Evaluation

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

My media product uses various forms and conventions of well known media products in todays society. Firstly, our film trailer uses captions which are widely used in many popular film trailer today. These have been used in order to help explain what is going on and indeed add individuality to the narrative used. Along with this, it helps to appeal to the target audience and add a fairy tale twist to this modern adaption. Whilst researching various trailers we made a mental note of what exactly was included in individual trailers we then incorporated various aspects into our trailer thus using and developing conventions of real media products. An example of this is the opening sequence of Ella Enchanted, In this, a fairy tale book is used to help explain the beginning of the story along with a voice over who reads out the story line included in the book. This was useful to include in our trailer for the reasons above, mainly the fact that, it helped to explain the story. Also, we developed the conventions used in various trailers such as, using the example of Ella Enchanted again, the fairy tale book. Instead of using classic fairy tale images we used our own pictures and developed them in order to blend them in with the fairy tale book and add a modern edge. Thus, adding a modern feel to our fairy tale trailer which was our goal from the start. The ways in which we perhaps challenged various media products is by filming most of our trailer in one location, although a couple of shots were filmed in other locations the majority of our trailer was indeed filmed in school. I feel by ding this we have challenged many forms of trailer simply by not using an a ray of locations. It can be argued that this has actually caused us a disadvantage but i feel by just including specific locations helped to keep the story simple to understand and also made it appeal to our target audience who can relate to a school environment.

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

Before answering this question, it must be said what is actually meant by the term Ancillary. This terms means the way in which the products are all linked. Our products are all linked in a number of ways, each one contains the title of our product and also includes various images of the characters involved. In order to express a theme across all three products we first of all worked on the trailer so we could decide which images would best represent our trailer. We came to the conclusion that all four main characters should be added in order to be able to link our products together skillfully meaning we included the same picture on both the magazine cover and poster. The font used in our trailer and two other products remained the same throughout. We wanted to show consistency between the trailer and the two product which go along with the trailer. Overall, the theme has indeed been carried through on all of our individual products which all link up nicely together. I feel this is an important aspect for media products to have because the consumer has to be able to link which poster goes with each trailer and indeed which magazine cover. Relevant for the public interest and indeed the overall look of the finished products.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

From our audience feedback we have learnt, that although some of the narrative didn't make sense, our overall product was finished to a high standard, It was easy to understand, mostly due to the captions and the narrative seemed to attract the consumers to want to go and see this movie if it was shown in the cinemas. Perhaps the most successful and commented feature about this trailer was the quick change of shots and the popular theme of a fairy tale which attracted our target audiences attention the most.We have, however, learnt that a trailer isn't necessarily there to tell the story it is only there to give the audience a taster of what is to be expected if they go and view this film. We incorporated a number of shots in this trailer and it paid off as it added a interest to this piece and also, due to the short duration of many shots, allowed us to cram more footage into the trailer thus adding in a few more interesting shots to the overall products which was commented on by the audience feedback. Although helpful, there was a number of opinions expressed in our audience feedback-mostly positive but sometimes negative-mainly constructive criticism though it must be noted.

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

We used a number of media technologies in order to research various aspects for our trailer. For example, various Youtube videos which i then analysed in order to try and undersand the conventions used.I knew that whilst we didn’t want to mimic any trailers we’d seen, it would be a good idea to take certain aspects and make them our own. We used the example of trailers to construct our ideas and it also helped in the research stages when trying to decide on the genre of film we wanted to focus on and also the way in which we wanted to present our trailer, the various style of trailers there is for the different genres is astounding. The research that we did into various trailers and popular film genres of today helped us, not only construct our ideas, but also helped us to plan how to film various bits, what locations to use and indeed who to use in our trailer. Using the Mac computers made everything a lot easier as there is a number of programmes on there that allowed us to try out various things such as experimenting with bits of footage when trying to paste clips together and add effects. The blogs also came in useful during the evaluation stages as it was easy to put up a number of clips and also ask people what they thought through social networking sites like Facebook. I did post a poll on my blog in order to ask people what is more likely to attract there attention to a trailer, so I knew what people were attracted too before even starting the filming. Throughout this assignment, various media technology has helped to contribute to research and planning (through watching trailers and finding out more about them), planning (using the trailer to construct ideas around and help work out what elements are needed in our trailer), and evaluation stages (posting various things on social networking sites and also on my blog). I feel without media technology getting ideas out there would be a lot harder.

The Editing Process

After collecting all our footage, it was time to edit. First we spend time looking at the storyboard and deciding what we needed to change and which shots would look good together. The captions were pretty easy to make as we basically used photoshop, all of us already had experience in using photoshop due to our as-level project. The captions were easy to start with as they helped us get the story and order straight in our heads. Next, the biggest task of all the editing process, cutting down the footage that we got. This was pretty hard to do as we wanted the correct mis-en-scene and also the correct camera shots including close up shots, medium close-ups and long shots along with a wider variety of camera angles. It was quite hard to get used to using Premier-Pro. to start with as it was quite hard to use and the amount of things that could be done got quite confusing. Eventually, after getting used to it, it became obvious that there was only two tools really that needed to be use, that was the grab tool which selects various sections of the footage and also the cutter tool which cut bits of footage up so the whole clip didn't need to be used. Pasting the various pieces of footage proved hard as we wanted to get the timing correct and also wanted to use the best shot of the sequence we had filmed. Each of the shots, looked pretty similar because we decided that taking a longer sequence of film would give us a better choice of footage to choose from. In order to load the footage up we had to use a cable connected to the back of the Mac computers. Next we used Premier Pro. to load up the film we had recorded which we then had to watch through. The editing process did take a lot of time, especially as we didn't have all the footage that we needed before we begun. After editing and pasting the shots together we added various effects, such as dissolving and a white flash. I think we were too ambitious to begin with as we did want to include various cartoon bits such as hearts as we felt this would edge a fun edge to our trailer. Overall, i feel our trailer has turned out well and although the editing process was hard to begin with it definitely got easier as we got used t using the equipment.

Captions
In order to create the captions we found various images of fairy tale books we then copied these into photoshop and added in each of the captions plus photos of each of the characters. in order to add authenticity to the book we added effects to the photos, such as posterisation and also different brush strokes that were avaliable on photoshop. We cut ad pasted the books into photoshop then added in the captions then finally the pictures. In order to add it to the trailer we had to save the individual captions then paste them into premier pro. Overall, the process was quite simple. However, finding the right pictures to match the captions and indeed taking them proved harder. Mianly because we had to gather all the characters together and also had to find the right location which would represent what we wanted to show in the narrative.

Transitions
To add some individuality to the trailer, we decided to add in a few transitions between a few of the clips. For example, the firtst effect, added between the 'fairytale book' and the first page. I think, by adding this, it has made a smooth change between each of the captions so is not so jumpy and overall easier on the viewer and effect of the trailer. Another effect that we added was the transition between the first page of the book and the school corridor. I feel the effect links nicely with the scene and adds individuality to our trailer. Overall, i like the effect added by transitions in trailers, through research i have found that alot of film trailers use and have used transitions. A good exmaple would be, at the beginning of Ella Enchanted. This is where two of the opening shots seem to blend into one another and adds a nice effect to the overall finish.