Evaluation question 1

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

We challenged the conventions by opening our trailer with shots from the film itself, usually in real media products trailer start with production companies which immediately establishes the genre of the film. We adhered this convention in a task where we applied conventions of a trailer to during our research part of this course. You can see a presentation of this here. However in our final trailer we challenged this by having shots which opened up enigma. We also challenged conventions are the start as we did not use an establishing shot to show the setting but we established our synopsis and built on the themes. You can see a plan for this here.

My media product challenges conventions of the killer in real media products. Conventional characteristics of killers in horror include deformed facial features or disguised by mask, this suggest their isolation from society and the community within. All horror films depersonalise their killer. However we did not, we have not exposed our killer obviously in our trailer, we have made suggestions which creates enigma. We have also challenged conventional characteristics by having a female killer, killers tend to be male which is suggestive of traditional hegemonic stereotypes. Our intention was to build on the idea anyone can be a killer and reject gender related issues. This has also challenged Mulvey's male gaze theory. 

Mulvey's male gaze theory suggests that women are subjective to a gaze from a male perspective. In horror, women tend to be portrayed as weak and vulnerable in a sexual context. We have developed this as we do show females as vulnerable yet our killer challenges this idea. We have turnt Mulvey’s male gaze theory around, showing women as in control and dominant, not only for sexual purposes.

We have used the Todorov's theory of narrative and developed on this. We have to some extent narrative order with an equilibrium being shown through everyday life of students. This is then disrupted through the cheating which is recognised through the death of a student. We then see the victim commit suicide and the action begins of the deaths. A reinstatement of the equilibrium is not shown as it creates suspense and builds enigma.

We have used Burton's theory into iconography as we have used blood which immediately suggests the genre of the film. This is used in many horrors as it was a reoccuring theme throughout my research and planning. We have also used Burton's theory  of the setting, in horror this is often in a domestic or private sphere which illustrates themes of danger within the home, it also suggests the idea that we are not safe anywhere and a lack of hope of being saved, this increases vulnerability. Our trailer being filmed in a school suggests this lack of hope. This is emphasised through the exam hall and fulfilled through the title. We also used the voids as it creates a creepy atmosphere, ideal with horror.

Overall, our trailer uses some conventions, develops but mainly challenges. We decided on this as our idea was original and we wanted to make something different which is not already in the industry.

Evaluation question 4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

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

Evaluation question 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback has been beneficial in a number of ways. Firstly, the primary understanding was my first feedback from industry professionals, feedback is always useful but from professional widens my understanding of how to understand trailer further than knowledge gained in my research. I learned from this how to construct a trailer to tell the story, emotional hooks and theme.The audience feedback gained from professionals is here.

Throughout the making of the trailer, I was constantly altering the trailer, modifying and constructing it to fit with the comments made for improvement from daily feedback of pupils. This daily feedback was constructed by pupils within the target audience. Such feedback included the story not being portrayed successfully, we altered this by inserting quotes which fulfilled our themes. A quote which is shown on the left, 'success is dependent on effort' immediately suggests our themes and within the nature of shots opens up our plot. I also used music and editing to build pace and tempo to emphasis a scary atmosphere, adhering to the horror genre.

I then screened this edit to my audience again for further feedback. This resulted in 1/4 of those asked still misinterpreting the story. We discussed how we could edit this and resulted in further shooting to capture a death which we felt would fit the space inbetween shoots and reveal our synopsis, themes and promote our emotional hook successfully. This was a success and after a final screening, my target audience sample understood and could clearly identify the nature of our trailer. Throughout this production I have used my feedback in a constructive way, learning from faults and improving upon this.

To gain further feedback, wider than my target audience sample, I set up a facebook page  and gained feedback via youtube and social networking sites, I have posted this in a previous post.

Firstly, I recognised my trailer is being viewed through computers but also mobile device. This has demonstrated that my trailer is reaching an audience, ideally my primary and secondary audience. Viewing of my trailer signifies strengths and without pre audience feedback and the constructive comments I gained during the production, I would not have been able to modify changes and overall, critically analysing the outcome would not of been as successful.

This screengrab has come from facebook, this shows the comments I recieved when uploading my trailer on a social networking site. Firstly, you can identify a overwhelming response in 'likes', this symbolises the amount of people viewing my video and wanting to see it. Pre audience feedback demonstrated my synopsis was not being revealed and the story line was not expressed clearly, however from my final feedback I can see I learnt from the constructive comments and my edits  via these were successful as many comments capture the nature of the story and plot. I can also see from my pre audience feedback I have signified my emotional hook and expressed this. Many of my target audience commented on the genre which has been recognised through use of iconography, something I learnt from Burton's theory. Comments have also included recognition of how the trailer was put together, this demonstrates my understanding of the constructive comments which revealed my story was not clear, I learnt from this and my final audience feedback shows this.

Gaining feedback on a social networking site lead to further publicity and success of my target audience sharing my trailer, reaching to  a wider audience. Without the pre audience feedback I recieved earlier on in the course, this would not of happened.

From my feedback, I have learnt that throughout production it is vital to gain feedback every step as being the producer I was aware of the synopsis, themes and emotional hook and felt they was being expressed clearly but through feedback found they were misunderstood. I used feedback in a constructive way, learning from faults and improving upon this.

Lastly, I returned back to my primary audience feedback which came from industry professionals and screened my trailer at Channel 4.

Here you can see I have two marking criterias from industry professionals, overall the feedback ticked the top boxes of wow factor and excellent. I have noticed one area which was not as successful was special effects which include after effect and titling. This is something which happens in post production and as a group we could have improved this element. This feedback was overwhelming, the success of our trailer was anchored further through my trailer winning 'best trailer' at this evening.

Evaluation question 2

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

Promoting trailer

Promoting trailer

View more presentations from Morgan Boon.

I uploaded our trailer to Youtube and within days it  has reached 245 likes, which is increasing on a hourly basis. This shows our trailer is actually being viewed and recognised. You can see on the next slide a breakdown of likes, the most significant here is that people are even viewing our trailer on a mobile device which shows everyone is excited to see this. I also published my trailer onto facebook, a social networking site, here you can see many likes and comments which include the good story line and how the genre has been easily recognised through use of iconography. I also noticed here that the majority of comments has come our target audience, which shows we have been successful. As the trailer has had an impact, people have shared this trailer which widens our promoting.

Poster and Magazine Cover

Finished trailer, 'The Examined'.

Audience feedback from 2nd trailer

Being part of 'film's cool' we had our 2nd edit published onto the facebook page. We have recieved many likes which is motivating, especially off of industry professionals.

Evaluation of 2nd edit

Here you can see a story being revealed and an attempt to add music and editing to portray this. For the coming together of a 2^nd edit I think this works yet there are many improvements we need to work on.

•   Sound, background sound (wind) is controlling the dialogue, making it hard to understand what the character is saying. This needs to be detached and removed, and we will need to rerecord just the sound and sync this to the clip itself. 
•  Clips tend to last on screen too long, for example, the beginning clips which capture the urban environment appear on screen for too long and the audience is ‘waiting’ as there is no tension or sense of enigma.
• Sound is not synced accurately, does not appear with visuals.s
• Some of the clips are unnecessary and do not help portray story, themes or emotional hook. Therefore we will remove them.
• Music and editing needs to be improved in order to create anticipation. 

Improving trailer

Using the amazing audience feedback we recieved we have improved our trailer to successfully reveal the plot, emotional hook and themes of our trailer. We achieved this by adding text on screen, which was advice given. We actually made the text questions to engage the audience. Here is our trailer, so far..