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

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

After producing our movie trailer, we were given a task to produce a poster and a magazine front cover. This was done to promote our film.  As the encoder of these media texts I thought it was important to make sure I kept the target audience in mind when producing the media texts. I had to make sure that my magazine and poster attract are specific target audience for our genre and create it so it makes people want to watch the film. I produced the two ancillary texts after we had created the film trailer, this meant that I was able to intertextually link certain images, themes, and genre so that the decoder will be able to recognise the Action/ thriller.

When creating the film trailer, poster and magazine cover I made sure I there were clear links between the three media texts. All three of the texts have the title in it “betrayal & Retribution” this is a significant part of each of the texts.  The poster I constructed had screen shots from the actually movie trailer in it. This is important as it created links to the trailer and the poster. I had the images in the wheel of a gun. This created a type of montage of pictures in a gun which helped emphasis the fact that it was an action/ thriller and gave the decoders an idea into what the movie is like.  Also by using these montages it gave the audience a chance to connect with the film for example when they are watching the film they will recognise clips from the poster.  I used codes and conventions this is so the decoder of each media text will be able to clearly understand what each media text is meant to make.  The bold title of the film Betrayal & retribution is pushed to the front of the screen. This is done by graphics on the computer. Which is also helps to catch the audiences eye. This is the same title which links all three media texts together by anchoring the images through the use of repetition of texts.

The reason we created these ancillary tasks is because it is meant to support our trailer and give the film some sort of promotion and advertising behind it. 

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

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

The encoder must ensure that he/she doesn’t alienate there decoder by not referring to the forms and conventions of the media products. When creating our film trailer, the genre we decided to stick to was Action thriller. We had to make sure we kept to this genre throughout as it is aimed at a particular audience and attract our “Target Audience”.

We decided to create a film trailer of this genre as it was a genre which we believe we can attract our target audience and it is the genre we know most about. There were many ways in which we made sure to portray that it was an action thriller. For example we used very fast screen changes to emphasis that he had to act fast and it increased tension, kept the viewers interested and made them interested in what happens and the outcome of the  story.  There were elements of film trailers which audiences expect to see; these include narrative, characters, dialogue, voice over’s, on screen graphics and music. We included all these techniques into our trailer in the view that it would encourage our audience to want to see our film. We looked at a number of other trailers to help give us a greater understanding of what would be beneficial to the trailer and little techniques and affects that could improve our trailer. We looked at shooter and The Bourne Supremacy.

Our Trailer is made up of a number of clips the first clips location is up in a hot air balloon. This shot was taken a while ago by Jack Welch. This is a great shot to have as it shows clearly a good example of the surrounding area and it represents an element of peace. This is important as it suggest that everything is fine and this current time in the film. In this clip there was also non - digetic sound present in the clip to help set a mood. We also used special effects and graphics to portray that it is an action thriller, we did this by having titles and other effects to build up tension and interest before the trailer had started. For example we called productions, “Spaced Out” Productions. This shown through special effects and moving screens at the start of the trailer. It is important to add these in as they help the audience to understand what the trailer is about and not get confused on the genre of the film. Also at the end of our trailer as it is coming to an end we publicize comments from magazine such as the telegraph. It is important in a film trailer to have reviews as this helps the audience to know whether they want to watch it. We did research on other trailers and came to the conclusion that there are many smaller things which are very important to the trailer and not a movie. We researched further into the genre action/thriller to gain a greater understanding of what we must include in our trailer. Some of the action/ thriller trailers we looked included shooter and The Bourne Identity. We came to the conclusion that  music is very important in a trailer and a movie but in a trailer it has to be used differently as you only have a short space of time to show all the emotions you need to evoke and tension that needs to be built. We also found out that music helps set the mood/ tone of each clip and helps the decoder to interpret the text much better.

The narrative of a film genre includes similar plots and structures. After we presented our pitch about our movie trailer we received some audience feedback, we also received audience feedback through Facebook, through this audience feedback it was suggested that our plot was done too much. Our plot was a man who had been framed for the murder of his wife and is therefore on the run from the police who he once worked for. We created a male protagonist to be the main character as through our research, we found out that many films like ours have a strong male protagonist to appeal to both male and female audience. Also by having a strong dominant lead role makes the plot a lot more realistic and believable. But this is a very common role to have in film genre Action/ thriller. It would of added a twist to the film if it was a female protagonist and goes against the typical stereotypes of a women.

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

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

Throughout these stages of developing my media texts I used a number of types of technology, these included Television, Digital SLR Camera, Photoshop, IMovie. Technology has been one of the most important part of produces this project. It has allowed us to be able to improve are Trailer in many ways and also create a magazine cover and a poster to an effective and eye catching way. Technology has helped us to anchor images to the text in turn meaning we can effectively aim are media texts at our target audience.  YouTube was also used as an important site to upload our trailer. Facebook was also used to upload our trailer to; these are great sites as they allowed us to receive audience feedback the media texts.

When producing these media texts I needed to do a lot research before hand to understand the most effective way of filming a trailer. The Internet was a huge resource for information. I used the Internet to view other trailers and clips from movies to give me a greater understand of the codes and conventions of our trailer. Without the internet and YouTube clips I would have struggled to know what needs to be involved in our media trailer, and how to make it a successful trailer which appeals to our target audience.

When making our trailer there were aspects which I found challenging such as the use of software to edit our trailer but other aspects which I found a lot more second nature. For example the camera was very simple to use. The camera was touch screen, which made it a lot easier to move through videos and track down the right clip from the many on the SD card.  The stand, which we used, was a very simple but effective tool. It allowed us to film shots from a steady angle and improves picture quality compared to if you were using the camera free hand.

When filming we used the Nikon D3100. This is a very good camera to use for what we wanted to do as it had all the important technological aspects to it such as touch screen, fast shutter speed and many others. Also we were familiar with this camera as we had used it before for our practice trailer Big Fat Sweaty Coppers. 

We didn’t use the camera only for filming our media trailers. It was used to take photos for our magazines and posters. We did this by organizing a photo shoot which took place in various places inside and outside of school.  We managed to get some very effective photos for what we were looking to portray.  In our front covers and posters. For my magazine front cover I wanted to have a strong image on the front to attract the audience. There is three pictures of Jeremy razzell, (the main protagonist in the trailer) he is holding a gun in one of the photos, this emphasizes that the genre is action/ thriller and lets the audience into a taste of what the movie is about and how much action is in the movie without viewing the trailer. But I had to make sure not give too much away from the magazine. The poster is expresses different things compared to the magazine. I have used a gun wheel and added a screen shot from the trailer into each bullet holder. I believe this Is a good design for a poster as it not only looks eye catching and interesting it makes the decoder want to take an interest in the film as it gets the decoder imaging what the storyline is about.

When constructing my magazine cover and poster I decided to use Photoshop rather than the recommended Corel Draw. This is because I have more experience with using Photoshop and it is a lot simpler to use as importing images into the software is a lot easier, adding text to images in an attempt to anchor images to the text is a lot easier and finally, the editing of images and enhancement of images is much more effective in Photoshop.

Blogger is the website we used to display all our work, I found this a very helpful site to use as it kept all your work organized and available to be looked at by anyone. This made it easy for my teacher to mark and evaluate my work. It also allowed other students to give feedback on our work for example our film trailers.  The website is a very modern website which is easy to use and to set up. All you need is a email address and password and the majority of people used there school email which made this very simple. 

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

It is very important to complete some sort of audience feedback; this is because by receiving audience feedback it is helping to create a successful media text, which your decoders would want to purchase.  By holding a number of audience feedback sessions, I was able to gain advice about how to improve my work from start to finish.  Audience feedback is even very important at the highest level of producing films. Producers hold small cinema screenings to small audiences to gain feedback and ensure audience interest within the specific target audience.

We showed our draft to the class and received feedback on our basic outline of what our trailer is going to be based on. We received feedback on setting, plot, costume and characters. As we hadn’t fully developed our ideas at this point the audience feedback helped us edited are plot as it was said to of been “done a lot.”

We have an interview from Betty giving us feedback on our initial idea. This was a benefit to us as we could take the advice on board. We had changed are plot because of this feedback to his (Mark Steele) son being kidnapped and the challenges he has to go through to get his son back.  Also to receive some audience feedback we did a presentation of are idea to the class. The presentation including any clips we had shot for our new trailer and just our ideas we had come up with.  This helped us with things such as characters costumes. 

Social network sites allowed us to be able to receive audience feedback from a wide range of people mainly between the age of 16-20 as this is the average age group of my friends on Facebook meaning this group of people were able to view and comment on our trailer. We had feedback from many people saying "i would definitely watch that..... if the ending hadn't been revealed by the trailer." This is a fair comment as in the trailer it does show Mark Steele being reunited with his son. 

Click this link to view the comments made on our early footage 

Also we had uploaded this trailer to YouTube, this recieve 224 views and numerous comments. by having on this website it allows people to like and dislike the clip giving us a good indication of how popular it is and weather the  quality of filming and acting was of a higher enough standard. 

Film Trailer Magazine Cover

Film Trailer - Betrayal and Retribution

Locations

This shot was taken in the abandoned house in pembury, it was the perfect place for this particular scene to be filmed as it is quiete a dark, eerie, and depressing setting which was ideal for this clip. The house and the way in which the scene was filmed it all signifies how the character is feeling.

We had to be careful which classroom to use in school as we wanted the room to look more like an office than a classroom. Even thoug we have a shot from the school area we are trying to avoid using to much filming within the school as the area is very familiar and limits you to what you can express in each film clip and scene.