A2 Media Studies Evaluation for OCR Specification G324

1. Janique White
Laura Monie

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

3. The cover lines told people
This is the final edit of our films magazine. about up and coming films with
director comments and different
The old sight and sound interviews which included
masthead is very bold and material related to our film
hard to miss. This makes sure
that it stands out to the The font used was the same as
audience . we felt that this was appropriate.
We felt that the Main No more than two fonts were
Image was very strong and used. It is conventional for
it interest our audience Sight and Sound magazines not
into finding out more to use more than 2 fonts.
about the film.
Barcode reader – this is
The font used for our main something that is found on every
cover line was very special and sight and sound magazine.
constant throughout our print
work. We felt the this font was
We used a plain background as
very strong and worked well
we felt that this would draw
for a thriller. It portrays danger
attention to the main image. It
and bloodshed which worker
made our image more
perfectly with our thriller.
intriguing and we felt that this
The tagline for our film tells would get the attention of a
so that they can recognise it
the readers a little bit about wider audience. It was
anywhere. This was placed under the
the film without giving too something that had a very
main cover line so that our viewers
much away. It gives our simplistic look.
will associate the title with the tagline
audience a sense of the film
of the movie.

4. We used this sight and sound magazine as our guide . This sight and sound magazine
cover is very similar to ours.
The cover lines mentions
stories and different written
The iconic masthead. pieces that can be found in
This masthead is very the magazine. This may or
iconic. Brand awareness may not be linked to the
would make sure that image being portrayed. It
the readers of sight and gives the audience a wider
sound know this knowledge about the
magazine through its magazine and the content in
font and its colour it.
scheme The main image and background are
very strong. The image is placed on a
dark background and is also a
Main titles are usually medium close up of this character
kept really short and and his gun. It shows a typical thriller
easy to comprehend. It character on the front cover. The
would become very position along with the appearance
boring if a reader saw a of the character and the
very long title which iconography portray some of the
would be over forms and convention of a typical
exaggerated. thriller character.
Sight and sound usually keeps there cover lines under the main title which gives a bit more information
about what is going on in the magazine.

5. Both magazines have the same qualities as we followed the set up and guide for the original magazine.
We felt that the image for the Coen Bros Gang magazine cover related to One option. We also felt that this
cover was very simple and not overcrowded or over advertised. This would ensure that viewers bought the
magazine for information on the film and not everything else that was being show cased. Both our
audience and sight and sound audience will be more interested in the content of the magazine instead of
free gifts.

6. Our poster has little This is the final edit of our film’s teaser poster
information on it . We felt
that we had a strong The image we chose was
image and we wouldn’t darkened as we felt this
have to fill it with portrayed a very strong
information. We chose a character and also it puts a
teaser poster because of bigger emphasis on the main
this very reason. Its character ( the hitman).
simple and interesting. Normally the hitman is
People would enjoy every covered and very mysterious
aspect of it because of its but we felt that because this is
simplicity and the fact a character who in the movie
that its not overcrowded wants to be seen; we showed
with information. his face. To give the image a
urban feel to it we placed our
We used the same text and main character to one side
kept it consistent instead of being in the middle.
throughout our work. The His facial expression and his
colour went well with the pose shows a very strong
background which was emotionless person who has
faded and darkened in the intent to kill. Our audience
order to make the image of will know that this character is
the hitman seem powerful. on a mission.
The website along with the release date and starring character was placed
on the poster as we felt that if people wanted to find out about the movie
they can go unt0 the website. Plus the poster itself doesn’t give away a lot of
information.

7. Teaser Trailer – One Option
“The story follows the narration of an unlikely damsel in distress (Laura Monie) who is kidnapped.
Most of the movie goes through the point of view of her brother a hitman (Arthur Iheanacho) who
got her in trouble. He refuses to work for the ‘Boss’ (Gervais Lynch) who then takes his sister as
collateral. The boss now needs to watch his back because it seems that his plan isn’t working out. He
is a retired hitman with a temper. It looks like he has one more job to do but this time “Its not
business, Its Personal”.”
The teaser trailer for one option is a narrated piece. The film includes different shots
from different points of the movie which serves the purpose of not giving away the
movie but showing people what the movie is all about. Through both fast and slow
paced editing the movie teases the audience and shows them part of the danger and
adventure which lies ahead. The voiceover explains the predicament that one of our
main character is in. It shows her being taken and tortured by henchmen working for
an evil boss and her brother trying to find her. The trailer shows people the mystery of
the movie and keeps them in suspense of what will happen to our main characters.

8. Narrative
This is narrative is very different from normal thriller narratives.
Normally you will have a strong male protagonist and a helpless female who
the male will be trying to save. Although this does seem like the narrative of
One Option we decided to use the ‘helpless female’ as our protagonist and
tell the story through her narrations. Whether it was from her point of view
or other characters. We wanted our film to be different so we decided to use
this form instead of following something that has been done before.

9. Character
The characters in One Option are very typical for thrillers involving a
hitman. Firstly we have a hitman who is trying to get revenge or get
something back. This is one of our main characters. Then we had our
damsel in distress. Although it is something that is done in nearly every
movie we put a twist to it. Most movies have a straight forward narrative
or theme where the hitman is the protagonist but in this movie we felt
that we should stray a little bit from the typical themes. We wanted our
female to be the main character as we felt that this was different from
other movies. Also the fact that there is a voiceover for much of the
trailer from the point of view of our female character strays from the
normal narrative.

10. Theme
When it came down to themes we kept to the original forms and
conventions of thrillers. Although we wanted our trailer to be different
we had to follow the typical forms and conventions so that our teaser
trailer would be considered as a thriller. We focused on using torture,
murder and kidnapping for our teaser trailer.

11. Iconography
We stuck to a gun as our main iconography. We used this weapon
throughout all of our work (the print work and the trailer). A gun is a
typical weapon for a hitman and majority of the thriller movies that we
used as examples show the hitman with a gun ( mainly).
Setting
Our trailer shows several scenes in different places. We kept an
Urban/low income area(ghetto) feel to the trailer as we shot scenes in
the local park, subways and apartment buildings found in the area
(Chadwell Heath and Marks Gate).

12. Audio - Visual Styles
We as a group had to make difficult decisions about the lighting and colour
scheme that would be used throughout our trailer. The typical form and
convention thrillers call for a low key lighting and a dark setting . Most of our
trailer has a lot of scenes which are not consistent with the typical forms and
conventions of thrillers.
Our group chose music which created a sense of mystery, action and suspense.
We chose the music which was played throughout the trailer. This was chosen to
portray a list of action fast paced music which we felt built suspense. We felt that
this complied with the typical forms and conventions of thrillers when it comes
to audio-visual style.

13. 2. How effective is the
combination of your main
product and ancillary texts?

14. We think that all of our media texts work well together, as they all complement
each other by sticking to a consistent style throughout. All of the 3 media texts
do have a consistent style this is seen by the ways in which the images which are
present in both Text 2 and 3 are similar shots which have been taken out of Text 1
(the trailer). By including a consistent style between the 3 texts makes it easier
for the audience to recognise the campaign as a whole and be able to relate each
Text to each other.
However Text 1 is slightly different, it doesn’t completely fit in with all aspects of
Text 2 and 3, but there are consistent aspects which link all three of the Texts
together.

15. Consistency of font usage throughout our film and print work.
Magazine
Poster
Inter titles
We made sure that the font we used on our print work as well as our film was consistent
throughout our work. This made our audience aware of the movie and made sure that
every time they saw that font they knew it was One Option.

16. Effects of the Image
Our text products link back to each other in various ways; we used the same fonts on all our
print works to make them link with each other although we our poster is in black and white
while our magazine is in colour. Also, we made sure that we featured a weapon in both prints
to link them both together and also give it a sense of hit-man and bloodshed in our film.
Although there are different images on both the magazine and the poster, the images are of
the same person and the fonts and weapons link well together.
Same
person
Same
weapon
Same
fonts

17. Fonts
The text which we as a group feel works the best for our campaign is Text
2 which is our magazine cover Sight and Sound. This is because we feel
we have adapted out look well to fit in with the typical ‘Sight and Sound’
magazine cover by including the usual features which complete the
‘Sight and sound ‘look, although we tried to be a little different by using
Base O2 font which isn't usual of Sight and Sound magazines.
We did this by the usual master head, and San serif fonts (Arial) which
sight and sound are known for using although we used the Base O2 font
trying to be a little font.
As well as going with the typically ‘Sight and Sound’ colours scheme, we
have added our own touch to our campaigns look by adding a film grain
look which was picked up during the editing of Text 2 image. While using
trial and error on the magazine image we found the effect interesting.

18. Colour
As well as going with the typically ‘Sight and Sound’ colours scheme, we
have added our own touch to our campaigns look by adding a film grain
look which was picked up during the editing of Text 2 image. While using
trial and error on the magazine image we found the effect interesting

19. • We attempted to make the male character at the front of the poster look domineering
and dangerous to show the fact he is a villain/hit man.
Domineering figure
• Meanwhile in the background of the picture is empty to put the focus on the only image
on the picture.
• We did think of putting the victim; 'hit man’s sister' on the magazine but couldn’t come
to an agreement on what photo to be put as females on magazines are usually either
dominant/sexy/seductive or vulnerable however we concluded and decided on not
putting the victim on our magazine as the idea was to portray the hit man as the main
centre of attention as he is in the film itself.

20. 3. What have you learned
from your audience
feedback?

21. The target audience for our genre for the thriller was chosen to be
teenagers (both male and female) aged between 15 and 25. We presented
our film to both male and female participants between the ages of 15 and
50. We chose an even group of people with three males and three females.
We felt that this would give us a better sense of what different age groups
felt about our film. We chose both male and female participants to take
part in this viewing. Most of our positive feedback came from female
participants. We felt that this would have happened since its from the point
of view of a female character who also does voiceovers. The male audience
were not as please but gave many positive reviews. We took people from
different areas and points of life. Some of which we knew and two
strangers. Feedback was received for our Teaser trailer, film poster and our
Sight and Sound magazine.

22. Feedback

23. Feedback of the Teaser trailer
Laila Shenair (18) – “Having seen this trailer being developed I think it
came along very well. I can tell you that its definitely a film that I am
going to see. ”
Danny Hunter (16) – “I knew from the very start of the trailer that this
was something that you have to watch with an open mind, its not the
type of movie your used to.”
Lesley Mussard (17) – “I felt that this trailer was fantastic. The female
character appealed to me very much.”
Paul Watson (45) – “This was a good trailer but it was a bit different for
my taste. From what I gathered the main character being a female
completely took me by surprise. I wasn’t ready for it. Its not what I am
used to. The hitman I think portrayed good skills and was perfect for the
role.”

24. Feedback of the teaser trailer cont.
Natalie Cross ( 30) – “ What can I say about this trailer. Wow. It is definitely
something that your not used to. ”
Cameron Brown (25) – “I absolutely love this trailer. I thought it was
amazing. I would definitely show everyone I know. I would watch this
movie when it comes out.”

25. Feedback of Poster
Connor Adams (16) – “It’s pretty cool. Very impressive”
George Lessis (18) – “It is Awesome. It looks like a thriller to me
that I cant wait to see.”
S. Lall (teacher) – “Its good. I feel it portrays an urban gritty
theme.”

26. Feedback of magazine
Charlie Bun (23) – “It keeps you in suspense. Makes you wanna
learn more about the film.”
Allesandria Jhordann (19) – “It doesn’t quite show a thriller genre. it
shows kind of a gangsta wanna-be film. It’s a bit confusing and different
from the poster.”
Brandon Zeus (31) – “It’s a bit confusing. Its mysterious but its also
doesn’t tell you anything about the film itself.”

27. 4. How did you use media
technologies in the
construction and research,
planning and evaluation
stages?

28. RESEARCH
The way that the media technology helped us research into thriller trailers,
poster and magazines was by searching the internet to gather research
and information to help us create our own project.
As we wanted specific results we used Google to search key words in
order to help us find some ideas to help us when working with our own
campaign.
We researched ‘film magazine covers’, ‘film posters’, and ‘teaser thriller
trailers’. By searching these key words, it enabled us to be able to decide
what magazine our trailer would be most appropriate on.
We also made good use of comingsoon.net to view whole campaigns and
also the school blog to view older years projects to get detailed
knowledge of the forms and conventions of trailers and also to
distinguish between the good and bad works of other students.

29. RESEARCH CONT’D
We thought it would be easier to make a trailer compared to our thriller opening from
the previous year.
However, didn’t know what we would have to include to make it different to a full length
trailer. But after researching some teaser trailers like LEON-The Professional, Orphan
and several other diverse film types like horror, psychological thrillers and hit man
thrillers, on You Tube we noticed that there are certain key elements we had to include
in our trailer to make it different and to make the audience aware that it is a teaser
trailer
The key elements we noticed had been featured in most thrillers teaser
trailers is fast paced music which builds up the speed, slow motion, fade-
ins and fade-outs and face paced shots which all contribute to make
thrillers more thrilling.

30. PLANNING
Media technologies helped hugely during the planning stages prior
constructing our trailer, poster and magazine cover.
We struggled a lot when it came to choosing what magazine.
After agreeing on SIGHT AND SOUND, We looked at the typical
similarities that were included through, magazines, posters and
trailers, and looked at the usual conventions on our school
intranet in order to take note of this when creating ours.

32. Media technology in general helped us a lot with planning our teaser trailer as although before
when researching it, we thought it would be easier to make than our thriller opening from
the previous year.
However, didn’t know what we would have to include to make it different to a full length trailer.
But after researching some teaser trailers like LEON-The Professional, Orphan and several
other devise film types like horror, psychological thrillers and hit man thrillers, on You Tube
we noticed that there are certain key elements we had to include in our trailer to make it
different and to make the audience aware that it is a teaser trailer.
Blogger also helped us to keep our planning in one place and help us keep track.
The key elements we noticed had been featured in most thrillers teaser trailers is fast paced
music which builds up the speed, slow motion, fade ins, fade outs, the use of inter titles and
the suspense of the trailer.

33. POSTER AND MAGAZINE
On the creation and editing of our poster and magazine cover, we had a few
stumbling blocks along the way; first of all it was hard deciding on which
magazine cover to go for as at a certain point, they all appeared to be
impossible to make and then after long and hard debates, we first of all came
to the decision of making our own magazine cover which still didn’t work out
as we didn’t know what name it should be called because all the names we
suggested didn’t sound or look like film magazine names.
For these we adapted ideas and parts of previous examples of poster’s and
magazines to create ours. For the magazine , we finally decided to base it on
the well renowned Sight and Sound magazine.
Then using Picnik and a little help from Photo-shop, we combined the title and
usual stereotypical items that would appear and added them to the pictures
and images we felt best portrayed the idea of the trailer as a hit man trailer.

34. CONT’D
When planning our poster, we came across a rather interesting technique
where by we could use another application called Picnik.
“http://www.picnik.com /”; a photo editing application used to edit our
poster and make our titles as most of us found it hard to use Photo-shop.
This application happened to be of so much help to us as before discovering
its usefulness, it had taken us almost two weeks of class time trying to
learn and at the same time figure out how to use the usual photo editing
application; Photo-shop and paint shop pro.
When it came to editing the magazine cover, we came in luck by messing
around with the saturation levels of an image on Picnik, we came across
an effect; film grain, This simply created small dark grains of turquoise
colour on our images, and the saturation also created a ‘video camera’
look to the image, which changed the whole look of the image making it
a little darker.

35. CONT’D
Adding the mast head and the cover lines to the poster was a little easier, It
wasn’t difficult matching up the fonts used in the poster to those that
were used in the magazine as we had taken note of which fonts had been
used.
Certain editing techniques worked better when using Photoshop because
we felt it allowed us to have more control over alterations. Both images
were edited in Photoshop because we had more options when making
the image ‘black and white’.
We were also aware that we had only used two different fonts with the
‘sight and sound’ poster, as with sight and sound magazines they do not
use more than two fonts. We chose to use both sans serif fonts which
was Arial, and non-serif fonts which was Base O2 .

36. CONT’D
We particularly struggled with the placing of the billing block, as we was
unsure of the font and the size, this took a lot of our time as we were
constantly attempting to place the billing block as a layer, and in the end
we decided not to put a billing block at all as it kind off delayed us.
The poster was much more easier to make as we already had very strong
pictures of our main actor and didn’t have to edit it as much to make it
look strong. We made use of both Photo-shop and Picnik; photo editing
applications to edit our poster.

37. CONT’D
In Picnik, we had to change our image into black and white because we
didn’t like the very bright colour of the picture as it doesn’t connote the
image of a hit-man which we wanted to portray. We also used the Base
O2 fonts to write our title in red suggesting to the audiences bloodshed
in the film.
The back ground of our poster wasn’t very interesting so we imported it to
photo-shop and decided to play around with some dark paint on the
walls to make it busy, stronger and more interesting to look at.

38. We really liked the poster from the movie REDADA that’s why we decided to make ours
look a little similar to it.
Our poster example poster

39. ORIGINAL PHOTO FINAL POSTER

40. Although our poster looks nothing like the one we got our inspiration from, it was
still of great help to us because from that we knew how we wanted ours to look
like. We started off by sketching our poster just like the REDADA one but it
didn’t look as good and so we had to change it and make it look more
professional and original as we didn’t want it to seem like we copied exactly
what they had. The sketch below is an idea of how we wanted our first poster to
look like.

41. Magazine Final.
ORIGINAL PHOTO

42. Our magazine Sight and Sound or iginal

43. TRAILER (filming)
When making our trailer, we couldn’t decide on which category to do. At first
we wanted to make a horror trailer and then we changed our decision to
make a psychological trailer howbeit that didn’t work either so we finally
agreed on a hit man type trailer which appeared to be much more easier
than our previous ideas.
We first started making our trailer by taking a few location stills of the
places we wanted to film at to make sure that every body was in
agreement with our location. We filmed at a train station, a park, a flat, a
subway and a classroom. Just like the train station, filming at a subway
was hard because we were distracted by the passing by people and
trains.
When we started our filming, it happened to be the easiest part of our
project. We used a tripod when filming shots that needed to be still. We
also made use of several different shots including close ups,(which can
be seen in our trailer when the Arthur the hit man punches the camera)
long shots, medium shots establishing shots( which can be seen in our
trailer when the hit man is looking around in a field. Several hand held
shots also feature in our trailer especially in the parts where the hit man
(Arthur) is running.

44. TRAILER(editing)
When it came to the editing stage of our trailer,
we made use of Adobe Première 6.5 to edit
and give effects to our film. We had quite a
hard time while in the editing phase of our film
as we couldn’t all decide on when to start as
we all have different time tables. Once an
order of events had been established we went
on to start the editing process. Firstly, we
arranged our shots in order of sequences and
storyline. Then we went on to decide which to
be made face paced or slow motion. Making
some shots face paced was quite easy because
all we had to do was make the shots a little
shorter and put several of them close to each
other thereby creating face paced shots.
We also added effects like fade ins and fade outs
to create flow and tension to our trailer. In
order to create a fade ins, we had to pull the
red string on the shot upwards and in order to
make it fade out, we simply had to pull down
the same string. The fade-ins in our trailer can
be seen at the end when our title is shown.

45. TRAILER(music)
When it came to adding music to our trailer, it appeared to be a little harder
than expected because after having learnt how to add music to a film we
thought it would an easy job. All the music was already downloaded and all
we had to do was choose the right music
First of all we listened to all the available music we could find. At this stage
we found it a little difficult as we needed music that builds up tension as our
film is a hit man trailer. We found some very interesting music but non of
them were of any use to us as they didn’t match the scenes in our film.
However we eventually found music which marched perfectly with all the
scenes and tension that build up in our film and also sounded authentic and
suitable for our hit man thriller theme. In order to edit the music and make it
match the scenes. Firstly, we had to edit it to make it a little fast paced and
then we had to reduce the volume of the music in order for it not to clash
with the voice over as it would then be difficult for viewers to hear anything
being said.

46. TRAILER(VOICE OVER)
After editing our film, we realised that it needed a voice over to make it a little
more explanatory. The voice over editing stage was quite easy for us because it
was something we were used to as we had done it in our previous project. First,
we recorded the voice over on a camcorder, the we uploaded it to a computer
and added it to our trailer. We then had to edit it to make it fit the scenes as the
voice over explained each scene and why it happened the way it did. We
sometimes had to put up the volume of the voice over as it nearly clashed with
the loud music.
We chose not to use captions or inter titles although the use of caption is used
quite regularly in teaser trailers as it gives very little information but gives over a
small message to the audience and also the use of very little information being
shown and very little of the story is been given away is used almost all the time
in teaser trailers, with holding certain information in a trailer builds suspense and
makes the audience want to see more.
We also tried to follow the rule of most thrillers by not giving away too much
with the voice over as its a bit of a put off for audiences and knowing what
would happen makes them loose interest in the film.

47. Overall this project has been a very interesting and different experience
from what we did the previous year which was much more easier to
make. This year we have learnt how to use media technologies much
better and also we have learnt many more things about the typical forms
and conventions of films and how they are made. This is a very important
experience for us as it gives us a more detailed knowledge of the media
in general.