Advanced portfolio in media

A2 media portfolio

My brief was to create a horror film trailer along side a poster and a magazine to promote my new film.

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

My media coursework consists of a film trailer, a magazine and a poster. I have chosen to use the horror genre; my film is about a mother and child who are being stalked by a figment of the mother’s imagination.
Firstly I researched the codes and conventions of horror genre using the internet on websites such as Wikipedia, other media students bloggers and watching various film trailers, I decided to use basic conventions for my trailer . (Example – Antagonist wearing black)
I researched several film trailers of all genres to decide on my narrative structure on YouTube ; I found that film trailers uses a non-linear structure and are made up of a montage giving the audience a taster of what is to come, I applied this my film trailer. During my research stages I created a discussion group using my target audience which is 18 – 25 year old horror fans and based my trailers codes and conventions using some of their ideas such as using verisimilitude to represent the mother as casual so that the audience could relate to her. I achieved this by dressing my main character ‘Rachel’ in casual clothing which consisted of jeans and a black t-shirt.
I also analysed three magazines ‘Hotdog’, ‘Empire’ and ‘Total Film’ and used their conventions. These influenced me to create a basic structured magazine. I printed a picture of each magazine and analysed them and scanned them onto a computer to give a sense of what I wanted my magazine to look like.
The main feature that I used was my protagonist’s head over the mast head indicating that it is a popular magazine and that people will no the title of it even with her head in the way.
My poster research consisted of finding films that have been recreated such as ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ to shows the differences in posters through out time and how they have developed. I used Google images to find pictures and discussed the difference using my own knowledge. This influenced me to create a basic old style picture but with headings that are used in modern day poster structure. This challenges the conventions using a unique style. At the bottom of my poster I used the main codes and conventions such as everyone name at the bottom of the poster such as the producer and director of photography which I shall later discuss in my evaluation.

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

My films trailer, poster and magazine are all linked to each other through fonts, images and colours.
I find this very effective as the audience can relate to the pictures I have used for my magazine and poster to my protagonist which also helps to promote my film.
I have used red and black as my main colours as red connotes murder, I think that this should be used in every horror film to connote violence and death. I have used the colour black because it connotes mystery and a dark feeling which gives a sense of tension and dramatic irony throughout my media texts.
The pictures I have used are of the protagonist, I have used Adobe Photo Shop 7 manipulate the picture which makes Rachel look like a genuinely terrified innocent female. I used the stereotypical idea of females being unprotected and weak by using the picture twice. I have used the connotations of a character from a horror film such as a pale completion dark red lips and big deep eyes. This is similar to what I have done in my horror film trailer as she looks depressed and terrified.
The synergy of my media products help create my campaign to promote and advertised my finished media texts as they all look similar through the colour, font and picture, then the audience can relate back successfully.

What have you learned from audience feedback?
First of all I asked twenty five people to watch my film trailer and view my poster and magazine. The reviews I got from this where very pleasing as it meant that i reached my goal, which was to achieve my three products to look similar and to appeal to my target audience which was 18 to 25 year old horror fans.
I poster five written audience feedbacks onto my blogger to demonstrate hot effective my media texts are together.
I also created a discussion group during my planning stages to see what the audience would want to see I used various ideas which I have discussed in my evaluation.
My trailer achieves verisimilitude as the woman and daughter look like normal people which helps my audience relate to them. This was written in every review that I received of my twenty five participants.
Before I started creating my film trailer I created a questionnaire in order to find and develop information about my target audience. Which I translated into percentages and uploaded onto my blogger; from this I found that the majority of people preferred the horror genre and would be aged around 18 years of age.
Relating to my film trailer it appears that I have followed the conventions of horror, and portrayed Rachel and Carley how I wanted them to look which was to have a depressed mother and worried child. My audience feed back also states that the picture and fonts I have used in my poster portrays the depression and anxiety of the mother, all in all my poster and film trailer match quite well to create a synergy for my promotional media package.
Relating to my poster the majority of people said that they liked the way that I had a shadowed protagonist and a real protagonist as it really shows that she is being stalked by herself which is the main storyline of my film trailer.
I think that this year I have achieved more than last year through getting the conventions of posters, magazines and film trailers correct. If I could have achieved anything else I would of made my plugs on my magazine more vivid as not many people commented on this. I would also have more actors in my film. I think that my overall effort at A2 was successful judged by my audience feedback.
My audience feedback also included that I have thought well about the characters as the blonde haired protagonist goes against the conventions a little bit as usually horror films have dark haired ladies to connote death. The use of the little girl (My sister) was interesting as she looks extremely average and people can relate to the single mother and daughter scenario.

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

In my research stages I looked at the codes and conventions that were of horror genre and appealed to my target audience that I wanted to watch my film. Firstly I researched the history of film trailers using Wikipedia, this helped me to understand the concept of films trailers and how they are properly structured. Alongside of this I researched a film called ‘The Blair witch project’ (1999) in which I analysed there website and looked at their film trailers and tease trailers in order to gain a perspective of how I am going to achieve the structure and narrative of my film trailer.
Other things I researched was film trailers in general of any genre in order to see how other genres worked in film trailers. I analysed the films, Sleepy Hollow (1999), Wedding Crashers (2005), Inglorious Basterds (2009) and Strangers (2008) using YouTube; I also read peoples comments and opinions on the film trailers to see which film trailers would appeal more to my target audience. The fact that these films have won awards and are contemporary encouraged me to analyse them.
I used the internet and my A2 media text book to look at conventions and different aspects of the horror genre.
In my planning stages I looked at my target audience, in which I created a questionnaire using Microsoft Word and them uploaded peoples comments onto blogger. After this I new that I was able to create my synopsis, prop list, shooting schedule, script and character list using blogger.
During my planning stages I created a story board which I drew and then uploaded onto Blogger using a scanner. This enabled me to produce hand written work and upload it, I also created several poster and magazines drafts that got uploaded onto Blogger also using a scanner.
When creating my animatic I took photographs of my storyboard and uploaded them on to the editing software (Adobe Premiere) to produced a still image video as a rough idea of how to set out and edit my main trailer.
Making my film trailer was relatively easy as I have a lot of research and planning to help me through. Firstly I created a shooting, location and prop list sheet to have a basic idea of what I was going to need. To film my footage I used a Canon MD 205 video camera and used a Mini DV video tape. The positives of this is that it is digital so it enabled me to upload my work straight onto an editing machine in which i used Adobe Premiere. (video editor)
The use of technology helped me to produce and manipulate a basic narrative structure, Using the internet started off my initial idea through looking at directors interpretations of depression and anxiety. This also helped me to relate to my audience and uses verisimilitude so that my audience will feel involved with my promotional package. After I finished editing my film trailer I reduced the file size in order to upload it onto blogger; I transferred it using a memory stick.
Subsidiary products
for my chosen brief I have to create a poster and a magazine to advertise my film.
Magazine
Firstly I researched film magazines and used basic conventions to show my target audience that my magazine is just as good as any other. I looked at magazines such as ‘Hotdog’ published by Highbury entertainment, ‘Empire’ published by Bauer consumer media and Total Film’ published by future publishing using their official websites and Google images to download the images. I thought that all these names were extremely clever and unusual so I decided to call my magazine ‘Cling Film’. I goggled film magazines in order to find the conventions and then created my own using Microsoft Publisher and Word.
I took a series of pictures of Rachel in order to get the correct camera angle (Medium shot) and to create the correct expression which I needed. I directed my photo shoot using my location list. The locations I wanted to film in I took my pictures. I used verisimilitude to capture Rachel as a casual person.
I then edited them using Adobe Photo Shop 7 and created a transparent background with scratches to give a sense of the horror genre. I them saved the picture as a PNG file so that the background would be transparent to use in publisher. This was effective as I could move the mast head and plugs behind the magazine to see which conventions worked best for me and my genre.
A problem with this was that I downloaded a font from www.DaFont.com in which I copied the website page and them cropped and made the background transparent in Microsoft Publisher. However, every time I used a different computer such as a media laptop the font changed and wouldn’t let me use it.
Poster
I literally did the same with the poster. I looked at films such as ‘Casablanca’ and ‘Sleepy hollow’ using YouTube and Google. I noticed that posters for films have the names of the development team. Such as – production – 20th Century Fox which presents Yellow Lion productions, Music by Emily Lowes, Edited by Jordan Moody, Executive Producer – Tim Anderson, Costume Design by Rachel Forward, Director of Photography – Jordan Demoulpied, Co-Producer – Steven Bass, Screen Play by Matthew Stipetic and Directed by Jade Stipetic. I used names of my college friends for different aspects of producing a film. This is located at the bottom of film posters. I used Photoshop to produce a poster with a black background which connotates evil and death. The character Rachel I used twice on the poster; one opaque and one normal to contrast death and life. I used Adobe Photo Shop 7 to use this technique. This also shows that the mother is slowly dying. Having the hit man stood next to her shows that she is doomed in a sense.
All my picture files such as photographs I have taken, documents I have scanned, my poster and my magazine I changed into a JPEG film format (Joint Photographic Experts Group) in order to upload them on to my blogger.

Advantages
The use of blogger enabled me to do several things such as access my work from any computer, it also enables us to –
- upload video
- upload sound
- upload images
- text
- links
- polls
- It can also been seen on any computer in the world

I found this extremely helpful as I could always plan and research for my work.

Disadvantages
My main disadvantages is that I do not have access to the internet at home to access pages that were blocked at the college due to the duty of care act. Another problem was that we have limited editing suites which was hard for all media and film students to edit their work but we all eventually managed.