When producing my media product (The Film trailer, The Film Poster and the Film Magazine), I had to ensure that they were all linked, or had close similarities between them. This was so that they were all related and shared the same themes. It wouldn’t be good if the trailer was different to the film poster, because the audience could be mislead as to what the film is really about, or they may change their minds about going to see the movie.
My film trailer shared similar codes and conventions with the magazine and the poster. The Production Company ‘Sharp Productions’ is continuous throughout the trailer and the film poster. In the trailer, the first clip is the Sharp Productions clip. The production company is then mentioned again at the end of the trailer, where it shows the credits. In the film poster, the Sharp Productions is also written in the credits at the bottom of the film poster is very small font. All film posters have this, they credit the producers, the production companies and the main actors.
'Sharp Productions' appears in both the trailer and the film poster. This shows the link between both texts.
The Genre of my film trailer was horror, so I also had to make sure that my Film Poster and Magazines Front cover matched the same horror forms and conventions as my film trailer. I used very dark colours in my poster, with just part of the face of the main character showing. A close up of her red bloody eye and a reflection of a hand creates a very effective horror atmosphere. The text I used for the title of the film in the poster also works well because I used a special brush in Photoshop that I downloaded of the internet. The brush tool had a blood splatter effect that I added, which allowed me to create realistic blood drips and splatters. Although the film trailer doesn’t show any blood, it is still an icon of horror. Almost every horror film contains blood, which make the poster effective and relates it to the genre of the trailer.
I think the link between the magazine front cover and the film poster/trailer could be improved. This is because i used a different font and style in the film title on the magazine front cover. I should have used the same font and style throughout all three pieces of media texts. Films usually have their own unique font style for their posters and DVD covers ect..
All the way throughout the production of my media texts, technology has had a huge impact. Without, the production would have been near impossible to do. The most important piece of technology I have used in the production is my camera. To film the trailer, I used a Nikon D5000 Digital SLR Camera. This particular camera, unlike others like it, had the option to film 720p High Definition video, which meant that the quality of our finished trailer would be very impressive. The camera’s wide angle and zoom lens allowed me to experiment with a variety of shots. The lens allowed me to film extreme long shots, wide establishing shots, and zoom shots to create extreme close ups . I used a DIY aluminium handle in order to hold the camera steady when filming. This worked well and allowed me to film looking down at the screen rather than holding it at eye level. I used a sturdy tripod with my camera, allowing me to have very still shots, and it also let me create stunning panning shots. The camera had a pop out screen, which could be viewed from above, like the viewfinder from a professional camcorder. This meant i could get steady shots by resting the camera against my thigh and look down at the screen.
Before starting the production of my media texts, I had to research into film trailers and their codes and conventions. For this I used the internet to view real movie trailers and analyse them. To watch the movie trailers I used the popular video sharing website ‘Youtube’. It is very useful as it has so many videos, not just of trailers, but also other video presentation made my students talking about the codes and conventions of trailers. Watching horror film trailers gave me some ideas on what to base my film on. After watching many film trailers, I began to take notice of similar codes and conventions in other trailers of the same genre. I started to notice that almost all horror film trailers contain dark atmospheric music. The trailers tend to start slow at first with gentle transitions, and then fast paced at the end with more sound effects such as screaming and louder music. After finishing the production of my film trailer, I used YouTube to upload the final trailer. This was i could display it on Facebook and obtain feedback from my audience.
I created a presentation that i could show to the class and pitch my idea for the film trailer. To produce this, i used Microsoft Powerpoint, an excellent piece of software which makes it simple to create presentations.
Once I began filming and I started to have enough footage, I could start editing. I used my own laptop, which has a copy of Adobe Premier Pro installed on it. This software is a professional grade editing suite, with multi track timeline, allowing me to overlap footage and add more than one soundtrack or sounds over each other. I cut the clips I had filmed so that only the necessary footage was in the project timeline. I used a stock sound effect website to download the soundtrack I had used. The website contained a free collection of music which contained dark, horror ambient music. This software also had a lot of effects, typically relating to colour. I had researched online into Colour correction for my trailer. Colour correction is used in every movie production, even in trailers. Editing the colour of a film can add to the atmosphere and the mood it creates. War films tend to be high contrast and de-saturated. A fine example of this is Steven Spielberg’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’. Horror films tend to do similar things, often adding a tint to the video. I wanted my trailer to have a blue-ish tint to it. The colour correction option on Adobe Premier Pro made it very easy for me to do this.
To display the final trailer to the class, I used an interactive whiteboard to show it on a big screen. The high Definition really stood out on the big screen, and my teacher and my peers were very impressed with the quality. When producing the film poster, i researched existing ones using the internet. I analysed all of the codes and conventions of posters and thought how i would include them in my own media text. I had looked a few horror posters where the main image was simple and was over a dark background. I wanted my poster to be simple like this one, but still effective as a form of advertising the movie. Before starting to produce the poster, I went out with my group and took some photos that i could use for both my magazine front cover and my poster. For this I used my Digital SLR camera. The location for the photoshoot was a wooded area. This was suitable for the film as the abandoned house where we filmed was in a woods. http://miguelpilgrima2media.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/magazine-photoshoot-some-photo-edits.html
I edited some of these photos using Adobe Photoshop Pro. I could change the colour slightly to enhance the horror feel of the movie. Photoshop Pro is so useful for creating professional looking edits such as blending photos together.
Photoshop works in layers. When editing photos, you can create different layers, so that you can work with each photo separately, this is so if you make a mistake, you don't destroy the whole project. It also makes it easier to re-arrange the text, images and the effects applied to the image. I downloaded some brush tools from internet and applied it to the main title of the film. The brushes created realistic looking blood splatters, which goes well with the genre of horror. When making a big change, i saved the poster as a draft. This meant i could get feedback on each one and easily make changes to it after.
The magazine front cover went through the same process as the Film poster. I used my Digital SLR to take the photos, and then i produced it using Photoshop. I saved several drafts of the magazine and uploaded it to the blog in order to get feedback from my audience. This worked really as they gave me ways of improving it, such as moving the main image down a little bit, or change the font of the text. http://miguelpilgrima2media.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/magazine-4th-draft.html
To obtain Audience feedback, I used Facebook, a popular social networking site, which came in really useful as all of my friends use it on a daily basis. I could upload my work on there and ask them to comment on what they thought of it. To the left is an example from when i uploaded my film trailer and asked my friends for feedback.
To upload all of my work, I used the service called Blogger.com owned by Google. The service is free and easy to sign up. I continued with my previous account i made for my AS Foundation Coursework. The blog service is very good for displaying my work. I could select different themes and color schemes. I used a simple layout which had different Labels on the top, each linking to a different aspect of my media product production.
Technology played the most important role in my production of the media products, without it even, none of this would have been possible. In Hollywood movies, technology is rapidly improving in the use of special effects, filming such as highly expensive, high definition, 3d cameras and incredible editing. Due to my love of photography, i was familiar with every piece of technology i used, so i could use it to every potential.
Audience feedback is critical in the production of media products such as the ones I have created. The feedback allowed us to make changes to our ideas and make the film trailer better. Before we began filming our trailer, we thought of some ideas and drew up storyboard to bring them more to life. We then produced a presentation so show our class our plot for the film. Film producers regurlarly hold cinema screenings to a mixed group of people during the production phase. This is to gain feedback on the footage and help improve the final production. This is the reason why some movies are released with alternate endings as part of extra footage on the DVD, because they had changed the ending depending on what the audience thought.
First Feedback from our film trailer pitch
First interviewee – Maria Gonzalez
“I thought your story was very inventive and something that could attract those with horror passions. I think your storyline could be just a bit more unique. You also have to think that there are other films out there which could have a similar storyline”
This bit of feedback from Maria helped us to change our plot slightly to make it more unique and original.
Second Interviewee – Mr M Morris
“I think your idea is reasonably good. However, you didn’t offer a lot of detail about the characters. But I like the idea of being out in the woods, getting lost and the idea of people going missing one by one building the tension. A couple of issues; 1 which Miguel had already guessed and that is one of location. I’m a bit nervous about you actually finding an abandoned house to film in. You are also going to be out in the woods, so be very careful not to just run around with a camera screaming. We have had a lot of cases of people doing just that and it does not look very original. We are a few weeks away from all the leaves falling off the trees, so that might be a problem with continuity. You will either need to film before or after the leaves fall of the trees”
The feedback we received from our teacher has really helped us to think about the location and the setting of our film. I also made me think more clearly about continuity and how much time i had to film.
I thought the initial footage was good, you could have improvded on editing the sound as you can hear the wind in the background. This detracts from the dialog in the clip. The last clip had an effective scene where you walked away from the camera.
The feedback from James helped me to notice the problems i had with the sound. The camera i was using to film (Nikon D5000) had a very small mono microphone and the wind was making the sound very loud and irritating. It distracted the viewer from the voices of the characters involved which was not a good thing. So what i did was is to mute the sound of the clips, and then record my voice separatly using an external microphone. This worked much better because you could not hear the wind whistling past the camera. Feedback like this has helped me and my group to improve our trailer.
When my trailer began to take shape, i decided to hold a screening for my class. I played the trailer twice to my class and then asked what they thought. They picked out some spelling mistakes, which I could then change easily. The audience like the way i faded in and out of scenes using the crossfade transition. I was then sure to use them throughout the trailer, as it clearly appealed to the audience. Again, the sound had a few problems. This time it wasn't the wind causing havoc, but it was the distance the microphone was to the actors. The microphone could not pick up the sound clearly when it was further away. So on the trailer the voices sounded very quiet. The audience suggested that i recorded the voices separately using an external microphone. http://miguelpilgrima2media.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/trailer-so-far.html#comment-form
As the finishing touches were being applied to my trailer, i uploaded it to facebook so that my friends could give me some feedback. The results i got back were honest and very helpful.
Moving on to my magazine production, the feedback here was more essential to that of my trailer. It was also easier to obtain, as i could upload drafts of my magazine front cover more quickly than uploading clips from the trailer. I uploaded the magazine front cover to facebook, where i asked my friends to give me some honest feedback to help me improve the layout of the front cover. the feedback was very honest and it helped me to improve the look of the magazine. http://miguelpilgrima2media.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/magazine-4th-draft.html
Audience Feedback is an important part of the process of production for any producer or company. It helps them to finalize their idea to a finished product which will appeal to it's audience. I think that during my production, of the trailer, Poster and magazine cover, the audience feedback has also helped me to improve the products. However, i do think that i could have done better by using a wider range of ways to obtain my feedback. I could have printed out some simple questionnaires and handed them out to the class during my screening. My Film poster could have been improved a lot more i think if i had gotten some feedback from that too.
When producing any sort of media text, the encoder (the producer) must stick to the codes and conventions of other media texts and products of the same type. This is so the de-coder (reader) gets the dominant connotation out of it. But first, I will talk a little bit about Genre and what it actually means.A Genre is a category of a media text, one which audiences can recognise easily, due to the intertextuality, key elements, the characters, the setting, mise en scene and music. Each Genre ideally has its own sub-genre. For Example, Drama is a Genre of film, but, it can have many sub-genres such as War-Drama, Mellowdrama, Childhood Drama, musical Drama.. Etc.. The same goes with the genre of horror. We wanted our film to be an Extreme-Horror. Extreme Horrors often have lots of blood and guts, such as 28 Days Later, or Hostel.
As well s the forms and conventions of the genre, I also looked into the codes and conventions of trailers themselves. All trailers contain the same conventions all through. http://miguelpilgrima2media.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/i-have-watched-trailer-for-upcoming.html
Above is a bit of research I have done on an existing film trailer for the Film 'War Horse'. Music
All film trailers contain music to fit the mood and make the trailer more dramatic to the audience.
This is the music i used in the trailer. I searched for dark atmospheric music. I asked for permission to use it. Voice-over
A voice over is usually all the way throughout the trailer and ends with the name of the film and the release date.
This is the voice over I had in my film trailer. It was not so happy with it because it's only two words, if i could make another film trailer i would have the voice-over going all the way throughout the trailer. Captions
Captions usually appear between several clips to intrigue the audience with little sentences.
One of the captions I included in the trailer.
Linear and Non-Linear
Most trailers display the clips in linear form, meaning they display them in the right order, however some film trailers are non linear, which display clips from different parts of the movie in a different order. This makes the trailer more interesting and intriguing.
My film trailer is non linear, the order is the same as the story line, building up the suspense.
Production Company
All film trailers present the production companies that helped make the film. This is to credit the companies, but also to show people who made the film. Some people in the audiences are huge fans of certain production companies so they would want to go and see the film.
The production company I put in the trailer was something I made myself. I wanted it to be a horror film production company so I named it Sharp Productions, with an image of a bloody knife. This appears at the start of the trailer.
Release Date
This is an important part of the trailer which comes last. It tells the audience when the film is released. this is usually the last part of the voice over.
This is the release date, which I have put at the end of the trailer, just like real trailers do.
Title
The title of the film is usually displayed at the end with the names of the main actors and the movie's website.
Actor's names
During the trailer there are captions which state the names of the main actors. This is a crucial part to the advertising of the film as the audience can see if their favorite actors will be in the film.
My trailer did not have captions between clips saying the actor's names, but we put them in at the end together with the credits. Only films with well known stars in put their names in captions throughout the trailer.
We planned the production very carefully so that it included all of the conventions of horror. The key generic elements of genre are the same for every genre: Narrative, Themes, Settings, Characters, Filming Techniques and iconography. I will refer to the film 28 Days Later and compare how the key elements of that film corrolate with the elements in my trailer. The setting in 28 Days Later fits in well with the genre. The introduction of the film shows a pandemic survivor walking through the streets of an abandoned London. This is similar to my trailer, because part of the setting is an abandoned house. This creates a horror atmosphere that is easily recognisable by fans of horror movies. Iconography means things which belong to certain genres, for example, props. A western film will always have pistols and lassos. Horror films have things like guns, weapons, bloody scenes.28 Days Later has lot's of blood and gore as well as sounds effects like screaming. My trailer has a lot of people screaming in terror, so you can see how these two similar media products correlate. The mise en scene played a vital role in the genre of the trailer, things such as the setting, the sound, the music helped to anchor the horror genre. We wanted our film trailer to attract a particular audience, one that loves horror films. This was why it was important to use all of the forms and conventions of horror, so that the trailer was not misleading. Audiences don't like being misleaded as some people don't like the same genres of film as other people do.
The film trailer we made as a group, however, the magazine front cover and the film poster was our own individual work. For me this was good because I put all my skills on editing on the work. I had researched horror film posters so that i could produce my own, intertextualy linked media product. Horror film posters can either be very busy, with lot's of images an colour, or they can be very simple, with subtle colours, but still as effective in attracting an audience. http://miguelpilgrima2media.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/film-poster-research-ring.html This is a film poster i researched from the movie "The Ring".
Above on the left is film poster for "The Ring". To the right is the film poster i made for "Evil Awaits". The two posters are almost the same in terms of the layout and the codes and conventions used. The Ring uses big bold letters for the title of the film. I wanted to do a similar effect with mine so there was an image inside the text but it did not come out too well, so i just made my text extra bold. Above the title is a sort of strapline which describes the film. I placed mine just above the title just like "The Ring".
The Ring included a review on its poster which looks really good. I did not include one in my poster unfortunately and i do think that it would have looked good if i did. At the bottom of The Ring's poster is the credits in faded text. This is so it's not visible, but it has to be there to credit the producers. I did the same with mine, but i could have faded the text a bit more to make it less obvious whats there. I used almost all of the codes and conventions as "The Ring's" poster did.
The photo on the left above is my final magazine front cover. The one on the right is one i researched to get to know the basic codes and conventions of magazines. The one on the right has big bold letters which are impossible to miss. I tried to do this with my magazine, but i guess i did not make the fonts bold enough. Never the less, i do still think my magazine front cover covers the main codes and conventions of magazines. I have included a strapline in my front cover which is above the mast head. Total Films strapline is very nicely positioned on the actual masthead which makes it looks very professional. Below the main feature on the Total Film magazine is strip of film stills organised in a straight line. I wanted to do this but with stills from the film trailer, placed along a film strip. I think it was a very inventive idea and works well with the genre of the magazine.
From looking at other horror film posters, i gathered that a simple image with a black background can still be as effective as any other poster. I used pretty much all of the main forms and conventions of other film posters. The main title, the name of the film, is in big bold font, which is very eye catching and ensures that the audience is aware of the name of the film. The main title is white, on top of a black background, which creates contrast and makes it more attractive to the audience. The blood splatter on the main title anchors the horror genre of the film and most importantly the actual name of it. One of the other main forms and conventions of film posters is the actors' names written across the poster. The names of famous actors or well known figures on film posters encourages audiences to watch the film. On my film poster, I have written the main actors' names below the title. The colours i used in the poster help to anchor the genre and also create a horror atmosphere. The main photo in the poster shows one of the characters (played by Zoe Hilton) in black and white, with a red, bloodshot eye. The bloody hand reflection in the eye creates a sense of fear amongst the audience. The catchline, 'You can run, but you can't hide', i think works very well and it helps to attract the audience to the film. Just like in other film posters, such as The Ring, it says 'Before you die, You see'.
When creating my Film Magazine Front Cover I wanted to intertextualy link it to several other media products of the same type. One of the main forms and conventions of the magazine cover is the masthead. I tried to make my masthead bold and eye catching, but at the same time to give it some style to fit in with the magazine's special issue. I noticed that some film magazines change the font of their masthead depending on what is on the front cover. This is what i tried to do with my front cover. Other forms and conventions of magazine front covers include, puffs, plugs, main feature title, main photo, sub headings and bold colour schemes. In my front cover, the puff is above the masthead. Puffs are things like 'Best film magazine', which attract the audience and convince them to buy the magazine. The puff I used is 'Loaded with reviews and interviews'. I think it works very well because it attracts people who are interested in film reviews and reading about interviews with their favourite actors. Plugs are things like teasers, or things which intrgue the reader to turn the page. In my front cover, I put 'Prizes up for grabs' as the plug. Audiences like receiving free goodies and prizes from the magazines they read. Music magazines often do this by including free music CD's. The main cover photo is of the main actor, Zoe Hilton. I made the photo very large, so that the viewer can pick up on it easily. The title of the film 'Evil Awaits' is written in big bold letters on top of the main image. This is magazine's main article or main feature, which is what will attract the audience the most. Just like other film magazines, it was important that I made the main feature title bold and eye catching. Below the main title, is a short catchphrase, 'Face Your Fears'. This creates an imppresion amongst the audience that they will be fully immersed in the film when they watch it. The colour schemes also play a good part in the appearance of the front cover. The dark trees in the background help to create the horror atmosphere of the film. Below the main feature photo is timeline with snippets of the film trailer. This shows a preview of what is inside the magazine, which intrigues the reader.
To conclude this part of the evaluation, my media product has used form and conventions of real media products by reflecting the iconography of horror, the mise en scene, setting and sound. My media product is intertextualy linked to existing media products.
This is the film poster for the horror film, 'The Ring'. I really like this poster because it represents the film very accurately. The main image is of a TV screen, showing a well in the middle of a wooded area. The main title 'the Ring' works very well because the letters are filled in with the main character in the film screaming in fear. This gives us a clear sign that the film is a horror. The catchline 'Before You Die, You See', makes the film a lot of scarier. This is because it makes the viewers think that afte they watch the film, they die. Just like in the actual film, after a person sees the 'Evil' Videotape.
My film trailer shared similar codes and conventions with the magazine and the poster. The Production Company ‘Sharp Productions’ is continuous throughout the trailer and the film poster. In the trailer, the first clip is the Sharp Productions clip. The production company is then mentioned again at the end of the trailer, where it shows the credits. In the film poster, the Sharp Productions is also written in the credits at the bottom of the film poster is very small font. All film posters have this, they credit the producers, the production companies and the main actors. 
