The student used various media technologies at different stages of their project. In research, they used YouTube to analyze existing trailers and see audience feedback. They created a storyboard using a Blackberry and Windows Movie Maker. To film their trailer, they used a digital SLR camera and edited in TrakAx. Photoshop was used to edit still images for the poster and website. The website was created using Wix, which allowed importing images, video, and text but had some limitations. Feedback was gathered through questionnaires and uploading the trailer to YouTube.
2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions
of real media products?
In order to create realistic and successful products, research into the codes
and conventions of existing media products was paramount. Extensive
research allowed me to adhere to these conventions but also develop them
to create a unique and individual product. By keeping in line with these
conventions, my final products would be successful in the current market
and appeal to my chosen target audience.
The teaser trailer I created employs many of the codes and conventions of
existing trailers I found when researching current horror trailer by
production companies such as ‘Lionsgate’. Firstly, the trailer runs between
30 and 90 seconds, typical of teaser trailers currently in the market. This is
long enough to put the narrative across so the audience will understand the
basic plot of the film, but not too much is given away. This way, I was able
to entice the audience in to wanting to see the film as they would want to
know what else will happen. Another way my trailer adhered to the typical
codes and conventions was by the length and types of cuts I used. As my
chosen genre was horror, research into trailers within this genre showed
that they predominantly used short straight cuts to make the trailer fast
paced, exciting and to create moments of suspense. Therefore, I transferred
this onto my own trailer to put this idea across to my audience.
One of the conventions I kept to in the narrative of my film was the representation of the protagonist. The
victim is presented as a young teenage girl, overcome by guilt to make the audience feel sorry for her. This
can be seen in existing films such as ‘Prom Night’. This stereotype originated in the 1920’s when the original
horror films such as ‘Nosferatu’ were created. On the other hand, the villain is usually an older male
character, but we decide to challenge this convention by making the villain a young girl. In the opening
scenes, the audience is made to feel sorry for the villain but this quickly changes as there is a role reversal
between the victim and villain.
3. Another typical convention of the horror genre is the use of dark and mysterious
environments to create insecurity. The images I used on my poster and website
display this as many of my backgrounds were often black with only small sections
of the images and antagonist showing. This also helped create the idea of being
watched which links with the narrative of our trailer. Despite this convention, I
also decided to film parts of our trailer in daylight. This helps to lull the audience
into a false sense of security as daylight suggests that the characters are safe and
danger is not expected. This effect has also been used in trailers such as
‘Paranormal Activity 2’. This image that I did use on the film poster shows the
antagonist rather than the protagonist which is more commonly used. This is used
to directly scare the audience as they are now aware of what the ‘villain’ looks like.
I also found that many horror film trailers used enigma codes to create questions
for the audience. I transferred this onto my trailer in the closing scene; the
protagonist is shown in the front of the car and the antagonist is sat behind her. A
short flash of this makes my audience question what will happen as it suggests the
protagonist is in danger.
I found that violence and death were commonly only suggested in the teaser
trailers rather than explicitly shown. For example , in The Last House On The Left
Trailer (click on hyperlink to watch), flashes of black are shown at various points
when something violent is about to happen so it is not explicitly shown. In my own
trailer I decided to only suggest this violence for ethical reasons. In the opening
scene of the car crash, the girl was not shown to be dead; instead the black screen
with the sound effects of the crash suggested this. We had to consider how
appropriate it was to show this scene in our trailer, and we had to deliberate the
airing time of the trailer as we did not want to scare or frighten any younger
viewers. However, parts of our trailer does still have graphic or frightening
imagery, and so our trailer would have to aired after the watershed, as it is aimed
at an older audience who are more likely to be watching at a later time.
4. Another convention I challenged in the production of my trailer was the use of music and sounds. Most teaser
trailers use ‘creepy’ music to connote horror, and although we did use some parts of this, we also decided to use
other types of music. At the beginning of the trailer, the pop song ‘Price Tag’ is playing in the car. This puts the
audience into a false sense of security yet again, as it has positive connotation sand they do not expect anything
bad to happen. We then used ‘thud’ sound effects in dramatic parts of the trailer to make them memorable.
Towards the end of the trailer, we included a crescendo as this is where the trailer is building up to create tension
and the cuts became faster. We wanted to put this across to the audience and made them feel nervous as the
music builds. Finally, at the end of our trailer, we played the nursery rhyme ‘ Ring Around the Roses’, being sung
by a young girl. This links to the narrative of the film, with the idea of a young girl being involved. It is still ‘creepy
‘ yet unconventional.
I maintained a consistent house style when creating my website and poster, using a black, white and red colour
scheme. These are typical colours used in horror film products. Black connotes mystery and hidden danger; white
represented the paranormal element of our narrative, and red connotes death and violence.
On the links below I have annotated an existing film poster along with the one I have created to compare how far I
kept to the codes and conventions. To view annotations, roll over areas of the image with mouse.
Existing Horror Film Poster
My Horror Film Poster
Doing analysis’ like these made it easy for me to keep to the conventions as I had a constant comparison.
5. My website generally sticks to the conventions of existing horror film websites . I have combined sound,
images, text and moving images to create a professional product that reflects the genre. When researching
websites, I found that all of the ones I looked at had interactive elements which aim to engage the audience,
and thus I used this on my own product by the means of clickable items, image gallery and page links. On the
‘Enter’ page of my website, the production company logo is featured in the bottom right hand corner. This
acts as a ‘seal of approval’ and was a typical convention I found in the research stage, as it creates a degree of
prestige. On the main homepage I included comments from well known newspapers and film critics. I found
this feature on websites for the films ‘Insidious’, and ‘The Devil Inside’. These short sentences create an
effective impact as they give the film credibility and encourage the audience to see the film.
On each page of my website, I used the same font – ‘OptimusPrince’ to create continuity and also maintained
a consistent colour scheme that linked with the poster and made the website fluent. I did however use
different images on the background of each page so that they were all different. These images had all been
edited so that they had the same effect. The use of different images, which is a typical convention , helps give
the audience an insight into the content of the film.
The navigation of my website was also very conventional. I researched this area before creating my own. I
found that on all pages of the websites, the links to the other pages were always found in the same place and
could be clicked from any page. Therefore I made it possible on my own website to could go straight from, for
example, the ‘Trailer’ page to the ‘Gallery’ page without having to go back to the Home page inbetween.
As we certified our trailer age 15, I wanted to make sure my trailer appealed to this age group and older. I
incorporated links to the films Facebook and Twitter pages as these social networks used by the young
generation, are an excellent source of gaining a wide audience and promoting our film. This also helped
make my website interactive.
6. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
When creating my main product (teaser trailer) and ancillary texts (poster and website), I was aware from my
research that they had to closely link and maintain a house style. I was therefore very cautious of this, in order to
make my products recognisable and memorable. When filming out teaser trailer, we took still images of the
antagonist to use on our individual posters and websites. I edited the image on my poster to create a black haze
around the characters creating the idea of being watched. I also chose to use this effect on other various images on
my website, to create a consistent theme. Taking images during the filming also meant that the background images
on my poster and website had the same setting as that of my trailer ; remote, woodland area. It also created
intertextuality so the products would be associated with each other.
The purpose of my poster and website was to promote my film, and thus I had to make them stand out and look
attractive to the target audience. Therefore, the designs had to be similar so they were easily recognisable. I used
the same colour scheme on both the poster and website and similar fonts. This marketing technique meant that
once the audience had seen one product, they was associate these colours and images with my film and recognise
that the website and poster had come from the same production. However, there was one significant difference
between my poster and website. The site ‘Wix’ that I used to design my website did not allow me to import the font
that I had used on my poster and I therefore had to choose a different one, meaning that they were slightly
different. The narrative of my teaser trailer was also conveyed effectively on my main product and both ancillary
tasks as I used similar iconography and images to convey the story.
On all three of my products, I featured the production company’s logo and institutional information. On my
website and poster the ‘Pinnacle Productions’ logo was featured at the very bottom of the pages. This same logo
was also featured at the beginning of my teaser trailer. This helps to link all the products together as it shows they
have come from the same company, and also acts as a ‘seal of approval’.
I also featured the tag line from our film, ‘what goes around comes around’, on both the teaser trailer and the
poster. To further combine my ancillary texts, I could have also incorporated this tag line onto the homepage of my
website.
7. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Before the construction of our products, I had to gain audience
feedback on various areas to ensure my final products would be
successful for my chosen genre and appeal to my target audience. I
created questionnaires which I handed out to focus groups. For
example, this questionnaire was designed to find out which film name
our audience members felt was most effective. They were given a copy
of out film plot to help make their decisions.
After creating the first draft of out teaser trailer, we asked members of
our target audience for feedback in order to improve and adjust our
work. One of the main things we found from the feedback was that we
needed to speed up scenes in our trailer, specifically towards the end of
the trailer. We were told that they did not find it was fast paced enough
to be frightened and feel anxious as they could predict what was
happening. We took on board this valuable feedback and it helped us
create more tension in the trailer as the audience did not have time to
think what was going to come next. For example, the fast paced scenes
were reduced to less than 1 second.
One of the positive things we found from the feedback was that the
audience liked the length of the trailer. They were able to understand
the basic narrative as it wasn’t too short, but they also still wanted to
know what happened as it wasn’t too long. When researching horror
film conventions, I found that trailers of a similar length to ours held
more tension and excitement than those which were too long. The
audience also told us that the genre of our teaser trailer was very clear.
From the feedback, we also found that our audience did not understand the initial opening scenes of the trailer as the
narrative was not clear. To amend this, we filmed extra shots and edited them in it was clear who exactly was involved in
the car crash. This was very important as without knowing the plot, it is unlikely our audience would want to go and see
our film and we would therefore be very unsuccessful.
8. The feedback we received also specified that our audience members wanted to be challenged by and exciting
and deep plot. Taking this on board, we created enigmas which made our audience ask questions. For
example, ‘is the victim imagining things?’, which was created in the dream sequence as the audience are not
aware if the victim has been imagining things or if the killer really is there.
A very resourceful way of getting feedback on our trailer was by uploading it to the website ‘YouTube’. On
this website, audience members were able to ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ our trailer and also provide us with comments
and their views. This like or dislike option allowed to gain a quick overview as to whether the majority of
people thought the trailer was good or not.
The feedback on my film poster and website was also very positive. These are some of things that were most
commonly said:
- Looks professional.
- Good use of lighting and focus on the antagonist.
- Good editing of the images
- Liked how the transitions on the website linked with the element of paranormal activity in our narrative.
Some of the negative feedback I took on board was:
- The website and poster use different fonts.
- More images could have been used throughout the website.
However, overall my feedback was generally positive and I did not have to adjust much of my products to
make them appealing.
9. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the planning and construction of my media products, I
used a variety of different technologies. In the research stage, the
internet was the most valuable technology I had available, as it
allowed for extensive research from a wide range of resources. I used
the site ‘YouTube’ to search for existing trailers, as this site made
them readily available, and there was also audience feedback on each
video so I was able to see which ones were the most successful and
why .For example, this trailer of The Strangers has nearly 3 million
views, with a like/dislike bar at the bottom. This bar shows the trailer
has 3,684 likes and only 318 dislikes, meaning that it has been very
successful with its target audience. I was then able to look at the
comments on the video to see specifically which elements of the
trailer the audience liked and disliked. I also used the Google search
engine throughout the research stage to search for film posters and
websites,
In my planning stage, I created a storyboard of our teaser trailer
which showed the basic plot. Images of these were taken on a
Blackberry and then transferred onto the computer. I then used
Windows Movie Maker to create an animatic of my trailer, using the
pencil drawings of my storyboard that I had transferred onto the
computer. On this programme I was able to add transitions and
sound to create a realistic idea of how my trailer would eventually
look. Any planning and research that I completed was then
transferred onto ‘www.blogger.com’, an online blog storage service
that allowed me to enter my work chronologically.
In the construction of our trailer, we used a digital SLR Lumix camera for a high quality and professional looking production. We
then used the editing programme ‘TrakAx’ to edit our trailer and put the scenes together.
This programme allowed us to edit various aspects of our trailer. For example,
we were able to add a ‘car crash sound effect’ to convey what happened in the opening of our trailer without having an explicit
camera shot of the crash. It also allowed us to create fast straight transitions and speed up the trailer to make it exciting and scary.
This programme was completely new to us and was a new skill we had to learn in the step up from AS to A2.
10. When designing my ancillary tasks, I used the programme ‘Photoshop’ to edit still images I had taken
whilst filming our trailer. This graphics editing program is the market leader for image manipulation
software and thus permitted me t0 create professional images. The specific tools I used were:
- Magnetic lasso tool: to isolate areas of my image and change the colour filter.
- Burn tool: to darken the edges of my images.
- Dodge tool: to highlight areas of my images to become focus points.
I also used the programme ‘Picasa’ to add a blur to some of my images.
To create my website, I used to online site
‘www.wix.com’, which was free to use. This
website allowed me to create and interactive
and unique website from scratch. I was able to
choose backgrounds, import my own images
and text, add music and videos, and create
animations. The site did however have some
Limitations. For example, I wanted to add a
white noise sound effect as each page changed
as I also used this effect in my trailer, and
could so create continuity. However, on ‘Wix’ I
was unable to do this and instead just had to
have a continuous soundtrack playing on my
final website.
