4. In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Teaser “ Religion and religious images play an important role in the success of horror films” Douglas Cowan
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7. In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Poster
8. In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Poster Title Tagline Production/ distribution logos Website Dateline Billing Box Main Image
9. In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Website
10. In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Website Title Tagline Production/ distribution logos Social networking buttons Links to different pages Billing Box Main Image Dateline
11. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text? Teaser Poster Website Font, Colour Scheme, Imagery, Language.
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13. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
14. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
15. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Editor's Notes
This is an evaluation for my teaser, website, and poster. Firstly, the codes and conventions of a normal teaser trailer include that they usually last for a short length of time which is generally 30-60 seconds therefore as ours was 54 seconds, it fit in with the timing. Even though our teaser was 54 seconds, I felt that the timing was perfect because we managed to show just about enough in order to really appeal to the audience. I felt that it our teaser was longer, the audience could have possibly started to get distracted or have been put off. Another code and convention followed was the film name given at the end which is shown above. We played this right at the end of the teaser and we added an effect to it so that the audience can be familiar with the film name. Usually a teaser should allow audience to ask questions of what will happen in the film as the teaser shouldn’t give it all away. I believe that our teaser has managed to really appeal to the audience and interest them into wanting to find out what happens next, and why the masked character is chasing the main character, as well as what the necklace has to do with everything.
We decided to create a teaser trailer called Haunted which was based on Horror and Thriller. We stuck to the horror conventions by having a killer in disguise, and we also dressed the killer appropriately to add effect, for example wearing a long black jacket with a white mask, holding a knife with fake blood. We used a variety of effects that we felt went well with out trailer as it added the correct suspense to the scenes for example the effect strobe and trails allows us to make the masked character appeal to the audience due to the way it appears straight away on screen for a split second with a neon firey colour to it. We used the effect blink as we believe this caught the viewers eyes and seeing many different pictures at once allowed them to be involved with the teaser without getting distracted. When watching a horror/thriller teaser, the audience expect many things in their head such as murder, a victim, suspense, a cliff-hanger and so on.
When researching other horror / thriller films such as ‘Scream’ and ‘Paranormal Activity’, I managed to find that there were some links between them in which we used in our own trailer. This had parts to do with religion and supernatural situations and made the trailer a whole lot more interesting, as the viewers even questioned on it and were wanting to find out more into the relevance of it. In our trailer, the villain is abnormal with an isolated past in which she was controlled by the devil through a religious necklace, as we believe that this necklace had given her powers from God. When researching, we came across a quote from Douglas Cowan which stated ‘religion and religious images play an important role in the success of horror films’ and this quote appealed to us into using a religious symbol. As in ‘Scream’, in the end of the film their villain is disguised and shown to be mentally disturbed and this is the idea that we have picked up on for our own trailer.
We took our shots late at night therefore it was very dark. The three locations we chose to base our scenes in are Regents park, Regents park estate, and a garage. We liked the idea of using dark streets and places as they gave the sense of isolation and abandonment. Dark colours usually link to evil, blood, and danger. When filming we decided to use lighting that could help to create dark shadows and unfamiliar shapes in the dark. This helped to express the genre of horror. In order to express thriller, I felt that the camera work and the effects managed to do this as we used many different angle shots such as close-ups, high and low angle shots as this connotes fear and suspense. By using shots such as blink, along with the close-ups, this makes the audience jump as the fast images would scare them and keep them appealed with the trailer. The three locations managed to fit perfectly with our story as in these locations, we could find different spots in which emphasised the genre for example when going to regents park, we managed to film at the canal aswell and this canal seemed terrifying as it was empty and looked creepy. In the estate, we managed to take good clips from two different stair cases, as well as film a clip which had a great impact on it as told by our audience, of which is when the masked character grabs the main character outside the lift.
When looking at previous trailers such as the last exorcism, I found that the music in the trailers really help to build up the suspense and create tension. This was emphasised when I repeated the trailers on mute as they did not seem as scary there we felt that music is a huge park of revealing the genre. Apart from music, I felt that voice overs also add an effect onto the trailer for example a slow paced female voice speaking over a certain clip, which is what we used and this added great effect and appealed to the audience. Also, heavy breathing is effective and different sudden beats. We researched different types of music from many websites that were not copyright, until we found a clip that matched perfectly with our trailer. After cutting the clip down, we played the trailer and found that the fast and heavy beats worked perfectly with the sudden blinks in the trailer, and the fast upbeat tempo also worked perfectly with the fast chase scenes in the trailer. When receiving feedback, the main thing that the audience pointed out was how effective the music was along with the trailer. As soon as the slow music stops from the beginning scenes, the music pauses and the first thing that suddenly appears is this image of the mask shown above, with a strobe effect on it. This is shown along with the fast music as soon as it starts after the pause, so that the audience are drawn into the teaser especially at this moment. The second picture is the staircase picture where it shows the masked character watching the victim, then trying to catch the victim. This is played along with the speedy music to emphasise the chase and thrill.
The posters I looked at and analysed properly were “The last Exorcism” and “Case 39”. I managed to take a look at “Paranormal activity” and “Scream” as well as these movies had the same genre as mine therefore it was interesting to see what they used, and the codes and conventions they followed. I managed to find that Paranormal Activity and Scream both linked as they did not follow the codes and conventions of having a billing box, and hardly any writing on the poster. Scream used a picture in which generally took up the whole poster itself which was effective as the mask emphasises a scary story to it which appeals to the audience. I liked the idea used in the poster “The Crazies” of an object as the main picture as it does not give too much away however the picture itself is effective as the audience would realise that its related to the plot in the story. I decided to follow conventions for my own poster.
This is my poster for the teaser trailer. I followed the idea of having an object as the main image from the poster “The crazies” as I felt that this was very effective by having a picture of a knife with blood as this looked very spooky. This also helped to keep the poster simple yet frightening at the same time. I decided to follow the main conventions of including a billing box, tagline, title, website, production/distribution logos. I made my title quite big in order to be appealing when looking at the website. I also used the Rat infested font as I felt that it added a good effect to the word ‘haunted’. Unlike on ‘the last exorcism’ poster, I did not include quotes onto my poster as I felt that this could be a bit too much for it. I also chose not to include an age rating. I felt that the image is effective as it does not give away the character in the story or who may be holding this knife therefore it makes the audience question it. The billing box was necessary legal information of which included the main actors names as well as other names for example the editors and directors. I added a dateline as this informs the audience of when the film is out however I included “Coming soon” rather than an actual month. I believe that a tag line is effective towards the audience because after reading it, they will start to question what it could mean or what it could relate to. By having the tag line of “Do not touch what is not yours” this adds effect because the audience would then wonder what this could be talking about in relevance to the horror trailer. I also followed conventions by keeping the poster landscape.
These are the two websites I analysed, and wrote what I liked and disliked about it. I followed the codes and conventions of having the poster image on the website and just rearranged it. Even thought the website above for “The last exorcism” looks very detailed, it is still effective in the way it has been laid out as it appeals to the viewers and makes them want to keep reading and finding out about the film. Both websites create a gloomy and mysterious atmosphere for the audience. The case 39 website plays the trailer straight away and this will keep the viewers attached onto the screen as they would be very interested in watching it due to the effective picture and colours used on the website.
This is my website for the teaser trailer. I followed the idea of using the poster picture onto the website however adding the trailer on a new side on the right along with the website, billing box, social networking buttons, tagline, website, and production/distribution logos. I kept exactly the same title, tagline, billing box, and dateline as the poster. I added links to different pages on the right as I felt that these four need to be listed to keep the audience aware and interested in the film. I decided to add social networking buttons because this would draw more users onto my site and increase publicity making people more aware of the film.
When choosing a font to use on the trailer, we chose ‘distress’ as we felt that this worked well due to the spooky look given to it and the way it already had the smudge effect look onto the letters. We felt that this relates to the genre therefore we added a red tint to it as this related to horror, blood and this turned out very effective. The colour scheme I stuck to was generally black and white and the background used on the website was black, however on the poster, my picture had a light shade to it at the bottom as this represented the floor where the picture was taken on. I liked this effect as it was quite rough and looked good. I used the same image for my poster and website of the legs and knife with blood emphasising the genre of the film. This created a scary atmosphere and made the picture look frightening. I kept my tagline short and snappy however it was mysterious as the audience would be questioning themselves as to what this tagline could mean or relate to. By having a short tagline, this makes is memorable for the audience and adds more effect rather than a long tagline.
We had shown our teaser to our audience and received feedback for it. The feedback was related to questions asked such as “what genre would you place this trailer in?” and every person in the audience managed to answer this question with the correct genre of horror and thriller meaning that we managed to stick to our conventions. The next question was “what codes and conventions of the genre did you recognise in the trailer” and we obviously were hoping that the audience would be able to spot these out, and luckily they managed to give us feedback saying that they recognised the atmospheric soundtrack, the mise-en-scene, the special effects, and the flash edits. The question after was “what do you anticipate will happen in the film?” and this was very interesting to see the way our audience think and what they can pick up from the trailer. They managed to write down that would expect someone dead in the end, and that there would be a lot of murders. This was interesting to know as we tried not to give too much away in the trailer. By adding the necklace in the beginning with the voice over that spoke about not taking anything that does not belong to you, we wanted the audience to pick up on this and ask how it related. We managed to do that as the audience were interested to know how what the cross represents and how it’s all linked at the end. The feedback had also helped us to go back to final cut pro and edit a small 2 second clip as the size was much bigger than it should have been. Apart from the positive feedback, we were looking to receive negative feedback so that we were able to go back and improve the trailer to make it better. The negative feedback received was that some of the audience felt that the effects were too much therefore we went back and changed some of the effects as this would help to appeal to the audience. I decided to ask for my own feedback on my poster and website and this feedback helped me to go back and change certain things on my designs by using adobe photoshop. This helped me to have a better outcome for a better result.
Firstly, I’ve been using blogger since the beginning of this course in year 12 therefore I have become familiar with it. I find blogger very useful because it allows you to upload and lay out your work neatly allowing others to view it, as well as comment any piece of work that they want. This programme allows us to log our progress and always refer back to it and check whats been uploaded as well as edit or delete the work. Blogger is also useful as you can embed items onto it which I have done a lot such as presentations, youtube links, music, and much more. Next is slideshare.net which has also been very useful in order to upload presentations to present the work, and to embed code into my blog. I used youtube during the research process as it was very useful to find and browse other trailers because I wanted to see the effects used, and the music etc and how other trailers were able to appeal to the audience. This was useful to see trailers such as “The last exorcism” because we were then able to brainstorm ideas when planning our own storyboard. Animoto was used to create a moodboard and storyboard because it allows us to upload different images in a slide as well as adding music and effects onto it. This was useful for audience to preview because it gives them a slight hint of what could be expected during the trailer.
A programme I used was Final Cut Pro during the construction process, and this was used to edit and capture the footage. This was used in the planning stage in order to see what certain ideas would look like and where certain clips should be placed. This programme was very useful as it enabled us to add effects onto some clips such as strobe and trails, as well as editing the speed on the clips. We could also add background music and soundovers and this all helped to build the effect and atmosphere of the trailer. I also used Motion which was similar to final cut pro however it had a whole variety of fonts and effects to choose from. We created the title and dateline for our teaser onto here and this allowed us to move the text around to where we would like it to be placed, and add the effect with the correct timing of how we want it to appear. As I was also new to this programme, it was kind of tricky at first to understand how to use it however I managed to get the hang of it towards the end. I used adobe Photoshop in order to create my poster and website, which was very useful as it has many effects to use that will help to emphasise the horror of the production. I am generally getting the hang of using adobe photoshop as I have used it before however I feel that I should try and experiment more with the effects and tools in order to try and make better productions. I am new to using Vimeo and this programme is used to upload the teaser, and embed it onto my blogger. This was relatively easy to use and very useful.
On this slide, I have shown print screens of another three programmes I have used which were also new to me. This was Jamendo, Dreamweaver, and windows movie maker. Firstly, I used Jamendo after creating my teaser in order to find music that was not copyright. This website was so useful as it had a huge amount of music to choose from and they allowed free downloads. Also, this website was straight forward and allowed me to find the correct genre, as well as look through a list of genres that I may not have generally thought of. I will continue to use Jamendo when needed as it also had a range of good music. Dreamweaver allowed me to upload my teaser onto my website however I found this quite challenging to use. This programme allowed me to choose where I would like the teaser to be placed on the website, and also allowed me to resize it then view the website. This was confusing at times as there were many HTML codes involved however it had the option to split screen which was very efficient as I could see what I’m doing. Lastly, another programme I used was windows movie maker, and this was to make the animatic. This meant that I had to insert the images I wanted to use, as well as adjusting the time of the clips. I then had to save it as a movie file. This was pretty interesting to use as it allowed me to have a rough idea of what my teaser would look like but in a sketched version.
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