Evaluation

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

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

Looking back at my overall production I am very pleased with my combination of trailer, poster and magazine cover. I am happy with how they have all eventually tied in together to create a promotional campaign that I believe is effective.
Firstly, when looking at my magazine and poster there is a clear consistent colour range throughout them. I have used three main colours, black, red and white to keep a colour theme that relates to the film. These three colours have worked well together and represent a horror them genre. When looking into other promotional campaigns I discovered that most films had a set of colours that represent the film and remain remorable to the film itself,  I then took this idea upon my campaign. The colour red connotates blood and stands out against the black background. This colour was found a lot when I was researching other promotional media texts and was almost always present in the horror genre. Most posters and magazines I researched had a dark background colour which allowed text and symbols to stand out and which then creates a visually pleasing advert. The text is easy to read and when passing quickly can be read at a glance. I have used typical conventions of the horror genre, such as fast editing in my trailer alongside a scary unknown character. In my poster and magazine cover I have used close up shots to create a relationship between the audience and the 'scary' character. Having direct eye contact from the character on both the poster and magazine creates a feeling that the 'little boy' is staring at you in particular, playing the on horror conventions. I believe the mixture of codes and contentions have been successful throughout all three of my pieces of work. Simple conventions such as the style of font make a big difference when creating different adverting campaigns. I decided to keep the font of the title of the film the same on both the poster and magazine and it also fairly similar in the opening sequence of my trailer. My actor is wearing the same clothes and make up throughout all three pieces of work which adds character and becomes more memorable. The item of clothing is then connected to the particular charatcer and will help with comparisons between the poster and magazine. If the character was wearing different clothing and looked different in all three pieces the audience by get confused on who the character is ment to be or connate. After recieving plently of feedback throughout the proccess of this project I was able to edit and adapt on what my peers thought of my work. A key element that I worked on was te font and style of my text on both the poster and magazine. I spent quite a lot of time choosing and working out with text best suited my theme and looked most professional. With help and advice from my peers I came to an conclusion and I am happy with the outcome. I think the text looks professional and clear yet works well with my theme.
If I was to re-do these three tasks or had time to improve them I would re-shoot some of the shots for my trailer. Even though I believe I had a range of shots and different angles in my trailer, if I had more time I would have liked to been able to go back and film on a high quality camera and capture a few more shoots. I feel this would have just added a bit more to my trailer if I had one more different location as well as the abandoned house and roads. Also I would have liked to have more time to experiment with the editing software Adobe Premiere as I had never used the programme before starting this coursework. I wasn't completely confident on how to do everything when it came to editing my trailer and had to teach myself as I went along. This then let down my editing skills as the time it took for me to learn the software then left less time for me to begin editing. If I had more time to do this production again I would have spent a few more days using Adobe Premiere to learn more about what editing I could do. I believe this then would have improved my trailer a lot. I am happy with my poster and magazine cover and don't think much more time or resources would help to improve them that much. I have a good understanding of photoshop and indesign therefore knew exactly how the softwares worked and didn't waste any time.
In conclusion, I have generally happy with the results of the main product and ancillary tasks and believe I worked to the best of my throughout all three.

Question 3- What have you learnt from the audience feedback?

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

Magazine Cover Making

To begin with, I went through all my images from my contact sheet and decided on a image to use. I chose a portrait image as this is the normal style of a magazine and would work better when I started adding text. I edited my image in Photoshop and firstly removed the ties and logo from the jumper. I used the clone tool to cover up the unwanted parts of the jumper and I am really pleased with the outcome. 

I then darken the outside of the image by using the paint brush and gradient tool. I wanted to create the effect that the character was lit up in the middle, which I had also done with my poster. 

I placed the image into InDesign so that I could add text. I changed the title of the magazine a few times until I decided on one. I also struggled with choosing which font I wanted for my magazine title. I decided on a bold but simple text that would be memorable. To make it a memorable name title I changed the colour and sizing of the letter 'M'. This has made the title slightly more unique and also follows with the colours of the magazine. I added the typical features that you find on a magazine cover such as the price and bar-code. I placed these to the left side, just under the title because when researching and viewing other magazines on the market I found that this was a popular location on the cover.

On my magazine cover I used buzz words such as 'plus,' 'win' and 'exclusive'. These words make the audience feel as if they are buying information that can't be found anywhere else. Having the word exclusive central and in large font makes it stand out on the page. It helps to make the potential buyers more inclined to want to read the magazine and find out what is inside. 

Final Magazine

Audience Feedback 

I uploaded my final magazine cover to Facebook to receive audience feedback. Overall the comments were positive and people liked the cover that I had produced. Katie liked the design of my magazine title with 'M' standing out against the other letters. If I was to re-do my magazine cover I would add another image to the film strip and make the text slightly bigger and stand out more in the read circle.

Film Poster Making

This the contact sheet for my images I took for the film poster and magazine. I took images in portrait style, as well as landscape as I wanted to experiment with the framing of my images. Also, from my research I discovered that many other popular posters varied in style. However, most magazines were portrait style therefore I needed a good amount of different shots to try and get the best one. I tried to capture close up images as well mid-close up shots so that when I came to choosing which images to use I would have a good range to choose from. I decided against taking and long, body shots because I thought that the direct eye contact would create more of a connection between the audience and the scary character. 

After choosing the image I wanted to use for my film poster I decided to edit out a few things from the image on Photoshop. I got rid of the strings on Laura's hoody because I didn't think they suited the image and took some attention away from her face. I successfully did this and was happy with the outcome.  

I edited the image so that a lot of the picture was dark, this then allowed me to place text on top. Also as my film is a horror film I wanted the poster to represent this and thought that using dark colour would be best. From my research Id found that a lot of horror film posters used dark colours and red writing (maybe representing blood) which indicated that the film was going to be of a horror genre. 

When adding text I used the software 'InDesign.' The text is very important on a film poster as many poster are only seen as a glance as someone drives or walks past therefore the text needs to be easy to read and stand out. I played around with using lots of different types of fonts and sizes but in fact found it very hard to choose a style of font for my film title.

Audience Feedback 

I decided it would be a good idea to gather some audience feedback about my poster so far in the process of designing and making it. I uploaded an image onto Facebook and asked my friends to take a lot and comment on ideas to improve and what is working well. 

The comments I received helped me to develop and improve my poster. From the feedback I worked more on improving my title and making it stand out more against the dark background. I took both Katie's and Beth's comments on board and changed the style of the title.  

I tried to make the title look as if the writing had been scratched and ruined however this effect made the actual title less visible. I liked the idea but it made the title stand out less and was more difficult to read at a glance. So I came to a conclusion after trying out different styles that the best text was to use a simple font with a bright red colour. The red stands out well against the dark black background and therefore it is really easy to read from either a distance or a quick glance. I included a sentence at the top of the poster saying what other films have been produced by the same company. This could then encourage people to see the film because they liked the other two films made by the company.  I used quotes on my poster, to again encourage people to go and see the film because it is showing to have had good reviews. 

Audience Feedback

I decided to get some feedback using the social media website, Facebook.  I uploaded my final poster and get my friends to comment on what they thought the final outcome was like. Mostly the comments were positive and the feedback said it looked professional. From my audience feedback I realised that my title 'Dear Little Boy' could have been more interesting and made to stand out slightly more. If I was to re-do my poster I would spend more time getting my title to look more unique. I did spend a lot of time playing around on photoshop with the text and trying lots of different styles, however because my photoshop skills are completely amazing I lacked the knowledge to be able to do exactly what I wanted which results in a more simple title. I am still pleased with my title because it is easy and simple to read from a glance which is important for a poster.