My final media products

Evaluation question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I will be using a program named powerpoint to answer this question.

First slide:
research and planning, for this stage of my media coursework i used such programs as blogger, paint and YouTube. I used blogger as a way to store and plan my ideas and research, this allowed me to have a safe place to store my research and also an effective way to be able to look back and reflect when planning the rest of my work. I used paint to be able to print screen many things such as magazine front covers, potential fonts and also show progress in how I was planning. Paint allowed me to store the print screens and save them to be able to upload them to my blog. YouTube was a massive technology that was used throughout every stage of my media coursework. I used it in my research and planning to allow me to look at previous trailers to be able to pick out and identify typical media conventions that I would be able to use within my media product to be able to make it of a high standard and to make it look professional.

Second slide:

Within my construction the main media technologies I used were premier pro, adobe Photoshop, paint and Microsoft word. Premier pro was the main media technology which I used to be able to construct my teaser trailer, this was where paint and Microsoft came into help as with these media technologies I was able to print screen, save and upload construction progress shots onto my blog to be able to show the audience how exactly they were constructed. Adobe Photoshop was used heavily for my magazine front cover and movie poster. This is as Photoshop offers a higher range of effects and skill which made my ancillary tasks look professional and of a high standard. This also helped to improve my continuity. I found adobe premier pro and adobe Photoshop particularly hard to use as I had to teach myself how to use them as I progressed through the project. 

Third slide:

The main media technologies I used to help me make my evaluation consisted heavily on blogger, premier pro, paint and YouTube. Blogger allowed me to use it as a canvas in allowing me to present my evaluation in different and interesting ways.  Premier pro allowed me to be able to present my audience feedback in a different way by using clips of their voices to go over the top of the pictures and also allowed me to be able to do a voiceover of my own to explain how the feedback has helped me. YouTube was a massive help which allowed me to upload these evaluations as videos to be able to embed into my blog as an interesting and different way to present my evaluation. I used paint and Microsoft in the same way as in allowing me to take print screens of things such as my power points and construct them so that I was able to convert them to a slideshow video on YouTube.

Evaluation question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

in the first video i showed clips that i had received from friends and acquatences. Throughout this media product i have been very dependent on audience feedback to be able to judge how effective my products are. From audience feedback i have found that is it very useful in recieveing personal prefrence and seeing how people can percieve things differently. I have learnt that audience feedback is crucial in being able to develop the forms and conventions of media products when making them. From my audience feeback i found i was lacking in continuity within my main task and ancillary tasks from colour schemes to the font of text used. I also found that the pictures i wanted to use within my ancillary tasks may not have been as suitable and acceptable as i had previously thought they were which i have now replaced and received more positive feedback from when asking again.
Within my audience feedback i also tried to stick to asking people within my target audience as this allowed me to see how people of the relevant age group and type percieved my media products. i believed that this would be more beneficial to me and my media products as these are the type of people i would be aiming my products at.This helped me immensly is seeing how to link the products and properly engage the audience by drawing them into my products.
Asking for audience feedback also helped me to learn if the messages, hints motifs and conevtions in my work were clear enough to allow the audicne to pick up on them process them and recognise the spoof horror genre and also be able to follow the story line. At first i found my messages to be unclear but through the use of audience feedback it has shown me where my fualts lied so i could easily correct and improve thhem
this is what i believe i have learnt from my audience feedback and also how i believed it has helped me to improve and consturct my work in a high quialut and orefessional manner.

Evaluation question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I will be using a program named 'powerpoint' as a slideshow to answer this question.

first slide: I believe that my two ancillary tasks work very efficiently together in allowing the audience in be able to distinguish the genre of my teaser trailer. My main task includes the conventional character(s) and the typical spoof horror narrative portrayed  through mixed aspects of comedy and horror. Also i believe that the fact that my main character is within the same age range as my target audience creates a link between the text and the audience.

(picture of poster, magazine and trailer)

second slide: I used a level of continuity across all three of my media products. I believe this has helped to make it effective as it is being promoted as though it is a real media product. This means that the mise en scene and conotation of the style in which i have made my magazine, poster and trailer in consistent to the audience leading it to be effective. This can be seen through the colour scheme of our products, such colours as whites, deep reds and blacks and also the text used. I have continuoulsy used the same type of font across the two ancillary tasks to conote to the audience that these are promoting the same film, thus increasing the effectiveness. 

third slide: I have used continuity in all three by the appearance of the main character across all three tasks he is dressed in the same clothing with the same hairstyle and makeup. I also believe the mix in gender across all three media products makes a binary opposition within the prodcuts creating a very interesting and intrifuing feel to the audience, making the audiences drawn in to my product. The binary opposition of the gender confusion is further increased by the fact our actor still has very manly features. This is such things as a beard, further continued by the fact that our actor has muscly arms and also short hair.

fourth slide: Another aspect that i believe makes my two ancillary tasks and my main task effective is the consistent promps and motifs used to hint the genre used. With our main product and movie poster both following aspects of the film 'Insideous' this creates and effective spoof genre. This consistency conotes to the reader the horror aspects as they can clearly see the fim we are creating an almost 'parody' of which then also brings the comedy aspects in at the same time

FOR ALL THESE REASONS I BELIEVE THAT THIS IS WHAT MAKES THE COMBINATIONS OF MY MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TASKS EFFECTIVE THE THE TARGET AUDIENCE.

Evaluation question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

for this evaluation question I will answering it in written form.

The product i have produced uses forms and conventions of existing spoof horror films, and also joint conventions from both horror films and comedy films. I believe it has used forms and conventions as through the research and planning i had conducted i used what i had learnt to be able to plan and layout the media products that i have produced. I have done this by sticking to pre-exisiting conventions of spoof horrors such as 'scary movie' which i researched and also scream. Although scream is not strictly a 'spoof horror' genre it contains many conventions and aspects of such which i found through research i had conducted. Although the horror is seen to shine more strongly through.

The storyline to our teaser trailer is rather conventional to the spoof horror genre as it contains aspects from pre exsiting horror films to which we have included as a theme to ours. However we have made it fit our genre by adding comedy aspects to the pre existing themes. The horror film we have used to base our spoof around is 'Insidious' hence our name 'Insideofrus'. We have previously planned to base our horror film on The blair witch project however we found this as a challenge as we would not be allowed to appear in our own film but we would need to self record like a home made documentory. This would not leave us with much free room for the types of camera shots and movements we could use.
In our teaser trailer it sticks to conventions by using probs and motifs to hint to the audience of the type of genre. We found this to be a typical convention when researching into teaser trailers. i believe we done this by adding 'from the makers of scary movie and scream' at the beginning of our trailer, we also included 'Best spoof horror since the scary movie sequels' as you can see from my snapshot below.



 Also a main convention which our trailer has developed is the use of a soundtrack playing throughout the trailer. At first we used the jaw theme tune, however we recieved audience feedback that this may give the trailer a much too 'horror' theme. This allowed us to change it to something much more light hearted but still with a horror aspect. We found the use of a sound track to be a very popular and typical convention across all genre of teaser trailer.

I believe that my media products challenges and develops forms and conventions of real media products as the genre that me and my partner picked was a fairly uncommon and a real challenge to produce. Together through making this me and my partner was made to challenge both horror conventions and genre as well as the comedy conventions and genre as we had to make both the different genres work together in harmony. through the use of having to challenge and develop conventions of real media we learnt alot whilst doing it and hope that we have made a teaser trailer which does spoof horror as a genre justice. As well as challenging types of genres we was also challenging conventions of gender within a film. We included a male dresses as a female within our teaser trailer to bring a very strong comedy aspect to the trailer, this is something not commonly found within films, and especially spoof horrors. This meant we had to be very careful about how we made the character look and behave to really put across the 'mixed gender' aspect.

In regards to my ancillary task of having to produce a magazine front cover i followed the main convention of having a main character within the centre of the cover. I also included many typical conventions of a front cover such as articles relevant to the film and also having articles which are just additional information to draw audiences in. I included a masthead, skyline, a big magazine title and also a barcode which are all forms and conventions of real media products that i have developed in my media products.

My second ancillary task included making a movie poster to promote my film. I believe i had followed the main conventions of a movie poster by having a background picture including character(s) included in the film and my magazine contains a picture of the main character 'Rus' as a close up of his face. I also had a clear colour scheme which is a usual convention, within this convention i also used colours typical to that of a horror film poster e.g. black, reds, greys and whites.  I also included a quote from a newspaper or magazine which is found to be a typical convention to which i have formed and developed for my media product.

Final Draft

construction of magazine poster

Here shows the first snapshot of my magazine front cover, already it can be shown that i have added a background picture of the actor looking over his shoulder at the audience, it is also shown that he is wearing the same dressing gown as he is in the teaser trailer to show continuity, so the audience can tell that they're all from the same film. Also this shows that i have added a barcode as this is a typical convention of a magazine front cover, not much editing and progress has been made yet as I am still unsure of the layout of my front cover. However i have included a magazine title being 'FILM COUNTY' this title will be clear in showing the audience that is it infact a movie magazine, showing it must be promoting a new film.

This screenshot shows a considerable amount of progress on the front cover as you can see i have added 5 golden stars and quoted it by the times to denote to the audience that it has been 'rated' by a well known newspaper which would draw the audience into the front cover leading them to be intrigued and interested. I also found this to be a very typical convention of magazine front covers when in the stage of my research and planning. This research and planning helped me when setting out the layout of my front cover and it showed my typical conventions which make the front cover look real and professional and the annotation of the front cover allowed me to see which aspects drew the audience in, for example this allowed me to know how and where to place the movie to allow the readers to get drawn by it, this is why i placed it within the centre of the magazine going along and over the top of the main actor.

In this screenshot the progress i have made can be seen by the text above the title 'INSIDEOFRUS' which reads 'FROM THE MAKERS OF SCARY MOVIE' 'DIMENSION FILM PRESENTS..' which would draw the audience in by allowing the readers to have some information on the film as scary is a well known movie which is also a spoof so they would be able to guess this film would follow the same genre. At the bottom it states 'EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH DANIEL RADCLIFFE' which would be used to further draw the audience in, also it helps as a typical convention to make the magazine look like a typical sterotyped magazine cover. In the top right hand corner there is also text which reads '10 reasons why this was voted best mag of 2013' this just adds extra text and information to allow the reader to get drawn it and to allow my front cover to look professional and typical.

After my the first draft of my magazine front cover i asked for audience feedback to see if i needed to make any changes. I decided to show the magazine to people who would be part of my specific target audience as i believed this would help me most, with this in mind i set up a group within my sixthform block to be able to get idea's
From one girl named Isabel Mandry i received the feedback that 'so far it looks good and you can tell that it is a movie magazine because of the title and newspaper quotes,  however i believe it would look better if there was more text and information present on the magazine front cover'
I also received further feedback from a boy named James who commented on the size of the barcode and how he believed it would look better if it was made considerable smaller.

This then shows a progress screenshot of me editing my magazine, as you can see i have taken audience feedback into account and made the barcode considerably smaller which i must agree looks more professional, also i have added much more text to the magazine to give it more depth and texture, this allows more conventions to be shown.

As you can see here, this is the final piece that i have produced. Many more quotes have been added such as 'scarily funny' by mel brooks and more information within the movie. I took my audience feedback into account and this is what i have produced.