In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In many ways
the group has worked with and promoted stereotypes so that the trailer can have
some form of understanding for viewers that something is going to happen.
Almost predictable to build up the suspense but to not allow the end result to
be revealed to give a twist and so that viewers would have to watch the film to
find out; in being the main reason for a trailer.
With
thoroughly analysing different film trailers that were relevant to the horror
genre, we were inspired by each film trailer that we researched in many ways.
One research example that we took on ideas for was inspired by was ‘The Purge’.
This film trailer included multiple people in masks who were threatening a
family. We discussed the idea of using a mask and carried this out through our
planning. We grew to the idea of using a disguise as it hides the true identity
of the perpetrator so proceeded to use a plain white mask so the facial
features are not seen at all. This also leaves the only description visible is
the size and structure of the body. With this in mind we decided to use a tall,
broad structured male for this role as this is seen as quite threatening,
compared to the petite girls used as the victims. We have used a deep, blunt
voice for the man in the mask to help build an image in the viewer’s minds of
what his face looks like.
The group looked into various victim
stereotypes for a horror film and resulted in using two females for the role.
The idea for there to be two is to show that this is not just s 'one off' case.
Females are often seen as vulnerable. To promote this further, we introduced
the first victim to being oblivious of her surroundings, not realising that
another person is in the house. The
second victim is in a car park at night. We filmed at night to create an
atmosphere which suggests that the victim’s surroundings are unobserved which
makes her more vulnerable. We demonstrated this further by screening the victim
on her mobile, displaying how little her awareness is of what is happening
around her. Even after the ‘kidnapper’ rolls the car forward she carries on
walking, unaware that he is coming up from behind her.
Through our
research and planning, we decided as a group to involve a female for the lead detective.
This challenges the stereotype as we are using vulnerable females for the
victims, so to show a strong female for the detective will contrast in
appearance and personality in character. This can promote femininity of a
stronger gender in showing that females should not generalised as 'weak' or
'unable' to pursue in a stereotypically called ‘man's job’. Females are thought
to become emotionally attached to things easily so the group thought we could
use this to our advantage by showing the detective emotionally attached with
the case in saving the girls. When it
came to filming, we explained to the woman acting for the detective’s role what
we wanted from her to get the emotion through her words and actions.
Unfortunately, the lady we used for this did not specialize in sounding
emotional so we had to remove this from our storyboard as we had already filmed
a good amount of footage with this woman in.
The group
has taken an idea from The Conjuring in which I researched earlier on in the
production of this film. This was the use of a match striking and being blown
out. The representation for the candle we wanted to show was a negative
approach as to who is blowing out the flame. We were in favour of using this
prop so that we can show a representation of when the flame is blown out, a
girl is to be taken. The first girl blows out the flame and opens the door,
letting the perpetrator in unknowingly who then takes her. As it is the female
blowing the candle out first, this may not be seen as anything important but he
is then seen at the end blowing the flame out symbolising that he has the power
to take a life which will add realisation of what the flame represents.
How effective is the combination of your main
product and ancillary texts?
In my
personal opinion, I think the main product is very good considering it is the
first trailer that I have made as well as the people working alongside with me.
The groups approach to the subject has been successful and the teamwork has
been outstanding. Planning and organising has not been a problem and the
rescheduling of plans to make time to do so has had a big impact to help
towards our final product. Each idea that we have had throughout the planning
and process of producing them has driven us with inspiration and motivation to
get the perfect shots.
As these
aspects are important for the completion it has also lead to help us with the
ancillary tasks. The poster that the group has created links in well as it
shows a shot used in the trailer. With using night time for the time of day in
the majority of the trailer, we have used this darkness effect for the poster
too. This gives an eerie affect of unknowing what is in the darkness. We
thought deeply into what makes a good poster and deciphered that using either
one or two focal points is best rather than creating lots of abstract images
that may not attract viewers attention.
What have you learned from your
audience feedback?
The initial
idea was to use three victims. The first victim we planned to show her going
and being kidnapped whilst on a jog. This proved difficult when filming and
editing the footage as it did not appear as scary. The feedback we got from
peers for this idea was as expected; that it did not build enough tension and
suspense for it to draw in attention. Although the shots were good and well
thought out, it was not good enough for trailer standard. We changed the role
for this girl to her sitting on a swing at night on her phone. We agreed with
other peers on this idea that this also was a good idea but not shocking
enough. After trying out different
things for this victim from suggestions from people in our year group, we
decided that it was a good idea to only include two victims but to demonstrate
their situations through supplementary shots and build up ideas. Our teacher
later on had a good idea of building a relation of some sort between the detective
and perpetrator. We filmed a phone call oh them briefly talking to show
interaction between the two.
The next
victim was of her opening the door and the final victim being taken walking
through a car park. Peer feedback from inside and outside of class has told us
in each stage of filming that they like this idea and that we should build on
it as it is realistic and suspense building.
Our other teacher had told us that he
was not too keen on the idea of using a mask during the editing stage of our
trailer. We asked people from our target audience (teenagers- young adults) to
see whether they agreed or disagreed with this and all feedback confirmed that
they really liked the mask idea and that it made them question who was under
the mask.
Scott
Neil made a comment on Facebook and said to us in person that he does not think
the acting for the police detectives is good enough for the trailer itself. This was an interesting comment and made
changes to this the next time we were editing. Unfortunately, as there were so
many shots of these actors, we were unable to film the same amount in the same
quality as we had done at this stage.
Soon after
the group up-dated our trailer we published our ‘near to completion’ trailer
onto Youtube and Facebook to receive some good, critical feedback which may
demonstrate what we could do for the finishing touches. The feedback we
received was as follows:
This was a very good point made by
Miles Bunten. Unfortunately we were unable to use the same car for the
kidnapper as the first car we filmed was unavailable the next time we came to filming
the all important ‘boot closing’ shot.
Another
comment made by Jonathon Lamb questioned what the captions and title of the
film had in relevance as to what was happening. I spoke to 10 other peers from
my target audience and they all agreed, without me prompting, that they fully
understood what was trying to get across. This allowed the group to carry on
editing other aspects as this person was not in our target audience anyhow.
Another
person named ‘Mazin Farhan’ promoted that he would watch the film which was a
positive outcome for us from the hard work put in.
Ingrid Heart
gave the group some constructive feedback in saying about the detective acting
and how it is not fast enough in certain areas; relating back to Scott Neil’s
comment in the previous publish of the trailer. This was amended and now links
in with the timing of the clips surrounding this shot.
Another
point was raised about the police detective acting. This information was taken
on board but unfortunately we had already processed the shots and did not have
enough time to find a new actor and actress to take on this role when we needed
to put into practice the clips to the same standard. The group discussed about
the acting for the detectives and figured out all the people mentioning it know
the people we used for these characters. Whether this has had an effect on
their viewing quality we will not know but to cut down the acting was still an
option we chose to follow through with; this helped with the flow of the
trailer and in creating a snappy atmosphere.
Emily
Dibsdale announced that her mother could not watch the trailer as it was ‘too
creepy for her’; this is what we were aiming for, to be as affective in making
people become physically affected. She also made a good point in saying the
scream is heard clearly when her mouth is covered. This was easily adjusted but
had a big impact on the clip afterwards. She also mentioned about the first
victim being dragged away too close to the fridge. This is only noticeable by
this person as she knows the house and where everything is positioned. Also, as
it is a trailer the middle section before this shot could have been cut for the
making of the trailer if it were advertising a real product.
Megan
Seekings had clearly analysed the trailer well in order for us to reach the
best final product. The corrections she thought needed to change have now been
altered for the better.
After
changing these remarks that we were able to amend, we then published the next
version of the trailer onto the social websites to get any final feedback on
what else, if anything else could be enhanced.
Xavier
Gibbons really took to the trailer and came up with some positive feedback in
which we were happy to receive. Complementing on the acting, the sound was the
only thing in his mind letting a specific scene down. This has been confidently
changed to now announce the absolute final version of our film trailer, ‘Concealed’.
Not only
feedback for our film trailer but we managed to get some feedback for our film
poster that the group created.
Megan
Seekings made a good point towards a general mistake on forgetting to put ‘productions’
at the end of a sentence in the credit text at the bottom of the page. This was
easily corrected.
Peers in
class and outside of class had informed us on how they liked and really took to
the poster.
“The colours really work well together and I
love the originality of the photograph used” – Chris Crowther
“Wow, I’m impressed, I love the smoke affect
that is blurred around the title. The balance between image and text is
perfect.” – Jordan Heather
How did you use new media
technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
For the
ancillary tasks we had to use a digital camera to set up and take shots using
different locations for a wider variety of photographs in which we had the
option to use. Learning how to use and understand the camera was intriguing.
This helped me to develop my skills in being appreciative of the time it takes
to set up a good photograph idea and work with this. In using the rule of
thirds and having a good eye for what makes a good shot, such as picking a shot
which will use a link with colour, texture and good lighting helped the group
to get good quality photographic images in which we developed a few to find the
best for both the film poster and magazine.
With
these well thought out images, this helped us in the next stage of editing and
making them good enough for our final film poster and magazine. We used
software called ‘Photoshop’ on the Apple Mac’s provided at the school I go to.
As I was unfamiliar with the software, I was learning whilst going along; this
may have taken longer but I now feel confident to edit an image using this
software.
As
well as this, I have been able to download the Blogger app on my phone so that
I was able to upload and keep up-to-date with my blog at all times. This was
useful as it saved time and gave me more time to research and film instead of
loading and up-dating my thought processes onto the online computer version. 
Although I
have used iMovie previously, I feel like I have built on my experience in using
this software. I am now able to approach uploading and editing clips with
sounds confidently into knowing what I am doing without hesitation. This helps
with getting the product done quicker than before. As the group were more
efficient in making the trailer, little aspects were able to be focused on.
This meant that a lot of sounds were included, this also slowed the software
down so tested
our patience at times when we were against the clock. Despite this being a setback,
we were able to work together and make sure we put in our own time to get the
clip done to a great standard.
