My Evaluation of everything that went into the production of the Ninth of the Ninth.

1. Addressing Evaluation
Question

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

3. It is highly necessary for us to in some ways
conform to conventions of our genre purely because
it makes our product identifiable to that genre to
reach our target audience. Horror follows a heavy
amount of conventional themes throughout
products and these have become what audiences
expect and enjoy. All of the knowledge of these
conventions come from real media text research; as
seen on blog. We did it by:
- Followed convention of structure – going from
equilibrium and upbeat nature (light colours and
upbeat soundtrack) in the trailer to complete
disequilibrium later (Quick Cuts and harsh, scary
and sharp sounds) on to intensify the scary
events and convey more fear into the audience
- Followed dark colour schemes in all products as
darkness is scientifically proven to scare
audiences through fear of the unknown
- The ‘Ghost Girl’ antagonist is heavily used within
the horror genre and we felt by using this we
could instantly draw in an audience through this
icon throughout our products
- Character Types in teen horror – eg. Confident
one, Nerdy One, Love Dynamic – this can be seen
in character profile
- Antagonist central within magazine cover –
chosen through audience research
It’s very important to not just follow conventions of
the existing horror products, but actually look at
them in depth and understand how to build on
them and adapt them to your own products. We
want to define and move forward the conventions
of horror, not just fall under them. Also to develop
upon them is to make the piece more unique and
therefore make your product stand out more. We
did it by:
- In our media production we decided to adopt
and combine to types of horror products. The
technique of making a horror handheld and in
POV shot makes the film feel a lot more
immersive and makes the audience feel like they
are experience the horror first hand through
their own eyes; offering them an intensified
sense of escapism. However, we decided to adopt
this technique alongside the film also being a
third-person viewing experience and flipping
between the two. This would mean that not only
would we gain the sense of being immersed with
thr POV shot but also the third person
experience would make the consumer feel
helpless in the horror like they are unable to
have an effect on the experiences and feel more
of a victim to it. Combining these two factors
make it a much more scary and exhilarating
experience for the audience.
- We also developed a back story to their
investigation as Daniel had lost his friend rather
We don’t simply just want to make a product that
‘fits in’, as media students creativity and originality
is in our DNA and so it is so important to
understand the conventions of horror in so much
depth we know how to challenge them in our
products in order to make them our own and also
convey a deeper message. We did it by:
- Created the concept of the antagonist that we
show within our products not being the actual
antagonist in what would be the full-feature film.
The girl shown as the source of fear in our
products we decided in our developed narrative
would actually turn out to be the one trying to
save them from her demonic, abusive husband.
This is a clever use of Barthes Hermeneutic code
in order to redefine conventions of horror – the
‘False Villain’. We always found this process
important to think like we were making a full
length film as this is what we’d be doing in a real
situation in the industry. This would be a huge
surprise for an audience.
- We, instead of focusing heavily on narrative as
we first intended, as you can see throughout all
of our planning, decided that we were just going
to give the audience what they wanted and went
for straight horror just trying to only give plot
references away that purely conveyed horror. For
example the text stating ‘five teens investigate a
superstition’ and ‘some superstitions are better
left untouched’ all connote some mysterious fear.

4. How effective is the contribution of your main product and ancillary texts?

6. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

7. We very much applied the theory of the prosumer to our production as we believe to build a successful product we have to consider
the needs of our target audience as that’s who we are selling the product to; they determine the success of a product; although it is
important to defy some expectations of the audience to ensure there is a sense of enigma within our piece. Also the main selling point
of a horror is to generically… be scary so we need to really understand what being scary is to an audience. This process was vital to
how successful our product was. Here’s how we adapted our piece in terms of our audience feedback:
- Jump Scares and Being Scared in general is a huge part of what makes horror products successful so we decided to heavily focus
upon truly trying to convey the horror elements of our piece
- Having the Antagonist at the centre front of our ancillary products – we want our product to instantly scream this is horror at our
audiences so they want to consume it and nothing connotes it as
well as the iconic demonic ghost girl
- Used YouTube to publicise our trailer – It’s free, easy to use and was
seen to be, from our audience feedback the most common place to go to
to see these marketing products
- We used a poll which gained a lot of audience feedback – over one
hundred responses. This meant we could take a lot of opinions to see
the aspects that we really needed to focus on – Jump Scares and
creating a true horror experience became our true aim.

8. How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of this process?
Listed are the technologies that contributed heavily to the aspects described in the question – Icons have also been shown
Across the blog in top corners of the programs that were used.

9. Adobe Audition – This was the Software used (along with Premier Pro) to edit sound within our trailer and produce
our soundtrack it was very suitable to use as it’s not expensive, yet has all the capabilities to make a professional
and smooth sound. Through editing wave crest and placing effects on certain audio tones we were able to build a
theme upon sounds that could connote horror and also runs throughout the entire product. This was also effective
in placing bass effects.
Adobe After Effects – After Effects had a huge impact on adding extra effects into our trailer that really gave the
paranormal effect; premier pro was more putting everything in order and clipping and after effects was really
focusing on the quality of the clip. We’d use presets in order to add for example a white glow onto the paranormal
antagonist to make the character seem well… paranormal… effects such as these and playing with contrasts and
saturation really gave our trailer the feel it needed to convey a true scary and intense experience.
Adobe Premier Pro – This was the largest contributor into the editing of our motion picture as this was the software
we used most heavily in the edit. We pieced together our footage with audio, clipping endlessly in order to ensure
everything was in time with the beat and we had an effective tempo throughout the trailer. Also we could produce a
preset filter in lighting and colour saturation to ensure there was a dark blue overtone subtly layered throughout the
trailer building a theme. Compilation and adjustment of footage was possible to assemble on this software.
Adobe Photoshop – Our Magazine Cover and Poster heavily relied upon this program within the adobe suite. It’s also key to mention
the humungous development we have made in skills throughout these software programs as we’ve really had to learn so many
different techniques such as roto-brushing to ensure the product was everything we wanted it to be. Photoshop allowed us to
compile many different photos into one image, playing with colour and saturation, adding clipping masks and lighting effects in
order to aid format and convey paranormal effects; in a professional manner. It was a very suitable and easily accessible program
that could give us the capabilities to truly produce a product we would be proud of.

10. Youtube – This social media platform was huge for doing research of already established products in order to analyse
the conventions of horror trailers and take inspiration from them, along with also offering tutorials to develop editing
skills across all programs. It also gave us a platform to post our concept drafts of all of our products to gain feedback
to improve the pieces eg. Adapting our soundtrack and changing the end cut.
Google Forms – We used this platform to create our poll for audience feedback upon what made successful horror
marketing products; this was hugely beneficial to our products. We had a relatively large audience and felt that this
large amount of data would really give us a general and more reliable view of what entire audiences think rather than
if we just asked one individual. It was an easy platform to access and we gained around 800 data points.
Powerpoint and Prezi – It was essential we presented our planning and research in a simple and
creative way in order to make it easy to digest and inspiring for us to look at; as this would spark our
creativity when producing. These two programs/websites truly offered this opportunity, were easy to
use and allowed us to present our work in a creative manner using multimedia platforms.
StoryboardThat – I discovered this program when considering creative ways to present my
storyboard. It was easy to use and kind of allowed me to be creative with my work when planning. An
inspired mind is a productive one…
Dafont and Paletton – These programs allowed us to explore and be inspired on colour schemes and
fonts that can relate to our genre – this was a massive contributor in our planning for the production
as this effectively founded two of the biggest focus themes throughout our products, which you can
clearly see… we always follow dark colours – eg navy blues - and weave in our font ‘DieDieDie’.

11. Adobe Premier Pro – Obviously to actually show you our evaluation we created in video format and to avoid showing
you a three hour video of us rambling on about what we did in the process we decided to cut and chop it down into
the best bits and edit in clips of us doing what we were evaluating. It allowed us to convey our evaluation in a creative
manner instead of having to read a lot of boring text – which is kind of what this is.
YouTube – Not only as a platform to post our Evaluation, we also used it as a source for our audience to also evaluate
our products through commenting on the success or how we could have improved in the comment section below –
These comments can be found in our reviews displayed on the Evaluation page. Our audience have been our main
focus of this product and our main thing to evaluate is if we truly developed the product we wanted for our audience.
Basic Filming Equipment – As listed on Shooting Schedule – This was obviously used to film the evaluation and I felt
was worth mentioning across all aspects of our media production – because really if you scratch beneath the surface
of everything all we were, were four students with a camera and an idea, and that’s what’s beautiful about media
anyone can be free to express their idea or feelings in this art; that’s what I love about media. There was a part of us
all in these products and I truly am proud with what we have created with the little resources we had. I really believe
this process has inspired a true desire to follow this industry… as I’ve developed a massive OCD in it haha.
Everything – Evaluation has occurred throughout all of the media technologies we have used, in everything we have
done we have constantly been analysing and evaluating whether our decision within the media technology is
conveying the effect and feeling we truly want to convey. For example, we sat for hours on end simply looking at done
transitions between the grab scare in the forest and into the intense scenes. So much thought and evaluation has gone
on throughout the process that I hope we have conveyed through our deep level of thinking behind everything.