1. A2 Media Production- Evaluation The main questions and topics I based my media coursework package evaluation on were- 1. In what ways do my products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 2. How effective is the cross-media package as a whole? 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback? 4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

2. 1. In what ways do my products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My First Print Product- Film Poster My film poster uses a wide variety of forms and conventions of real media products. Before I created or even began designing my film poster, I looked and researched various different existing film posters, relating to the horror film genre of which my product is based on. After noting down and evaluating the different conventions associated with these products, I was able to come up with an overall idea of what conventions and aspects would be good to use and would make my product become a high quality and standard poster. The typical conventions I followed when designing and creating my product are stated on the next slide

3. Conventions used in my Film Poster -One main, eye-catching and bold image covering the entire frontage of the cover -Contrasting colours between the image and the text- allowing the text to stand out- i.e. dark image and bright text -Film title in large font in a dominant area of the page- using the house style font, Copperplate for all of the text on the cover, including the bold, red title, ‘THE CURE’ -Film release data and small print (i.e. directors, writers, producers etc…) along the very bottom -Simple, limited text- the key text which should be included is the title, small print and release date

4. Final versions of my Film Poster These are the two different versions of my Film Poster, the one on the left is the one I have decided to use because it follows the house style of my film coursework package, using similar colours, fonts and a general theme, whereas although the one on the right is still very effective for advertising the film, I have used the left one as my final film poster product.

5. Film Poster Evaluation Continued. My film poster effectively develops some of the forms and conventions of real media products by using them not only just so my product is ‘conventional’ but also to make my product ‘work’ in terms of real media products. My film poster is eye-catching as it uses a bold, ‘in your face’ image with bold, contrasting red text stating the name of the film which covers the image in a ‘dead area’, the text indicating the film’s date of release and website is clear and readable from a distance and there is no unnecessary text cluttering it up.

6. Second print product- Film Magazine Front Cover Film Magazine Front Cover- As with my film poster, my film magazine front cover also uses a variety of forms and conventions of real media products. Whilst conducting my research into existing and successful film magazines, I collated a selection of useful conventions and ideas of what makes a film magazine. Once I had collected a range of conventions and ideas of what typical, existing film magazine front covers use, I then designed initial drafts of my cover, initially starting with simple block layouts of the cover, then working on different fonts, colours and styles to use on the product.

7. Conventions used in my Film Magazine -One main dominant, eye-catching image- captured during our photo shoot -Similar to the film poster- contrasting colours between the main image and the overlapping text- i.e. dark photograph against the bright red, and white coloured fonts across the page .-Magazine price, issue number and date under the title in small font -Barcode in the bottom area -Various article brief titles and descriptions across the frontage -Film magazine name across the top in large, bold font -Small print along the very bottom of the cover -Bold, big and attractive title text, in GOUDY OLD STYLE font, and Copperplate for the remaining text on the page

8. Film Magazine evaluation continued My film magazine cover can be clearly identified as being a film magazine based around advertising the horror genre of films; i.e. as identified by the main image, as well as the colour scheme, for example the red connotating danger and blood and the dark themed main image connotating an ‘eeriness’ about the film it’s advertising. The collection of conventions and my own ideas that I have used in the design and production of my magazine film cover have hopefully helped my product as a whole to be as close to a ‘real media’ product as possible, although there may be some improvements which can be applied to the magazine (as well as the film poster) once I gather feedback from my audience.

9. FILM PLUS- Final Product The image on the left shows my final film magazine front cover for my magazine, FILM PLUS. It is clear what conventions I have used and developed simply from looking at it, however further analysis can depict more techniques which I have used in producing it.

10. Horror Film Trailer- ‘The Cure’ Working together in a group of 4, I created a short horror film trailer for our own film, entitled The Cure. To produce this trailer, I first, working with my group, had to plan all the various aspects of the film, including the plot of the trailer, characters, locations, costumes, music, lighting, camerawork etc… A big part of being able to conduct all this planning was to use all the research we, as a group had collected on existing horror film genre trailers. This research helped to give us clear ideas of what typical conventions film trailers used, in particular horror ones, including shot types, music, lighting, costumes and props, so we could adapt some of these to our own trailer. During our research, the most predominant conventions which we found which we then adapted to our own trailer included- (please see next slide)

11. Conventions used in my Film Trailer -Repeated quick scenes- fast paced editing used throughout -Low key, dull lighting used throughout -Suitable music, e.g. being in time with the content on screen, with a similar pace, and a suitable genre of music, i.e. rock or punk for action scenes/clips in particular trailers. -Voiceovers are used in some trailers- others there is just music and text -Use of bold props, which stand out, for example, guns and knifes- and relating to this, the use of blood

12. Film Trailer Evaluation continued. When editing my horror film trailer, I used a wide range of editing techniques and methods within iMovie to improve the overall quality of my film trailer. When working with the background soundtrack for the trailer, I used ‘ducking’ to turn the volume of the music down in the sections of the trailer when the newsreader was talking. When editing the different clips for the trailer, I edited a range of video adjustments, including removing all the saturation from some clips, making them black and white, then increasing the exposure and brightness to add to the eeriness of the clips. The image above shows the inspector used to edit the video elements.

13. Film Trailer Evaluation continued. To fill the gap between the different clips, I added in various transitions from the Transitions Browser in iMovie, some are shown in the image on the right. For some of the clips, I also increased or decreased the actual speed of which the clip plays. The lighting used when we filmed the trailer was a natural, low key lighting for the outdoor scenes, using the nigh-time moonlight sky, along with the street lamps and use of car headlights. Other scenes in the trailer used high key lighting, for example the news broadcast where a modern, bright setting was used, with high key lighting. Some of the transitions are shown above, one of the key ones we used was ‘Fade to White’.

14. Media Institutions and my Film If my film, The Cure was to be created, produced and distributed into the real world, then typically I would expect it to be more likely that an independent film studio would product the film. Reasons for my choice of an independent film studio over major Hollywood film studio are mainly due to the storyline, and narrative that the film follows, typically most films similar to the one I have produced a trailer for are seen produced by independent film studios, such as New World Pictures or Rollercoaster films. However it could also depend on opinions of different people on whether they believe it would be best suited to a Hollywood or independent film studio, as both types produce similar, high quality film titles, especially relating to the horror genre of films.

15. 2. How effective is the cross-media package as a whole? As a whole, my horror film poster, film magazine front cover and horror film trailer work well together to create a successful cross media package based upon the horror genre. From developing from the initial planning and research stages, I have used all of my research, along with my own ideas, and ones from other people to create three products based on one main genre (horror), which all share a similar theme, and style, and can therefore be related to each other. The two print products, the film poster and the film magazine front cover were designed to work in conjunction together to promote my film trailer, ‘The Cure’, by using the film as the main article and cover image for the magazine, and obviously, for the film poster.

16. Cross-media package effectiveness cont. The cross media package also works effectively from an audience perspective, if they were to see all three products separately, it would be clear that they all relate to each other and are all part of a ‘package’- and this would be clearly identified by: -Colour schemes used -Use of similar fonts -Images and photographs used -General theme used- i.e. the combination of font and background colours It is vital that both from an audience, and a media theorists view, that my, or any media package, works effectively together, and that all the different pieces can be combined together, for example in marketing or advertising.

17. 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback? My audience feedback consisted of various questionnaires, which I created and then used to collect feedback on what they felt about my products. I created two separate questionnaires, one based on my two print products, the film poster and the film magazine front cover, and a separate one on my film trailer to make things simpler and easier to interpret. The questions I included in my questionnaire were about colour schemes, images, layouts, font choices, real media conventions, effectiveness of representation and overall quality of both products, and how they work together as a promotional package.

18. Audience feedback continued Overall, the feedback from my questionnaires was positive, and showed that my products were successful in all areas, however there was also some feedback which was given which showed that improvements could be made to my products, in particular, aspects such as colour and font choices in the products. I also realised that it was necessary in future to carefully design my questionnaires based around my audience because some questions were too complex or were too related to the technological side of media for certain members of the audience to answer the questions accurately.

19. 4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Throughout my media product creation and development, I have used new media technologies in a variety of ways, in particular in my research, planning, construction and evaluation stages. In my research and planning stages, I used a variety of new media technologies to collect my research, and to create the plans for my media products. In the research section, I used the Internet to collect existing forms of real media products, including horror film posters, film magazine front covers, and film trailers. I used sites such as YouTube to view the horror film trailers as well as Google to collect information and content for the film posters and film magazine front covers, and I also used the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia to collect background history on the film magazines, as well as particular film institutions.

20. New technologies used in my planning section In the planning section, i.e. creating plans for the three different products, I used Microsoft Word to create plans for two print products, which included creating initial simple templates which showed the layout and positioning of specific aspects of each product. This included the positioning of the magazine title, barcode, price, date, issue number, location of images and subheadings and other aspects such as these for the film magazine cover, and positioning of the film title, release date and other relevant information on the film poster. I created my designs using ideas I had collected during my research section, including typical conventions which are necessary to use, and other aspects which overall will make the poster a higher quality.

21. New technologies used in my construction stage The construction stage involved actually creating all three products, the film poster, the film magazine front cover and the horror film trailer, and to create all three I used a range of new media technologies, in particular with creating the film trailer. When filming for my film trailer, I used a range of technology and media equipment, including a high quality HD digital video camera, long distance microphone, and a tripod. These were used to capture the footage, however to edit the footage together, more technology was necessary.

22. New technologies used in construction stage continued To transfer and edit the footage, I used my Mac and iMovie to import the movie files from the camera into the Event Library of iMovie. Once I had transferred all of the movie files into iMovie, I could then start editing the clips together, as well as adding titles, transitions, editing the speed and flow of clips, music and other effects to improve the overall quality of the trailer. To use music in the trailer, I had to find some copyright free music on the Internet, and to do this I used two main copyright free sites- www.freesound.org www.incompetech.com to find, download and then import some songs to my iMovie project (trailer).

23. The two print screens above show previews of some of the royalty free music websites I used to research background music for my film trailer. The better website of the two was the Freesound Project.

24. New technologies continued As a whole, my media coursework package used a wide variety of new media technologies in the four main stages of development, and by using these technologies, I have both helped to increase the standard of quality and professionalism of my products, and saved time in certain aspects of the production process, especially in creating the film trailer, which wouldn’t actually be possible without the help of new media technologies.