Evaluation Question 4 script

4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
 
Technology played a key role in the development of our main task and our ancillary tasks. We made use of a vast number of different technologies, which included and are not limited to; Adobe Photoshop, Blogger, Sony Vegas 8, After Effects, Windows Live Movie Maker and many more.

The first piece of software we had to make use of is Blogger. Blogger is a free online software which allows us to make a blog. The blog in question is where all our work was posted and allowed us some pretty neat tools, such as being able to group our posts under labels and being able to embed images and Youtube clips in to break up our mountains of text. Blogger is a effective tool as it allows us to make use of far more technology than a simple print process, thanks to a simple interface, and an easy to use software. The only downside is that it can be difficult to edit the layout of your blog once it has been set up.

Bubbl.us was a piece of software we used relatively often and early on in our work to help us plan what we intended to do during the course. Whilst we may not have always stuck to these plans, we often made use of them as it helped us to see exactly what ideas we had and what needed to be done. The way in which we could colour code our Bubbls also allowed us to prioritize certain aspects of our work, or make certain areas stand out to us.

Another piece of vital software to our  work was Sony Vegas. Sony Vegas was the main software used to edit together our masterpiece of a film trailer after it had been recorded. Sony Vegas was by far one of the most effective way to edit together our work when compared to other software such as Windows Live Movie Maker. The main advantages to using Vegas over WLMM include; Chroma Key capability, Better rendering times, A far more easily navigable interface, A far more detailed audio layering feature, A far faster loading time and A far greater range of editing ad-ons. This, along with the plethora of features I haven't mentioned make Sony Vegas the ideal choice to edit our masterpiece together.

Photoshop can be seen as an equally vital piece of software during the creation of our ancillary tasks as Sony Vegas was for our main task. Photoshop is an image editing software which allows us to edit images in a wide variety of ways. The ways in which an image can be edited include, and are certainly not limited to; Cropping, Colour correction, Precise cutting, Feathering images, Layering, A wide variety of text editing software, Countless fonts, Countless colours with which to design things, Precise image altering tools AND The ability to apply effects to images. Aside from this multitude of features, the ability to be able to layer images rather than have one single image makes them far easier to edit once they have been set up. This means it was the ideal program to design and make our ancillary tasks.

After effects was a program we made regular use of during the editing of our cut. After effects is a program which allows you to add visual effects to your existing video. Examples of where these have been used can be mainly found during the scenes involving blood, as we didn't have fake blood to hand and didn't want to actually injure our actors. After effects has a fairly vast list of features and such allows for a great deal of video editing. Although you often have to source effects yourself, or work out how to edit footage yourself, there are a number of good tutorials online, such as those done by video co-pilot, whose tutorial for a 'Demon Face' at the end of the trailer was incredibly effective. After effects was also essential for one shot which required three of the same person to be in one scene. This was done by using After effects to overlay the three clips into one.

We also made use of two main pieces of equipment for filming; a camera and a tripod. The camera we used as a Nikon DSLR Camera, which had a number of features, including a setting which allowed us to change how much light would be taken through the lens during the filming. This was an essential feature, as we constantly shifted between light and dark rooms due to the nature of our trailer. The Camera was also able to record in high definition, which is essential for making our trailer look as professional as possible. The other piece of equipment which tied in nicely to this camera was a tripod. The tripod we used was a fairly simple one, which allowed us to tilt, pan and angle the camera, as well as raise and lower it should the shot warrant it. Though simple technology; it allowed us to shoot a number of different angles, such as the masked shot involving three of the same person.

The other substantial piece of technology we had to make frequent use of would be a computer to run all the various software to edit our trailer. For the ancillary tasks, I made use of a Apple Mac computer, which already had programs such as Photoshop and Final Cut loaded onto it. For the actual editing side of the work, we made use of several other computers, such as the Presario CQ56 laptop. A contrast in machinery allowed us to make use of the different features of each. This is because some programs found on a Windows PC cannot be used on an Apple Mac and vice versa.

Evaluation question 3 script

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We learned a great deal from our audience feedback at every level it was given. We were given two sets of written feedback, which marked the route to our final cut. For our final cut, not only did we get some additional opinions from those outside our media class, we also filmed people watching our trailer to see if it was effective, and was able to do what we wanted it to; scare people.

The first time we were given feedback was on our rough cut. This feedback was the first of any kind we had been given and so was incredibly helpful to us. The vast majority of the media students at our school were shown each-other's rough cuts, and were asked to provide feedback as a result. Some of the common things we were told about our work from this included;

• Good/Great use of music
• Sound effects were well realised
• Tracking shot is well filmed
• location was well realised
• the casino scene/shot of the dining room was good
• The shot of the swing was very effective
• Colour correction was in need of work- needs to be consistent
• Lighting needs to be slightly brighter
• Variety of shots needs addressing
• Date for release should be added
• The actor looks to be too young

So, with this list we had to move onto our final cut, however we also got some feedback for the cut before our final cut to ensure that we could make our final cut as effective and scary as possible. Again, we received a large amount of positive feedback with one major concern; our trailer just wasn't scary enough; The ending was no-where near as frightening as we needed, or wanted it to be.

Furthermore we also got some extra feedback from those who weren't actually part of our media class, whom all seemed to like the trailer, yet once again gave us the same criticism that the trailer wasn't scary enough. However, it was useful to get feedback from those who weren't viewing the trailer from a media based perspective. They would be far more likely to view the trailer for what it was, as opposed to media students who would be commenting on far more complex features, such as diegetic and non-diegetic sound and the editing, whereas those who weren't would be far more likely to focus on what they thought looked good and if it was scary of not. 

So going back to the drawing board for our third and final cut, we knew exactly what needed to be done thanks to our audience feedback. Thus for our final cut, we knew exactly what needed re-filming; the jump scare for the trailer. This final attempt was far better received than the other three, and though there were a few issues relating to the video static seen on the trailer; it was through our audience feedback that we were able to make our trailer as good as it.

Evaluation question 2 script

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

(To have our main task along side our two ancillary tasks displayed at the start) 

(You should mention: research, narrative, use of colour, text, font, images, sound, mode of address and how they link across your brand)

For our ancillary tasks, we had to create both a poster for the film we were making the trailer for as well as the cover of a magazine which would be promoting our film. 

For the poster, we decided to reference the house in the poster, as the house is technically the antagonist of the film. From my research; posters tend to show off a film's antagonist over the protagonist, hence this seemed an apt choice. Furthermore; the shot of the house is taken in the same place as one of the final shots of trailer, thus allowing the audience to make an instant link between the trailer and the poster. As with the rest of the poster including the titles and credits, these are designed to mimic the style of an actual film poster. 

The magazine cover features our protagonist rather than our principal antagonist. Given the fact that film magazines always feature a person, or humanoid like creature on the cover, we wouldn't have been able to put the house on the cover as it would break conventions. Instead; we used a picture of the film's protagonist; Joseph. The magazine itself has been inspired by many different issues of Empire, simply because I wanted the magazine I was designing the cover for to be Empire. Once again; we followed all the necessary conventions of magazine covers to ensure our magazine cover looked as real as possible.

The use of colour is key when designing anything to do with horror. A number of dark colours have to be utilised, such as blacks and greys. This however does need to be contrasted, otherwise the colouring will quickly become repetitive and boring. Red is the colour normally used to contrast black and grey in this situation, as red carries a number of connotations with it, such as blood and danger. Similarly, white can also be a strong contrast as the two colours are binary opposites.

The trailer being for 'Behind the Scarlet Door', colour is something we needed made constant use of. We carried across the use of red into both our ancillary tasks. The poster features blood smears, which obviously indicate danger and suffering. Red is also the primary colour for the font used across the magazine cover. This is further helped by the fact the normal Empire title is red as well. This means that the red on the magazine suggests a house style for the magazine even though it is a single page. 

The dark silhouette in the window of the house is a contrast to the bright orange light behind it, yet the silhouette is faded out just enough to allow the audience to question if the person being hung is actually there. The poster also has a dark filter over the top, which gives the poster a dark and grainy effect; perhaps suggesting age to the poster and making reference to the length of time that the house has been ruled over by evil spirits.

The smokey texture behind the protagonist on the magazine cover also contrasts well to the black and red of the magazine, as does the doll the protagonist is holding due to the incredibly pale face and plain clothes it possessed. This is also a link to our trailer, as the doll features heavily in one scene in the attic.
For our other poster, the colour red features even more heavily. There is a distinct lack of contrast to this picture, with the colour red dominating the entire image. The shadowy figure seen on the center of the image as well as the clock image which has been overlapped over the main image and has had the opacity changed are really the only points of contrast. The white clock face is visible due to the contrast in colour, and the darkness of the shadowy figure is also a point of great contrast. Aside from this, the emphasis really is on the red colour featured in the image.

The fonts for the title of the film is the same font featured in all three tasks; Trajan pro. The other fonts used on the magazine cover include the generic 'Empire magazine' font, and other similar fonts used on other covers such as Perpetua Titling MT and Plantagenet Chero. The fonts used across the posters also include the same fonts as well as the main font Trajan Pro. These fonts not only allow us to create a house style for our content, but also keep the three tasks linked at a single glance. The only font that truly differed to this is the font used at the bottom of the film posters. Steel Tongs is the font used for this, which is indeed designed to mirror the fonts used on film posters normally, so much so that it had to be downloaded online and wasn't preloaded onto photoshop.

Images play a key role in any poster or any magazine cover as they are what catch the eye of any potential customers. Rather than make use of the constant macabre images that were seen throughout our trailer we actually made use of other more simplistic images, albeit with a more macabre hint after editing. The main image for our first poster is that of our main location; the house. The image itself has been massively edited to carry a dark mysterious hue to it. The effect is actually very similar to parchment paper, making it appear as if the poster has been aged. The image of the man hanging in the window shows that the film is a horror film, which can be questioned otherwise. Aside from this, the blood on the bottom of the poster is a good indicator to this.  In the other poster, the image of the clock, the door and the man in the window all go together to create a strong feeling of horror, which stands out even more due to the red colour which makes up the image. Finally, the magazine cover makes use of the image of the protagonist holding a doll, as well as the image of smoke. The smoke behind the protagonist is a strong image as is the doll being held by him. Both are actually images featured in the attic scene of our trailer, creating a link between the main and ancillary tasks.

The sound utilised in the trailer hardly carries across into our ancilary tasks, yet we made sure our sound effects stuck to the conventions of actual horror film trailers. Aside from this, sound doesn't really play a part in our ancillary tasks, as both make use of the medium of print, preventing us from adding any sound.

The mode of address used across all three differs slightly. The magazine makes use of the same mode of address as the other Empire magazines on the market. The tagline "is this 2014's scariest film" is actually taken from an older edition of the magazine, which asked the same question, but of the year 2013. The other main features of the magazine are indeed inspired by other older editions of the magazine, including the "year of fear" section. Similarly, the tagline used in one of the posters is a fairly generic line, yet fits the tone of the film well; "welcome home." This gives the impression that something is waiting for the main character to return to the house, allowing the audience to come up with their own preconceptions of the film before they have even seen the trailer. The mode of address on the posters is fairly basic as it is designed to mirror the style of that seen on actual film posters. This information is standard of almost all film posters, and so was easy to replicate for our posters. Whilst it isn't really mode of address, we also made sure to add the necessary company logos and icons which denote that this is our film. 

Evaluation Question 1 script

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

Our trailer took a great deal of work to make look as it does. For a trailer such as this, it made the most sense to try and apply the conventions of existing trailers to our own. For the examples here, I will be making reference to the three trailers which influenced our trailer the most; Sinister, Insidious 2 and Grave Encounters 2.

All four trailers begin with a slow sequence of shots establishing the general plot of the film; The first Grave Encounters film being well received, a young man returning home to find a chest in the center of his hallway, a writer moving into a new home and it being established that the son from Insidious has managed to shake free whatever possessed him in the first film. The trailers all begin this way, as the slow building nature of then opening shots contrast greatly to the latter parts of the trailers, where the editing is much faster paced, and all the tension built up through these slow shots is paid off.

The trailers then begin to build tension by having the general mood of the film shift to start creating a feeling of tension. Again; more story aspects are introduced; a group of teenagers go to film at the hospital where Grave Encounters took place, the young man opens the chest and finds an old camera with strange pictures of the past, the writer discovers some old video tapes and the mother of the possessed child begins to see ghastly visions. Added to the establishing shots, these slow building elements in each trailer lay down a tense atmosphere, which sets the mood for the rest of the trailer.

The slow shots now come to an end with the sudden realization of the situation the characters are in; The students discover that they are trapped in a place haunted by the spirits they thought were just stories, the young man watches footage of someone (himself) being stabbed by a hooded figure seen in the photographs from earlier, the writer witnesses the video tapes and discovers they all feature people dying in varying gruesome ways and the mother of the child hears a voice over her baby monitor. As soon as these events happen (with the exception of Sinister) the editing pace of these trailers increases dramatically, as too does the tension in the trailers.

The trailers begin to pick up pace now as the trailers build up tension before attempting the trailer's true jump scare; the teenagers see all the horrors that befell people in the hospital and what happened to them, the young man begins exploring his own house as things begin to work by themselves and he wishes to know why, the writer begins to research what the content of the videos actually is and the family call in for the help of a spiritualist to see what's happening in their home; again the editing still isn't at its fastest yet, as all three trailers are once again building up tension for the final jump scare which makes up the trailers.

The trailers now approach their jump scares; the editing increases in pace and the shots begin to make no logical sense in the order they are placed in; the teenagers begin to see the creatures that haunted those who could be found in Grave Encounters and are chased by them, the young man goes into the loft of his home after seeing some unusual events around his own home, the writer begins to focus on the demon located within each clip and burns the footage he found, and the son who possessed in Insidious makes his fear of his father known to his mother.

Now the trailers reach their jump scare; the teenagers hide in a cupboard, yet are found by a nurse, who turns into one of the creatures who chased them before, the young man becomes trapped in a dark space with just a torch and ends up being attacked by a demon-creature, the writer sees a group of children in his loft, before the demon in the video footage jumps out at him, and the family go to touch a veil and see a vision of a demon-like creature. The trailers then have a brief moment of respite as is common in a horror trailer to allow the audience to reflect upon what they see.

As can be seen from the clips, the footage in all three trailers is similar, and achieves the same thing; making the audience scared/afraid of what they have seen as well as feeling pity/empathy for the characters.

Final Cut

Magazine cover final draft (Ancillary task)

After a bit of work changing how my magazine was initially laid out, I have managed to create a first draft of our movie magazine front cover. Having wished I remembered anything from last year when constructing my music magazine, the entire thing is made from scratch by me. After a little bit of arguing with my group, we decided that a few aspects needed changing. The result of these changes is as follows;

Anscillary task; posters

Above are our posters which were designed by our group. The first poster was designed by Archie McCarthy and the second one was designed by Carl Aylett. These are posters which have been designed with emphasis to be on the house as our research has shown us.

Poster flat plan + Original images (Ancillary task)

When making our ancillary tasks, it is important to plan things effectively. Since we rarely do this, we decided that it might have been a good idea to plan our Ancillary tasks before we actually made them. Here is the flat plan for one of our posters, as well as the original images for each poster;

 

Images by Carl and Archie. Flat plan by Archie McCarthy.

Magazine cover flat plan (Ancillary task)

For our ancillary tasks we have to create a poster and the cover to a film magazine showing off our film. I have been tasked with the creation of the magazine side of this task. For m magazine, I have to decide upon what magazine our film is being displayed upon. For this, there was only one choice in my mind; Empire magazine. With this in mind, I began designing a plan of what the magazine cover will look like.

The terrible sketch of what I imagine my cover to look like can be found below;

 

And here is the image I plan to use to make our magazine cover;