Wednesday, 12 May 2010
How effective is the combonation of your main project and ancillary tasks??
I linked my ancillary tasks to my trailer, all with the theme of horror and all showing the characters from my main project. I used this as I would have if I was going to advertise my product. The trailer alone is advertising but I needed my ancillary tasks to have the same hook as my trailer. For the colour scheme of my poster and magazine cover I used the same colours I had used in my trailer. My dead girls makeup consisted mainly of the colours purple (veins) and red (blood). I used these as my dominant colours for my poster and cover. This meant that if people saw it, it would be easier to recognise at a glance. It would also distinguish the type of genre it is. I made sure not to use to much "gore" in my poster because if it was to be shown as an actual poster it may have been seen by children but still needed to get across my movie. I did something similar in my production, as I did'nt add much gore but instead gave the impression that there would be alot, by dimming the background red as the trailer began. By using a half image of the dead girls face in my magazine cover also allowed me to play with the impression of something instead of making it clear which is what I had aimed for in all my ancillary tasks, making them match and therefor giving them identity.
What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing your product???
Ah, technology, mans new best friend... I have learnt my fair bit as well whilst taking on my projects, including the ancillary tasks. Being clueless about a Mac does'nt really help when you need to edit. Thankfully, with alot of guidence i FINALLY got the hang of it. Once I had found the "special effects" icon in imovie, thats when things got alot more fun. By simply adding in a slow-mo effect I mannaged a technique i thought was out of my league. It gave my dead girl a more sinister look, as she strode towards the camera slowly with an evil smile.
However, audio was a different story altogether. Syncing was the one thing that I had to learn, which proved alot more difficult than it looked. It meant that I had to sit completely silent whilst my actors recited their lines over and over again. But hey I gained a new skill from all that hard work.
In getting the product right, meaned that the technology used is extremely important. For example, if I had taken a photo of my dead girl and printed it with the above words, "Dead Revenge" then yes, it would have had the same aspects of a poster but certianly not the same effect. So out came the green screen! Having never used it before I had really no idea why anyone used it at all, untill I realised how much easier it made things. Just take out the green, pop in a previously shot image and whallah, a poster with a background. Like magic.
Of course to do this however I needed to read up on greenscreening and photoshop. Not so magical now, but still very interesting and useful! By using photoshop I managed to do things I thought impossible such as adding in veins to the dead girls eyes, and making her skin pale with the effect of shadowing under her eyes.
Publisher was also one of the main technologies I used as to complete my magazine cover aswell as the internet to research what I needed in order to make my project a success.
However, audio was a different story altogether. Syncing was the one thing that I had to learn, which proved alot more difficult than it looked. It meant that I had to sit completely silent whilst my actors recited their lines over and over again. But hey I gained a new skill from all that hard work.
In getting the product right, meaned that the technology used is extremely important. For example, if I had taken a photo of my dead girl and printed it with the above words, "Dead Revenge" then yes, it would have had the same aspects of a poster but certianly not the same effect. So out came the green screen! Having never used it before I had really no idea why anyone used it at all, untill I realised how much easier it made things. Just take out the green, pop in a previously shot image and whallah, a poster with a background. Like magic.
Of course to do this however I needed to read up on greenscreening and photoshop. Not so magical now, but still very interesting and useful! By using photoshop I managed to do things I thought impossible such as adding in veins to the dead girls eyes, and making her skin pale with the effect of shadowing under her eyes.
Publisher was also one of the main technologies I used as to complete my magazine cover aswell as the internet to research what I needed in order to make my project a success.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback????
Because I used what was my target audience, it gave me quite a good insight into if I had made my product for their age range. The feedback I got was splendid to say the least, a definate highlight to my project. I found that almost all of them had said that it would be something they were likely to go and watch in the cinema, for others, horror movies just werent their thing. The feedback also showed that my selection of characters also had been quite the achievement! They found that they could relate to the characters, based around age, status etc but also made me realise what it is that alot of young people are looking for in this type of movie. That is to have someone they can relate to, in a way that it makes them fear for themselves, whilst in the comfort of a cinema or their own home. I learnt that perhaps more familier settings would have been more appropriate for my target audience, they wanted to see someone they could relate to, but not in an unrealistic setting. This made me think that perhaps I should have included more "school yard" shots, even if perhaps to more of a feel of their age.
Perhaps even a slow pan around an empty Gordano would'nt have gone amis...
Haunting, isnst it?
Friday, 7 May 2010
Audience Feedback
To see how successful I had made my production, I needed a different perspective... AKA audience. Step 1 was to gather a group of 15-18 year olds (target audience. Both male and female. Step 2 was to make them watch the trailer and step 3 was to get there feedback. I firstly asked what they found interesting about the trailer. Who they think the characters were and what they thought the story plot was going to be. I set up a survey in order to make the results easier to decipher. I surveyed 30 people in total.
My first question was:
Did the trailer fit into the catagory of the Horror film genre?
Very Much. Yes but with flaws. To some degree. Not at all.
All apart from five said very much, the rest said yes with flaws. When asked to explain their answer the said that the story needed to be more straitforward.
The second question was:
Was it easy to tell who the characters were and their role?
22 Had said yes but with flaws and the rest said to some degree. Their comments showed that they had been represented well in the way that it was clear to see who they were at the begining, but when the roles changed as it showed the past they seemed to get confused as to who was good and who was bad.
In a way I had been hoping for a reaction like this as I wanted them to not know "who to trust" in the film until the end, as most films do to add a twist.
The third question was:
Was the plot easy to follow?
Because my project had been a trailer, it meant that the narative would be split up in order to distort the sequence of events. However if it was done right a narative could still be formed by the audience. And many had said Very Much to the question, apart from 7 who said Yes with Flaws.
All in all I was happy with the audience feedback I got. It was very positive and much what I was looking for from my target audience.
My first question was:
Did the trailer fit into the catagory of the Horror film genre?
Very Much. Yes but with flaws. To some degree. Not at all.
All apart from five said very much, the rest said yes with flaws. When asked to explain their answer the said that the story needed to be more straitforward.
The second question was:
Was it easy to tell who the characters were and their role?
22 Had said yes but with flaws and the rest said to some degree. Their comments showed that they had been represented well in the way that it was clear to see who they were at the begining, but when the roles changed as it showed the past they seemed to get confused as to who was good and who was bad.
In a way I had been hoping for a reaction like this as I wanted them to not know "who to trust" in the film until the end, as most films do to add a twist.
The third question was:
Was the plot easy to follow?
Because my project had been a trailer, it meant that the narative would be split up in order to distort the sequence of events. However if it was done right a narative could still be formed by the audience. And many had said Very Much to the question, apart from 7 who said Yes with Flaws.
All in all I was happy with the audience feedback I got. It was very positive and much what I was looking for from my target audience.
SCARE COVER!
Another task that needed attending was my magazine cover. The best image to use I felt was my main actress, Sofie. By using a wide-eyed, half face shot gives an fantastic image that really portrays the horror genre. I used shots of my green screaning aswell as it gave a more indipandant feel to the cover. My main colours used were red and purple which was based around the colours of Sofies face.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
AP in Media: Evaluation - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product? Part 4
Ancillary tasks -
My main task was to create a trailer; my ancillary tasks were to make a poster for my movie and the front page/cover for my own magazine. I chose these tasks because it related very well with my main task. If there was going to be a new movie coming out, a poster and a cover may be exactly the type of advertising that’s used for any production. In order to do these tasks I needed to get ides of how all of this was achieved. I found that for a horror film, the poster needed to be quite minimal but eye catching all the same. Like most posters, I used one of my main characters (the villain). However after completing the task, I needed to make some changes before I could produce an end result. One of the things I needed to change was the title. I had put it off centre, but later realised that the convention was to have it in the centre, top of the poster. The font of the writing at the bottom also needed changing.
The horror genre of posters and magazine covers were very distinguished from others that I had researched. My magazine for instance, had to be one that was well known for advertising independent films, horrors in particular. After researching many, I decided that by making my own but using the same conventions of a independent mag would target the audience that I wanted to instead of advertising to a broader scale of audience.
With these tasks I was hoping to advertise as well as entertain. My poster was to shown to inform as well, answering the questions, what was it about? When did it come out? Who was in it? Who directed? Etc.
If I had the chance to do it all again, I would have probably looked more into the film industry, using that knowledge to improve my magazine cover, as to how an independent movie would have been shown.
My main task was to create a trailer; my ancillary tasks were to make a poster for my movie and the front page/cover for my own magazine. I chose these tasks because it related very well with my main task. If there was going to be a new movie coming out, a poster and a cover may be exactly the type of advertising that’s used for any production. In order to do these tasks I needed to get ides of how all of this was achieved. I found that for a horror film, the poster needed to be quite minimal but eye catching all the same. Like most posters, I used one of my main characters (the villain). However after completing the task, I needed to make some changes before I could produce an end result. One of the things I needed to change was the title. I had put it off centre, but later realised that the convention was to have it in the centre, top of the poster. The font of the writing at the bottom also needed changing.
The horror genre of posters and magazine covers were very distinguished from others that I had researched. My magazine for instance, had to be one that was well known for advertising independent films, horrors in particular. After researching many, I decided that by making my own but using the same conventions of a independent mag would target the audience that I wanted to instead of advertising to a broader scale of audience.
With these tasks I was hoping to advertise as well as entertain. My poster was to shown to inform as well, answering the questions, what was it about? When did it come out? Who was in it? Who directed? Etc.
If I had the chance to do it all again, I would have probably looked more into the film industry, using that knowledge to improve my magazine cover, as to how an independent movie would have been shown.
AP in Media: Evaluation - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product? Part 3
Identity -
In order to make it look like a horror film, I needed people to instantly recognise it as one, to do this I used short clips of scenes in the film that showed things like white eyes and dead bodies. These short clips helped to set the mood. Like most trailers there wasn’t a set beginning, middle and end narrative but scenes from the most entertaining aspects of the film.
My film needed an identity as well as look like a conventional horror film/trailer. I achieved this with a selective use in setting and characters. I made mine very conventional but added my own twist by using something that I call the “Blood Bath scene”. Gore is usually not used much in horror trailers but more the idea that there will be a lot of blood. This is because the trailers that usually feature before a movie are related to the audience that’s watching the movie. If for instance it is a PG film, a trailer marked with a 15s age restriction wouldn’t be appropriate. This is so that the target audience is being shown it directly.
In order to make it look like a horror film, I needed people to instantly recognise it as one, to do this I used short clips of scenes in the film that showed things like white eyes and dead bodies. These short clips helped to set the mood. Like most trailers there wasn’t a set beginning, middle and end narrative but scenes from the most entertaining aspects of the film.
My film needed an identity as well as look like a conventional horror film/trailer. I achieved this with a selective use in setting and characters. I made mine very conventional but added my own twist by using something that I call the “Blood Bath scene”. Gore is usually not used much in horror trailers but more the idea that there will be a lot of blood. This is because the trailers that usually feature before a movie are related to the audience that’s watching the movie. If for instance it is a PG film, a trailer marked with a 15s age restriction wouldn’t be appropriate. This is so that the target audience is being shown it directly.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)