-How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
The internet and other media technologies were used a lot in the research and execution of our media product.
Main internet sites that were used are:
http://www.apple.com/trailers - used in research and planning of existing trailers.
www.facebook.com - although we didn't use this to make an account of our product, we used it to communicate ideas.
http://www.blogger.com/ - This site was used for discussing and evaluating everything we have done. It was also very useful for looking at other people's blogs, to see what is missing from ours and what is effective and what's not.
Other media technologies used a lot in the making of our trailer and ancillary tasks were:
Adobe Photoshop - used for editing the title, images, and poster and magazine cover.
iMovie - This was used for the editing of our trailer.
LogicPro - This was used to make the music. This software was very helpful, as it had a lot of samples on, and is quite easy to use.
Garageband was also used to test out what kinds of sounds we wanted to use in our music.
Friday
-What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We wanted to know how effective our trailer was, so decided to ask people to watch it then ask them questions about it after. These are the questions posed to them:
1. What did you think of the trailer?
2. Is there anything you specifically liked?
3. In what ways do you think it has followed slasher horror trailer conventions?
4. What did you think of the killer's weapon?
5. How effective is the sound, both diegetic and non-diegetic, in the trailer?
6. Does the trailer make you want to see the film?
We got mixed feedback from our trailer, as some people liked certain aspects more than others. For example, one person said they liked the framing of the shots and the location, as it was effective in making it look isolated and scary.
Another person mentioned that they specifically liked the sound we used, and it was effective in it's aim.
The fact that the killer was hooded and had a hidden identity was liked by most people, as it followed conventions of existing, popular horror films.
We wanted to know how effective our trailer was, so decided to ask people to watch it then ask them questions about it after. These are the questions posed to them:
1. What did you think of the trailer?
2. Is there anything you specifically liked?
3. In what ways do you think it has followed slasher horror trailer conventions?
4. What did you think of the killer's weapon?
5. How effective is the sound, both diegetic and non-diegetic, in the trailer?
6. Does the trailer make you want to see the film?
We got mixed feedback from our trailer, as some people liked certain aspects more than others. For example, one person said they liked the framing of the shots and the location, as it was effective in making it look isolated and scary.
Another person mentioned that they specifically liked the sound we used, and it was effective in it's aim.
The fact that the killer was hooded and had a hidden identity was liked by most people, as it followed conventions of existing, popular horror films.
-How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The film's poster and magazine cover uses some of the same images and colours as the actual trailer, so I think they work well together. On the day of filming, Saidi took some still images to use for our poster, magazine cover and our blogs. Saidi and Spike did a film poster each, so we could see which one we liked best and would use. Anabel did the magazine cover. They all used images which were taken while filming, and edited them to make them scary and so they looked more like horror film images, so the images link the ancillary texts to the trailer. One of the posters also uses the title that I drew and edited in photoshop, although I don't know how effective that is in making it scary.
The film's poster and magazine cover uses some of the same images and colours as the actual trailer, so I think they work well together. On the day of filming, Saidi took some still images to use for our poster, magazine cover and our blogs. Saidi and Spike did a film poster each, so we could see which one we liked best and would use. Anabel did the magazine cover. They all used images which were taken while filming, and edited them to make them scary and so they looked more like horror film images, so the images link the ancillary texts to the trailer. One of the posters also uses the title that I drew and edited in photoshop, although I don't know how effective that is in making it scary.
I felt that, after editing the title in Photoshop, it wasn't as effective as it could have been. It was meant to look real and scary, and I think I could have achieved this if I painted or coloured it in before I scanned it in. The colours and thickness of the lines made it look like a cartoon-type font, so takes away the scariness of it... I think if it looked slightly scarier and more like a horror film title font, it would have been more effective with the ancillary texts.
As a marketing campaign, I think the combination of our trailer, poster and magazine cover altogether, although not bad, could have been better. The colours of both the poster and the magazine were effective in making it scary, and I think they do link to the trailer, but maybe it could have worked better if when making the poster and magazine, each person had images of the other ancillary task. For example, when making the poster, Saidi could have had an image of the magazine cover, or if not that, we could have communicated better as a group. We could have made a facebook account for our trailer, and communicated what we wanted to do on it...
-In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When doing research and planning for our media product, we looked at the conventions of slasher/horror films and trailers. To make our trailer and ancillary texts interesting, we decided to follow some of these conventions, but also to challenge them. For example, one convention of slasher films is that the killer usually prefers to kill using hand-held weapons such as knives, axes and chainsaws. However, in our 'film', we chose that the killer's weapon would be a (sort-of) part of him - metal claws that fit onto his fingers. This is also developing the conventions of slashers as he made the claws himself, which fits into our back story. This is our USP, as our killer is an intelligent young man, who is good at designing and making something that could be quite complex, (especially as the claws are metal) who also got bullied as a school kid. The fact that he got bullied follows the conventions of slasher films, as killers tend to have had a childhood trauma.
Another convention that we followed, was that of the victim. Generally, in slasher/horror films, the victims are a member of the young community, who are punished for having delight in vices such as drugs and sex. In our trailer, the victim is seen waiting for a drug dealer before the killer approaches.
When doing research and planning for our media product, we looked at the conventions of slasher/horror films and trailers. To make our trailer and ancillary texts interesting, we decided to follow some of these conventions, but also to challenge them. For example, one convention of slasher films is that the killer usually prefers to kill using hand-held weapons such as knives, axes and chainsaws. However, in our 'film', we chose that the killer's weapon would be a (sort-of) part of him - metal claws that fit onto his fingers. This is also developing the conventions of slashers as he made the claws himself, which fits into our back story. This is our USP, as our killer is an intelligent young man, who is good at designing and making something that could be quite complex, (especially as the claws are metal) who also got bullied as a school kid. The fact that he got bullied follows the conventions of slasher films, as killers tend to have had a childhood trauma.
Another convention that we followed, was that of the victim. Generally, in slasher/horror films, the victims are a member of the young community, who are punished for having delight in vices such as drugs and sex. In our trailer, the victim is seen waiting for a drug dealer before the killer approaches.
Other conventions of horror trailers is the choice of a voiceover, or explanatory dialogue. Many horror trailers have explanatory dialogue from the film playing over the top of the images shown, to let the audience know what is going on, to make it easier to understand. Most of these trailers, instead of having a voiceover, also have text in between shots as well as dialogue and music. This text is usually a few words every 5-10 seconds, explaining what the film is about using very little words, as to catch your eye and make it easy to read. I think a voiceover is not needed in horror trailers if dialogue and music is used to create the same effect. Sound (music and effects in particular) is paramount in horror trailers and films - without sound they wouldn't be scary. Here are some examples of trailers that don't have a voiceover, but are still effective:
Following these conventions, we decided that a voiceover wouldn't be needed in our trailer, and instead music and dialogue was used. We decided not to use explanatory text either, as our trailer is quite self-explanatory and there isn't anything difficult to understand in it.
Thursday
Font for title: final copy
I refined the first draft of the title, re-doing it a few times to make sure it was right, as the claws drawn had to look like the real ones. The first couple of copies I did either didn't look like real fingers, or the whole thing looked a bit too like a cartoon. I wanted it to have more of an impact, and to look like real fingers, but also like it was hand drawn. When I finally finished drawing up the neat title, I had to scan it into the computer to work on in Photoshop. I had a bit of trouble scanning at first, as I drew it in pencil so it didn't show up properly on the computer. I had to draw over it in black pen. This wasn't good for me, as I thought it made it look more cartoon-y.
Once it was all scanned in, I started trying to make it more scary and life-like. I coloured the fingers in skin colour and the claws in 'silver'. However, there was no such thing as the color silver on Photoshop, so I had to colour them in grey with gradient to make it look shiney. To colour in all different parts of the image, I had to make a seperate layer for each part, which took quite a while. Once I had done that, I had to put blood into it - on the nails. However, as I am no Photoshop wizz, this wasn't as easy as expected. In the end, after a few technical problems, I decided it would be best to just use the paint tool with a small diameter to 'paint' the red blood onto it. As I had to be careful, this took longer than expected.
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