Evaluation: What have you learnt from you audience feedback?

I had found feedback for my main task and ancillary tasks very useful. I had asked four of my peers what they thought of my three potential final outcomes and they had gave me great feedback I could work towards to create a good final product. One of my peers suggested to change the the font for my film poster, by doing this I have learnt that other peoples views as well as your own can help you recieve great outcomes and help you look further in depth at other ideas.

Evaluation: how effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary tasks?

Rebecca and I both agreed to start filming the trailer first before  beginning the accillary tasks the reason for doing this is because we can design own own magazine front cover and film poster from the ideas of our final outcome of our trailer. I have tried to link my accillary tasks in as much as I can with my final product and I think it has been successful. In the main task we had used a 'masked mysterious character' and I had tried my best to keep the same 'mysteriousness' throughout my work, for example I had photoshopped two of my best images and layered them both together to create a ghostly image which I personally think works rather well, also adding red text on the horror magazine as well as the movie poster which I thought was appropriate because of the gore scenes in the trailer. I had made sure I kept the same colour scheme of black red and white throughout my work, the reason for choosing these colours were because I accociate red and black with danger and evil, which worked really well in the genre of horror.

Evaluation: In what ways does you media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions for real media products?

Before I started filming my horror teaser trailer, I had analysed many forms and conventions of the horror genre, for example analysing real life horror magazines, visiting horror attractions (London Dungens) and analysing teaser trailers on the internet and television. In many ways I have used the sources from my research to help me develop my final outcome. By analysing teaser trailers not just of the horror genre but others, it has helped me realise what techniques I would have to carry out to create the best horror trailer I could. For example I had used quick and slow shots to build tension and gorey scenes which would appeal to the audience as I found out during a questionnaire I created. However I had challenged some conventions too, one of these were changing part of the storyline half way through the making of the trailer, we thought by adding scarier parts for example 'one, two I'm coming for you' and 'three, four I'm at your door' it would add a more psychopathic elements and give the sense the 'mysterious character' had made her loose her mind.
In many horror movie trailers the target audience only look for the gorey scenes and do not really pay much attention to the storyline, the reason I know this is because I had asked 8 people watching one trailer 'what they paid attention to most?' and the majority of the group admittedly said the bloody scenes of the trailer. By carrying out that experiment we decided to challenged this convention because we had put less gorey scenes and more leading up to the actual quick shots to add suspense and by doing this we thought it would give the audience time to really know and feel what was going on in the movie trailer.

questionnaire results

 

I am defiantly going to use the colour scheme of black and red despite of the results, because as a personal point of view the colours red and black is what I would associate with a horror genre. 

experiment shots

Rebecca and I wanted to experiment with different angles when filming the ‘mysterious character’ even though a few of these shots didn’t work very well, it helped us to develop more ideas to create better shots.

filming shots

I really enjoyed filming this shot because it really added to the genre of gore and horror. I had wanted to make sure I caught the light perfectly on the bloody knife to connote the danger of what was happening.

filming shots

Rebecca and I both decided it would be effective to use a camera shot from the victims point of view. In the trailer there is a quote saying ‘one two I’m coming for you’ therefore we wanted a shot that actually represented what is being said in the trailer.

filming shots

 

These are other quick shots I had created. I had used zoom shots on the door, this particular shot worked rather well because we had bright lighting which allowed us to see the figure outside clearly.

Also by using a spotlight above the mysterious character it creates shadows on the on the outfit they are wearing which I adds to the genre of horror. 

quick shots

These are the quick shots I had filmed on the door to create tension for the audience when watching our trailer, we wanted the audience to feel suspense and think ‘what is going the happen next?’.

editing

Rebecca and I agreed use her laptop at home to do the editing for our trailer, there fore she can bring the laptop into school and we could edit as much as we needed, however I have the same software on my computer at home using a laptop would be a lot more simple so we could use the time we had together more efficiently.

        When looking at the shots once uploaded onto the laptop, we realised that they were dark and hard to see which didn’t look very professional, there and then we re-filmed parts with a brighter lighting, we also came up with new ideas which we thought would improve these shots, such as using a strobe light on the door to add to the suspense, again we didn’t use it because it was too dark but it’s a situation we can learn from.

        By using Windows Movie maker, I have learnt how to edit the shots by fading them in and out and using white flashes to over exaggerate the tension of the shots we have filmed. I had also cut the shots, some to a minimum amount of 3 or 4 seconds to fit the sound effects we had chosen from YouTube, by doing this I had to convert the sound effect to an MP3 effect so Windows movie maker would recognise it.

beginning of editing

Monday 3rd October:

Today we began starting the editing at school using the iMac computer, previously using the iMac during a AS task I had a brief idea of how to use one, however we had decided to use Windows Movie Maker, we both have had a good knowledge of using this programme and knew how to go about using special effects to making the trailer look professional and flow well.

The first obstacle we came across when editing on the iMac was rotating a shot from landscape to portrait which took us a long period of time to figure out, and we thought it would take a double amount of time only being able to do it at school as we do not have the facilities to do editing on the iMac at home.

finishing filming

Tuesday 27th  October:

When planning at the beginning of this project we had decided to use both of us in the video taking turns within filming as we feel we couldn’t rely on anyone else being involved in case of being let down and delaying our schedule we had planned, however using both of us in the video meant us being in the same shot at one time which ended up creating a bit of a problem however we over came the obstacle by using a tripod, this shot took a lot of takes to get perfect as the reflection of the tripod in the mirror kept appearing, however it worked in the end.

We also filmed me singing a tune on the stairs in the sense the girl has been mentally deranged by the ‘unexpected visitor’  which worked really well and created an eerie effect to the trailer.

continue filming

     Throughout filming our trailer, we had changed a lot of the shots we have planned to do, purely for the fact we didn’t think they looked very professional and by going with our instincts we created shots that were different but turned out look a lot better. For example, instead of filming quick shots of the door at the beginning we used different quick shots of the ‘unexpected visitor’ at the door during the middle of the trailer and decided to use slow shots of me (the main character) sleeping and using a slow motion technique running down stairs to see what was wrong, which I personally think put a positive outlook on our ‘trailer making’.

     Another example of changing the shots was when we originally set out to use a range of shots to show the violence and thriller of the trailer we wanted to make by having me being dragged along the floor by Rebecca whilst the camera was on the floor, instead we thought it would be effective if I filmed Rebecca in the mask holding a bloody knife running it along the kitchen counter hitting the light which created a chilling effect.

Beginning of Filming.

Tuesday 20th October:

We began filming the main shots we wanted to be in our trailer and worked around the main shots we had. We began filming the front door, we had decided to use 3 seconds for each shot of the door to build suspense on the audience (3 seconds filming the door with silence, then 3 seconds banging on the letter box and lastly shaking and banging the door)

We thought it would work really well due to watching other horror trailers and us as an audience were inspired by the directors work.

We also filmed the idea of the ‘unexpected visitor’ being at the door with a distaughted face due to the pattern on the window. However, it did look terrifying we thought introducing the main character at the first shots of the trailer would give the storyline away too soon into it.

Another idea we had filmed today was having the actress sitting on the chair tided up as she has been captured by the ‘unexpected visitor’ we used scared/ distressed facial expressions to connote her feelings to the audience. However looking at the shot as we uploaded them onto the computer, we decided that it didn’t work well as the camera was shaky and looked unprofessional. Then we came up with the idea of sitting by the tree outside looking very aware and terrifying of the man that has just broke into her house.

filming shots

Before we start to film our trailer, Rebecca and I had decided to note down a range of different shots we could use for our horror movie trailer and that could work and flow well together to make our trailer run smoothly. By doing this it has made filming simple to do.

questionnaire results

I will make sure we will not give too much of the storyline away in the trailer, because the majority our target audience had answered that they would much rather prefer to see a twist of the plot at the end that they didn’t know about.

The most common answer was a movie poster. By creating a movie poster for the trailer doesn’t give away anything about the movie apart from which type of horror the film is and it’s release date, which I think is a positive outcome due to the fact it makes the target audience attracted to watch the film.

Questionnaire results

The majority of the target audience we had asked did survey they prefer a gore horror film to the other answers I had provided.

I agree with the answer to this question, I think the plot to any film is important. I am pleased with the outcome.

The majority of the people I had asked did prefer to see the location of the horror film in a house. I think this is a brilliant contrast of the safety of your own home compared to the gore and horror of a murder, it would work really well as a trailer.

trailer questionnaire results

The majority of the target audience we had asked did survey they prefer a gore horror film to the other answers I had provided.

 

I agree with the answer to this question, I think the plot to any film is important. I am pleased with the outcome.

trailer questionnaire- first question

By asking this question I am able to find out the views of others by what genres they like and I will base my trailer on the most common answer which is horror. I have asked 25 people and  9 people decided to choose horror.

Trailer questionnaire

Rebecca and I knew what we wanted to base our film trailer on, however we also wanted to include our target audience’s opinion to help us create a strong trailer that others would take an interest too. Therefore we agreed a questionnaire was the most positive procedure to explore.

Final Horror Magazine cover

This is my final horror magazine front cover. By doing the questionnaire it has helped me a large amount on what to include on my front cover. I like the way I have used a red, white and black colour scheme throughout this piece, the colour red connotes danger and black connotes the darkness of the horror genre. I’m very proud of the composition of this particular task because I feared that my front cover would look too crowded but by keeping most of the adverts, puffs and images to one side it evens up with the large image I have created to advertise my horror movie trailer.

images for magazine front cover

I had followed out my plan to complete two or three photo shoots in the genre of horror. I have edited my three favourite from each shoot and edited them on the programme photo shop.

This is the first photo shoot I had carried out, and I had used a slow shutter speed on the camera I was using to create a ghostly effect.

This is the second photo shoot I had completed, By painting my models face black and writing white words and editing red eyes on her I thought it would work really well with my colour scheme I am using for my front cover.

Reference- Film: 'Number 23' Lastly, I had researched other horror images from films and I was drawn to the image of ‘Number 23’ I liked the way the photographer had used very dark shadows, and created a sense of mysteriousness of the character.  

                                                                                                  

fonts

 I have researched various fonts that I could use for my horror magazine front cover, these are the main favourites I have chosen.
I have decided to use the font at the top, the reason for this is I think it would compliment the image well on the front cover. It also the font includes harsh lettering which works in the favour of the genre horror.

Even though I think the font is a positive outcome, I would like to introduce a small amount of colour, for example a red glow across the front cover to represent danger.

Questionnaire Results

 

I am defiantly going to use the colour scheme of black and red despite of the results, because as a personal point of view the colours red and black is what I would associate with a horror genre. 

The majority of my target audience had answered that they would pay £2.50 for a horror magazine. Which I personally think it is a reasonable price to afford.

questionnaire results

 

I am very pleased with the outcome of this question, reason for this is because I preferred the name ‘possessed’ for my magazine compared to the others I had mentioned.

This question has encouraged me to think a range of final outcomes of what my magazine would look like. I have decided to plan 2 or 3 horror photo shoots of different  films that may have came out around the time this magazine has that I am creating.

questionnaire for magazine cover

This is my magazine questionnaire, I had a bit of difficulty deciding what information to put on the front cover, By creating a questionnaire and asking 20 people what they would prefer on a magazine front cover, it has helped me come to a conclusion of how I want my front cover to look like.