Evaluation Plan

Question one

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

Planning

Media products

- Film Poster

- Film magazine Cover

- Teaser Trailer

Typical Conventions

Poster
- They all have an image
- They don't give much away
- Title
- Actor and Actress/characters
- Tag line

Magazine
- Masthead
- They have an image
- They are advertising the film preview as the main subject
- They offer deals and special offers and catchy lines to catch the audience attention
- They advertise other films and actors and actresses
- They should stand out because there is a lot of competition on the market
- They should not look to 'cluttered' or 'busy'
- Make the audience want to read the content of the magazine
- The layout
- The way the masthead is structured
- The image
- The sub heading

Teaser Trailer
- Aimed to tease the audience, not giving to much away
- Short, snappy and attention grabbing
- Need to make the audience want to go and watch the film
- Present the characters and show their personality slightly, not giving too much away
- Relevant music and catchy soundtracks
- Genre relevant
- Music that contrasts the mood, confuses the audience
- Some slow scenes some quick scenes

Media product relevance
Our products are relevant to professional media products because they follow typical conventions and in some cases also challenge conventions. Our magazine follows many conventions but the masthead is unconventional. The contrast of the different soundtracks across our teaser trailer creates a more confusing atmosphere for the audience so they don't know when to be scared. The poster follows conventions except the image is black and white but this fits the theme of the film more as it needs to be more dark and mysterious. Professional products need to create a massive effect on the target audience for it to be successful. We can prove that our teaser trailer is causing a stir because we have ___ hits on our new You Tube upload.

Here is some of the audiences ratings on our teaser trailer... People can hold up numbers to show there ratings, video interview, different opinions, final ideas and conventional ideas.

These still shots I will now analyse to show the effect.

Analyse 10 still shots from our teaser trailer, showing relevance to other trailers and shot types etc. how they compare and contrast or follow the conventions of other trailers, links, still shots etc from other trailers. Voice recording of questions being asked, me, being videoed can answer, can also interview a member of the target audience.

1) How did you decide on the genre?
We decided on the genre by doing audience questionnaires to collect peoples votes of the most popular genre and their specific tastes. We selected a variety people in the age category of our target audience to find out the best possible genre. In fact the highest voted was comedy but after discussion we felt this genre would be very hard to create an amazing teaser trailer for that would be professional enough for the standard of our audience. So we decided on a thriller which we felt we could accomplish well enough to be a great product.

2) What made you pick these actors and actresses?
We decided on these two specific actor and actress as they both promote drama and have acted a lot before and we felt their personality and skills stood out enough and were perfect for our roles. They are both down-to-earth and keen to listen and learn. We felt we could rely on them both and they would be nice to work with.#

3) Who is the target audience?
The target audience are citizens aged from 15-25yrs because we feel that the film would capture their interest most through the complex emotional roller coaster of the storyline and the ambitious characters in the film. This being a thriller is a popular genre that have chosen as second most favourite. It can suit both genders because the film has two sides to it. The scary aspects of the film can sometimes acquire a specific taste but we feel it is gripping enough they would be mad to miss out on this one!

4) How does the music challenge or follow conventions?
The music in our teaser trailer both challenges and follows conventions. For example we have a slow and creepy  soundtrack right from the beginning which creates the right atmosphere and tension that the audience should feel. But as we go through the film some slight upbeat soundtracks were used to create a contrast between the tense atmophere, to a more light and slightly humerous atmosphere so that the audience will feel slightly confused about what is happening next. This is challenging conventions because it should get the audience hooked and confused so that they want to watch more! We have other sounds for the part where character "Gabby" is stalking her 'boyfriend' this then makes the audience realise she is the evil one and something wil happen as the tension is building.

5) What ambitions did you have that you couldn't follow through with?
Ambitions that we had that we couldn't follow through with was to make the trailer slightly more scary and to make it mess with the audiences minds more. We did not want to make this happen if we could not support it to the correct standards and did not feel like the video wasn't strong enough but we are still happy with the final outcome.

Question two

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

Planning

The effect of our main product with the ancillary tests...

Interview video

1) What would you say was the most effective product?
The magazine was the most effective according to the results of our audience feedback. This shows that the target audience was most interested in the movie magazine.   

2) Which product stands out the most at the target audience?
We wanted the teaser trailer to be the product that stood out the most because this was the main task that we spent the most time on and it is the trailer was the one that we wanted to be the most successful.

3) Who is more likely to read a magazine, look at a poster or view the trailer?
I think that the audience is most likely to watch trailers of the movie rather than the other products, as it is the most accessible product as it can be view in cinemas, on television and on the internet. 

4) What would be the most popular product on the market and why?
I believe that the product with the most positive feedback would be the most successful on the market, this being the movie magazine.

5) How important is it for your audience to enjoy your main product and ancillary texts?
It is highly important that the audience enjoy all of the products as if they didn't then the whole thing would of been a failure, seen as the audience would not of view any of the products and then in turn, not had any interest

Question 3

   

What have you learnt from the audience feedback? (post-it notes, interveiws, photographs) for all productions (main and anccillary task)

Planning

Use the information from the audience feedback questions and comments.

Interviews and audience opinions

Proof of audience enjoyment (show a part of the video with the audience's reaction, etc.

Use the different comments to show how the trailer and other tasks where taken into account by the audience.

What product and what part of teaser trailer they like the best.

Show their ratings, use images and notes and post-it notes.

Show how we have developed our products through audience feedback. The audience are happy with the new products etc.

Interview shows the before and after thoughts. Photographs of before and after as proof. Main product to use print screens and to show editing.

1) What did you find the easiest and hardest about developing to the audience standards?
We found the easiest thing was to be creative and come up with lots of different ideas. I think that is a skill that was extremely important in this whole task and requires some big ideas to make this work. I think that the hardest thing was meeting our audiences' standards with our main product. We tried hard to make it adventurous, gripping, twisted and emotional, and we had to make the editing up to a very high standard which i hope we acheived. I think that this was definatley the hardest audience standard to meet.

2) What was the main issue that the audience wanted to change?
The audience wanted change a few things, for example the masthead layout and price of the magazine and the tag line on the movie poster. One of the main things that the audience would like to change was how clear the genre of the film was in the trailer, they understand the genre of the trailer but they feel it could be clearer.

3) How many people agreed and disagreed?
Most people that we asked for feedback approved most of the products that we had, but we also appreciated the costructive criticism that we had.

4) Do you agree or disagree with the changes made?
We completely accept all of our audience feedback and have taken it into account.

5) What have you learnt about the importance of audience feedback?
We have learnt from audience feedback that it is probabaly the most important piece of information that can make or break your products. The audience is who your are trying to please and sell it to, therefore you need to be able to fulfil their standards and needs. We would not have acheived this work unless we had our audience's opinions, comments and critisisms.

Question four

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? (Images with evaluation of digital equipment used for whole process).

Planning

The use of software and hardware usef throughout the entire design, planning and making of the products and ancillary products. All of the software wasn used to enhance and design the products otherwise it would not be possible.

Showing images of computer and/or laptop as the main facility and the software used on the computer; word, internet and print screen on websites,(soundtracks, DaFont, google, etc) Photoshop, paint, ADOBE Premier Pro, how all of the software links to create all of your products.
The marketing, You tube to get the video viral and to get more hits. Why and how we used this software and how it was possible to create our products on them.
The hardware used, ie. video camera to capture the action and the tripod and the digital camera and the mobile phones also, for contact and for prop and the cable to connect the camera to the computer to ADOBE Premier Pro to create the final product. Use images not an interveiw for this, maybe a slideshow with a few notes to label each product and why.

Audience Feedback

Audience Feedback Magazine Cover

1. Do you think this represents a good film magazine cover and would you buy it?

Yes             No
IIII                I

2. Do you think it stands out against the other magazines on the market, if Yes, why...

Yes               No 
IIII                I

Why...
- Because it has a 'catchy' name
- Because of the picture 
- Challenging conventions using the masthead
- Because it looks new and low budget
-
-

3. Does the front cover make you interested in the content inside the magazine?

Yes            No 
IIIII

4. If you could change anything what would it be...

- I would lower the price 
- Make the masthead standout more
-
-
-
-


Audience Feedback Movie Poster

1. Do you think this represents a good film poster?

Yes             No 
IIII                I


2. Does it make you interested in the film or want to see the movie?

Yes             No
IIII               I        


3. What would you change about the movie poster...

- I would make the title bigger
- I would have the image in colour
- The release date 
- Make the tag line positioning better
-


Audience Feedback Teaser Trailer




1. Do you think this is a good teaser trailer?

Yes              No
III                 II

2. Does it make you want to see the film?

Yes               No
III                  II


3. What do you like best about the trailer...
- The music 
- The actors - The brilliant acting



4. Were the characters realistic and fit for the role of the film? If No, Why...

Yes         No
IIII           I

Why...
- Actors were not in love enough
-
-
-
-


5. Was it suited for the genre?

Yes       No
IIII        I



6. Would you now go and watch this as a film? 

Yes       No 
IIII        I 

Reflection on Teaser Trailer

Our teaser trailer is a thriller. We decided on this genre because in our research it was the second most popular choice, and the first choice which was comedy, we decided wasn't going to be easy to make into an amazing trailer. Our trailer follows a storyline about a relationship that all goes very wrong. Then things start to get twisted as his girlfriend starts stalking Scott and she ends up killing him. I think that the storyline is gripping and twisted and should really grab our target audiences attention.

Final Teaser Trailer

This is the final cut of the teaser trailer.

Final Movie Magazine Front Cover

Reflection on what I have learnt from researching film magazines 

From doing research on five film magazines I have the made this front cover trying to use as many typical conventions as I could to capture the right audience. I found that all of them had big and bold headings and eye catching images. I made the head of both actors overlap the 'TAKE' in 'TAKE 3' to make the title feel more dynamic and more interesting to look at. The images are usually of the character or characters from the featuring film of the magazine. This is so that the audience know what they are going to be reading and can familiarise or recognise the character or film. I also noticed that as for all magazines, they have text telling you information or big articles down the sides of the magazine  and a subheading introducing the main subject of the magazine. They include different offers or exciting news to attract the attention of the audience,so I also tried use that on my own magazine, but showing the actors of my film, '36 New films 2011' and the website for 'TAKE 3'. This kind of information should keep my audience interested and want to buy and read the magazine. I also used the issue number, date and price and bar code to make it look professional.  

Final Movie Poster

Reflection on what I have learnt from the research of film posters

I have learnt from researching other film posters that they have to be quite eye catching and fit the genre and purpose of the film. Typical conventions are to show the title of the film and the to have a tag line that people will remember. It mostly includes an image relating to the film or characters. The poster never usually gives much information away to the audience, so that hopefully they will be left wanting the know more.

     The main characters are usually on the poster so the audience can familiarise or recognise them. So I decided to show both main characters in the poster and their facial expressions so that the audience can understand the atmposphere and tension.

     Another typical convention is to have all the information, actors, and copyright in small print and the coming soon or the release date. Therefore I have tried to include as many typical conventions as I could.

Print Screens of the Editing Process

The program that was used to edit the teaser trailer was Adobe Premiere, here are the features that were used:

 This is the timeline that is the central point for all the editing that is done in the program, this is where you drag all the effects and transitions onto. The red line that is on the timeline is the current position of the play through or if you drag this to a position that is on the timeline, the video will begin to play from that position.

These two screen shots are of the importing process, this part of the program was essential as if we could not import files then we could not use any of the clips that we went out to record for our trailer, we wouldn't be able to import still images that we needed for the trailer or the music and sound clips that we used would also not be in there.

Here is the shot of where we view the video that we have so far, the preview window if you like. This has the video in the form of what it would be as a final product and is what we go by to gauge how the movie is coming along and what we need to do to improve or add to it. This part is obviously another vital part of the program as we would not be able to see our work if this section of the program was not there.

These are the quick select tools that the program has to offer for quick editing options. The tools that we used the most are the two that are highlighted in this screen shot, the "Select" tool on the left and the "Split" tool that is in yellow. The select tool is the default pointer that does all the navigating of the program, such as the drop down menus and the dragging of the effects onto the timeline where they are needed. The split tool is a very easy way of taking parts of the clip and the music that you do not need out, and it is done by you clicking either side of the part of the clip that you want and then it "Split" 's the clip and then all that is needed is to delete the parts of that split clip that you do not need.

This is the section where you can browse all of the effects that you can add to the video by dragging them onto the correct part of the timeline. The video effects were what we used the most as we used them to add that dark feeling that the thriller genre needs. Also we used the video transitions quite a lot so the the video flowed nicely and didn't just have all cuts to the next scene, instead of having cuts we used fades to black and fades to white depending on the feel that the scene had.

This is where we controlled the effects that we added to the trailer, such as how quickly the fade happened and how much of a pause there is between the scenes. We also used this section to control the volume level of the audio in each clip, this tool was very helpful as it made it possible for us to fine tune the clips and audio to our liking.

This is the list of all of the imported files that we used and also the title were put into it, this list is very useful as you can delete parts that have gone wrong and just drag the straight back onto the timeline and start again, therefore not having to import again if the section that you are working on goes wrong. The search bar that is at the top of this list made it easier again, if we needed a file that we couldn't see on that section of the list, then we just type in the name of the clip, sound or image and it would jump straight to it.

Most Popular (or Largest) Target Audience

Target Audiences are formed from different different groups, for example: Adults, teens, children, mid-teens, pre-schoolers.

To market to any given audience effectively, it is essential to become familiar with your target market; their habits, behaviors, likes, and dislikes. Markets differ in size, assortment, geographic scale, locality, types of communities, and in the different types of merchandise sold. Because of the many variations included in a market it is essential, since you cannot accommodate everyone’s preferences, to know exactly who you are marketing to.

Second Draft of Movie Magazine Front Cover

This is the second draft of the movie magazine front cover

First draft of Movie Poster

First Draft of Magazine Front Cover

This is the first draft of the movie magazine front cover

Group role allocations

the roles that our group have are as follows:


Ed Price:- 

• operate camera
• editing
• produce poster

Megan Moody:-

• editing
• organizing actors
• take photographs for magazine and poster
• produce magazine

Both:- 

• blog (research, planning, production and post-production, evaluation)

Variety of shots for Film poster and Magazine

A variety of quality photographs for the film magazine 

A variety of high quality photographs for the film poster 

Behind the Scene Shots

These photographs were taken as we were filming and represent the actor and actress off scene.

List of Software

Software Used

• Adobe Premiere
• Adobe Photoshop
• Paint

Production Planning

Media production diary 


We have been planning out our meetings and keeping record of them so that every bit of planning runs smoothly, also to prevent issues. 

Planning of props and hardware:

Video camera (to film)

This video camera was used because we needed an appropriate one to film with and this model was a good choice. 

Tripod (to put the video camera on)

We used a tripod because we needed a product to stand the camera on to keep it still. We felt that this was the right product for the job.

Digital camera (to take the images for magazine and poster)

We needed a digital camera for our magazine and poster images so we could take high quality images for them all. This was my own personal camera and I felt this was the appropriate product.

Mobile phone (prop for the scene)

This is a mobile phone and this prop was used because there was phone calls throughout our teaser trailer therefore we needed a mobile phone as a prop.

Planning of Locations :

The Henley College

Quiet areas around The Henley College

Woodland area