take this on board and make improvement on this in the future to create a much better and improved final product.

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

Kamel Sethi

The media product we created was a trailer for a Horror film. I used but also challenged the forms and conventions of real media products. Firstly I researched the different conventions that are used in real media products in order to make mine look as realistic as possible and appear to be part of the current media industry. However, we also wanted to add on its own unique touch to attract a wider audience.
The typical conventions of Horror trailers are its use of dramatic sounds, use of colours e.g. black, red and white; leaving it suspenseful to keep the audience curious into watching the film in cinemas. Out of these we used the colours of black and white in our trailer and specifically have only included night scenes which indicate darkness and evil. We also used a fast paced soundtrack and fast cutting scenes to keep the audience on the edge and wanting to see more of it. However, we also challenged these conventions as we also wanted to add our own unique touch to the trailer. This was done by keeping one fast paced soundtrack throughout the whole trailer to prevent the suspense and excitement of the scenes from decreasing.

This is the scene of the Killer eating his victim's flesh:

While looking at other Horror trailers such as the latest “Saw 3D” and “Scream 4” I spotted that the title of the film is usually shown at the end of the trailer. We used this to our advantage as we also thought that having the main title shown at the end of our trailer would seem more appropriate. This is because we have used text from start to end to keep the audience at a tense level e.g. “London… Has A New Demon…”; finally ending with the title of the film so it is the last thing that is remembered and will easily be recognised when going to a cinema.

Below is a screen grab of our title which appears at the end of our trailer:

While doing my research I clearly recognised that most Horror posters are quite horrific and violent. I used this to my advantage by using the colours red, black and white which connate blood, darkness/evil and purity (in contrast) respectively, these are mostly associated with the Horror genre. My poster only contains the main character (villain) that looks intimidating, this technique is also used in the popular “SAW” movies particularly the second. However, I have challenged the conventions used in saw poster by having a different layer style which I thought was more appropriate for the poster e.g. title being in the top centre and the character directly in the middle. This helps to gain more attention at both imagery and title from your target audience.

Below is my film poster and another horror related film (SAW)

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Shaddy Koujan

Film trailer

We showed our film trailer to the class and gained both positive and negative feedback. The class enjoyed the fast paced scenes and said that our soundtrack was complimentary to the product. They also liked the font used and said that it is relative to the genre.

We also gained criticism on the use of diegetic sound as it was a bit unclear and some of the lighting in the scenes did not match throughout. We took the criticism on board and made improvements by re-recording some scenes using headphones in order to prevent us from picking up unwanted noise, this helped to make a better and more professional product. In order to tackle the problem of lighting we used the colour corrector feature of Final Cut Express which resulted in clearer, enhanced footage and quality. We also uploaded the video to Facebook however we did not receive any responses.

Ancillary tasks

Movie Poster:

The feedback I gained from the public was very positive. They particularly liked the background image and colour scheme. It was clear to the public that my product was of the horror genre which meant that I accomplished my aim. A member of public advised me to change the font on my movie poster as it was a bit unclear of what the title was, so I changed it to a clearer one which still related to the style of my product.

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

Shaddy Koujan

Research and Planning

To gain an idea in the codes and conventions of a trailer we watched alot of videos on Youtube from our selected genre which was Horror e.g. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u8blffLgtc). This was very useful as it gave us an insight into the camera angles used and also helped fuel our creativity. Another useful website which we used to watch video trailers was Vimeo; Vimeo is a good website as it contains many videos from people who make films and media projects for a passion. The Internet in general was a very useful tool in our researching process, because of the volume of depth of information available.

Construction

During the construction stage we used a video camera to film our horror trailer. To provide more stability in our footage we used a tripod though tripods make the shot static they do prevent smaller vibrations & we didn’t want a ‘handheld’ effect. In order for the diegetic sound in our trailer to be clear and not distorted by the sounds of the surroundings we used a microphone and headphones this focused our hearing not on the “atmos” sounds but on the dialogue. Our film trailer was edited using Final Cut Express, this software is excellent as it is straightforward to use and contains many features such as special effects and colour correction.

I have used the website Blogger to upload all my work such as the planning stages which includes an actor list, synopsis & script. Blogger was used to upload all the different stages of our work &works like a production diary detailing the different stages of the construction. This website is great as it means it can be accessed by people to view our work and also by teacher to mark it.