EVALUATION

1. The examiners are especially interested in your application of media technologies to carry out planning and research tasks, construction, post-production, presentation and in evaluation. This means analysing the range and kind of tasks that you are able to carry out and identifying the software you use to do them.

To begin with, I conducted my research using the internet and TV. I decided to use these particular media technologies, because they were the most suitable for my main project; which is teaser trailer. On the internet I would repeatedly watch different trailers on www.youtbe.com. After close analysis of trailers which fit into either the same, or a similar genre, I picked out key features I believed I could incorporate into my own main task. For example when looking at the tormented trailer, I noticed the way the formation of the clips in the trailer were in chronological order, this was something I tried to incorporate into my own trailer. However this didn't really happen as during my post-production I tended to ignore some of the features I originally planned to incorporate into my trailer, so in the end I decided to arrange the clips in a mixed up sort of order; where it appears to be in order, however I punctuated the trailer with random clips from my potential film which occur at later points but appear randomly during the trailer. During research I picked up on this feature from other trailers such as ..... I was particularly interested in this feature as when I personally watched trailers which beared this feature, I felt shocked when they appeared, and they made me want to watch the trailer again, to try and understand why them scenes were put there. So I believed if a trailer has this sort of effect on the viewer, it must be efficiently effective in trying to attract an audience in watching the trailer, which could ultimately end in the audience watching the actual film when it's released. Doing research for my teaser trailer, I decided to create a survey online, using www.surveymonkey.com. All in all I had only 5 questions revolving around my main ideas for my movie trailer. In my survey I asked how old the participant taking the survey was, this was for my target audience purposes. I asked them why they watched horror films; the answers could of been any of the following: for a thrill, because they're your favourite type of film, or if its because they're bored, or they don't watch horror films. This question was to help me understand why my /target audience (young people) watched horror films, as all of those who completed the survey werey between the ages of 15 - 18 this helped me make my trailer accordingly to their preference. Where 85.7% of those who completed the survey said they watched horror films for the thrill, I felt I would have to make it as scary but at the same time teasing, this was to interest my target audience as much as possible. With the question about how many main characters/ protagonists there should be, 57.1% thought there should 3 main characters, whereas 42.9% thought there should be 4 main characters. Due to the fact me and partner had a fall out, I started working on the project alone, so the original 4 main characters we had initially were hard to obtain. I decided to go with 4 central characters, however 2 of those have more signficance over the other 2 but this only appears in the trailer. Arguably this is because of  the amount of scenes the male actors have over the female characters.They would seem more important just by this trailer, however as most films usually have more than one trailer leading up to the release of the trailer; saying this if I was to have anoth-*er trailer I would show a more balanced view in regards to the main characters. In the survey I also asked the question whether or not the audience would like to see the ghosts or not, in regards to a paranormal horror? In this case there were more votes for the ghosts not to be seen in the film. To be exact the statistics stand 42.9% to see the ghosts and 57.1% for the ghosts not to be seen. Listening to those who completed my custom survey I decided to not show any sort of ghosts in the trailer, instead I decided to show the effects of the ghosts of the students from the Class of '86. I decided to make my final question on the survey an open ended one so that I could gain different personal beliefs. I asked the participants what are their personal thoughts on having Giggs featuring B.o.B - Don't go there as part of the soundtrack for a horror trailer? (Bear in mind that the plot is about going to a forbidden area). I asked this as when planning this project back when me and my partner were working together, we had a dispute on whether or not we should incorporate this song into the film trailer. I personally believed that this song was suitable as it relates to the young people of this time as it was made from someone who lives in south london, and I believe this relates because the trailer is set in south london. Also as the trailer is about these inquisitive teens who go somewhere where they know is prohibited for them, the actual lyrics relate to their adventure: in which the lyrics in the chorus are "Well people gon be people aint nobody gon change, But we can keep it peaceful if we leave it the same, If you don’t go there, don’t go there, don’t go there, no, don’t go there.." I was planning to use this song to enforce a sense of dramatic irony into the trailer. At the time my partner thought otherwise. He thought using this song would make the trailer "childish" and "not suitable for our genre type", to an extent I agree with him but I thought this would be a different approach to the trailer, breaking generic conventions of a horror trailer. When I say this I initially wanted to go against the stereotypical "scary music" used for soundtracks for horror films, however during production I found it hard to incorporate the Giggs featuring B.o.B song into my trailer. Analysing the results from the survey, one person said "It would be different for a horror movie, but i think it would be quite unique and will make the horror movie seem less predictable because no one would have expected that genre of music to be in a horror film. Also the chorus will g+o well with a horror." Another person said "Good idea but try think of a back up song". Reviewing the other comments, none of the people who took part in the survey said no or they it wouldn't be a good idea. From this I listened to one comment where they said I should have a back up song, in which I found the soundtrack for saw 2.

2. Part of your research into your advanced portfolio projects is to identify the ideology of representations such as gender and, say, the generic use of narrative. So how do the representations and narrative of your music video compare to professional products? How does your newspaper layout relate to actual newspapers? How does your trailer demonstrate the conventions of its genre and how do you account for your choice of main protagonists. It is really important you make comparisons with professional products.
My trailer is unique in itself as it is a formation of a number shots in which, they don't reveal too much. In comparison to some horror trailers, my trailer is working from the point in which, it doesn't reveal too much about the film. By doing so I'm taking a gamble as this can prove to be a bad move, or a clever approach. By doing so I want to build  up the hype of my film, I tried to instinctively make the hype of my film build over my 3 projects (the trailer, film magazine cover feature and film poster). As this is the 1st film of a possible series, and we were assigned the task of making a teaser trailer, I had to make sure my trailer lived up to its name by acting as a tease to the target audience. I believe the best way in doing so is by not revealing too much in the actual trailer, this will make the audience anticipate the release of the film. As some trailers reveal too much through their fim trailer, once a consumer comes round to watching the actual film they may be disappointed, because some of the most exciting scenes may have been in the trailer, leaving great moments in the film dull, taking away the full effect as the consumers would have seen this scene already most probably on various occasions. I decided to avoid this approach by using at 1 or 2 action filled scenes in my trailer, this way I don't reveal too much about the film. This also doesn't give the audience enough to feed on as it's only a teaser trailer. So they don't have the chance to make full judgements on the film until the film comes out. I decided to go for a slow paced trailer, meaning there isn't rapid cuts of loads of shots, there's just a few shots which are exaggerated, and punctuated my title graphics and which go along with my sound effects. By doing so I decided to go against the stereotypical versions of horror film trailers. For example looking at the 'Scream 4' trailer, the trailer starts off slow, them picks up its temp in regards to cuts and then eventually slows down again. My trailer may have a similar structure but not exactly the same. I initially had the idea to incorporate the layout of the 'Tormented', in which the trailer is laid out in a choronologically. I wanted to make the clips of my trailer occur in order, not in an unstructured manner , but after completing more research I noticed, some trailers which go in order are sometimes punctuated with random clips, which do not look like they're appear at later stages in the film. My trailer represents its genre, by the way I repeatedly used darkness whilst filming. I tried to film as many of my shots in the night to signify the theme of darkness. As the night or the darkness connotes themes such as danger, ghosts, taboo occasions and so on, this enforces the theme of horror in my trailer. My trailer bears that sort of vibe where the protagonists are never safe, giving the audience that 'edge of their seats' feeling. In which main popular films have the audience anticipating the film's release because of the way the trailer, had us (the audience) wanting more, which would result in them watching the trailer over and over again. For instance when I first watched the 'X-Men: First Class' trailer, it had me as a fan of the series wanting more, nevertheless, whether or not I was a fan of the series the film would of most probably of had the same effect on me. This lead me on to watch the trailer over and over again hoping to uncover more about the film. I want my film to have the same sort of effect on people, this is what lead me to take on the approach of not revealing too much via teaser trailer; in contrast a everyone else in my class who done a teaser trailer, they all decided to put together a montage various of clips using rapid cuts. Compared to some I probably have half the amount of shots, but through the use of Adobe After Effects combined with Adobe Premiere Pro I was abled to make my trailer just as effective as those who used a lot of shops.

3. It is essential that you include a description of your strategies of modification and re-drafting in response to the audience feedback you recieve from students and tutor. This is in turn needs to be informed by an awareness of how to appeal to your target audience. Identifying (and perhaps photographing an example of) your target audience is absolutely crucial and is often one of the weaknesses in student submissions, so take care here. It is the starting point of any design strategy.

When re-drafting my main tasks I decided to inorporate most points my target audience brought forward about my main task the teaser trailer. One member of the class said "I don't like the way your shots are organised", in which other members of the class agreed with him. To overcome this issue I changed the juxtaposition of the shots, to help my trailer make more sense. I also removed some scenes and replaced them with new ones, this caused a massive problem to my project as, the original scenes I had deleted featured different shots in which had 1 main character in it, and due to unforseen circumstances I wasn't abled to use the same actor, and by this time in the coursework I was handing in the final film magazine feature. So it was too late to change the coverstars, as now 1 of the 2 coverstars' face isn't seen in the trailer, but to try and deal with this I decided to make a stunt double as such appear in the trailer. By this I got Marlon (the guy who's face isn't seen in the trailer) to be played by someone else, in doing so I didn't ever show this person's face. Whilst re-drafting my projects I made it a priority to incorporate any thoughts or opinions they had on my project as their demographics fit my target audience (students aged 15 - 25).

Picture of my target audience

When i first done my film magazine cover feature I didn't have an original photograph to represent my film, instead I used a poster of Ironman, just to understand how I could use the canvas for my magazine design. Audience feedback was inevitable as they told me I need to get an original photograph, this was obvious, ont the other hand they agreed my masthead and layout was good, and believed it had potential to be a good magazine cover with more work done to it. Re-drafting my second ancillary task merged 2 original photographs I took specifically for my magazine, I got more coverlines, competitions and magazine features - to make my magazine more realistic. I tried to make the theme of the magazine link to my film as that is what most magazines tend to do, doing this would show my target audience the professionalism of my magazine, which could ultimately end up in people buying my magazine. Re-drafting my poster was much easier as my 1st draft was good, I mainly edited the picture in my poster and made  few minor adjustments. My target audience were happy with my decisions.

4. How are your main and ancillary projects linked through their design strategies to sustain an appeal to the target audience? Is there any attempt over the three products to make additional appeals to audiences on the fringe of the main target?
Well as the film is about a class in the 1980s who all died horribly in a fire, I decided to incorporate the theme of fire in my film trailer and film poster. In my film trailer I filmed a clip where there's a picture of a class students ( which is meant to represent the class who died in 1986 ) burning. I decided to use the burning photo as a representation of the class who went up in flames. I did something similar with my film poster. In which I got text, using a formal font (Trajan Pro) I wrote 'Class of', then using a different font (Impact) I wrote '86'. I made the 'Class' appear as if it was literally on fire using Photoshop. I decided to link these 2 projects this way, as if someone was to see the trailer then see the poster after they should immediately understand the reference I tried to make. However if someone was to see the poster first they may not understand why it looks like that, on the other, it shouldn't be hard to draw a basic an assumption from the poster (that its about a class linked to a fire). Watching the trailer second would help the audience understand why the text is on fire on my poster. Nevertheless I believe both of these projects are effective in getting the point of my film across. Looking at my magazine, I separated myself from the theme of fire when designing my magazine. This is because I couldn't think of a suitable way to incorporate this trait on to my magazine. Whilst researching film magazine cover features, I noticed nearly every film which had a feature on a film magazine tended to put the main character(s) on the front. So I decided to put the 2 main characters in my trailer on my magazine cover. Dressed in costume similar to what they wear in the film, this is to ensure familiarity among the texts. I made a sort of grungy effect for the picture of the two main characters, this was a useful effect as it can represent youths in a way which portrays they get down and dirty. I put a board behind the characters which reads 'I will not disturb the dead' repeatedly. I wrote this in a way which looks like they had to write this out repeatedly for a punishment. This enforces the theme of school. I put bloody hand prints on the board to symbolose the youths trying to embrace and accept their wrong doing. I believe this gives my magazine cover a spooky feel and links well to the magazine, as it can relate to the clip of the class burning as the theme of school is constant. This links to my trailer as there are unseen scenes (in which i mean scenes, wheres there nothing on screen but screaming going on), of the my characters screaming, this symbolises the torture they're going through. As this is a trailer which will be shown on TV, I didn't want to put in any scenes in that would not be able to be shown on TV, so I basically censored my trailer.