The document discusses the process of creating a teaser trailer, poster, and magazine cover for a film project. It describes researching conventions of different media types and analyzing example trailers. The document outlines filming shots with a camera and tripod, editing footage in Adobe Premier Elements by adding effects, text, and audio. It discusses challenges encountered and how social media was used to gather feedback to improve the media products.

2. On average a teaser trailer is around 30 – 60 seconds. Its main purpose is to advertise a new upcoming film in such a short space of time, so that it is able to capture the audiences interest. My trailer is 33 seconds long, where it follows a clear linear narrative. In this short space of time, I believe that it does challenge forms and conventions of real media products. For example from researching into trailers I have found out that I needed to establish the movie and its location, then the principles of the story, then build upon the plot , to get the story rolling, and finally build on the intensity of the film. Slowly building the audience from start to finish, leaving the audience wanting to watch the film. I believe that my trailer does follow all of this points listed above. For example at the very start of the trailer, I have created two very quick ‘zooming’ shots each of which consist of a lamppost , and a street sign. The reason for this is so that the audience, are able to identify the location and setting of which the film takes place. From this point onwards the audience will have a rough understanding, as to what the trailer is going to be about. Not long after these two shots, I decided to create a still establishing shot, which I believe enables the audience to feel in their ‘ comfort zone ’ making them feel safe with what they are about to watch.

3. My trailer also begins to role on with the plot , so that the audience are immediately able to identify the genre of the film. One could say that the man is made out to be a villain, which enables the trailer to give out this sexist view, where in almost all trailers a girl/women is always in most cases made out to be the victim. However, it could be argued that we do not yet know who the villain is, as the audience do not understand why the man is following her. There is simply no explanation for this, in the trailer. Normal horror / thriller trailers use lots of fast shots, so that it speeds up the pace of the trailer, as well as building on the tension and fear of the audience. I tried to use a combination of shots for example at the start, of my trailer the shots are very fast paced, compared to the middle where the shots are a lot longer, slowing the pace of the trailer down. At the end is an half second shot, gaining that extra impact. In addition to this, many trailers also contain a scary / bizarre noise, for example a scream is the most obvious noise for this type of genre. Instead of using this, I decided not to go with the obvious. I chose to have the loud ticking clock noise at the very beginning and I decided to incorporate a loud droning noise when text appeared on the screen, to build on the intensity of the film. Slowly building the audience from start to finish, ending with the fast flicker of an eye, leaving them wanting to see the film.

4. I do believe that my POSTER also challenges the forms and conventions of a real media poster. For example as you can see below my poster has one main image 'the eye'. The reason for choosing to use an eye as my main focus is because I felt that It would capture the audiences attention. The eye not only symbolises the mans obsession with 'Jessica', but by the pupil of the eye staring right out, creates this idea of someone being watched. I also feel that the poster, sends out a clear understanding of the genre. This is made evident by the style of font used, as the words 'coming soon' are kind of smudged out., adding a creepy effect. When creating the poster I tried to challenge the poster of 'The Skeleton Key', this can be depicted through the layout of the poster. Placing the title of the film 'Jessica' under the eye, but not showing her inside the eye, gives a kind of mysterious feeling, as to what the film is about. It sends out a lot of un answered questions, until you have seen the film.

5. My MAGAZINE cover, also challenges the forms and conventions of real media magazines . A lot of magazine covers are cluttered with information, mine is much more spaced out, allowing people to see the writing easier. In addition, with my trailer being a Horror/ Thriller, the magazine cover doesn't really establish this idea clearly, making the audience wanting to know more. I have obviously incorporated the obvious forms and conventions of a magazine cover such as, bold writing, barcode, price etc ... However, the use of colours and different fonts used, creates this lively magazine cover.

6. How did you use new media technologies in the construction? At the very start of the course, I was really worried on how I was going to go about producing a trailer. I started to look up different teaser trailers on U-Tube to get some kind of idea as to what I was going to base my trailer on i.e. the genre, the plot … I then decided which genre I was going to base my trailer on (Horror/ thriller) I started to look up lots of different horror / thriller trailers, so I was able to identify the key conventions of that type of genre. I then embedded certain trailers which I found useful, onto my blog, where I completed a detailed analysis for each. T he blog helped me to organize ideas as well as allowing me to upload and save work, which was really useful as it meant I could keep adding to certain posts if needed . It was also useful in the way that when in the process of planning, we were able to look at each others blogs by visiting www.medi@chs.co.uk , which I found really helpful as by looking at other blogs, enabled me to gain ideas about what to do with my trailer.

7. When researching the basic principles of a teaser trailer, I did some research on the internet, and recorded some information on to my blog, placing the internet links below, so that If I needed to go back on it, I would just click on the link on my blog, and it would take me back to the website. This was also useful for anyone who wanted to view my blog if they needed to find a website about teaser trailers. I also used social networking sites i.e. Facebook to promote my trailer. I would message my friends, asking them to make a comment on my blog or to answer any surveys / polls that I had made on my blog. This information would then get sent to my school email, so that I would know straight away, who had completed my polls/ surveys and what their response was. I would also email my friends again asking them to take my surveys. Both of these I found were a good way in getting people to answer my questions. From peoples responses I was able to understand what the pros and cons of my trailer, magazine cover and poster were. This then enabled me to make further improvements to all of my media products.

8. When I felt ready to start filming, I did some practice shots before hand, so I was able to get a feel of what the camera was like. For example, I remember one lesson we went outside and someone would hold the camera and do a certain action in front of the camera. When uploading the shots taken, as we were filming a lorry was going past making a loud noise. From this we were able to establish that the whole surroundings of your final shot is really important. We were also holding the camera meaning that the camera shot was all over the place. From this, we realised that we had to use a tripod, in order to get a much clearer still shot, depending on the effect you wanted to create. When in the process of filming, certain shots some of them had to be taken over and over again. This was due to lighting problems as some of my filming was, taken outside in the dark. This meant that I had to use a torch to get the right kind of lighting. For instance, here is a screen shot of one of my shots. In this shot you can see a slight shadow to the right hand side of the sign. A torch was used in order for this to work.

9. Once I had completed all of my filming, I had to save it on the computer, and save it all into my D- drive . I then opened Adobe Premier Elements., opened the D-drive with my footage in, and just dragged each shot into the left hand corner of the software. This was really useful as when placing my footage onto each film strip, I just had to drag which shot I wanted next, and it would then be in chronological order. If I wanted to save my work I had to render the footage before I saved it. Before I started editing on Adobe Premier Elements, I played around with a few shots taken , just so I could get a rough idea of how the software worked. When editing, my knowledge of the software grew each time I used it. I changed all of my shots to black and white, to create a morbid feeling to the trailer. If certain shots were too long, or you didn’t want a certain part in the trailer you could cut it out by using the ‘scissor tool’, or you could just click on the shot and drag it inwards. To fasten and increase the pace of shots, you had to click on the ‘add effect’ drop down key on the left hand side of screen, and select zoom, then you would just hold and drag into which part of your filming you wanted. As my trailer started to progress I started to embed text into my trailer. In the top right hand side of the screen you just needed to click on ‘text’, it would give you a list of different types, and a screen would then appear in the middle, where you would just type in what you wanted to say. When incorporating it into your trailer, you just had to drag it in like any other footage. After this you could make any other changes to the text i.e. you could make it fade in or out, making it look more realistic.

10. As my editing began to improve, I then decided to add some audio into my trailer. My main soundtrack used in my trailer was taken off U-Tube. I had to plug in a cable into the computer, open Audacity which was another new software, which I have learnt to use this year. Press play on U-Tube and press record on Audacity and the music off U-Tube would get transferred onto Audacity. I would then save the music onto my D-drive from Audacity. Open the file on Adobe Premier Elements and then drag it on to the audio line, underneath my footage. I then carried out the same steps when producing the sound for when the text appeared. I would shorten each audio strip to fit in time with my trailer. In addition to this, I also incorporated a voice over within my trailer. My friend Steve spoke into a microphone , I would then edit his normal voice and make into a much scarier voice. By incorporating all of these sound effects into my trailer, made a huge impact on the trailer itself. It really introduced the genre of the film.

11. When starting my magazine and poster I needed to use Photoshop. I was at a slight advantage when using this software, as I had used parts of it during my AS course. The main software I used when designing my magazine last year was Microsoft Publisher. The format is similar to Microsoft word, it is quite basic in the sense that you can’t really change or modify images to make them look effective. However, after using Photoshop this year, my skills have developed greatly. I have learnt how to copy and paste images off the internet, and then edit them to make them look good, by using the ‘magic wand’ tool. Photoshop also allows you to change and edit pictures to make them look effective, as well as being able to re-size the pictures, and being able to cut them out by using the ‘slicing tool’. All of these developed skills over the course of this year, have enabled me to feel much more confident when using Photoshop. I had to learnt how to rotate, re-size, add effects, embed relevant text, and images from the internet. Where as, compared to last year, I wouldn’t of known any of these things existed on the software.

12. When using sound and video to generate audience feedback, I asked my friend ‘Molly’ if she would mind answering a few questions on my media products, whilst being filmed. I recorded a 5 minute clip of her stating what she thought was good about my trailer and what she thought was not so good. I then placed this clip onto my blog, so that I was able to keep referring back to it if needed. By doing this useful task, enabled me to gain an insight into how other people viewed my trailer. It also enabled me to understand whether or not the plot and genre were made clear, as these are the two main things for an audience to understand when watching a trailer. It enables the audience to make a decision on whether or not the film is for them . So by gaining a clear understanding on whether or not this was made clear in my trailer, was a real help. I also created an account on www.freesurveys.com , which meant that i could make a variety of surveys, one for my trailer and another for my poster and magazine. I then put the two surveys on to my blog for people to answer. I also used polls which were on the blog, to gain some feedback. Polls were useful if you wanted a yes/ no response otherwise they weren’t really appropriate for a detailed response. i.e. I used a poll asking if my trailer should be in black or white?