The document discusses the production of a media campaign for a film called "The Package" including the creation of a trailer, magazine cover, and poster. It describes the research process, planning, construction of the various media texts, use of technology, and feedback received from test audiences. The campaign was effective at conveying the film as a thriller and establishing the narrative and main character.

1. Connor Markey, David Kitenge, James Laird

2.  In what ways does your media product use, develo
 How effective is the combination of your main pro
 What have you learned from your audience feedba
 How did you use media technologies in the constr

3. Sub Contents:
 Magazine cover-Conventions 1
 Magazine cover-Conventions 2
 Magazine cover-Conventions 3
 Poster-Conventions
 Trailer-Conventions
 Trailer continued-Conventions

4. Magazine cover–
Conventions 1 We added the price in the ‘M’, as
seen on other Empire magazines.
We used the conventional We used the space above the
‘Empire’ masthead in it’s masthead to add another cover
standard font and colour, also line, which is also used frequently
positioned at the top of the page. in real Empire cover pages.
We kept the website address
We have the cover lines where it would be displayed
positioned on the sides of the normally. We felt that keeping the
page, typical to Empire website address would be a good
conventions. The cover lines also display of intertextual references
rarely overlap the main image. between the media outlets.
The main cover line is central in
the page, to show its importance
compared to everything else on
the page.
The ‘+’ sign is seen many times We have our barcode on the front
on the front cover of Empire page, however in a position where
magazines, which is why we it does not interfere with other
added it to show consistency cover lines.
with already established
conventions in the Empire
Empire magazine do not have
magazine.
‘wordy’ cover lines. So the very
simple, easy to read sentences
including ‘MUST SEE’ are useful.

5. The month the magazine is made in is
relevant to our movie, and others on
the cover, such as ‘The Hunger
Games’.
We used a colour scheme which
used consistently dark colours,
so we quickly adopted the The main image overlaps the
conventional Empire colour of masthead, establishing a
red. This was complemented well hierarchy of importance between
by the black background and the two, showing the main image
white text. is more important.
The background image is dark, We stuck to the use of block
and is slightly lighter in the centre capital style fonts on most of the
to help distinguish the main predominant text, as this creates
image from the background, a bold image on the magazine
whilst still maintaining the colour cover.
scheme. The colour scheme also
fits with the genre of the film. The
masculine, dark colours A gun is a conventional prop in
associate themselves well with a relation to the thriller genre. In
gritty brit-style gangster film. This our opinion, the two most
is also evident in the cover line important parts of the cover to
‘THE NEW LOCK STOCK’. This show the film is a thriller trailer
is an intertextual reference that are the powerful cover lines
our target audience would fonts, and the subtle addition of
recognise and like. the gun.
Our magazine cover also adheres to
the ‘rule of thirds’.

6. The price on this cover is also
displayed in the ‘M’ of the masthead.
We used the ‘Inception’ cover as
a guide to how we wanted our
magazine to look. For example, The website address is also
we used a similar pose for the in the same place as our
main image on our magazine. magazine.
We also used a similar style for
the main cover line, with smaller
text above and below the main
cover line. The main image of our
cover is the same camera
distance as the ‘Inception’
cover, at a mid shot.

7. The addition of quotes
on the border of the
The three main characters names are shown at the top of poster provides the
poster. This is done because some people may want to see bonus of
The name of the film is a film if they like a particular actor’s previous performances.
recommendation, and
in the largest font size, also helps to decrease
in the signature font of empty space on the
our film, centralised in poster. Of course,
the page. without congesting the
poster.
We kept the main The men in the
character in the background of the
foreground in focus, picture are wearing
whilst keeping dark clothing. The
everything else out of dark colours connote
focus. This their purpose to be
automatically draws dangerous.
the viewers eye
towards him to
establish his We keep a general date
significance. on the poster, so we can
create an urge inside the
Our poster gives viewer to research our
information such as the film to find a specific
release date, hence release date.
moving away from the Our billing block blends into the
teaser poster. background, so it does not take away from The location is a dirty
the image in the background. It also uses a back road. The
different font to maintain the condensed location along with the
image a billing block normally gives. It is sepia tone allows our
also a font that matches with the style of the poster to lend itself to
rest, as it is conventional, to outline these our targeted genre.
roles.

8. Hyperlink to
trailer
We tried to make our product conform to as many thriller conventions as possible, so that we could
clearly show the type of film you would want to watch. This was essential, because in our trailer we set
out to create an enigma, and if we explained a lot to show it was a thriller film, we would sacrifice the
development of that mystery. So this is where we decided that by following conventional features in
areas such as music, props, characters, and language, we could convey the genre of our film.
We used captions in our trailer, like the film Valkyrie. Also, we found that we could show who the main
protagonist was by showing a shot of him after a caption relating to what would be the main
protagonist. We then wanted to try establishing the danger that the protagonist was constantly
subjected to. To do this, we increased the pace of the trailer in the middle, showing shots of chase
sequences.
We portrayed our narrative through captions, backed up by the shots followed, and led the audience to
believe the protagonist found something of great interest to a group of people. The goal of these
people remains unknown, but we know that they will stop at nothing to obtain this package. By
organising our trailer into a structure that you can follow, it helps to go against the teaser trailer
conventions.
Conventional iconography was used to convey the genre of the film to the audience. For example, the
presence of guns helps show the film is an action film, and the combination of the guns, suits, and the
fact that all of the cast were male suggests that this film looks to be a conventional action/thriller film.

9. We used a variety of camera shots to establish each characters power, or lack of it. Where appropriate,
we showed the protagonist in a high angle shot to make him look smaller, and weaker. However, when
we see the shot where the leader of the enemy group wants the protagonist dead, it is shot at a slightly
low angle, to help show his power.
We tried to avoid giving a sense of continuity, as we wanted to maintain an enigma, avoiding showing
the audience what will happen when. However, we pieced the trailer together in a way that could
establish the characters purposes, and portray the narrative in the correct way. In our trailer we added
music that helped us build suspense in our trailer. This allowed us to convey the tension and suspense
typical in a thriller.
The trailer started at a slower pace, showing captions, allowing the user time to digest what was
happening. The pace started to quickly speed up at the middle, when the chase scenes began to occur.
Fast shots of dialogue were also mixed into the middle to create an overall sense that all of this was
happening at the same time. The pace then began to slow down, until we arrived at the last shot,
where the protagonist was hiding behind a wall. We gave the audience once last bit of suspense as we
know that if the enemies turn around, he will be caught. This is when the hand reaches from the side
and pulls him back just before the screen fades to black, followed by the title of the film. We were
hoping to create a strong enigma with the final shot that makes our audience want to watch the film.

10. Sub Contents:
 Overview
 Similarities between ancillary texts
 Similarities between ancillary texts continued
 Effectiveness
 Effectiveness continued

11. Our media texts were linked through key themes that we maintained throughout. For
example, we used the same font for the title in the trailer, magazine cover, and poster.
We maintain the main protagonist in every media text. This helps establish the main
character to the audience before they have even watched the film.
‘Empire’ magazine is a magazine that typically features big blockbuster movies, and the
colour scheme and layout style that Empire uses fitted perfectly with the image we were
trying to convey with our film. So Empire was the obvious choice to use in our magazine
cover.
We wanted to convey a consistent theme of danger in all of our media texts, and we
believe we achieved this by the use of iconography such as guns. The chase sequences
in the trailer, and the shot of the protagonist hiding from the two men in the poster.
We also had a consistent colour scheme of black and red to connote danger. Both are
masculine colours to fit in with the characters.

12. Our ancillary texts have a few similarities that allow us to identify that they are the same
film. Firstly, the bold, unique font used for the title is consistent through the texts. The
font used is a sans serif font, this style of font is used frequently in the action thriller
genre, so we thought that we should follow conventions to allow a more accurate
portrayal of our film. Also, the main character is present in both texts, and kept in the
foreground of each text. This allows the audience to familiarise themselves with him as
previously mentioned.

13. Similarities between ancillary
texts continued
We used sans serif fonts because they give a strong,
masculine image. Creating an edgy feel to the text. The main
character is not as easily identifiable when considering his
face is not shown in the poster. Thus, you cannot recognise
him or associate with him. However, identifying the main
character is not the purpose of the poster, it is to show the
title of the film and convey the genre (thriller) of the film to
our targeted audience.
On the other hand, the shot used in the poster is taken from
the trailer, allowing people who have seen the trailer to
associate with the poster, and vice versa.

14. Trailer: The trailer has a consistent theme of imminent danger, however, the reason for
this danger is never revealed to the audience fully, creating an enigma the makes the
audience want to go and watch the film. This enigma is held consistently throughout
our media texts.
Poster: Our poster gives the viewer many different pieces of information in relation to
the film. We are given dates, a title, reviews, and mystery. To focus on the mystery, we
see the protagonist hiding from the two men walking away from the camera. Why he is
hiding, we do not know, we are also unclear as to the roles of the protagonist and the
men. However the use of more unique clothing on the protagonist helps to distinguish
him when compared to the men in plain back clothing. Also, the viewer may notice on
the left hand side of the page that there is a hand emerging to grab the protagonist.
This creates even more mystery, as we do not know whether the person grabbing him is
good or bad.
Magazine cover: The magazine cover is designed to establish the main character to the
viewer, and to convey the theme and genre the film belongs to. We did this by showing
the gun, and also by using dark colours and bold, block capital fonts. The whole cover
has a strong, dark theme to it that we hope the reader would instantly attach
themselves to subconsciously.

15. Effectiveness continued
We feel confident that through the different
methods mentioned, our campaign is easily
recognisable. For example, the colour scheme
which remains consistent through the media
texts, and the poster shot being taken from
the final shot of the trailer. The title font is
also kept consistent throughout each of the
media texts as well. This idea has been used
in other campaigns as well, such as in
‘Inception’s’ campaign.

16. Sub contents:
 Feedback review
 Student feedback
 Teacher feedback
 ‘The Package’ questionnaire
 Questionnaire results
 Feedback evaluation
 Feedback evaluation continued

17. We showed a group of people in our targeted demographic our trailer, alongside our
magazine cover and poster and asked them to give us their opinions and take part in a
survey. Our target audience is a younger audience, aged at around 15-20 years old, and
the film is mainly targeted to a male audience. We also, however, surveyed women in
this age bracket to research other audiences near our demographic. We showed our
media teacher the trailer, magazine cover, and poster as well as we knew that our
teacher could give us constructive and valid feedback.
We received good reviews from our group, and all found the concept of the film
interesting, and wanted to watch the whole movie.

18. “The trailer suggests a complex narrative.”
“I would have preferred to see the main
character’s face on the poster.”
“The magazine cover looked professional, I
would have bought it myself.”
“Sometimes I couldn’t follow the narrative.”

19. “It is easily identifiable as ‘thriller’ as the
emphasis on the character being the hopeless
victim dragged into a situation out of his
control is so evident. The film challenges the
typical teaser structure and it clearly tries to
structure the narrative for the audience, but
is teaser as there is enough sense of enigma.”

20. 1. Did you enjoy the trailer? If yes, what did
you like about it? If not, why not?
2. What do you think the film is about after
watching the trailer?
3. Who was the main character?
4. What certificate would you classify this
trailer as?
5. Would you watch this film after seeing the
trailer?

21. 1. We found 7 of 10 people enjoyed the trailer
2. The majority of people surveyed showed a
clear understanding of the narrative in the
film.
3. All of the people surveyed knew who was
the main character, especially after seeing
the poster and magazine cover.
4. All but one candidate said the trailer should
be classified at ‘15’, one thought ‘18’.
5. 9 out of 10 of the candidates answered
‘yes’.

22. Overall I would say our campaign for this film
was very effective. Our target audience
showed a confident interest in the film, and
said they would ‘happily watch the film’.
We are happy with our end product, it has
provided us with all that we wanted to give in
our campaign. The trailer, magazine cover,
and poster all portray the film as a thriller.
They also establish the main characters and
narrative very effectively.

23. Feedback evaluation
continued
Overall, we would not change anything in our
film, as the criticisms some people made
were counterbalanced by others saying they
understood it clearly.

24.  Research
 Planning
 Construction-Trailer 1
 Construction-Trailer 2
 Construction-Trailer 3
 Construction-Poster
 Construction-Magazine cover
 Technology-Evaluation stages

25. Before we planned our own trailer, we had to research the genre we were working in so
that we could get a better understanding of our task. The main media platform we used
was the internet. On the internet, we used websites such as the search engine ‘Google’,
and the video sharing website ‘YouTube’. We also used the school’s hub to enable us to
see previously archived work, it helped as we could use the previous work examples to
build a template for our work.
On Google we could search for a variety of thriller posters and magazine covers, this
helped us as we could analyse these posters and magazine covers so that we could find
similarities in the thriller genre. YouTube allowed us to search for teaser trailers in the
thriller genre. Unfortunately this became an awkward task as we struggled to find an
ample amount of thriller teaser trailers on YouTube. This is when we turned to other
means of finding teaser trailers. For example, we used our own thriller movie DVDs to
watch the teaser trailers. We also used ‘www.comingsoon.net’ to research and find
thriller trailers, posters, and everything else required by us related to movie campaigns.
Our research helped us conform to some of the media conventions you would typically
see in a thriller teaser trailer. This was crucial to our trailer as without the use of these
conventions, our target audience probably would not understand the trailer, and we
may have been unable to convey the narrative to the audience. All of the research we
gathered helped us to decide on our gangster sub-genre of thriller.

26. For our planning, we reviewed many different trailers and campaigns
for films. We also learned about trailer structure from our media
teacher. The structural points we learned were about creating faster
paced scenes in the middle of the trailer to create suspense in a
thriller teaser trailer. This then enabled us to deconstruct trailers,
posters, and magazines so that we could look at them in detail and
analyse specific points.
Our previous research helped us plan our scenes in the trailer, and
helped us make better decisions related to things such as
iconography. We were looking towards making a gangster thriller, so
using guns, and characters wearing formal shirts in the film helped
convey the sense of business that we wanted.
Blogger helped us to keep track of what we were doing, and how far
we were in our construction at all points as we could look back and
easily see where we were.

27. When constructing our trailer, we used the software Sony Vegas Pro 10. We
were very familiar and comfortable with this editing software, so we definitely
had an advantage that we wanted to use there. We were able to piece
together each scene precisely, which was essential as the shot order in a
teaser trailer was crucial to us.
We arranged our shots in a way that didn’t follow a chronological order. The
shots were in a randomly organised fashion so that we could create an
enigma for the audience to want to follow and research. We believe we
achieved this goal, as our survey group said that they felt a consistent theme
of mystery was present.
On some shots we encountered the problem of background noise. For
example, on one shot it is very windy. Our knowledge of the editing software
we used helped us in minimising this problem by mixing audio levels
between the clips, achieving an optimal balance. This problem was not picked
up by any of the audience after editing whilst still retaining the audio we
wanted from the shot.

28. We wanted to keep as much information from the audience as possible whilst
still giving them enough to want to watch the film. This balance was achieved
through the help of repetition in shots. The chase sequences were consistent
in the peak of the action.
The last shot involving the main character hiding from the two enemies
behind a wall was used in the poster as well. This intertextual media
reference helped create an effective campaign for us. To make our titles, we
used picnik to make our title which is displayed at the end of the film.
To make each shot precisely cut, we used our editing software to our
advantage. Sony Vegas Pro 10 can view a piece of footage a go frame by
frame so that we could precisely cut each clip appropriately and synchronise
our footage to the music playing over it accurately.

29. Construction–Trailer 3
On the shot with the money deal between the two men, a match-on-action happens as
the money passes from one hand to the other. As the money is about to contact the
other persons hand the camera cuts to an extreme close-up to create a focus on the
money changing hands. We felt the shot in the extreme close up was too fast, so we
added the slow motion effect to draw more emphasis to this.
After the shot where the protagonist asks for help, we added a flash to connote a gap in
time, as the transition of shots may have proven confusing otherwise.
Our film was a brit-gangster film, and this kind of film typically can have very few
effects present. Therefore, a lot of our editing that took skill was seen in the transitions.
For example, the cross fades.

30. We captured the image for our poster using a compact digital SLR, as this
could give us the best results regarding pixels and the quality of the image.
For our poster we used an online editing tool called Picnik. Picnik was an
excellent tool to use, as it allowed us to add effects such as the sepia tone
and the focus effect over our image.
We found the font for our film title we used throughout our campaign on
Picnik. The name of the font is ‘You Are Loved’. We used a condensed font
for our billing block to create the squashed effect you see in a billing block
so often, and we used a standard ‘Arial’ font in everything else in the poster.
Picnik was extremely useful to the construction of our poster as it had a
variety of effects we could use, and allowed us to place a variety of fonts on
the page that were exactly what we needed. Again, these fonts were sans
serif fonts, and we made the text large, so it was a predominant part of the
poster. The colours used fit our colour scheme, which helped convey a sense
of strength and masculinity.

31. Like our poster, we used a compact digital SLR to capture our image for the
pixels and quality provided by it. However, instead of Picnik, we used Adobe
Photoshop CS3, as Photoshop provided a lot more tools in regards to image
editing.
Our image consisted of the main character in the centre. We had to remove
the background of the image so that we could place another behind our
character. Photoshop was an excellent editing software for this, as it had all
of the appropriate tools. We cut around the main character, and then pasted
the main character onto the background. However we were faced with the
problem that we could visibly notice he was pasted onto the canvas. To
counteract this we used the blur and smudge tools to smooth the edges of
the main character, thus creating a smooth blending.
The captions were easy to place, and images such as the barcode which were
added also were relatively easy as well. However, the positioning and size of
the captions was something which took much debating to decide on, as the
group went to receive feedback from people in our target audience so that we
could come to a final conclusion as to the proportions of our captions.

32. Technology-Evaluation stages
For our evaluation, we used various pieces of technology to create and upload our work.
We used PowerPoint to create our evaluation. We did this because we can then upload
this PowerPoint to Blogger, the website which we used to create an easy reference to all
of our work. To get our PowerPoint onto blogger, we used a tool called Slide share, this
was an essential tool as it allowed us to create a compact slideshow for our evaluation,
as compared to a long, basic text block.
We were pleased with this as it created a more visually appealing blog. We also used
YouTube to upload our trailer, as this is a universal video uploading site which we can
use to allow people view our work. This helped us receive crucial feedback about our
work that would allow us to ultimately improve our final piece.