Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Completed film trailer.

After conducting our focus group we decided to re-evaluate our trailer and make some improvements that were suggested during the discussion. We added a establishing at the beginning to give the audience a sense of the characters location, as well as taking out shots 5 and 6 as we believe the story flowed better without. As a group we collectively decided to add a low boom after each new scene at the beginning to suggest to the audience that there is an element of terror. These changes has helped to strengthen our trailer by making it appear more professional.

Q2 How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Q3 What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Q4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Final magazine cover and analysis.

This is the final version of my film magazine cover, I used the conventional colours that are used on a film magazine to promote a psychological thriller. the colour yellow was used to make certain texts stand out on the page, I believe the main image represent the darker side of the character Emily well as she looks emotionless and detached from her actions. I decided to use the standard layout of a cover as it works best with the image and doesn't over confuse it. The font I chose is clear and I made sure I didn't add to much information that would bore the reader and make them want more. I am happy with the overall result as it looks like a realistic and professional film magazine cover.

Focus group evaluation.

We held our focus group on Thursday 18th April in the lunchtime. We got together 9 people, 4 girls and 5 boys between the ages of 15-25 (the same ages of our target audience) to watch our trailer and answer our questionnaire based on what we thought. the response we received was good as everyone got the target audience and genre correct, We were pleased that everyone said different people to who they thought the villain was, which is what we hoped would happen.
It also helped us to know what improvements needed to be made such as the soundtrack and some shots. I believe that the focus group was a success as it showed that our trailer was effective and helped to us to get an outsiders view on what could be done to improve it further.

2nd Draft of film trailer

Changes that need to be made:-

• Add a soundtrack at the beginning that creates the equilibrium.
• The first shot will be the establishing shot of the house and then a zoom into the kitchen, so that the audience are aware of the characters location.

Changes made after showing the 1st draft of our trailer.

• Added a soundtrack.
• Faster pace of editing at the end.
• Flash shot at the end with the character Emily.
• Cut instead of a fade transition on shot 9.
• swapped shots 32 and 34 around and corrected a few shots.
• Added a few flash shots at the end to create a sense of fear.
• Put in a tracking shot of boots walking towards the camera to build up suspense.

Soundtrack

We got the majority of our sounds from free play music, where we cut parts of a song together so that it made the scratchy, uneven effect which worked well with the chosen scenes. The beginning soundtarck we are going to use is from the website 'mobygratis.com' we decided to have a happier more relaxing soundtrack at the start as that was one of the improvements that was suggested when we conducted our focus group, I believe that it will help to establish the equilibrium more clearly in our trailer.

Focus group evaluation.

I believe the focus group was a great success as they gave us some critical information about our trailer and preliminary tasks that would help to improve them. The answers that we got were very good as everything they agreed with the genre and target audience that we had said and also there were a variety of different opinions on who the killer was which was our intention with the trailer, the overall commonest were what we were aiming for as everyone said they would go and watch it in the cinema’s after seeing the trailer and thought that it was a good storyline. We will shortly be posting the video response along with our evaluation of the product as a whole.

Questionnaire for our focus group.

Please circle one answer, unless asked otherwise

1.      What does this trailer predominantly target?

Male   Female   Both

What attracts your chosen gender?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

2.      What age range would you say the target audience is?

12-15   15-25   30-50   50+

Why?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

3.      What genre do you believe the trailer is?

Horror

Sci-fi

Psychological Thriller

Comedy

Action

Why?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

4.      List 3 main images that stood out for you and why?

·          

·          

·          

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

5.      Can you identify the protagonist/ Villain, what clues help you?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6.      Do you think the soundtrack compliments the trailer? If not why? If so how?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

7.      What would you predict the story of the film is based on evidence given in the trailer?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

8.      Would you go and watch it in the cinema? And why?

    Yes          No

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

THANK YOU!

Script for our focus group.

Introduction

Hi, we are part of a media group which have created a film trailer, we would like you to view the trailer and answer the following questions based on what you have watched.

View trailer and answer questionnaire

 

 

So basically our trailer is supposed to the obsessive relationship that the sister has over her brother. Her brother is the heroic figure to her as she was physically abused by her drunken father when she was younger and her safety was found in the game ‘Hide and Seek’ where she would be able to hide away from her father and her brother would save her after. She is jealous of the relationship between her brother and his girlfriend, which unknowingly triggers a psychotic side to her. When their mum goes away for the weekend Jack invites his friends over and Emily suggests playing hide and seek again which they agree too as a laugh, her psychotic side comes out and she unintentionally attacks and torments his friends who are unaware that it is her doing it.

Open Discussion

1.       Can you identify the protagonist/ villain? And what clues are given?

2.       What would predict the story of the film is based on the evidence given in the trailer?

3.       What were the 3 main images that stood out for you?

4.       Would you go and see this film in the cinema?

View film posters

Ok now we would like you to look at 3 film posters and film magazine covers that we have individually produced to promote our film trailer.

1.       Which do you think is the most successful to promote our film trailer? Why?

2.       What are your thoughts of the main images?

3.       What is the most memorable part on each poster?

4.       Do you think that any of the posters give too much of the storyline away?

Now we will show you our individual film magazine cover…

View film mag covers

 

1.       Do you think that each film cover looks like a legitimate film cover?

2.       Does the colour scheme work for each cover?

3.       Does the main image present the main actor/actress well?

4.       What do you think of the layout for each film cover?

Finally we would like to leave an open floor for any other honest comments you would like to add that have not been answered in the questionnaire?

THANK YOU

Powerpoint presenting our posters and film magazine covers for our focus group.

Prezi on film magazine cover progression.

Main image options for film magazine cover.

I chose this stance as I believe she looks like a strong character as the camera is taken from a slightly lower angle making her look inferior and the fact that she's making eye contact with the camera suggests that she is looking right at the reader. I wanted to take the photo in charcter as it fits better with the layout of the film magazine and I wanted to focus more on the character than the actress herself.

Critical analysis of my film poster.

Animatic Trailer.

Possible Mastheads.

• Silverscreen
• Film
• The Reel
• Film Weekly
• Credits
• The Scene
• MovieMaker
• UptoDate
• Preview

Rough layout of my film magazine cover.

This is just to give a rough idea of how I hope to layout my magazine cover once I complete the sell lines and finalise the main image photo.

Popplet displaying the progression of my film poster.

Prezi on Film Cover Research.

Teaser Trailer of Deprived

I decided to create a quick teaser trailer using imovie with my edited film poster image, I thought it was a good way to experiment using new software and different sounds to give me an idea of what would go well with our completed film trailer

Updated version of my film poster

Changes made to the image in the eye.

First draft of my film poster.

Improvements that I have been advised to make:

•  Change the font style as the film title is unclear and the tagline font reflects a western theme.
• Reduce the size of the billing block and make it more central.
• Resize the main image so it fills the poster.
• Change the image in the eye as it looks a bit unrealistic and the murders that occur throughout the trailer are not caused by a knife.

Rough layout of my film poster

Chosen poster fonts

Filming schedule

Friday the 29th march- We filmed the final scenes of our trailer, using the characters Emily, Jack and Lauren. We were filming the high intensity shots and quick dramatic scenes that would make our trailer more frightening and effective.

How I edited the figure into the eye...

·         I increased the contrast and brightness in Photoshop to the grey girl image. Then hit "desaturate" in Photoshop so it went completely black and white.

·         Then used the "liquify" tool to push the eye open a bit and make the eyebrow look more worried.

·         I then drew a circle over for the pupil of the eye on a new layer.

·         Then placed the image of the shadow knife over it, from an image I found off the Internet, and resized the image of the knife so it fitted within in the eye.

·         Added some shadow around the edges of the pupils.

·         Then got a splatter Photoshop brush and used it for the red blood.

·          Next I placed it over the main image on a "multiply" layer, adding the blood to the shadow knife in the eye and pasted it onto a black background.

 

 

Main Poster image edited.

Main image options for my film poster

Billing Block names decided

Studio Name Presents – Skirrid Creations

Studio Name – Skirrid Creations

A ‘Producers Name’ production – Trevor Hill

A film writer’s film – Jake Miller

Lead Actor 1 – Garin Price

Lead actor 2 – Lucy Shaw

Deprived

Actor 3,4,5 – Lauren Davies, Amy Trett, Tom Nottingham

Music by – Alex Mello

Film editor – John Mckenna

Production designer – James Cole

Casting by – Lisa Hanson

Written by – Callum James

Make-up artist – Kayla Strout

Executive producer – Adrian Davies

Produced by – Brett Gordon

Screenplay by – Alex Sheldon

Directed by – Steve Bolham

Changes made while filming.

While filming we have changed a few of the angles of the shots and who acts in what shots, as it made more sense and showed the actions that occurred in the scenes better, one particular shot that we change the angle of was shot 9 as it was originally a long shot, but while filming we realised that it was hard to make out the dialogue in the scene and the actions made, we believe these improvements will help to make our trailer more effective.

Things that need to be added in a Billing Block.

• Skirrid Creation presents.
• A 'producers name' production.
• A 'film writers' film.
• Lead actor 1.
• Lead actor 2.
• 'Deprived'.
• Actor 3, 4, 5.
• Music by.
• Film editor.
• Production designer.
• Casting by.
• Written by.
• Costume designer.
• Make-Up artist.
• Executive producer.
• Produced by.
• Screenplay by.
• Directed by.

Second filming shoot

Friday 15th February- We completed another 6 scenes. We decided to get all the shots of Amy and Tom filmed as we didn't know when we would be able to film them again, this was a successful shoot as we film from 2pm till 6pm and filmed all the scenes that we set out to complete.

Filming

Monday 11th February- We filmed the first 6 opening shots with the characters Jack, Lauren and Emily. We began filming at 3pm and finished at 6:30pm, these shots helped us to become familiar with the camera and the different angles that could be used to create effect.

What characters are needed for what shots.

Lucy’s character Emily is needed for:

·         Shot 2

·         Shot 4

·         Shot 5

·         Shot 6

·         Shot 7

·         Shot 8

·         Shot 9

·         Shot 10

·         Shot 12

·         Shot 14

·         Shot 18

·         Shot 19

·         Shot 21

·         Shot 22

·         Shot 25

·         Shot 26

·         Shot 27

·         Shot 33

·         Shot 38

Garin character Jack is needed for:

·         Shot 2

·         Shot 3

·         Shot 4

·         Shot 6

·         Shot 7

·         Shot 8

·         Shot 9

·         Shot 10

·         Shot 11

·         Shot 13

·         Shot 16

·         Shot 17

·         Shot 18

·         Shot 22

·         Shot 23

·         Shot 28

·         Shot 31

·         Shot 34

Lauren’s character is needed for:

·         Shot 9

·         Shot 10

·         Shot 18

·         Shot 31

·         Shot 32

·         Shot 33

   Amy’s character is needed for:

·         Shot 18

·         Shot 29

·         Shot 32

  Tom’s character is needed for:

·         Shot 18

·         Shot 34

·         Shot 36

Mum’s character is needed for:

·         Shot 2

·         Shot 4

·         Shot 15

·         Shot 16

Dad’s character is needed for:

·         Shot 11

·         Shot 13

·         Shot 14

·         Shot 21

·         Shot 22

·         Shot 23