EvaluationIn writing

Evaluation Question 1

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

Conventions are a formula which media products follow in order for the audience to believe what is being said in the film. Generally speaking in cinema the main proportion of audiences want to know what they are getting in a film, and the most successful films are those which use and maybe slightly develop these clearly defined conventions set for each genre.

The genre of my film is thriller. Within this genre I found that there are set conventions which are clearly identifiable. Fear, death, harm, female victim, sudden movements, eerie music, suspense, tension, plot revealed at the end. These are just some of the typical conventions which are used in thrillers.

I have used the conventions already mapped out for my genre as it was important to insure that my products were convincing and professional. In using the conventions I was able to produce something which would inevitably sell its self as it fits into a bracket and a target audience which already exists.

The ways in which I conformed to these conventions were in fastpase editing, fades and flashes to black and white, specific stalking camera angles often seen in similar films and also through connecting to the audience on a very personal level. Many films often use their titles or tagline to directly involve the audience, such as in alien their tagline is ‘in space no one can hear you scream’. With the title Personal Space, this has a similar effect on the audience. Another way in which I related to the audience was through the characters, I wanted the main characters to be relatable, even the villain. This overlaps into challenging conventions.

If I were to challenge conventions of other media products within this bracket I would have achieved something which was less believable and also something which, if it were to be a real film, would not do so well at getting people interested. This is ultimately what leads the perceived success of a film.

However, having realised this, I decided that it was important to step away from conforming to conventions completely as this would make for a very dull film. The subtle way in which I chose to challenge conventions was in my choice of villain, the villain in my trailer was a female therefore eliminating the idea of women being defenceless and merciful against men. This is only a subtle change to the feel of my film, but I think it was important to set it apart slightly from other films which are similar.

The ways in which I have developed conventions set for thrillers is the idea that my film was from the villain’s perspective. This is not done very often within this genre. I thought it would be an interesting idea to hear everything from their side and to watch them justify their actions which are progressively getting worse and worse.

My Poster conformed to the conventions of other film posters. In my research I found that the majority of film posters follow a similar layout. In order for my poster to look and feel professional and believable it was important that I take on these well known conventions. I think that the outcome of taking on these conventions gave my poster more impact.

As my film was edited on a magazine which already exists, it meant that I had to conform to the already established conventions of that magazine. Similarly to poster, I think that this was important in making sure that it had a professional believable feel.

Evaluation Question 2

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

I think that overall the three products; my magazine cover, poster and trailer have a similar vibe to one another in the sense that my audience was able to accept them all as advertising the same film without questioning.

The poster and the film trailer I think work best in conjunction because they both have a thriller feel in the title, photos, videos and editing. These two were in a way the two which were easiest to connect as they very much stood alone, however when it came to making a magazine cover I found from my research that I had to adopt the forms and conventions of the magazine I had chosen (sight and sound). This meant that I had to come at this piece from another angle and instead of solely being concerned with film conventions of other thrillers; I had to look at how I go about advertising a thriller in such a magazine.

As I wanted to magazine to have a professional feel and for it to look believable it meant that I had to sacrifice some of that obvious connection between this ancillary text and my main product. The magazine cover I decided to base my design on was more focused on the actor. I thought that this would be an interesting alternative to a straightforward advertising of the film as I wanted there to be an emphasis on the reliability of the characters. And this was an angle of my film which would accommodate an interview style magazine advertisement.

Looking back I think that in order for this interview angle to work, the caption would need to be changed. Instead of ‘on the pitfalls of fame from her new film personal space’ I should have taken that opportunity to place an emphasis on the experience of playing her character. This would have made the connection of the magazine with the poster and trailer stronger and therefore strengthened the impact of the combination of the three.

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from you audience feedback?

Right from the start audience feedback has been a vital part of decision making. Once I had established my genre and target audience I could start to address them with questionnaires and ask for responses to work to allow them to directly influence where my film would end up. As well as addressing my target audience I also thought it important to address people who are not within my target audience as this will allow for a comparison of results and to see if I am aiming for the right product.

In the planning I asked a small number of friends who I would include in my target audience what their favourite genre was. From my results I found that horror and thriller came out on top. It was based on this research that I chose the genre for my trailer.

After constructing a rough plan of my synopsis and delivering this to my media class, I asked them to write a few notes on what they thought. From this I was given many new ideas and considerations for the characters, an ending, genre etc. it was from this that I really got down into thinking about the storyline in a bit more depth.

It was from this note taking sessions which lead me on to constructing a quick questionnaire for people inside and outside of my target audience to complete. The questions ranged from asking the participant for a star rating to asking for an ending of the film. The results of this questionnaire were overall good and people response generally was that it was an interesting idea to have a trailer from a stalkers perspective. Considering that everyone seemed to have their own ideas on how the story would go, I thought it would be important to leave the trailer open to interpretation and ending completely unknown.

After producing my media products and having shown them to a small number of people this is what was made of them.

From my audience response to my media texts I produced I can see that I have mostly achieved what I set out to I am confident that they were able to recognise the genre very clearly and also my target audience and whether or not they were in it.

Evaluation Question 4How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluations stages?

Along with developing many of the skills which I had got the basics of from the AS course work I also had the chance this year to gain completely new skills from media technologies I had never before used.

Prezzi is a zooming presentation editor I have used frequently throughout the planning stages of my work. Although is it simple to use, it takes time to be able to be fluent enough with the editing options to be able to produce something which is visually pleasing at the same time as giving all the information needed. I now feel that throughout this year’s course work I have mastered prezzi and am now confident in my ability to use it.

Issuu is a presentation program which allows you to transform your average power points, photos and word documents into an interactive online magazine. This is another media technology I had never used prior to this year. I have used it several times throughout my research and planning on my blog. After practice I am now confident with my ability to use issuufreely and easily to make any chunk of work more visually stimulating.

Photoshop is something which even before the AS coursework I was half familiar with, I could guess around and eventually get what I wanted. At the AS I started to understand more about layers and basic skills for cutting pasting, editing etc. however my Photoshop skills were hindering my creative ideas, as I simply could not match what I achieved with what had planned. After having used photo shop for my poster and also my magazine cover in this year’s course work I am now grasping the understanding of photo shop as a whole which has allowed me to insure that my actual product is not miles of what I had planned it to be like. My understanding of layers has increased dramatically especially whilst constructing my poster as this had numerous layers involved.

Slide share allows you to upload and present presentations in a way in which looks very professional. Slide share is another presentation program which I had never used before this year’s course work and after familiarising myself with it I am now able to confidently navigate the website and play around with different looks. It is very similar to issuu in the sense that it mainly presents power points however I think that this website has a much more clean approach to presenting work which is sometimes not as visually pleasing to view on a blog as an issuu presentation might be. For this reason I used issuu more than slide share in my planning and researching for coursework.

Blogger, the site which I have used for both AS and A level course work was new to me completely at the beginning of last year. And as it was new lest year I was not so confident in playing around with the tools to see what I could do to make my blog more personalised and interesting. However this year I have been more confident within blogger as got more and more used to using it. I have progressed hugely from last year in this aspect and was able to organise my blog in my much more interesting way.

YouTube is something which although I am familiar with, my experience of actually uploading anything is very limited. Last year my evaluation video was the first video I had ever uploaded to YouTube and since then, nothing had followed until this year’s course work. I am now much more familiar with managing videos online than I was. I am able to use YouTube as a readily available tool to upload videos to aid me in my media work.

Splice is the video maker which I used to make my evaluation videos. Splice is a popular Iphone application which I have learned to use fairly easily. It allows me to take the photos straight from my photo album and put in a voiceover straight into the video. It also has a number of editing and transition tools which make my videos more visually pleasing. Splice has allowed me to edit these short clips quickly and effetely.

Adobe Premier is the program I used to edit my trailer. It is something which I had never used before this course and now right at the end I feel I am beginning to really grasp the main skills. With this program there are endless things you can do in editing films which I will never need to use, but in practicing on a few drafts I was able to figure out some basic cutting, editing, fading, cropping techniques which when timed with the backing track can be very successful. Through producing my trailer I have become very interested in video editing and hope that I have another opportunity to develop my skills.