2. 1. What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
4. Eye For an Eye: First Draft Feedback
Change “deadly past”
to “deadly fantasy”
Change font and its
size
Change Strap Line
Font
Rearrange and mirror
the heights and sizes
of images
Reveal less of the
killer
Blend images into
background
7. Eye For An Eye: First Draft Feedback
Feather and use
smoke or adapt the
transparency of
images
Move the actors’
names out from
within the title
Shrink and
potentially change
the shape of social
media buttons
Shrink the title
Provide space for
trailer and billing
box
Rearrange the
positioning of the
components on the
page
10. Eye For An Eye: First Draft Feedback
Don’t just tell a story – hint at it
The killer’s identity is given away too soon and therefore it is wise to loose the full long shots of
the killer and replace it with ambiguous shots of perhaps her hand and feet.
As it lacks a variety of shot types, Nicole and I intend to re-shoot some scenes to show diverse shot
types and fasten the pace through quick shots.
Insert ambiguous and short shots to not give away the story line so easily
Cut up each scene and disperse it through the trailer
Ensure the shots are quick enough to keep up with the fast-paced non-diegetic music
11. Eye For An Eye: Final Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hsr-5fW7A8
12. In what ways does my media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Poster
13. In what ways does my media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Website
14. What have I learned from audience feedback?
Lasso Select
Tool
Magic Wand
Tool
Opacity Tool
15. How effective is the combination of your main
product and ancillary texts?
16. How did you use media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Editor's Notes
These posters all reflect the Horror-Thriller Genre and I have decided to choose these posters in particular as each have elements, themes and conventions that my poster can get inspiration from. I got my inspiration from these posters in particular as ‘The Woman in Black’ and ‘The Final Destination’ posters represent the Horror aspect and the ‘Hostage’ and the ‘Gone’ posters represent the thriller aspect. This means that I have a balanced understanding of both genres and therefore can incorporate both conventions to my media products.
Bearing in mind my inspiration I got from the posters to the prior slide, I have managed to incorporate all the generic horror-thriller conventions to it, such as the eerie, bleak and smoky background like the one in The Woman in Black’s poster. The peculiar font also represents the thriller genre. The darkness and the black and white colour scheme shows that it is bleak. In hindsight, I should have made the antagonist more ambiguous and vaguer so that more questions from the audience can be raised and so that the killer is not revealed to easily. There were many changes that I had to make to produce my second draft and these are most of the feedback that I have received from my teachers, members of the class and my target audience. Reveal less of the killer = As stated before, it was essential that when producing my second draft poster, I had to make sure that I make the antagonist more ambiguous, because if this was my final product, then my target audience would know exactly how the killer looks like and therefore this will have less of an effect for the audience when watching the actual film. Rearrange and mirror the heights and sizes of the images = which is true because it looks quite disorientated and unfinished. The original images are of different sizes anyway and it was quite hard to mirror them exactly so I decided to remove the protagonist for the fact that it doesn’t scare the audience, and looks quite pointless. Change Strap Line Font = There are much scarier and edger fonts than this so I decided to take on the feedback and change it. And also because it looks faint, dim, faded and doesn’t grab the attention of the audience. Change “deadly past” to “deadly fantasy” = Our storyline is that of a killer who killed a man’s mother, father and brother and now out to get his wife who is the protagonist so by changing the strap line to “deadly fantasy” would make more sense in terms of the storyline. Blend images into background = Now, the images of the protagonist and antagonist are very vivid and clear, meaning that it gives away too much, so with the intention of keeping the audience raising questions, and making the antagonist more ambiguous, I have used the ‘Opacity’ tool to blend and fade the image in the background so that the killer looks faint. This will create a more effective and sinister feel to the poster. Seeing as I have decided to remove the protagonist from the poster, I will not have to blend the image in. Change font and its size = The title is one of the most important features of a poster and it should stand out and represent the genre of any film. The fotn didn’t appeal to many of my target audience and therefore I have decided to change it.
Taking into consideration all the feedback received, this is my 2 nd draft poster.
Website Inspiration These two websites have been my inspiration for the making of my website. What interested me the most about ‘The Final Destination’ website is that as soon as I clicked on the link to get on the website, this huge image popped up and gave me a shock. It clearly represents the Horror genre with the massive skull. What I also like is that it looks almost identical to the poster which shows that there is a consistent theme. The Woman in Black’s website is very interesting as it has all the tabs of a website and the trailer their so that the audience can automatically watch it. The colour schemes are eerie and dark which I will use in my website. I will also have space in the centre of my website where my trailer will be inserted.
This is my first draft website and even though I have covered the basic conventions of a website, it still needs a lot of work with the intention of creating an eerie and sinister feel to it. One of my feedbacks was to: Shrink and potentially change the shape of the social media buttons = As it looks now, the icons don’t fit in with the website and stands out for all the wrong reasons, and therefore I have considered shrinking the size and actually changing the icon shape into mini square shaped icons which are black and white and blends in with the background, rather than it sticking out. Feather and use smoke or adapt the transparency of images = Like the feedback I received on my poster, I intend to remove the protagonist altogether and blend in the antagonist using the ‘Opacity’ tool on Photoshop so that the killer blends in with the background. Move the actors’ names out from within the title = As it stands, the website looks very amateur and overcrowded, and there is little space for my trailer to be inserted. Therefore I have decided to remove unnecessary information and shrink the sizes of the components on the webpage. The reason as to why I have decided to remove the names of the actors is because it detracts the audience’s attention off the title as the names of the actors are in the view of the title. It also looks very messy and misplaced to be honest. Rearrange the positioning of the components on the page = Like I said before, everything looks quite messy on the page, so by me removing some components like the protagonist and shifting everything around will leave some room for me to input my trailer in the centre of the webpage. Provide space for trailer and billing box = Once everything is shifted around on the page, I will have enough space to insert my trailer and a billing box as well. Shrink the Title = To be quite frank, the title dominates the page and therefore takes up a lot of the space so I will shrink that.
There is a significant difference between the first and second draft because I had a lot of feedback and I also wasn’t really content about layout of the images in my first draft, so I took on the advice and feedback and changed it.
Despite having efficiently incorporated most of the key components of a professional trailer, there are still a lot of adjustments that had to be made to produce a successful Horror-Thriller trailer.
This is the final trailer that Nicole and I have produced and it’s called “Eye For An Eye”
My main inspiration in the making of my film poster was ‘The Woman In Black’s’ poster. I think that the poster is a credit to the film and looks very dark and eerie which are the regular conventions of any horror film poster. The antagonist in the background looks very faded and mysterious, whereas the protagonist (Daniel Radcliffe) looks very daunting and threatened almost. The fact that half of his face is shown shows ambiguity and raises questions such as why is half his face covered? And why does he look intimidated? For my first draft poster, I put the protagonist and antagonist on either side of the page to show half their faces, and this way I have used and develop forms and conventions, but seeing as I thought it gave away quite a lot of the antagonist, I decided to challenge conventions by removing the protagonist and inserting the whole figure of the killer in the background, put completely fade the killer in so that she looks quite ambiguous. I really like this poster, and therefore I have mainly developed the same forms and conventions for my real media product.
My main inspiration in the making of my film website was ‘The Woman in Black’s’ website. It looks very similar to my website as I have used and developed forms and conventions. The film title is too at the top left hand corner of the screen and I have made space for my trailer to be embedded in the centre like so. My tabs are at the bottom but are more of less the same tabs as the ones used on this website, such as “Gallery” “Story” and “Games”. There is no billing box on ‘The Woman in Black’s’ website which I have inserted on the right hand side of my website. But nonetheless, I think that I have used and developed conventions rather than challenging real media products.
Getting audience feedback was a very important process in helping me to improve my media products to a large extent. I have learned a lot from audience feedback as shown through the progress from my first and second drafts of my media products. In terms of my poster, I didn’t know how to use Photoshop at an advanced level, but after having produced my first draft, I got feedback advising me to using different types of tool such as the ‘Opacity’ tool to feather and blend in the images as well as the ‘clone tool’ to remove all the unwanted parts of an image as well as the ‘magic brush’ tool to clear away the unwanted parts of an image. In terms of my website, the first draft looked very amateur and unprofessional and no matter how many ideas I had to change it, it was the audience feedback that enabled me to produce a poster that they would like to see as they are who I am targeting my film to. In terms of my trailer, the first draft needed the much needed pace and adrenalin that it so lacked. I got the feedback of adding in more quick shots and find fast-paced non diegetic sound which resulted in Nicole and I using “Death Star” which we thought clearly fits in well with the genre of our trailer. But nonetheless, in general I found that the audience feedback that I received was extremely invaluable as it helped me produce much better and professional media products in the end.
In terms of the coherence and continuity of my theme, I have decided to use consistent fonts and colours for the film title, strap line and billing box for my poster and website. This has become my brand as I have incorporated the same name, sign, strap line, symbol and colour combination. Seeing as Nicole and I produced the trailer together we both have different fonts and the one chosen for the trailer is a font that is similar to both of ours but different at the same time. There is a recurring theme of darkness throughout all media products to show my target audience that I have a consisting theme and also shows them that I am using and developing forms and conventions of the horror thriller genre. The colour scheme is too consistent as I have used the colours red, black, white and grey for my poster, website and trailer as well. I have effectively managed to balance the horror and thriller aspect of my media products through gaining a balanced understanding of both the horror and thriller genre through real media texts such as posters, websites and trailers. Through completing research from real media texts I have been able to show consistency and coherency and have been able to come up with three media products that successfully and clearly represent the horror-thriller genre.
With the purpose of producing successful media products, I have used a variety of media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages of this process. I’ve used Photoshop in the making of my poster and website and it has helped me greatly. Photoshop has enabled me to produce a successful and professional and refined poster and website through the tools mentioned in the previous slides. I’ve used Slideshare to put up the many PowerPoints that I’ve made throughout the research and planning process. I’ve used Vimeo to put up my final trailer. I’ve used Blogger to upload my PowerPoints and information about the process of producing these three media products. For example, Blogger came in handy when talking about what we found easy in the making of the trailer, and what we found difficult etc. I’ve used Google for researching and finding inspiration for my media products. I’ve used Microsoft Word to write up notes on what I have researched, as well as used it to create a questionnaire about our trailer that we handed out to our target audience and got feedback from. I’ve used Microsoft PowerPoint to create the many different visual presentations on all my media products. After producing the presentations, it goes on my blog through being uploaded to slideshare first. I’ve put our first draft trailer on Facebook with the intention of getting feedback from our target audience. I’ve put Twitter, Facebook and YouTube icons onto my website like the real media products have done I’ve used YouTube to put my final trailer up and have used YouTube to research other trailers of the same genre for inspiration. I’ve used Final Cut Pro for the making of my trailer, and even though there were difficulties using the programme, it was manageable and we produced a good trailer at the end of it. Nicole and I also used Motion to get our fonts – we tried a live font for our first draft but it slowed down the pace of our trailer, so we changed it. Back into a normal font.
