LIAM MARSH

A2 MEDIA STUDIES EVALUATION

The products I looked towards for inspiration within my trailer, were the Bourne, James Bond and Mission Impossible series’.

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

Teaser Trailer

Having already seen the films I watched the trailers to help the development of my own film. The trailers used various conventions of the genre (which was an action thriller). This included such features as;

‘Slow Motion’ techniques

Titles/Credits

Establishing shots

The use of weapons

Fast-cars chases

and standoffs

By exploring these conventions and inserting them into our own trailer, it meant that we could easily establish our genre and aim it towards our target audience of predominately 18-40 year old males.

We also developed on the storylines of films such as ‘Taken’ where the main character has his girlfriend stolen, however our film trailer suggests it is not by an ‘enemy’ of sorts but by a ‘friend.’ Hence our title ‘Friend Or Foe.’

We also managed to challenge existing media products, by twisting the conventions slightly. For example, the main characters all appear ‘young’ and the British and ‘home-grown’ feel to the film (Featured within the establishing shot) offers a unique selling point and differs to the stereotypical ‘Hollywood’ action feel. The cars also used within the film are not the stereotypical ‘Supercars’ the audience are used to within the genre, meaning they may feel a stronger attachment to the characters as they appear more ‘human’ as opposed to the ‘undefeatable’ characters such as James Bond etc. This gives the trailer a new feel and the audience a fresh new feature they may not have seen the likes of before.

Another code and convention which was used throughout the trailer, was the pace. We observed that most trailers of the same genre begin slowly before short, fast, action filled scenes kick in and then dropping slightly before the final credits at the ending. Our focus group also suggested that we add our music in a similar fashion, fitting in with the trailer and establishing the pace and feel of the film for the audience. We also included a voiceover as if the main characters were speaking on a phone to establish the plot.

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

Magazine

I looked at various editions of the world renown empire magazine to analyse various conventions for to use within my own magazine.

I based my own magazine primarily on the conventions on this version of empire magazine. You will notice the conventions I have applied to my own magazine

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

Poster

I looked at the latest Mission impossible poster to analyse various conventions for to use within my own magazine.

I based my own magazine primarily on the conventions on this version of empire magazine. You will notice the conventions I have applied to my own magazine

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

All three products aim to create a sense of excitement and buzz within the audience as an advertising campaign through their respective forms. They are all clearly representative ofthe action thriller genre.

The colour scheme and fonts between the three is particularly noticeable and it is this subtle continuity between the three, which helps the audience to recognise the film and acknowledge it within the different forms.

Both the poster, and magazine help towards establishing the protagonist in the piece. With him featuring at the forefront of the whole campaign and prominent in both,it gives the audience the opportunity to get a feel for the plot (Two ‘darker’ characters waiting in the background.) This would give the audience a ‘sneak peak’At the plot of the film and encourage them to go and see the film or look out for a trailer.

Dark background, red and white text.

Same Clothes. Continuity.

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I believe that the combination of the texts and main product have been extremely effective as a promotional campaign.

They all feature stereotypical action/thriller conventions making them appealing and recognisable to the target audience. They are all also in someway linked as a group of products and contain continuity, whether it be the images and giveaway of the plot from the characters and their body language, the font and colour schemes of the texts or the symboliccodes and conventions featured in each product.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We set up a focus group during our early stages of editing. This meant that we could get audience feedback from people both inside and outside of the target group. We received mixed comments as can be seen below;

We acted upon the constructive comments we were given and went onto creating a second and third version of our trailer before submitting our final entry which was again judged by our focus group who had nothing but unreserved praise.

We created the music to fit in with the pace of the footage and also added the voiceover as the audience believed they couldn’t quite grasp the plot of the film. We also changed some of the clips and special effects all based on the comments we received on the day of the focus group.

Focus group – Trailer version 1.0 – 16.12.2011

Rather than use another focus group to display my magazine and poster to, I decided to go down the route of social networking. I uploaded them to the sites Facebook and Twitter asking for comments from users (Generally people aged within the target audience.) Feedback was mostly positive with various users leaving comments on Facebook. The poster also gained 21 likes with 2 shares from friends, to raise awareness and gain more comments to build upon. I changed my poster image and manipulated it by adding effects, due to a comment left on twitter about the clash of colours between the background and main characters hood. They have since commented that ‘It looks much better’ and ‘They are a fan as it appears a more striking image.

We have since uploaded the finished trailer to the teams own ‘YouTube’ account, where it has been viewed (as of now) 32 times, incurring 2 ‘Thumbs Up’

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

Throughout the construction of the trailer and ancillary texts, we have used many different media technologies, without the likes of which, wouldn’t have made our coursework possible.

Pre-Production (Research and planning).

Within the Pre-Production stage of creating the coursework package we used various different media technologies;

The Internet – The Internet played a pivotal role in helping us within all three stages of production.

YouTube – We used YouTube regularly in pre-production. This meant that we were able to view the codes and conventions of previously made trailers of films within our genre, before establishing them within our own. It also gave us the chance to analyse the characters and some of the shots featured. With YouTube being a free service, we were also able to look at as many trailers as needed.

The Internet

Blogger – Blogger.com, is essentially an online blog, which within the task became more of a diary for myself and the FOYOW team. Everything that we have achieved over the year is available for viewing and everything from original draft copies of trailers, to location recce’s, research and budgets is featured on our individual blog page. Mine can be found her by following the link below. It also acted as a link between the group, as we could see when each other was updating their posts and adding new and fresh content. I tried to update my blog as regularly as possible so that if one of us had completed a task, we could share it between each other easily on our blogs and it served us as somewhat of an archive. Content we often shared was the embedding of codes from YouTube clips etc.

http://armthorpea2lmarsh.blogspot.co.uk/

Google – The use of Google (and more specifically), Google Images, meant that I could find examples of well renown magazines and posters. This was important as being able to search through the entire library of previous Empire Magazine covers, meant that I could focus on the conventions of magazines specifically related to my genre (action/thriller).

The bonus of working on Apple Mac meant that I had access to both the ‘Final Cut Express’ and ‘GarageBand’ software within the same device. Final Cut Express was used to firstly import clips that I had shot on the camera, before editing the clips into order (adding and cutting footage.) It also allowed us to add the effects such as gunshots and upload titles we had previously created. We then exported our finished trailer into GarageBand, where we were able to edit and create the sound and voiceover (Recorded using a Dictaphone) to match the clips, before exporting the final version onto the desktop and then YouTube respectively.

Apple Mac

Production and Evaluation.

Microsoft Windows

Using Windows allowed me to create my evaluation using Microsoft PowerPoint, before uploading it to the online format of ‘slide share’. I also had access to the image manipulation software ‘Page Plus’ and ‘Photoshop’. These programs allowed me to edit the cover of my magazine and add effects to the image as well as developing techniques and key skills I had learned in my previous (AS) years work. This included cropping, layering, fading, adding effects and the use of the ‘Magic Wand’ tools.

Thank you for viewing