A2 Media Evaluation

A2 Media Evaluation : 

A2 Media Evaluation Amy Gallacher Candidate Number: 3079

Question One : 

Question One In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Slide 3: 

Before creating our media product (teaser trailer), each member of our group carried out extensive individual research into already existing teaser trailers in order to use, challenge and develop the conventions of a teaser trailer. We would also have to research the marketing and advertising campaigns for the existing films, as we needed to create ancillary products, such as film posters and magazine covers to support our teaser trailer. In my individual research, I first noted the time range of teaser trailers to be between 30-120 seconds. I also noted the use of institutional information such as production companies, and also the use of ambiguity within the teaser trailers. We ensured our own teaser trailer for our own film – ‘Wednesday’s Child’ – used all of these conventions. Focusing on our desire to create a multi-generic mystery/thriller teaser trailer, we decided that due to the sensitivity needed around the storyline for our film, our intended audience would be mainly adults of both gender. The main demographic code that would be attracted to our teaser trailer would be explorers or reformers seeking discovery or enlightenment. Mainstream viewers could also make up a large part of our audience as they would use our teaser trailer as a basis for social interaction, and would also see the excitement appeal. Mainstream viewers would also experience pleasure when the final equilibrium is revealed.

Slide 4: 

We strove to create both mystery and suspense within our teaser trailer and have used both Barthes’ hermeneutic code – creating a plot that would cause questions to arise amongst the audience, and also the proairetic code - using actions such as the villain walking down a darkened corridor to create suspense and wonder. We have partially developed Barthes’ enigma theory, using both the hermeneutic and proairetic codes to create suspense and thrill. Once we had finished our teaser trailer, it did fall slightly shorter that we had originally intended, but we found that if we were to lengthen our trailer to fit to a longer timescale such as the teaser trailer for “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen” (2008) which is 136 seconds, we would lose the suspense we had worked hard to create. We decided to challenge the convention of this particular teaser, and kept our own teaser trailer at 63 seconds, which enabled us to create an enigmatic style and also brought suspense amongst our intended audience. Trailer length…

Slide 5: 

Another focus area for our group was characters and their representation. We used Todorov’s narrative theory of equilibrium – disequilibrium and new equilibrium when planning the plot for our film. When creating our teaser trailer, we focused mainly on showing the first equilibrium – a happy state of the young girl’s life, and the beginning of the disequilibrium – insinuating the child’s kidnap by the older male character. By choosing to withhold the majority of the events that we planned to occur during the disequilibrium and the new equilibrium, it enabled us to create a huge amount of suspense and empathy amongst our prospective audience. Within our teaser trailer we used Propp’s character theory by including a villain and a hero, with some brief encounters with some extra characters that take the role of helpers. By including these characters we were able to give the audience a preview of the types of characters that would feature in the film whilst keeping an ambiguous style.

Slide 6: 

We aimed to portray characters through mainly mise en scène choices and editing. We created opposition of the protagonist and antagonist with light and darkness of both costume and the style of lighting in the shots, and also used colour effects over our original footage during the editing process. We liked the idea of using colour to represent different characters, and found some inspiration from the use of colours within the teaser trailers for “Angels & Demons” (2009) and “Alice In Wonderland” (2010). I specifically found the use of colour in the teaser trailer of “Angels & Demons” interesting, as the use of the colour red was a bright and vibrant contrast to the surrounding mise en scène choices. We borrowed the style of this particular shot from the “Alice In Wonderland” teaser trailer, as the bright hair of the ‘Mad Hatter’ is a contrast from the surroundings. We developed this idea further and came out with the shot displayed to the right.

Question Two : 

Question Two How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Slide 8: 

When creating our ancillary texts for our advertising campaign, we needed to focus on creating cohesion between all ancillary texts, and also between the ancillary texts and our main product (teaser trailer). We concentrated on using the same colour scheme we had decided on earlier in the planning stages and made sure we used the same font throughout – “American Typewriter”. Immediately you can see the cohesion between our film posters from the use of our colour scheme and font style. Font Colour Scheme

Slide 9: 

When creating my film poster, I had a clear idea of the style I wanted to use, and decided that I wanted to create a poster that would be released in the early stages of our advertising campaign. I wanted to create enigma by using few words and only simple images. I chose to use Jasc Paint Shop Pro Version 9.00, as I am familiar with this programme. I used the tools available to create numerous effects, for example, to manipulate colours and change brightness levels. By creating a manipulated image focusing on exposing the bright red in the frame and also by darkening and slightly blurring the image of the villain, consistency is clear between my poster and other ancillary texts as well as keeping consistent with our teaser trailer. There is also a strong visual link between the products due to the same style of images used. Our poster campaign is overall extremely effective in both attracting the audience and advertising our main product. There is an effective combination of both posters and magazine covers that invoke enigma around our products. The protagonist and antagonist feature in many of our ancillary texts, giving clues to the audience about character types and also the text displayed in relation to our main product is minimal yet still effective in creating a ‘buzz’ of excitement about our film.

Slide 10: 

From my early research, I noted that film posters released early in their advertising campaign included minimal information and included the film’s website, such as this poster from “The Taking of Pelham 123” (2009). I created cohesion between my two ancillary texts using synergy. I included a reference to the film website on my poster which would boost awareness of the film website, and also encourage the audience to visit the website.

Slide 11: 

The website I created is the main link between all of our ancillary texts. The website features our main product (teaser trailer) and also, on other pages the magazine covers and film posters. By including these texts on the website, it allows the audience to interact with the digital content and download the film posters to view at their leisure. The website would also promote the magazines, boosting their potential sale. This idea came from the many existing websites I had already researched, as the majority contain features such as cast profiles, a gallery of images, a download section containing desktop wallpapers and film posters etc.

Slide 12: 

Our magazine covers are also very effective in creating consistency between all of our products. You can see that all the magazine covers are similar in the way they promote our film by using images to entice the audience. Obviously, there is a visual difference between the “Empire” magazine covers and the “Little White Lies” cover we have created. In early research, we discovered the different styles and conventions between the two different magazines. “Empire” magazines have a more predictable style, using clear images and text, with the same colour scheme running throughout the cover. Although “Little White Lies” does use the same conventions such as a colour scheme, the style is quite different and in turn, creates a truly different effect. Here you can see the pop art effect used on our cover which was inspired from an already existing cover. Although there are two extremely different styles, there is still an effective solidity between the ancillary products as the image and colour scheme used is a signifier of our teaser trailer and ancillary products.

Question Three : 

Question Three What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Slide 14: 

Audience feedback was a huge part of our whole project. We used a questionnaire in the early stages of our project to focus on genre and style, and to ultimately gain an insight into the possible audience. Our questionnaire consisted of both open and closed questions and we carried out this audience feedback on a variety of different demographics. We collated our results and used Microsoft Office Excel 2007 to transfer our results into pie charts in order to have a visual account of the information we discovered. Our initial audience feedback helped us to choose a specific genre as the audience feedback highlighted a potential gap in the film market, highlighting the mystery and thriller genres. Our audience feedback also gave us ideas for the basic conventions we would need to include in our teaser trailer to make it a success, and also the types of music we would need to include so that the soundtrack and other sound effects were those that are expected in relation to our genre. Our initial audience feedback gave us an insight into the genre that we would create our teaser trailer for. The results showed the suggestion of a mystery/thriller genre and we used this suggestion as the base of our early planning. From this we decided our storyline and character types in accordance to the requirements of this multi-generic style. From our audience feedback we also recognised the necessary conventions such as fast paced action, lots of shots, effective transitions, suspense, and an effective soundtrack. From this section of our audience feedback, we decided on the shots for our teaser trailer, starting off with slower action that gradually builds. We decided that our audio would coincide with the on-screen action, starting off slow and then building. This would create tension and enigma amongst our audience.

Slide 15: 

We gave a screening of our first cut to our media class and also to friends and family members of different demographics and recorded their feedback for both positive and negative views on the first cut of our teaser trailer. We noted these on our blog, which can be viewed here. One of the main changes that we had to make after our first cut viewing was the mistake of showing an empty swing in one frame, and then a few shots later showing our young female protagonist on the swing again. This was a continuity issue that caused confusion amongst many members of the audience. We had to change this in order to create a believable storyline that was continuous. After completing our final cut for our teaser, once again we gave a screening to our media class, family and friends to get more audience feedback on our final cut to see if we had any more changes to make. This time our audience was happy with the final cut and we decided that we would make no more changes.

Slide 16: 

From my initial research, I noted the extremely effective viral marketing campaigns for many new films on social networking sites such as Facebook. Adverts and pages are an effective advertising method on social networking sites as they create awareness of a film’s upcoming release. We created a Facebook page for our film and invited people to join the page. We then uploaded our teaser trailer and film posters and received feedback on the page. This feedback was positive, praising the use of colour and text effectively. Our Facebook page has generated a lot of interest around our film, showing how effective viral marketing is, when promoting an upcoming film release.

Question Four : 

Question Four How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Slide 18: 

When carrying out my research and planning, media technologies played a vital role. I used Internet sites such as YouTube and TrailerAddict to research existing teaser trailers, which helped when thinking of the direction we wanted our teaser trailer to go in. I also used IMDB to research film genres and directors. Media technologies aided my research as I could create a playlist on YouTube to save teaser trailers I found interesting, enabling me to refer back to them when I needed to. Also I used technology to record my findings using programmes such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Excel. Google blogger is a website used extensively throughout this course as we have been documenting our progress through the stages of research, planning and then eventually through the construction of our teaser trailer and finally the evaluation stage. This website has enabled us to create our own personal space on the Internet where we can digitally upload images and footage of our own work. Websites such as AuthorStream and SlideShare have enabled us to present our research digitally through Microsoft PowerPoint. We have been able to upload our presentations to these external websites and then embed the presentations to our blog, demonstrating the vitality of using media technologies when presenting our planning work. Other media technologies that we have used during the planning stages are hardware such as the HP Scanjet 4070 Photosmart Scanner, which we used to transfer designs on paper to digital images that could be presented online. Our media department supplied the Konica Dimage E500 Digital Camera to capture images for our storyboard. These digital images were uploaded to both iPhoto and other software such as Jasc Paint Shop Pro where images could be edited and uploaded.

Slide 19: 

Media technologies were an important part of the construction of our teaser trailer. We used the JVC Digital Video Camera GR-860 to capture our footage for our teaser trailer. We ensured that the footage we were filming was of industry standard by using the JVC tripods, creating smooth shots. We uploaded the footage to Adobe Premier Pro on Windows XP in order to edit our footage into the correct order and then transferred it via a USB device to the Apple Mac’s as they were introduced to us halfway through this course. We then used iMovie to complete the transitions and titles of our teaser trailer. We also iDVD to create an effective DVD menu, including special features, that contributed to a professional DVD package for our teaser trailer. Other media technologies used during the construction of my first ancillary text (website), was firstly Adobe Dreamweaver, and then iWeb to create a working homepage for our film. We first of all created pages using Dreamweaver, but then changed to iWeb as it offered more freedom and an easier method of creating content for the pages. As we mastered the programme quickly, we created more pages for our website such as a gallery and cast and crew information. When creating my secondary ancillary task (film poster), I used Jasc Paint Shop Pro Version 9. I was able to manipulate images and apply various effects to style the images the way I wanted to.

Slide 20: 

The final evaluation stage of our project has been aided significantly through technology. The evaluative stages of our audience feedback through the use of social networking sites such as Facebook have shown the value of using media technology. We used technology to screen our first and final cuts, which allowed us to gain audience feedback, giving a detailed report on the positive and negative points to our production, showing areas that needed improving. I also used valuable media technologies such as PowerPoint and AuthorStream to upload this presentation of my evaluation to our blog.