1. A2 Media Studies Advanced
portfolio evaluation
Robert Scott
http://robertscottstmarys.wordpress.com/
2. Introduction
In this presentation I am going to discuss
the 4 evaluation questions.
- In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
- How effective is the combination of your main product
and ancillary texts?
- What have you learned from your audience feedback?
- How did you use media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?
3. Trailer: In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When I started this project I decided that I wanted to challenge
some of the conventions. I wanted to avoid making my trailer like
a trailer for a film like Kidulthood or Adulthood.
Costumes
One way I challenged the conventions was by having characters
who were teenagers not wearing the stereotypical clothing. I had one
character wearing a hooded top so people could associate it to the
genre. The characters wearing suits looks more like Godfather films.
4. Trailer: In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Trailer text conventions
Trailers often have the names of the actors and who the
director of the film is. They also have text on the trailer to tell
the audience information about the film. Films from all
genres use this as it is something people recognise in trailers.
The Dark Knight Inception
My trailer
I used these conventions because it’s easy for people to
know that it is a trailer.
5. Trailer: In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Weapons
I decided that I wanted knives to be the weapon shown in my trailer
because it is associated with the age group of the characters but I
have still challenged the conventions because in films that are the
most similar to my film they use guns.
The most famous gangster crime films of today including Scarface
and The Godfather feature guns. I think having the same sort of
characters as these films but not using the same weapons doesn’t
make people think it is just a copy of these famous films. The age
and type of characters in my film are also inexperienced criminals
so they use weapons that are easy to get like knives.
6. Trailer: In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Sound
I decided to go for music that wasn’t the stereotypical music that
people might expect to hear in my trailer. In films such as iLL Manors
which is a crime film, they have urban music. This is what people
might expect to hear so in my trailer I used music that wasn’t related
to crime films and challenged the convention.
My music also made it more obvious that my film was going to be
similar to The Godfather. This can be shown when comparing the
sound in my trailer, The Godfather trailer and the iLL Manors trailer.
The Godfather Listen to a part of the
sound from the trailers.
iLL Manors
7. Trailer: In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Effects/Themes
I wanted to show people in my trailer that my film would be a dark
story of characters involved in crime. In trailers like The Godfather,
some of the trailer is scenes from the film during the night and with
a dark feel to the scene. To make my film have a darker more
mysterious feel like The Godfather trailer, I added a dark effect.
This is a convention that I have used and developed as I have
made the majority of my trailer with a dark effect.
8. Poster: In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I decided to include
blood on my poster
because it made a
reference to violence.
On crime film posters
they will often not have
blood and instead have
I have put a quote things that relate to
on my film poster. violence such as
This is something weapons. I wanted to
that a lot of films show people that my
do on their film film would include
posters so the violence and the result
audience can ask of the violence. I also
questions about challenged the crime
what the film film convention by
might be about. adding a horror
convention.
9. Poster: In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I also decided to do something that famous crime films have done
for their film posters. I only have one character on my film poster
as this doesn’t give the audience much information about the film.
There are films from all types of genres who only have one person
on the film poster but the type of film I was trying to make only
have one person on their film posters. The poster for The
Godfather and Scarface are very famous recognised images.
10. Poster: In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I have used a layout that is used a lot with film posters. This is
a convention and something that people recognise as a layout
for a film poster. I decided to use the layout that a lot of films
use because I think the layout get’s peoples attention.
The layout has the title of the film in writing that is often the
largest text on the film poster. A quote, the name of the actors or
a release date are at the top. As shown above there is also
writing under the title of the film. The text is at the top and the
bottom of the film poster so the image can be seen. On the
Lawless film poster there is some text in the middle of the poster
but the text is somewhere, where it stands out on the image.
11. Poster: In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The font used on films similar to mine are similar to the
font that I have used. They are also in capital letters
which makes them easily readable on the film poster.
On film posters that are in the romance genre, they usually have a
softer font. This isn’t always the case in romantic films as shown in
the Made of honor film poster. The font being used isn’t in bold and it
still looks a softer font than the font on the Scarface film poster.
12. Magazine cover: In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
A magazine cover will often have
images or text of other things that the
magazine contains. This is to make
more people interested in buying the
magazine as the more films in the
magazine, the more people there are
who are likely to like the films featured
in the magazine. I decided to give
people an idea of what else is in my
magazine and show images.
13. Magazine cover: In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I decided to put the name of my magazine at the top of the
magazine cover. This is a convention that a lot of
magazines use. It tells people straight away what the
magazine is. It is something magazines do about all
subjects and I also thought that the name looked best at
the top of the magazine cover.
14. Magazine cover: In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I also wanted to try and challenge a convention on my
magazine cover. I have chosen not to show a character on my
magazine cover as the main image. It is common for a
magazine cover to feature a character from the film as the
main image of the magazine cover. I wanted people to not
have an idea of who is in the film so they had to see what the
magazine featured at the bottom of my magazine cover.
15. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback has been important in the creation of my film
from the very beginning. I started by creating a questionnaire and
giving it to people in my target audience, younger and older to fill
it out. Below is the questionnaire that I created before I started
creating my trailer.
16. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
This question gave me an idea of
the favourite film genre from the
people that I gave my questionnaire
to. I learnt from this question that
people are interested in the genre
that my film is.
This question gave me an idea
of what crime film conventions
I should include in my film
trailer. I included knives as this
was popular but I also included
some of the less popular
conventions such as hoodies.
17. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
The results from this question let
me see how many people are in
my target audience who did my
questionnaire. I can see if peoples
opinions are similar to other
people in the same age group or if
they have a range of opinions.
I have learnt from this question
that the actors being aged the same
age as someone do help them relate
to the characters. The results were
quite close and the actors not being
the same age as everyone in the
audience shouldn’t make people
not be able to relate to them.
18. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I asked for feedback constantly from the people around me.
I learnt things along the way about what people thought
worked best and I made changes that I thought would
work well. I put the feedback that I got onto my blog. I
learnt from this information what could be changed. The
first feedback I got was before I finished my first draft so I
have got feedback all the way from the beginning. Below is
an example of a post on my blog where I have written
about the feedback that I have got.
19. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I decided after 2 drafts that I wanted to film a focus group. I got
three people from my class and asked them to speak about what
they thought of my trailer. I learnt some important things from this
focus group. The first thing I learnt was that the text the title of my
film was in was very similar to the text in another film. I was told
that it was like Jurassic park so I changed the text. I also learnt
that people didn’t like the colour of the blood and it needs to be
darker to look more realistic. I changed the effects on the video
where the blood was to make it look darker.
20. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
When I had finished my final draft I showed my trailer to my
class and a few guests. I recorded the questions that were being
asked and the replies that people were giving. I learnt some
valuable information from this. People didn’t like the part where
the man killed is on the floor. They thought it would be better if
there was just an image of the man when he was still alive. This
focus group also gave me a chance to see what people thought
worked well in my trailer. People liked the effects behind the text.
I think people liked the general idea of my film and with some
changes it would be a film they might watch. Some of the people
that watched my trailer were unsure if they would watch the film
after they have watched the trailer.
21. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I learnt during my focus group that people didn’t think the acting in my
trailer was good. I decided to get some feedback from someone who didn’t
know the actors. They said they didn’t think the acting was the best but it
added to the experience that an amateur production is. I think this is good
feedback because I wasn’t aiming to make a trailer as good as a film with
experienced actors and a large budget. I was trying to make a trailer to the
best of my ability and give a message which I think I did. I don’t think the
acting has affected the message of my trailer.
22. How did you use media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Technology that I have used and how I used it?
The first thing I did when I started my advanced portfolio was
signing up to Wordpress. This would allow me to document all of
the work I am completing throughout the planning, construction
and evaluation stages. I have used Wordpress to allow me to post
my trailer, poster, magazine cover and a lot of research. I have
been able to use Wordpress to present my research in a lot of
different ways including images, videos and text. I used Wordpress
to document everything and as a reference to what I have already
completed. It was easy looking down my posts and seeing what
has already been completed.
23. How did you use media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I have used Microsoft office to word process and present my work. I
was able to type my work up in Microsoft Word to find any spelling
errors and then post the work on my blog. I used Microsoft Excel to
create my graphs for my pre-production questionnaire. I also used
Microsoft PowerPoint to create the presentation for my pitch for pre-
production and this presentation for my evaluation. Microsoft Office
has allowed me to find errors such as spelling mistakes in my work
throughout my portfolio. In some cases I typed my work on Wordpress
and some spelling mistakes appeared. This shows the assistance that
Microsoft Office has given me.
24. How did you use media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used an iPhone 5 to take the
I used a camera during the images to my poster and magazine
construction stages. I used a cover. I did this because it can take
camera to film my trailer. good quality pictures. The effects I
Without a camera, it would added to my poster and magazine
have been impossible to film cover also meant that the quality of
my scenes and create my the image didn’t have to be very
trailer. I choose not to take the good. I also took my magazine cover
images for my poster and picture and luckily got a siren in the
magazine cover on the camera. image. This was very lucky and isn’t
I choose to take the images on something that can realistically be
an iPhone 5. planned. Having my phone on me
meant I could get an image perfect
for my magazine cover.
25. How did you use media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used an Apple iMac to use the software that it has. I didn’t use the
iMac much for my research and planning section because I could use
Software like Microsoft Office which isn’t just for Apple products. I
started to use the iMac for it’s software when I got to the construction
section. I used iMovie to edit my trailer and I used Photoshop CS4 to
create my poster and magazine cover. I can also use iMovie to create
my commentary evaluation. The video editing software I have used has
helped me a lot and allowed me to create a good trailer.
26. How did you use media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Photoshop is a very professional product and I used it to create my
film poster and magazine cover. I choose to use Photoshop because
it was software that was available and it was a product that I had
used a little bit previously. I also wanted to develop new skills using
the software as I think these skills could benefit me in other
projects in the future. I used Photoshop during my construction
section and it allowed me to create professional work.
27. How did you use media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used YouTube and Vimeo to upload my trailer. These
websites are easy to use and they let me embed the videos
onto my blog. I used Vimeo to upload a couple of versions of
my trailer because I thought the quality was better. There
are smaller websites which allow users to upload videos but
YouTube is currently by far the most popular way for people
to upload videos like trailers to the internet.
28. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
When I started my trailer I decided that I wanted to use a dark
effect. This meant that before even starting my ancillary tasks I
had already decided that they would be dark mysterious pieces.
All of the pieces have a dark effect. This is what I wanted to do from
the beginning so I have kept the theme throughout all of the tasks.
29. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I think the combination of my products is effective because
people would associate all of them with the same film. The same
themes are mentioned in all three of my products. This is good
because people would be reminded of my film in different
formats including a trailer, film poster and a magazine cover.
As you can see from the products of The Godfather, the same
themes are used in all three of the products. This is
something that I have tried to do with my products.
30. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I also think the combination of my products are good because they
aren’t too similar to each other. Although it can be seen that they are for
the same film. They are different enough for people to have an interest
and not think they have seen something to similar before. If my film
poster and my magazine cover were very similar then people might not
take much interest as they have seen something similar before.
I don’t feel that my film has one main character so I didn’t want to have
the same character heavily featured on each of the products. Some films
such as James Bond will have the actor who is acting as James Bond on
a lot of the products. I think the combination of my products is effective
as I am not telling the audience as much about my trailer.
31. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I also decided that to make the combination of my products effective, I
needed to try and show the genre of my film in all of the products. I have
done this in different ways for all of my products which I think makes the
combination effective.
In my trailer I have shown the genre of my film by showing weapons and
the type of characters. There is violence and the characters clothing gives
the audience an idea of what genre my film is going to be.
On my film poster the character is wearing a suit and there is blood. It
looks very similar to the themes in my trailer and the genre should be
clear when looking at both of the products.
On my magazine cover I am not showing a character but I have shown an
urban environment with police sirens. This is also conventions of my
films genre.
The combination of my products is effective because they can all be
related to the genre of my film without all looking the same.