Jared Spencer evaluated his own media product and how it developed or challenged conventions of real media. He summarized that his teaser trailer was influenced by the film "Hitman" as they had similar narratives. However, he challenged some conventions such as having the main character look directly at the camera to suggest rebellion. He also used fewer shots and fast pacing to conceal the plot. For his magazine cover, he developed conventions of "Total Film" by having background images link to the theme and film. He challenged codes by having the character look away and overlap the title. From audience feedback on his trailer and magazine mock-ups, he learned feedback is key to understanding if his work is on the right track

1. G325: Evaluation
Jared Spencer

2. In what ways does your media product, use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
My main influence for my teaser trailer was
‘Hitman’ as my own trailer could relate to this
film. My film had the same kind of narrative and
my media product could relate to it. It
represented the ‘hero’ in which everyone favours
and the main storyline of him ‘saving the day’, so
therefore, I didn’t challenge the conventions of
my narrative. I just kept them in parallel to
‘Hitman’.
I did challenge the usual conventions such as:
- Main character looking directly into camera to
show rebellion. The audience feel unsure of his
character.
- Less shots to therefore conceal the whole plot of my
film again keeps the audience unsure of my main
character. Is he the bad or the good guy?

3. Developing conventions of Ancillary
products:
I further developed the
conventions of teaser trailers after I have developed the usual conventions of
looking at my target audience. My ‘Total Film’ in that the background image of my
audience is certified at 15 as it front cover links in with the theme, film, and
contains violence and strong the main image featuring on the front cover.
language. Therefore my audience
has to have some maturity to I further developed the
understand the themes in the conventions of the
films. I challenged some of the magazine by adding the
genuine codes and conventions film title in it original form
on my magazine to attract my onto the magazine. The ‘S’
audience. fades to reflect time which
links in with the whole
My character is looking away from theme of ‘time.’
the character again to give a sense
of rebellion. This insinuate that he
is either the hero or villain in my
film.
I had his head overlap the ‘Total
Film’ title to give his character a
link within the magazine and to
give him a sense of fame.

4. - I used a lot of close up’s in my trailer which is a
convention of all teaser trailers. They are included to
create a lot of emotion without giving a lot of the
narrative away.
- I also had fast paced edits to create a sense of danger
to make my audience feel on edge which again is
another common convention of teaser trailers. The
shots are edited together so that the shots are really
small and so that they flow together really fast. This is a
common convention in teaser trailer as they keep the
audience enticed.
- Music was also another convention that I kept the
same throughout my trailer. The music was eerie which
commonly features in trailers. The music fitted in with
the close ups and created a deep sense of emotion.
- I used titles to also indicate the narrative of my film.
This is a common convention of teaser trailers. Instead
of using a lot of moving images to give the story
away, they use text to give some hints to what the film
is about.

5. What have you learned from your
audience feedback?
This is my first draft from my
questionnaire. This was to gain
a quick understanding of what
kind of audience I would like to
aim my media product at. I
would prefer to aim it at my age
range as I could have some
knowledge into the kind of
factors I could include.

6. What have you learned from your
audience feedback?
By realising my genre was ‘Action’ I found out that the majority would expect to see
‘scenes with a shootout and the hero saving the day’. I have noticed that audience
feedback is key to how your final product looks and is processed. If you haven’t been
given audience feedback then how is it possible to understand what they want or what
you are sending out is right for your target audience?
By having feedback, it allows my first product that is developed to be classed as a draft
and then for me to further develop my own work. It was really helpful as I knew that my
product was fulfilling the desires of my target audience.
After finishing my main trailer, I wanted to get people’s opinions on what they thought
about it and whether specific things needed changing. To do this I uploaded it onto
YouTube so that people could directly post comments onto it to say whether it was good
or whether it needed improvements.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSYH6WfwTyY

7. I could also gain feedback from my audience by uploading mock ups of my ancillary
products onto my blog. This was people could see the development stage of my media
products and could again post comments under to say if it was going good or not so
good.
http://ohheymate.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/ancillary-magazine-basic-mock-up.html
That is my very first basic mock up of my front cover. From that to my final piece you can
see a massive difference as my audience have given me feedback to help me improve.
From this I learnt that feedback is like a journey and once you get feedback things only
improve and develop.
I also gained audience feedback to help me improve my teaser trailer before it was
nearly finished. The feedback I was given was very helpful and I took every bit of it on
board. I included the changes that were suggested and it is seen through the final
product. It was vital I got feedback on my trailer at this point as the deadline was near
and my product wasn’t reaching the desired effect that I wanted it to. Whatever my
audience thought would make it better was good as I could change things easily. This is
the feedback I received from my audience/peers:
http://ohheymate.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/pe
er-feedback.html

8. What have you learned from your
audience feedback?
Overall, I have learnt from audience feedback that:
- You get a greater understanding of whether your work is going good or bad.
- It is helpful to know when you are doing things right or wrong.
- It gives you a sense of achievement to know that you have understood
feedback and put it into practice.
- It gives you a good sense of interpretation as you interpret the feedback how
you want to. How ever way you do, it will more than likely be an
improvement on your previous efforts.

9. How effective is the combination of
your main product and the ancillary
texts?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSYH6WfwTyY

10. How effective is the combination of
your main product and the ancillary
texts?
My main product and ancillary products work well
together in my opinion as they all follow the same
theme and have the same basic features. Firstly, I went
with my main colours as red, white and yellow.
Red: signifies danger and passion.
Yellow: reflects ‘hazards’ and stand outs instantly.
White: connotes purity as well as being a cold colour
with a ‘lack of’ emotions.
The images in all of my products combine to influence
time. They all seem as if they are fading in or away or as if
they are the result of time. This is the main basis of my
products. I wanted them to appear as though they were
going through changes in time.

11. How effective is the combination of
your main product and the ancillary
texts?
Mise-en-scene was really effective also in They also combine well
combining my three products together. In together as I use the same
all of them, my character challenges the fonts throughout again to
usual conventions of a characters body be reflective of the theme.
language. In the poster he is looking It wouldn’t look
directly into the camera to suggest professional. When looking
rebellion however on the poster he is at similar institutions, I
looking away to suggest a lack of power. realised that they keep
Finally in my trailer he looks at the camera things constant
at times and away from it to suggest both throughout, such
of these. They all link together in the fact as, font, colours, images, et
they challenge the conventions, which c. My three products look
makes them a good combination. as thought they have come
from one institution and
this creates consistency.

12. How did you use technologies in the
construction and research, planning
and evaluation stages?
In the construction stage of my product, I used ‘Paint.net’ and ‘Adobe Premiere’
to create my trailer and two ancillary products. I found them pretty easy to use
and there were no real complications to using these except programs going slow
on some occasions.
‘Paint.net’ was used really to add effects to images rather than moving images. I
could make things look old or new or bigger or smaller. It was about making things
look different than they first appear.
I looked at simple tutorials on how to use the program however most of it was
mainly picked up once using the program. This is the basic tutorial I used:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOQ2KLVFXRA
I used ‘Paint.net’ to create the image on my poster of
the face fading into the background. I wanted this to
represent him fading away in time and it was very easy. I
got the idea from a poster I had previously seen:
http://www.horror-movies.ca/wp-
content/uploads/2011/08/Kill-List-Poster-610x462.jpg

13. How did you use technologies in
the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
In the research process of my media product, used
‘IMDb’ and ‘YouTube’, to look into similar products.
They were again very easy to use.
‘IMDb’ was used to search films that were similar to
mine and I used it to look at ‘Hitman’ and to see
what features it included which I could also include
to my product.
‘YouTube’ was used to look at trailers that were like
my intended one. I looked at the ‘Hitman’ trailer on
a numerous amount of occasions so that I could find
specific features in it that I could include in my
media product.

14. How did you use technologies in the
construction and research, planning
and evaluation stages?
In the planning stages I used ‘Adobe’. It helped me plan how I was going to http://www.slideshare.net/
create my teaser trailer. As it was all set out in front of you, you could see
how things were going to pan out. For example, I could see when specific
ting were going to happen in my film. This is basically it. It is very easy to
use.
I had to plan when certain shots would come in and how others would exit
so I had to use the strip only the middle to construct this. By doing this
plan, it gave me a rough Idea on how my trailer would run.
Next I planned where the music would enter to create effect at specific
moments. It was easier than it sounded as you could play the music exactly
where you wanted and you could cut it up so you could have specific parts
of the sound in the trailer.
I also used this program to add text into parts in my trailer. It was harder
because sometimes you would lose where you wanted to put it or it
wouldn’t go in the right position but mainly it was okay and worked well on
the whole.
For my evaluation I put it onto ‘Slide Share’. This was easy to use as I could
put my whole PowerPoint onto it and could then flick through all of my
slides one after the other. This means it can be shared easily on my blog.
Lastly, I used ‘Blogger’ to store all of my work onto. It was a really easy

15. How did you use technologies in the
construction and research, planning
and evaluation stages?
In the evaluation stage, I just used simple word processor’s and power points. It is very basic
and understand how to use them . The easier the program you use is, then the better the
outcome will be in my opinion. If you find something really easy to use, then you can utilise all
of its abilities to their maximum and get the best out of them.
The best parts about using these are:
- Quick and easy to use.
- Guides to help you if needed.
- Reliable
- Easy to save work