Evaluation

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

Our trailer "The Summoning conforms to other popular horror trailers through narrative theory and paradigms which are usually found in horror trailers.

We chose to set our horror film trailer in a school/college as this conforms to codes and conventions found in several popular horror films such as "Prom Night" and "Carrie" which are both set in high schools as the charcters are the same age as our target audience. We showed the film was set in a school by beginning the trailer with an establishing shot of the school, we also showed the students in and around the school throughout the trailer.

The trailer then goes on to show the period of equilibrium which is around 1 minute long, we chose to do this as by looking at other teen horror film trailers we found that this period was quite long. “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” uses a long  period of equilibrium which takes up a large proportion of the trailer, this helps to make the scary scenes seem more effective.

During the period of equilibrium all of the group besides from Sam take part in what may be considered be immoral or inappropriate for teenagers such as drinking, smoking and flirting (showing they are sexually active). This is similar to “Scream” where “Casey” is shown to be flirting, this leads to her dying as it follows the convention of sex=death.

  

In the trailer we show that the students are being watched by someone, by filming an equilibrium scene form behind a door where the group are shown to oblivious that there is someone watching them. This subtly makes the audience uneasy although nothing “scary” has happened. Many other horror films do this by showing the victims being stalked by the villain without them knowing examples of this are "Creep" where the main character Franka Potente is trapped and followed by a stalker and "When a stranger calls".

The Ouija board scene shows the group are contacting a ghost, it was important to include this scene as it establishes the idea that there could be ghosts in school. A scene like this is shown in the trailer for the film “Ouija” where the group friends use a similar home-made ouija board showing that this is a common feature within supernatural horrors. By using an ouija board and candles we were able to show religious icongraphy which is a convention found in most supernatural trailers like "Drag Me to Hell" the audience instantly connotates from this that there is something spirital going on.

 

 

The moment of disequilibrium is a feature found in all horror trailers, this scene was essential as it shows that there is something trying to kill the students and it shows “Eva's” character dying first as she is the “slutty” character which is a common convention found in horror.

 

Our trailer then goes on to the period of disequilibrium which again is found in most horror trailers, as this shows how “scary” the film will be. In our period of disequilibrium we chose not to show the ghost that the group are running away from as we felt this would make it unrealistic and villains are not usually shown in trailers particularly in supernatural horrors. For example the paranormal activity film trailer does not actually show the ghost its self it just shows signs of the ghost being there, we do something similar in our trailer in the toilet scene. 

The trailer then ends with “Sam” running alone this is a paradigm of horror films as the final character is usually a female that is seen to be more “geeky” than the other characters. This is because she does not take part in drinking or smoking and is the only character who actually believes in the ghost, therefore our trailer conforms to the idea of final girl theory.

"The Summoning" also conforms to conventions by the music that we used. When looking at other trailers we found that the music began with a slow tempo then went on to speed up with the action, we also chose to use instramental music as this is the most commonly used music in horror film trailers. Another way in which our trailer conforms to typical horror trailers is the editing that we used. We began the trailer with longer shots of around 2 seconds and used fade to blacks and cross dissolves, then when the trailer picks up pace we used lots of quick jump cuts to match the heart rate of the auidence, this is very similar to editing in the "Prom night" film trailer.

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

We used various different forms of technologies throughout our project these included computer programmes, websites and filming equipment. We used BBC iPlayer to watch a documentary on the history of horror, we also watched a channel 4 documentary about the key features in horror films to gain more background knowledge on the genre. When researching our film trailers we used sites like youtube to watch trailers and other specific film websites such as www.paranormalmovie.com. As well as this we used search engines such as google and bing to help us find out more about horror codes and conventions.

To document the process of our project we used blogger, where we regularly updated the research we were doing making it easier to refer back to when making the trailer. On a blog we were able to show links to other websites and upload filming that we had done. When uploading reasearch and planning onto our blogs we used the website www.slideshare.net/ to show prentations we had made about exsicsting films and projects we also used the website box.net so we were are to show the music we were using on the trailer.

Whilst creating our trailer we also created a facebook page for our film, this is a brilliant way of advertising as it is completely free and very accessible to our young target audience. 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Summoning/110998562311316?sk=wall

If we were to market the trailer further we would use viral advertising on sites like twitter as this is a cheap and effective way to advertise films it also helps news of the film spread much faster than and film trailer on television. We would also make the films own website which on the magazine and trailer we have called www.TheSummoningMovie.com on this site we would use interactive media like free downloads and apps for phones to relate to the young audience of our film.

To create the trailer its self we used video cameras and tripods to shoot the action then used final cut pro 4 on Mac computers to edit the trailer. This helped to make our trailer more professional as it is the same software that Hollywood film editors use making it the best possible way to edit the trailer.

When making our film poster and film magazine we had to take photographs for both on digital cameras for them to be high quality images. We then actually created the poster and magazine on photoshop as this was the ideal software for making them here we were able to edit images and add text in order to get a realistic looking magazine.

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Audience feedback has helped me to make improvements on my trailer, magazine cover and poster.

When creating our first draft of the trailer with music we decided to put it onto you tube where any one is able to view it, from this we had very positive feedback as it had over 150 view several likes and one comment said “This is amazing if this trailer was shown on TV I'd definitely go to the cinema to watch it”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MKplaB4rqE&feature=autoplay&list=QL&index=1&playnext=9.
From this we were able to tell that our target audience liked the trailer as the person that wrote the comment profile told us they were 24 (the age of our target audience). When showing my target audience of 18 to 24 year olds my final trailer they told me that they liked the trailer and found the ouija board scene to be the best part of the trailer however they did say that they were slightly confused of why and what the group were running from towards the end of the trailer. If we were to improve the trailer again then we would add in tone cards to show more detail of what the characters were doing to avoid confusion.

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

For my magazine and poster I used similar colours on both as it gave the film its own identity making the audience more likely to recognise it. When designing my magazine cover and poster I looked at existing products so that a knew the typical features of the texts. In particular I looked at magazines such as empire and total film that had a horror film as their main article. When doing this I found that empire rarely used horror films on their front covers whereas Total Film did this is why I chose to use Total film for my magazine as I felt it would be more fitting for the film. For my film poster I chose to use the REC poster as my inspiration as it is a handheld film like ours therefore has a similar style and themes. For the poster I used an image that is very similar to the one on the “REC” poster. When looking at horror film magazine covers and posters I found that the image used on them were mostly of the victim rather than the villain, this made it easy to create my cover as the villain isn't shown in our trailer. On my film poster I decided to keep it simple by only using the colours black and white which is similar to the “REC” and “Paranormal Activity” posters. However I still included all the film information such as producers and film company that was also on the film trailer making the two link together. I also used popular film magazine's and website to show their star rating for the film, by doing this the audience are able to see that the film has critical success and they are therefore more likely yo go and see it. The magazine I made was a horror special which meant that most of the content on the front page was horror related such as the cover lines and tag-line. By using total film on my poster and then using total film as my magazine cover I am able to show that this respected film magazine thinks that the film is or should be successful therefore the combination of the two help to show a good brand identity.

For my magazine I used very similar features to the Total Film Star Trek special above, they both use similar colour schemes and layouts including barcode details and  listing of films at the side. I chose to do this as I found this magazine to be very effective and "scary" although it is not a horror film.

Tone Cards

This are the tone cards that we have created for our trailer to show  the film title and production list we did this to make our trailer seem more authentic as these are typical features in all film trailers.

Final Draft of Trailer

This is the final trailer that we will be using we found that there was a spelling mistake in the original trailer and this had to be changed in order to make the trailer professional.

Final Poster

This is my final edit of the film poster after getting feedback from  my target audience I added more details about the film as people felt that there was not enough on the poster. I also found that I made a spelling mistake which had to be changed.