Evaluation Task 4 - How did you use new Media technologies in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Tasks

 

Here I have added pictures of me holding the physical equipment we used. We used the Camera to film all of our footage on. We used the Microphone to pick up sound more thoroughly, even though we didn't actually use sound in our Teaser Trailer.

We used the Tripod to alter the difference between our camera shots, as some were a canted angle and some were straight on. We also used hand-held footage in our film as this gives a more eerie effect.

We also used Adobe Photoshop to manipulate the images used for our Poster and Film Magazine Front Cover.

Adobe Premier Elements is what we used to edit all of our footage together to create our Final Teaser trailer. We also used this to add the music onto our Teaser Trailer. Another thing we used Adobe Premier Elements for was to manipulate the colours of our footage, for example we made the footage of Milly and Hannah green, to make it look like it was a night vision setting on the camera.

This is a computer similar to the one we used to bring all of our Film Package together (Ancillary tasks and Teaser Trailer) 

Slide Share is what we used to put our PowerPoint presentations on. We used this to then publish them on our Blog.

Youtube is the Internet software we used to find our music for our film. We also used this to research other Horror Teaser trailers so that we could analyse them.

Blogger is what we used to keep a diary of our media work, it is also what we used to research and plan our teaser trailer and our ancilary tasks.

We used mediaconverter.org to convert our Production company, Legendary pictures, into an .avi file so we could add it into our Trailer.

This is the software we used to convert our music from youtube to make sure we could have it on our Teaser Trailer

Evaluation Task 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Some of the feedback that we got from our Teaser Trailer was that they didn't understand why the dog was in the film, we however justified this by saying that the Dog was to show the audience that the Victims were in their own house, which reinforces that it could happen to anyone in the own home. This is a reference to the film The Strangers, as the Victims in this film are in their own house when they are attacked.
Some feedback which we received from a Social Networking site was:
"Its really good guys well done :) just one thing is that the trailer doesn't really tell you anything about the film like any plot or anything its all very vague?"
My response to this is that the whole idea of our teaser trailer was to be ambiguous and to confuse the audience and this comment proves it!

Some more feedback we received was: 'I like the bit with the writing, where it looks like she is erasing it. I thought it was really effective as it could show the character is trying to erase her actions. I also liked the contrast between the Black and White colour scenes and the Coloured scenes.'
The only trailers that I know which are similar to ours are the Strangers, with it happening in their own house and Scream, because of the masks and the Black and white footage.

Some of the Strengths of our Trailer are:

• It confuses the audience, as it is a non-linear narrative. We start with the end of the trailer and end with the end too.
• It is very ambiguous
• The speed of the editing to make the shots quicker so the audience are left feeling a bit confused and also intrigued
• The intertitles are very effective. We have a few which very quickly flash on and off of the screen and then they fade on again in case the audience didn't read them the first time.

Some Weakness of our Trailer are:

• The Production company scene is really loud and cuts into the piano music of our Trailer. If I were to edit this I would make the Production company scene silent so you just heard the Piano music.

Evaluation Task 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

This is a video of us talking about how our media texts link together

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

Shot One -
This is our title of our film. In this shot we chose to use a font which we thought fitted in with the theme of our Teaser Trailer. We used Birch STD font. We also used this font on our Ancillary tasks which lets the audience know that the Poster, Magazine front cover and the Teaser Trailer are linked together. We have used a White font in our Teaser Trailer. We looked at other horror films and their font usually is quite striking and spiky, we also wanted to use this in our font. I don't think this challenges conventions of Media texts as we took inspiration from other Media texts.

Shot Two -
This shot shows the Setting/Location of our Teaser Trailer. It also shows our Killer character, in this shot you cannot tell whether they are female or male. The effect this had was that the Killer moves around in the shot which is quite unnerving for the audience. I think this challenges real media products as the setting is in a garaged area, again showing that anyone can be effected by this sort of a film.

Shot Three -
This is a shot of our Killer again, however this time it is a close up shot. You can see a black space where the killers eyes should be, this could mean that they have no emotional link in doing what they are going to do as revenge. This is the only character in our Teaser Trailer who has a costume, with the completely black attire. The Killer is wearing a Black top and Black trousers. The Killer is also wearing a mask, this is one of their props, another of their props is the Knife used in Shot 7. We used similar shots of the Killers mask in our Ancillary tasks, a Film magazine front cover and a Poster. We wanted to make sure our audience made the link between the three tasks so that they remembered them, which is similar to the film Scream. I don't feel that this challenges real media products because many Horror genre films use masks to hide the identity of Killers.

Shot Four -
In this scene our victim, Amelia is being dragged through the woods by the Killer. In this shot we decided to use handheld footage as we thought it would give the audience a more immersive experience as the shot is quite unsteady, suggesting that the Killer could have an accomplice. We manipulated this shot to make Amelia look like she is scrambling forward, perhaps away from the killer. We used a function called Time Stretch, and then clicked on Reverse Time. To my knowledge this is not something i have seen in other Horror films, so I think this does challenge real media products.

Shot Five -
This shot is of an intertitle within our teaser trailer. It says another of our trailers we have produced. We chose to include this in our trailer because other trailers have previous films they have produced. It also draws in our audience, from our previous tasks. Throughout our main task this year we have decided to keep with the same font and font style. We used 'Minion Pro Black 89' style which creates a ghostly effect on our writing. We also used Birch std font for all of our intertitles and ancillary tasks. I don't think this challenges real media texts as every teaser trailer/trailer includes intertitles.

Shot Six -
Shot 6 shows a shot of Amelia writing on a piece of paper that she wishes to join the cult. This is an important shot in our film as it sets the story for the trailer, as well as being ambiguous as the audience do not know what she is asking to join. We also reversed this shot to make it look like Amelia was trying to undo what she had written, as if to say if she could go back in time and change things then she would. I believe this does challenge real media texts as I am unaware of other trailers doing this.

Shot Seven -
I believe that this shot sets up the genre of our film really well because you can see the Killer, with a knife in their hands. The Killer is striking the knife down towards what seems to be a pair of legs on the ground. I think from this shot you can definitely tell this is a horror theme, as the mis-en scene is very typical of that from a Horror/Thriller Theme.

Shot Eight -
This shot is of Amelia, hanging in the tree. We have introduced all of characters within our teaser trailer but we have not introduced them in detail. You see more of Amelia than you do any of the other characters in our Teaser Trailer. We thought this was a good shot to introduce her as she looks vulnerable, leaving the audience in suspense and on the edge of their seats. Amelia is also the typical Blonde character an audience would associate with a Horror film.

Shot Nine -
This is a shot which shows our special effects very well. The special effect we decided to use was the night vision effect on the scene of Amelia and Hannah. We thought this would be effective because the original idea of this scene was that the girls are having a sleepover and they are going to film it all. We thought that handheld footage was the best idea for this as it really captures the look on Hannah's face when she see the Killer walk into Amelia's room.