evaluation for A2 media coursework

1. EVALUATION
Teaser Trailer, Film poster & Film Magazine

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products?
My media products use forms and conventions of real media products due to thorough
research on professional products which enabled me to construct a product in a
similar style. My Teaser trailer was in the genre of horror so in order to achieve this, I
planned and researched my chosen genre to meet the audience and genre
expectations. For my first product, I chose related professional teaser trailers to
undergo analysis i.e. Woman in Black, Dark Mirror and Scream 4 to look at what
ideas I could generate from these products and incorporate into my own. From this I
was able to review each teaser trailer and look at what they have done to establish
the conventions of that genre.

3. I used a range of conventions which I will aim to explain. The first important feature to my product was
the music which was vital to create a different atmosphere. Alternatively the music creates the
tension needed to build up the narrative and create arousal through the audience. The music initially
came from a royalty free music website in which I used two soundtracks from the horror section. I
edited sections of the music to match visual action within the teaser.
Pop goes the weasel (double click to play track)
The house of leaves (double click to play track)
Chosen
Genre

4. My product also uses forms and conventions through elements of Mise en scene. I felt props and
costume created a significant meaning so I decided to use a quick fade of a knife being held
several times which established in my teaser that something bad was going to happen with this
prop. I decided to use some ‘fake’ blood to make certain scenes looks real. For costume
purposes, my main character Emeline only wore black clothing throughout the teaser to show
she is different and there is no life within her as black is a dark brooding colour.
Location helped to aid conventions of my genre. During analysis on professional products, I came
across scenes being established in houses so this was something I thought to include in order
to give the impression it is an ordinary house but sinister things will happen which is why I used
an entire semi-detached house as my main location. My teaser trailer deliberately had no
logical order as this is what teasers do.

5. Camera shots/angles were of big importance when it came to using forms and
conventions from real media products. From research, I noticed professional teaser
trailers (especially horrors) only use a small variety of camera shots because this
creates tension and mystery towards the narrative and also character’s facial
expression briefly tells the audience how the character is feeling and then this
meaning created from the camera shot is reflected into the audience to become
aware and react to this expression. With knowledge of this, I decided to use more
medium shots, close ups and medium shots alongside others.

6. For continuity to be invisible, during editing I used several fades as I liked how they
were used in Scream 4 and text transitions to make the narrative clear. The fades were
an important aspect because it restricted the audience to understand and see much of
the narrative as used in professional teaser trailers. The texts transitions add to create
mystery by explaining parts of the narrative as I thought the audience would engage by
reading something than listening to audio. Red was a big theme connecting my three
products together to symbolize potential danger and darkness. I went with the
convention of the American date format at the end of my teaser trailer seeing as I
researched horror films from American film makers.

7. For my film poster product, I decided to follow forms and conventions from real professional posters.
I will explain the conventions I used from my analysis of the three film posters. To begin with I
wanted to establish the actors names on both right corners of the poster influenced from the
‘After Life poster so the audience recognize who the main actors are within the film.
This is known as Hollywood credits used in many film posters to advertise the production
companies involved, writers, story maker and finally director. For my product, I challenged the
convention of making the directors name appear in big font as the main focus was advertising
the actors as I thought they were more important but in professional cases, if such a film was
made by Steven Spielberg, then his name would need to be obvious on the poster.
I decided to make the film title a different colour from the rest of the Hollywood credits so the title of
the film would effectively stand out. I also did this for my teaser trailer making the title, and the
‘coming soon 3.13.13’ text appear in red so it is easily recognized. An age rating icon was put in
my poster to make audiences aware of the preferred audience along with a tagline used in all
film posters.

8. Whilst thinking about connecting my genre to this product, I made this evident during the editing
process as I took photos with an SLR camera because most film posters are taken with high
quality cameras for printed purposes. This was a clear close up of Emeline’s face as her identity
is not revealed. Whilst editing on Photoshop, I created a shadow circle around Emeline’s face to
emphasize the main focus should be kept on her appearance because of the two identities
revealed through her makeup.
Hollywood credits
(including actors Alternatively, my finished film
Names, age rating, poster product brings across a
film title strong image which questions
and credits) Emeline’s true identity which is
what the whole narrative of the
film is trying to impose.

9. My Magazine cover uses forms and conventions of real professional media products as I
tried as best as possible to research professional mainstream film magazines and
acknowledge their professional practices used to produce print products. I looked into
Total Film and Empire but decided to use Total Films 2011 spring issue featuring Charlie
and the chocolate factory featuring Johnny Depp as an example to re create a magazine
like Total Film to near professional standards.

10. Firstly, I decided to use the same font ‘Eagle Bold’ used in Total Film but change the
masthead to ‘IFILM’ instead of Total Film. This is because I am thinking of media in the
contemporary as everything is now interactive or in some form of a webpage on the
internet. The reason for ‘IFILM’ is because film can be accessed interactively and it will
aim to bring its audience interactive content at a fixed monthly price via IFILM.COM for
those who do not want a printed copy. Alternatively, the magazine print industry in some
cases may benefit from this and as mentioned before expand consumerism of their
product.
Like Total Film, my product featured a medium shot of my main character Emeline holding an
important prop connecting this product to the teaser to separate and allow the audience
to distinguish her two identities. The image uses conventions of a horror because its
overall appearance seems dark and mysterious and makes you almost question which
side to believe. The Taglines, cover lines and overall layout helped to make sure my
product adhere to conventions of a real magazine cover. I have annotated my magazine
and broken down every element added to show this.

11. Professional Product Finished Product

12. Taglines &Cover lines
The taglines used helped to promote the
Masthead
magazine content. ‘the ultimate Movie
The masthead is
Magazine’ (corona font) supports the
‘IFILM’ in eagle
masthead.
bold font
Main
Background
Image Recognising the Actor
Featuring (Sans serif font)
Emeline
Barcode & Price
Website £3.79
recognition
www.IFILM.COM
Title of film

13. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary
texts?
The combination of my Teaser trailer, magazine and Film Poster is evident in the way
there are links and connections between the three products. Having looked closely
at one of my chosen film magazines for professional product research, I noticed
that the Johnny Depp image has lots of detailed aspects that link the overall
appearance of the magazine. The magazine correlates a colour scheme as the eye
and the glove he is wearing is the same colour (purple) as symbols and text used.
As a result, Depp’s eye would have had to been edited in Adobe Photoshop along
with symbols and text to correlate. Because the image is powerful in the sense that
it combines and supports the taglines, evidently we know that the human eye
cannot possible be purple so this does draws the reader into the fantasy of the
film’s narrative through the magazine.
Colour scheme from professional film
magazine

14. Because of this, the magazine’s tagline draws attention to the audience and supports
the masthead. My film poster’s title stands out from other text making this
extremely important for the audience to identify the name of the upcoming film.
For example, my film poster and magazine make good use of the colour red drawing
attention to certain texts i.e. the ‘Ultimate Movie Magazine’ and the film title
‘EMELINE’ as well as presenting a sense of danger.
(colour scheme from my film magazine)

15. The Teaser Trailer also proved effective in combination with the other products as I used font
colour red for the film title, release date and fade transitions. Decisions for this were
because I wanted to correlate a meaning between my film (the 1 second montage of
blood hands seen and the last two text transitions at the end of the teaser each
separated by black fades).

16. Likewise I decided to use this colour scheme convention by using the following on my
film magazine;
 A black backdrop for the photography stage of my character and using a knife with
a black handle linking the knife and background image to create a dark atmosphere.
Black creates a
sinister mood
Most importantly I wanted my film magazine image to be the powerful aspect of the
magazine so I used a lasso square tool to highlight & edit the right side to Emeline’s
face making it black & white. By doing this I aimed to blur the lines between fiction
and reality showing two hidden identities and representing the two effects (black &
white and colour) as two hidden identities colliding through an image. I feel that the
image adjustments used on Photoshop interprets this.

17. Most importantly I wanted my film magazine image to be the powerful aspect of the
magazine so I used a lasso square tool to highlight & edit the right side to Emeline’s face
making it black & white. By doing this I aimed to blur the lines between fiction and reality
showing two hidden identities and representing the two effects (black & white and colour)
as two hidden identities colliding through an image. I feel that the image adjustments
used on Photoshop interprets this.

18. The overall effectiveness of the three products is due mainly to the constant use of the
central character in all three products which gives us a different viewpoint of all three
proposals.

19. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback has taught me a great deal of planning and preparation for each
production stage (pre & post). This was vital because it enabled me to acknowledge the
preparation that comes before research & planning, filming and editing, acknowledging
audiences different interests, favourite film genre’s, hobbies, occupations and income.
From this, a professional production can make initial changes and decisions based on
audience feedback.
Once completing my ancillary task, I conducted a focus group survey explaining the task and
then presenting them with my initial ideas for my teaser trailer. It helped me to know what
to include, what not to include and what would be preferred whilst directing my teaser.
Myself and my focus group discussed my overall ideas and They were happy with my three
final products. As I took their feedback into much consideration. However before this they
were shown ‘The woman in black’ to act as a style model to get a general idea of what
my product was aiming towards.
As a result I learnt that my focus group thought location and setting was important, the genre
has to be obvious through forms and conventions, and the use of a central character
would create a better understanding of narrative of events like ‘Woman in black’.

20. Everything I have learned from audience feedback was put into practice through the following
teaser ideas;
 Basing my teaser around Emeline (and other characters) assuming she imposes a
normal lifestyle.
 Quick fade transitions by not revealing much of the narrative
 Violent & horrific montage shots to achieve the conventions of the chosen genre
 Text transitions for audience to receive a clear understanding of the narrative.
Having completed the product, I arranged for my campaign consisting of three products to
be shown to a media student. I created a few questions to be answered based on the
products being seen.

21.  Do you think the poster, magazine and teaser trailer is effective enough for advertising a
film?
 Yes I think it is very effective and there are many aspects (including the following of
conventions of chosen genre) between the three products that link together enough for it
to be effective.
 What links can you identify between the poster and magazine?
 The fact that the central character is used throughout all three products, helps better
understanding of the film campaign. The magazine and poster both have interesting tag lines
that support the narrative by telling us that there’s something unusual about Emeline.
 Which sections of the magazine, poster and teaser trailer could be potentially improved?
The magazine could have included more taglines as to promoting more content from the magazine
There could have been a stronger colour scheme, as for the film and poster nothing could be
improved.
 Which part of the magazine and poster looks the most professional?
The Poster looks the most professional as it does exactly what a film poster should do, it doesn’t
give away too much but it shows the elements of the genre. Looking at the tagline and the
image makes us want to know what is wrong with the character Emeline as one side to her she
looks very normal but then the other half of her face looks distraught/deranged.

22. From doing this, I learned from the feedback that my products linked together because
of the input of detail. Despite this, there were some problems as to finding the right
characters who would potentially be able to portray the characters I had in
mind, Trying to achieve a smooth tracking shot in an exterior location and non
professional equipment. To improve the narrative, I made an initial decision by
changing the intended camera shots and sequence of the teaser because I was not
satisfied with the original sequence and shots. This was because I wanted to keep
the mystery throughout the teaser revealing slowly revealing the narrative as it got
to the end.
Overall, I could have included more conventions to make my genre even more obvious.
I feel I could have improved the spelling mistake made in my teaser acknowledging
that a professional production company would be less likely to make this mistake.
My poster could have been improved by the use of a different exterior background
giving the poster some realism to it.
These improvements will need to be understood for any further film
campaigns/products. The audience feedback during all processes helped me
substantially which I am extremely grateful for.

23. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
Several media technologies were used during the construction (filming & post production),
research, planning and evaluation stages. Without the use of these technologies the
products would not be the way I had initially planned. During each of these stages, I took
full advantage of media technologies for the following;
 Research & Planning
At this stage, I made use of the Internet using a search engine (Google) researching
existing media products that I would be able to relate my chosen genre to. Google
allowed me to gather information and images about existing teaser trailers
acknowledging me about how much profit was made from the film, the actors
starred and several other important factors. I was able to perform a screen shot of
images using (Command-Shift-3) and then put onto a word document.

24. YouTube was used to actually view the professional teaser trailers likewise I was able to
perform screen shots explaining the information I had retained from research. I also used
websites like slideshare for presenting information in a different medium and Excel for
collecting research on audiences.
(Click to view word
document example)
However the Microsoft office was the best media technology as it allowed me to present my
information in graphs, paragraphs and presentations. www.wordpress.comwas where I
produced my own page and then putting my word documented information onto it.
Wordpress is a blog which allowed me to incorporate information making my production
stages appear visual.

25.  Construction (Filming & Post production)
During the filming of my teaser trailer, I used a handheld Cannon HD camera. For better
shots, I filmed scenes several times to achieve the chosen shot/angle so that when it
came to post production, I had a variety of shots to edit with. Because I already knew
what shots I would perform, I still decided to do different things than to what was drawn
on my storyboard. We used the light source from the camera which was very useful as I
was filming in an exterior location in the evening. To capture sound I used a fish pole and
microphone although these sound equipments were not needed throughout as I retained
sound from a free sound source website importing this into final cut.
After gathering all scenes filmed, I began using an Apple Mac to edit the teaser through
Final Cut and editing software but first I had to log & capture the film so final cut
could be aware of my filming. With the aid of a 2TB hardrive, I was not restricted to
using a specific Mac just to edit which I found very useful. Final cut helped create
the idea and formation of my teaser trailer as I wanted it to look like because I was
constantly using professional tools to move, cut and add transitions to my film.

26. I mainly used the fade in and fade out transitions, razor tool to cut sections, change
and compress the footage. The effect that worked in particular for my teaser was
the changing of speed for footage and sound as this helped to slow down the
narrative and create attention to that scene. In order for my music to not be
interrupted with this change of speed I had to lock the sound timeline. During my
AS year Final cut was a major problem for me but now I feel that I have overcome
this as I am fully aware of Final cut’s potential to edit high standard films. I feel that
after hours of editing I have gained so many new skills using this software which
will help me in the future.
Change sound levels
Timeline
(where I edited the film from)
Log & capture Change film speed
Main tools
Browser

27. My film poster & magazine was created with a professional image editing software called
Photoshop. With previous knowledge on Photoshop I was able to add adjustments to get
a good colour balance within my images as well as using several layers to add text and
effects with no problem. The only problem encountered was creating the oval shadow on
my film poster which I used the internet to find a tutorial for. The problems encountered
for the magazine was trying to replicate the small icons promoting content. I was able to
complete both poster and magazine because I followed and used examples for both
products.

28. Having said this, I feel that in order for me to create these products, the skills learnt in my AS
year, have allowed me to develop those skills further and learn more with the software’s
used. As as result, I am happy with my finishing products and know that in future I will
pick up more skills for similar tasks.