1. Media EvaluationBy Dan Jefferies

2. Question 1In what ways does your mediaproduct use, develop or challengeforms and conventions of real mediaproducts?2 3. There are a lot of conventions that are used in a psychological thriller. The bestway to create a psychological thriller is by following these conventions andadjusting them so they have there own twist on the work. There is no rules infollowing a genre when producing a film and therefore the conventions musthave been analysed and followed in a way that the producer sees fit. Theconventions can be analysed by looking at these important areas; Camera Shots, Camera Angles and Camera Movements Mise-En-Scene Editing Lighting SoundThese categories must be thoroughly analysed. For example when producersanalysed camera shots they will need to analyse the type of the shot (i.e. amid-shot, a close up etc.) the length of the shot, the transition into the shot andthe transition from the shot.3 4. My media product is a psychological thriller andtherefore has followed the conventions of the genre.However this doesnt mean that I have stuck to these.I have also chosen to develop and take theseconventions further. In this evaluation I will be reviewwhat I found out whilst doing research and planningand how this was taken into consideration whenworking on the construction of the film trailer, posterand magazine cover.My film trailer is called Trapped Like a Rat.4 5. The first convention in the trailer that I followed was that there wereshort camera shots within the trailer. This is found in such film trailers asMary Harrons American Psycho. This can be seen below. This wasdeveloped so that I have longer shots at the start and eventually veryshort shots at the end. This will increase the tension and the audiencewill feel the danger that the protagonist is going through. The one thingthat was a bit of a problem with my trailer was that I did not have a lot oftime and didnt manage my time as well as I could of therefore therewasnt as many short, sharp shots as to what was planned. There werevarious film trailers that I saw these in and as stated before one this canbe found in various trailers such as Shutter Island and can be seen inAmerican Psycho shown here.5 6. Another convention for psychological thrillers is to target the audiencesemotions and aims to scare them with the characters within the plot ofthe film and this will be done by having characters that create intenseand scary moments. This sort of thing can be seen in such films as thecharacter Dr Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. Thischaracter is known for being a psychiatrist and a cannibalistic serialkiller. He is famous for his saying and the noise he makes. In my film Idont necessarily have a person like this but the unknown figures whotrap the protagonists in the house create a similar sort of personality ofthat of Dr Hannibal Lecter and is aiming to scare the audience. Thisfollows the convention well.6 7. The third convention for psychological thrillers is that they use low key lighting tohelp them convey the plot of the film when the film is at a scary point or wants tobuild tension for the target audience. This is shown in various film trailers as ShutterIsland where the trailer is reaching its final moments and the audience see theprotagonist being jumped on by an unknown antagonist. This is shown below. I haveused low key lighting throughout the majority of the trailer and this would haveimproved the quality of the film and made the film trailer a lot more conventional.The trailer has scenes which are filmed at night and therefore this instantly makesthe film look more conventional. If the trailer was to have been shot in the day thenthe film would have lost its conventions that it contains and would be almostunrecognisable as a psychological thriller. Psychological thrillers are so successfulbecause of this one convention because it tends to play on the humans primal fears.As a species, humans are all genetically fearful and find the dark unnerving.7 8. The final trope I identified is that editing in psychological thrillers is fast paced anddepending on the film situation then the editing will be done to match the occasion.For example in Silent House as the film trailer becomes more scary and frightful tothe audience then the titles, camera shots and sound speed up in pace. This can beseen below. The editing will be fast paced if there is something scary and the film istrying to create tension. This would have been very effective for my trailer howeverthe problem that the group had was that I had not allowed enough time for theediting and this was down to my poor time managing and this would have to beassessed and adjusted for another project like this.8My poor time management skills have nowled to trailer losing some of the conventionshowever there are still some fast pace shortshots in the editing such as when theprotagonist sees the blood and the shotswould be almost parallel with his heartbeatso as it increase the shots become shorter.In the actual film itself there would be thesame sort of thing happening throughout. 9. I used the above posters to analyse what I needed to included in mine as the conventions of thisgenre. I concluded that they all use the Barthes theory of Enigma codes and Action codes on thebasis that they all use the images to have the audience asking the two questions and that isWho are these characters? and Are they okay?. In the case of The Others I believe thataudience I made to feel interpolated into hoping that Nicole Kidmans character will be okay andthat is just from looking at this poster. I feel that this crosses over into Morleys Theory of CulturalCompetence because she is a woman many will see her as vulnerable because of the darkbackground. This is likely to be the male audience that will see this more than the femalesbecause of stereotypical views of men seeing themselves wanting to look after females on theirown in the dark. This sort of theory can also be seen in The Ring poster. Where as when theaudience see Di Caprios character in the Shutter Island" poster they would view him as beingfrightening and strong despite also being on a strong background. The vulnerability of a femaleprotagonist is what I have used in my posters in the attempt to drag in my audience. I felt thatthis made my poster look more professional.9 10. I analysed the two magazine covers shown above and one thing that I noticed that I had thesame was that even though they were showing two different film genres the type of font that wentwith it goes well with both. They both have a similar font and this can be seen if you compare theM in both magazines. They use a sans serif font which would if replicated would mean that I amfollowing the conventions. The rule of thirds is followed in both magazines and this is somethingthat I needed to achieve follow the conventions of the genre. By looking at these two magazinesit is clear that I could do a professional standard of magazine myself by making sure that I had agood masthead to attract the audience and this would be helped by designing it with the rule ofthirds being followed and avoiding the magazine being cluttered. Another clear convention Ihave needed to follow was by making sure that I had a hierarchy to my text so that the readerswould view the important parts of my magazine first. It is clear by looking at these two magazinesthat there is no clear guidelines for how to have the hierarchy on a magazine but to make surethat it looks tidy, professional. Therefore when I created my magazine I made sure that I had ahierarchy but took time in organising it to reach that professional standard.10 11. Question 2How effective iscombination of your mainproduct and ancillarytexts?11 12. This is a very difficult question to answer because of the fact that mypromotion package has parts that do not relate to each other. This isbecause of a constant on-going battle with my illness called EmeryDreifuss Muscular Dystrophy I was unable to contribute as much as Iwas hoping to creating the trailer with my group and therefore once Imanaged to get back on track with controlling my illness then I was ableto create my own trailer.This means that I have had to do my poster and magazine onmy original groups film trailer called One Step Till No Return. HoweverI have had to do my trailer as a film produced by myself individuallycalled Trapped Like A Rat. Therefore my ancillary texts (my magazineand poster) will not be able to relate to my film itself. However they dofollow in the same genre (Psychological thriller) so when I mention thatmy magazine and poster refer to the film well then this will be myoriginal film One Step Till No Return and not Trapped Like A Rat.12 13. 13 14. My magazine has a clear message about the filmand shows that this is not a rom-com film. It givesthe representation of a psychological thriller straightfrom this image. It clearly portrays a masked mancoming up behind this girl. The image that is beingshown to the audience on this magazine has a redtint to it and has been modified to signify blood.Psychological thrillers are renowned for a lot bloodand therefore throughout these three items therewould be a lot of red in the tem to make sure itfollowed conventions of the genre. The fonts usedelsewhere on the magazine match this and show asimilar sort of colour. However on the red tintedimage the text still stands out to the audience but atthe same time does not drag the attention awayfrom the image. The logo on the right hand side ofthe magazine is the official film logo and is the onethat would be seen in the film and the trailer.14 15. In my poster I have used the same image as in themagazine and this will create a brand identity throughoutmy promotion package. However I have got a differentmasthead for the poster to the one that is seen on themagazine. I felt that this one worked better with the imageitself. This masthead is still the same in colour and is red infont. This is because I want the audience to see the nameof the film immediately. This is my main reference to thefilm and then once the audience have seen the imagematching with the masthead then this will reference to thefilm as this image is part of a scene from the film. I haveincluded the credit block at the bottom of the poster andthis shows the roles of the team making this film and thenfinally the tagline references to the film and creating a sortof enigma with the audience. This will help the audienceinto interpolating with the protagonist and feeling sorry forher. By using this tagline I have created a brand identity inthe sense that it hints immediately at the fact that it is a filmabout abduction. All of these references will appeal to theaudience and will want them to see the film itself.15 16. MAGAZINEOn the magazine I have use the large image onthe front cover to draw in my audiencesattention. Once they had been drawn in I thenhoped they would be excited to watch the film byall of the short snappy captions on the frontcover. The image of the magazine signifies to theaudience that this film will be about abductionand therefore will be likely to be rated at aminimum of a 15. This is because the audiencetend to find high amounts of blood in abductionfilms. It is clear that as it falls neatly into acategory it is likely to attract Mainstreamers andAspirers (Young and Rubicam) with the majorityof the audience being teenagers. As it is a clearteenager protagonist and an unknown age of theantagonist it is going to be easier for eitherteenagers to relate to or parents with teenagers.As these are unknown actors in the image thenits clear that this would not have a highproduction value and therefore as tis is the casethe film is likely to be a lot more relatable forteenagers and therefore this will be the mainaudience.POSTERMy posters most iconic feature is theimage which is the same image as themagazine and therefore creates a largebrand identity for the film itself. Thisshould be the way to entice the audienceto watch. With any tagline its importantthat the entice the audience further and Ifeel that I am achieving this with thistagline. As both the magazine and theposter have the same image and use thisto attract the audience the most then it islikely that the poster will have a verysimilar effect in enticing the audience towatch the film and should attract thesame audience.16The use of unknown actorswill appeal more toaudiences of the same ageas they can relate to thismore. 17. In my promotion package it is obvious that Barthes theory of Enigma codes and Action codes can beapplied to this work. I know this because on the magazine and the poster I have made a clear point tothe audience to ask Who is this masked antagonist? and What does he want with this female? Thiswill make the audience want to watch the film because they will be wanting to see what this film isabout. Which is the crux of the enigma code. The theory of the action codes can also be applied to thisbecause there is look of fright and vulnerability in the female protagonists eye therefore will signify tothe audience that something bad will happen in a later event. I feel that the use of enigmas areimportant for both my magazine and poster because this is the main way to engage with theaudiences feelings as there is no audio or movements.As for the trailer I can also apply this theory to it. It was easier to create an enigma with thisbecause I can combine the use of sound and camera shots/movements. The main enigma to mytrailer is that the audience will be asking What has happened to the female protagonist? and Howmuch danger are the characters in? This will attract the audience to watch this film at the cinema asthey will feel interpolated with the characters and will emphasise with them to make sure that theycome through this. The main example is when the male protagonist goes to the shed and returns withall the blood on the wall. Once he opens the door this creates the action code for the film as it signifiesto the audience that he could be about to go on a quest/hunt.17The immediate momentwhere the action code iscreated in the trailer. 18. Different FilmLogosDifferent Font18 19. As I had a big problem with my time management I have not been very consistent whenproducing my poster and magazine. This has now created the problem that could have beeneasily fixed had I given myself enough time in advance.All of my differences are clear for the audience to see and there is no clear similarities for theaudience other than they have the same name and image. This meant that the there was nota big of brand image as I was hoping to have and therefore if I have allowed myself moretime then I would be able to have improved this and made it clear that these belong together.Obviously both the poster and magazine refer to the film trailer before I had to split from thegroup and therefore if I had a matching trailer I could carry on this brand identity across tothe trailer too.The first difference was that I was using two different film logos. The official one was on themagazine. This clearly worked on there but I felt that it didnt look correct on the film poster.For these reasons I have had to sacrifice my brand identity slightly to make sure that myposter was professional and presentable.19Different fonts used on themagazine and the poster. If Ihad used the same on boththen this would haveimproved brand identity. 20. The third thing which did not follow a housestyle from one slide to the next is that I did not usethe same font for both the magazine and the poster. I had this problem because I created mymagazine on Microsoft Publisher and I created my poster on Adobe Fireworks. Therefore theydo not have the same fonts available for use.In conclusion, it is now clear that I have no housestyles to my work and the audience may notbe able to associate the products with one another.20If I had created my magazine and poster on the samepiece of software then I could have increased my brandidentity. 21. Question 3What have you learnedfrom your audiencefeedback?21 22. Over the whole process of this project I have used various forms of audience feedback toimprove my work or when the audience feedback was taken at the start I used this information toplan well for what I was doing. I used feedback such as polls on my blog and focus groups oncemy project was concluded. A good form of feedback that I have used was by asking for peerfeedback.The reason that I have used these types of feedback is because they are easy to useand easily accessible for me. The results that I got back from these was helpful as I knew what Ieither needed to do, what I needed to improve and even what I needed to change. By using thefeedback to improve my project and the work involved in it I have been able to make my productsto the best of my ability with the time I had.I had used various polls on my blog in an attempt to have my poll taken by a widerange of people as my blog is online it is accessible by anyone. A question that I asked wasregarding my magazine masthead and that was What would make a better name for amagazine? This gave me instant feedback to help me with my ancillary texts. This helped medecide on the name of my magazine and gave me a good basis to work off of.22An example of my polls on my blog. 23. Also I had included a poll with the question of Do you think my trailer has met the conventions ofa psychological thriller? and How do you feel I could have improved my poster? Both of thesepolls had answers that would help me to improve my work and make my work look moreprofessional in terms of producing a poster and a trailer to the highest of quality.When my promotion package were finished I got together a focus group to discuss howthey felt that my work had met the needs of my audience and how it also met the needs of thegenre. This focus group was able to give me feedback on how they felt the trailer made them feelfirstly as an audience and secondly as an peer assessor. Finally we moved onto how the ancillarytexts were effective in promoting both the trailer and the film itself.Throughout this project I took on as much peer feedback as possible and asked themfor there opinions on my work . This was vital as they were able to tell me what looked better inmy ancillary texts and they were also able to tell me how to improve it in there opinion.23 24. For my polls I have now been able to gather the results of them and alter what has neededaltering and to perfect what has needed perfecting.I have been able to decide on a name for my magazine by following my audience feedback. Oneof my aims from the start of creating this promotion package was to make sure that I followed theconventions of the genre and made it look as professional as possible. Therefore by asking mysecond poll on the blogs I have been able to evaluate whether I did or not by my audiencelooking at the whole promotion package. I felt that from the results received that I had done thisdespite a proportion of my audience feedback saying there was room for improvement. Finallyon my last poll the audience felt that I could have a more clear image to make the poster moreeffective as a whole. I felt that this was a very valid point from my audience however I felt that itwas not necessary to do this. I felt that I could have this image as it was still maintaining theenigma (Barthes) in the poster.24 25. For the questions I used closed answer options on my polls to make my results easy to evaluatehowever they will not be able to give me the best answers to my questions as these came fromthe focus groups in my opinion. My focus group felt that there was no real brand identity to mytexts. They felt that the magazine, poster and trailer were good as individual pieces however as apromotion package they felt that it didnt have a clear brand identity to the package. If I hadmanaged my time management a lot better then I would have been able to alter my ancillarytexts to make the whole package have a clear brand identity.Overall, my focus group made the decision that they felt the promotion package wasgood as a psychological thriller package but they felt it lacked brand identity. They felt that thetrailer was a clear psychological thriller and that it was frightening with the extreme sound volumechanges. They felt that had I managed my time management better then I would have a muchmore professional trailer.25 26. Question 4How did you use mediatechnologies in theconstruction and research,planning and evaluationstages?26 27. I used various technologies when creating my promotion package. Firstly in the planningand research stage I used Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer Websites (such as IMDB),Blogger and YouTube to help me research for example I needed this technology forresearching my conventions of genre. This was a good combination of software to usefor this as I was able to research my genre conventions and then assess these andevaluate these in Microsoft Word. This technology made my research and planningeasier to show because I had an easy bit of software which allowed me to compare andsay how I will apply it to my own work.By using these pieces of software I have been able to allow my research to bemore thorough because I am using software that I am very confident in using it. Whenusing the software to research there was one very big problem I encountered and thiswas that I was not able to use the Internet Explorer once the Internet went down andtherefore I wasnt able to use this to do any research and therefore caused me realproblems.27 28. I found this software really useful to use with the resources available as it wasto collect my findings, then assess the findings, evaluate them and then decidewhat to include in my final promotion package. This software was the best I hadavailable at the time to do my research and planning.In the construction stage I used a higher variety of software to help mewith my promotion package. I used a camera, Microsoft Publisher, AdobeFireworks, Pixlr.com, an iMac, iMovie, Internet, Blogger and YouTube.I felt that this software that I used was of a much higher standard thanmy research and planning stage. However I felt that I was still a little restrictedwith what I could do when creating my work. Firstly though my work was easy tocreate but wasnt of a poor standard but there was definitely room forimprovement.28 29. The camera I used was a decent handheld camcorder that was good for shooting thetrailer that I wanted. This allowed me to shoot my work without any problems. The only thing thatcould have been improved was by using a higher-quality of camera which would allowed me toshoot in higher quality. However as the trailer was designed to be shot in a home video formatthen this was better to use this type of camera.Microsoft Publisher was the best software to be using to create a magazine. This isbecause I was able to cut, copy and paste (i.e. I was able to move the masthead around to haveit in the exact position that I wanted and make sure that with my layout I was following the rule ofthirds) as well as drag and drop text and images with ease. By using this software I have beenable to create the best magazine I could with the software available. The other option of softwarethat I could use was Adobe Fireworks. However I felt that for designing a magazine cover thenthis was more of an appropriate piece of software to use.29 30. For creating a poster I have used the software Adobe Fireworks as this was a stronger piece ofsoftware to give a clearer and more prominent poster. This is because I was able to edit theimage in this software (i.e. I could alter the brightness of the image and make it even darker thanbefore) and then add my masthead, credit blocks and tagline to this after. This was veryappropriate piece of software to use because I was able to use because the fonts available werea lot more professional then you would find on other software such as Microsoft Publisher.Whilst creating my promotion package I was always looking to optimize and improveany images that I would be using. This gives my promotion package the chance of the look ofthe most professional standard with the software available to me. I used Pixlr.com to help mewith this editing because it is a free, easy to use, online image editor. This software only had onedownfall and that was that I needed the internet to be able to access it and therefore there wastimes when I was not able to use this piece of software.30 31. To edit my film trailers raw footage I used an iMac with iMovie to help me to create my trailer. Thiswas also the best film software available and gave me a professional looking film trailer. Anotherpiece of software that I could have used would have been Windows Movie Maker but this wouldhave looked awful and would have given my film trailer the effect of being created by a GCSEstudent. Using this I was able to add effects to the footage such as changing the lighting, thespeed and adding in transition slides.The final pieces of technology I used in the construction stage was Blogger and YouTube. Thesewere good to use because I was able to exhibit it in a couple of forms. By using blogger I wasable to engage with my audience in the form of polls and adding comments to the blog. I felt thatit was very important for my audiences to be able to see my construction work as well as myevaluation and research and planning. I felt that there was nothing better that would allow me toshow my whole promotion package to my audience.I felt that YouTube was a great way to exhibit my trailer to the audience I was able toshare it on the worlds largest video sharing website. As my target audience are likely to beMainstreamers and Aspirers (Young and Rubicam) then by using one of the most in trendwebsites to exhibit my promotion package then I am directly engaging with my audience.31 32. Finally, in the evaluation stage I was using only a few technologies to help produce and exhibit. I usedMicrosoft PowerPoint to do this evaluation. This was good software to use as I can make it so it hasmultimedia text in it and that I can make lots of comparisons in the promotion package and assesshow I have done and how I could have improved it. As for other software I could have used then Icould have produced all of this on iMovie but not as easily accessible for as doing it on MicrosoftPowerPoint.Within my evaluation I have been able to record videos from YouTube using CamStudio.The only problem that I encountered was that the quality of the video was pixelated at times and that itwould not allow me to record sound. This meant that I wasnt able to show examples as easily as Iwanted to in my evaluation.When I finished this I used a site called Slide Share to make it so I can transfer myevaluation PowerPoint to my blog. This enabled me to engage with my audience as they could seehow I felt I did with my promotion package and they could comment on this on the blog itself. For it tobe Slide Share it was easy to use as all I had to do was download the file onto the site itself. As far asI know this was the only easily accessible way to do this.To copy it onto my blog I needed to copy the embedded code to my blog using HTML optionwhen creating a page. I was using Blogger still and the same blog for this as I just added it to a newpage. Overall, the blog was the most beneficial piece of technology to myself as I was able to exhibitthe whole of my promotion package to the world as anyone can now access it and view what theywant.32 33. Links to Videos Usedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GIsExb5jJU American Psycho Trailerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3woSuuzQuc Silence of the Lambs scenehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iaYLCiq5RM Shutter Island Trailerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo3fyTbyft8 Silent House Trailerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMw_vobZsRcMy Trailer: Trapped Like A Rat33