Evaluation
Evaluation Question 2: How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product With You Ancillary Texts?
08:02
Evaluation
Evaluation Question 1: In What Ways Do Your Media Products Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?
08:01
Evaluation
Question 1:
In
what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
Film
Trailer:
My
film trailer is quite typical of most common conventions that other
horror trailers tend to have in them. For example, at the beginning
of my trailer I have what all trailers and horror trailers have which
is an warning regarding the age classification of my trailer. The
reason that I have this right at the start is too ensure that no
audience members that are under this age classification are informed
that they shouldn’t be watching my trailer. To avoid audiences from
misinterpreting my trailer by it being too extreme for a viewer under
the age rating I decided to put it right at the start, to again warn
them. Based on what Stuart Hall said in his reception theory, again
reinforces my reasoning for putting it at the beginning because
without if viewers could have a completely oppositional reading of my
trailer which would result in them being offended or angry that I
didn’t warn them on the content that they are about to consume.
I
then display the main production company that produced my ‘film’
and trailer. This is again following typical codes and conventions of
horror trailers because most either show this information right at
the beginning of the trailer or leave it till the end. The reason I
opted for the beginning is because I felt that with the tension and
atmosphere that I wanted to create in my trailer, I didn’t want to
ruin this for the audience at the end. I wanted to leave my audience
feeling different to what they felt before watching my trailer to
leave more of an impression. If I showed them this information at the
end they might not feel as if they have just watched something
completely different, thus leaving little or no impression on them
and they may not continue to be endorsed in my film.
If
I was to apply the AIDA Marketing Theory to my target audience, if I
didn’t leave them feeling intrigued to be involved in later stages
of my film marketing I would lose them on the second stage, which is
interest. A consumer watching my trailer in the first place is
fulfilling the first stage of attraction/attention and then if they
finish watching my trailer and feel impacted then that is the second
stage of interest. This also comes into the third stage of desire
which will eventually lead to the fourth and final stage of action,
which would be them paying to watch my film.
I
decided to break convention slighting by creating my own production
company logo. The way in which is did this was to distort a very
normal and simple clip. I felt that distortion fits nicely with the
horror genre so it also ties in well with that. I made it
conventional with some element of production company logos in terms
of simplicity as most established companies have very standard,
straightforward logos so I attempted to mimic this.
My
first shot is a gradual zoom into some trees looking out the window
of the house my film is set in. I decided to follow some conventions
of horror film camera shots as the zoom was very shaking but I felt
that this added to the atmosphere of my trailer. This relates to the
Uses and Gratification theory by Blumler and Katz because audiences
would have to be actively consuming my film trailer to notice this to
become captivated into the atmosphere that I was attempting to
create.
With
my chosen music in my trailer, I have challenged conventions of real
film trailers. This is because I start my trailer off with very
subtly non-diegetic music. The music was not to create tension like
normal horror trailers; it was actually put in to create a sense of
uneasy tranquillity. The film The Shining that uses contrapuntal
sound effectively to create a slightly unstable atmosphere inspired
my use of it. Another reason for my doing this was to create a
disorientated atmosphere to make my audience question why they were
watching my trailer, again to target AIDA marketing theory to
encourage my audience to be more active, rather than passive.
A
frequent shot type that I used throughout my trailer was focusing and
un-focusing on different objects whilst either zooming in or out. I
used it on the objects in my trailer that has a greater meaning than
other to connote a sense of importance for the audience. It was also
to retain the continuity throughout my trailer to give it a clearer
structure. Also the focusing and un-focusing was to ensure that my
audience were actively consuming my film trailer as it was intended
to make them second-guess what they are looking at if the image was
distorted.
Another
way that I conformed to conventions of horror film trailers was by
added a dark filter to all of my footage. Even with my footage that
had a lot of bright natural lighting I still added the filter to give
it a very obscure and disorientating look.
The
use of children in my trailer was entirely intentional because the
way in which I have seen children presented in horror films is that
the child who witnesses a horrifying act or sees a ghost or demon or
other frightening creature. This character is usually confused about
what they are seeing or is scared and continues to be scared for the
rest of the film. This use of children shows how innocent they can
be and in some cases how trusting they can be. This reminds me of
films like Paranormal Activity where the children have a relationship
with the ghost creature and trust it as their friend but they are not
the bad character overall in the story. This can also be applied to a
movie like The Sixth Sense where the little boy can see dead people
and interact with them but he is not the actually evil character in
the film. Because of this, a child’s innocence can be disrupted and
cause them to do violent things. This again relates back to the
effects theory where, children can be passively or subconsciously
influenced in a negatives way and therefore could result in them
repeating this negative behaviour as they could believe that if
someone else is violent then it is okay for them to be violent.
Both
of the main characters in my trailer are female and are sisters. The
reason that I chose to play on the convention of using females to
play victims is because I felt it was the easiest way to convey the
meaning of different types of victims throughout my trailer. Flick is
shown as the ‘inflictor’, the one who is doing all of the wrong.
However, if an active and dominant audience were to look at my
trailer they would depict the underlying meaning of her being a
victim herself. She was forced to do what she did by the ‘demon’
present in the house. All Flick wanted to do was the relieve some of
the stress she has built up from the secret she had by informing Effy
of her discovery. As Effy is clearly younger than Flick, she
immediately appears to be even more victimised than Flick because in
the end Flick has done something terrible and all of the signs are
pointing to Effy as the centre of the event.
The
MAMA Trailer had the most influence on my trailer because it has some
of the elements of my story. Similarly, it has two sisters with a
supernatural encounter and one of the sister’s befriends the
supernatural creature. I also took inspiration from the 2015 film
trailer from The Gallows, especially the sound editing. Due to my
trailer incorporating the contrapuntal music, I wanted to speed up my
trailer by silencing the music and then placing a very sudden loud
noise, like they did in The Gallows. This was to ensure that my
audience were still engaged in my trailer and also added some tension
into the atmosphere.
Film
Poster:
The
original design of my poster did not follow many conventions of a
horror film poster at all, this resulted in the final outcome
resembling a poster from another genre altogether. The first film
poster that I analysed was the MAMA theatrical poster. From this
poster I took a lot of inspiration from the font choice and colour,
however I soon realised that this particular style didn’t word well
with my main image as the image on the MAMA poster was a lot more
striking. With this I decided to pick a bolder colour, which was red
as it connotes a different and more prominent meaning. Despite the
white connoting innocence, I felt that red was bolder and had a more
obvious meaning behind it. It also stood out a lot more on the pale
face of Effy in the main image.
Another
convention that I tried to break in the earlier draft of my poster
was to have the title and tagline sideways on the right hand side of
my poster. This was mainly due to me attempting to fill in some
negative space on my poster but I soon realised that it was too
difficult to read form a distance and did nothing aesthetically
pleasing for my poster. I also discovered that the negative space on
my poster made the main image stand out more and look more
significant.
The
next convention that I stood by on my poster was the credits at the
bottom. I used the typical thin, narrow and elongated text that is
almost always used on any film poster. I then put the affiliated
company logos underneath this. Some of the logo’s I created and
some were from existing companies to make it look more like an
existing film poster.
Finally,
I made some change to the overall layout of my film poster, which now
doesn’t challenge any conventions of normal horror film posters.
The main image is in the middle and is a very conspicuous image of
one of the main characters in my film. I then have the tagline at the
top of my poster, so it sticks in people’s minds and the words
within will trigger memories whenever they hear them after they have
read it. I then have the film title “Secret” in the centre of the
poster, whilst avoiding the main image too much as this is the main
piece of information that I want audiences to take away from the
poster, as well as the release date which is just above it.
Film
Magazine:
My
film magazine broke several conventions, mainly through the layout.
Normal magazines have most of the text to the left third of the page
but I decided that for the sake of my main image, that I would put it
on the right hand side. Other than my main image being off centre and
the text being on the right hand side, my magazine matches the layout
of a normal Empire magazine.