Candidate Details and Final Products

Candidate Name: Ryan Morgan
Candidate Number: 7210

Centre Name: John F Kennedy School
Centre Number: 17131

Poster:

 Magazine Cover:

Film Trailer:

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

To present my answer this question, I used the website Prezi. Here is the link to my answer:
http://prezi.com/slhiai4yqfbd/death-town-evaluation/

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We posted our trailer on YouTube so people could view our trailer and give us feedback on it. We then would post the link for it on Facebook and also on Twitter so more people could view it and share the opinions on it. The feedback we received helped us discover the flaws in the trailer so for the next draft it could be improved.

Here are some examples of comments that were posted on the first and second draft of our trailers. This qualitative data helped improve our final products as we gained the opinions of people 

After it was uploaded to YouTube, the link to the video was posted on my Facebook profile. This gave the trailer a wider audience and it was open to comments, and here are some examples. They were constructive comments and helped with the process of re-editing.

The link for the video was also ‘Tweeted’ on Twitter to allow more people to view it and here are some of the replies from people who wanted to share their views on the trailer.

I used the website Wordle to create a word cloud for the feedback I received for my Film Poster and Magazine cover.
Here is the word cloud containing words that people used to describe my Film Poster:

Here is the word cloud containing words that people used to describe my Magazine Cover:

Evaluation Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?

For this question, I used the web Program Prezi to present my answer.

Here is a link to my answer: http://prezi.com/orcb5hro9x0i/copy-of-death-town-evaluation/

Final Trailer Draft

After receiving feedback from our first draft we planned on improving our trailer, re-editing it and even re-shooting some camera footage. Here is the final draft of our Teaser Trailer for the film 'Death Town'

Here is a short video presentation containing some screenshots from the trailer with some annotations analysis the production of our trailer including how/why we edited/filmed it:

Film Magazine Cover - Analysis

After creating my film poster, I focused on the making of my film magazine cover, which features 'Death Town'. The magazine 'CINEMAD' contains an interview with the lead actor and in recognition of the film, it is a horror special edition, and the house style of the magazine has been adapted to follow the light/blue and black colour scheme of our film concept.

Here are some annotations explaining how I made the cover and the reasons behind my design:

My Film Poster - Analysis

Here is my completed film poster for our film concept 'Death Town', I decided to challenge the connotations of normal horror film posters by not featuring any characters from the film on the cover. Instead I created a game cover and used the program 'Fireworks' to add a glow to it, as if it was coming alive.

Here are some annotations I made about the production of my poster, explaining why I did things:

Feedback we received for our First Draft of our Trailer

After we uploaded our trailer and shared we asked people to give us some feedback on it. Here is some of the feedback we received on Facebook:

People thought that the music should be played throughout the trailer, we took this feedback on board and went back onto 'iMovie' and tried re-editing, we found that although it would be good to have the music throughout the trailer, it would ruin the news cast scenes and as we believed that they were essential to our trailer. We discussed this as a group and kept this part how it is.

We also received feedback through comments on YouTube, here are some examples of them:

Looking at the comments we received we learnt that the news scene could be more realistic. We discussed as a group how we could improve this scene, we decided to replace the actor playing the Presenter with someone who is older and fits the part more, and get them look directly at the camera instead of at the sheet of paper. This constructive criticism ultimately aided the process and we improved our trailer.

We also presented our trailer to the class and after listening to their comments we changed the colour of our production company logo from the original Red to the light/blue teal that was used throughout the trailer and on our ancillary texts. We also added another scene to come up at the end of the trailer of our main character slowing walking down the corridor, as our peers had commented that he should be the final shot of the trailer, instead of the news reader

Trailer - First Draft

Using our story board and planning we set about to shoot our film. After we had completed the process we uploaded the footage to the Macbooks and the programme 'iMovie'. As a group we sat down and began the editing process, we cut down the footage, even removed whole scenes as we thought it would improve the trailer. We added cuts, fades, our production logo and the credits. We then found the right music for our trailer,  which improved the professionalism of the trailer. After we had finished the editing process, we uploaded it to the internet on 'YouTube' and then shared it on social networking sites such as 'Facebook' and 'Twitter' in order to receive feedback, positive and negative so we could improve our next draft of the trailer.

Here is our first draft of our trailer:

Trailer Planning: Props, costume and Location

After deciding on our plan for our film trailer as a group we had to decide on the logistics of the trailer and how we were going film it. We started by organising what Props and costumes we'd need and where the location for our filming would be:

The Props we would require include:

• Games Console -  For use in the trailer, to be used as an outlet for the game to be played on in scenes of the trailer. Our main character will play on the games console.
• Games Console Controller - Will be used in the trailer as our main character holds it while playing on the game
• Television - Will be used in the trailer, as the main characters plays the game, he will be staring at the television
• News Desk - In the trailer the news reader will be sat behind a desk as if he was reading the news.

In addition to the props we required we made note of the costume our actors would need to be in:

• Main character - In the scenes while playing on the console, he will need to be dressed in dark casual clothing but in the scenes in the school corridor he will need to be wearing smart clothing in order to look realistic
• News Reader - In the News scenes, the presenter will need to be dressed in a shirt and tie in order to give a professional and authentic impression.
• The Bullies - Will need to be dressed similarly to the main character in the corridor scene, as they will also be at school, possibly dressed a little scruffier to indicate they are the bullies.

After deciding on the props and costumes for our trailer, we focused on the locations we would need to film in to create a successful trailer:

• Bedroom - For the scenes of our main character playing the game, we require a bedroom as the set for this scenes. It will need to be dimly lit to create a sense of mystery and suspense.
• School Corridor - A long school corridor with lockers either side, this will allow our main character to walk down the corridor before being confronted by the bullies. I would preferably need to be empty and quiet to allow for the focus to be on the main character.
• Media Suite - The same place in which I took photos for my magazine cover, the white backdrop will need to be used to create a professional and slick look for the presenter to read the news stories out

Photo-Shoot for Magazine cover

In the production of my magazine cover I need to produce my own photo to be included on the cover of the magazine. In order to obtain a suitable photo I conducted a photo-shoot with the main character of our film testing out different angles and poses so I could decide which would be most suitable for the magazine cover

                                               

These photos all show the different poses and angles I took photos on. I took all of the photos in front of a white backdrop so they would stand out and the background wouldn't take away from the photo. The background means they will easily work on the cover of the magazine and could easily be edited.

Film Trailer Storyboard animation

After I created sketches for the magazine covers and film posters as a group we created a storyboard for our main task, creating a film trailer. It allowed us to visualise what our trailer would look like and plan the order, and even help with the planning of the filming process. I then took the pictures from the story and used the program 'Windows Movie Maker' to create an animation depicting our storyboard as our trailer. This helped us gain an idea of what it would look like on screen. In our final cut of our trailer it does not feature the same scenes in this animation as during filming and editing we discovered issues with them and we even added scenes that aren't in this animation to improve it, despite this, this process was extremely useful in the creation of our final trailer and as a group and as individuals we learnt a lot.

Sketches for Magazine and Poster Design

To brainstorm some ideas for the creation of my film poster and magazine cover, I sketched out some drawings  as a plan for possible design ideas. Here are the sketches I drew:

These sketches are only rough but I took inspiration from existing posters and magazine covers and combined them with my own ideas to create possibilities for my media products. This may not be used as the final pieces, but they have helped be brainstorm and develop my ideas.

Film Magazine Analysis

Similarly to the analysis of the existing Horror Film Trailers and Posters I looked at existing Magazine covers that focus on horror films. Here are some examples of covers I looked at with a few annotations explaining what I found:

I have learnt about the connotations of existing magazine covers and this will aid me in the creation of my own magazine cover.