In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
From looking at the opening sequence of our teaser trailer the audience is instantly drawn to it by the mise-en-scene. This is because in the first four shots show the prop of a key and an old piece of paper in a location of old looking steps. This would interest the audience because they would want to know the significance of the key and old map.
An aspect of interest is the camera work. A high angle zoom in shot is the first camera angle that you see. It shows a key and map on a stone step. This is then followed by a low angle shot of the main female character, followed by a high angle shot of the key on the stone step (similar to the shot-reverse-shot). Three Person Shots are used in showing the closeness between the three main characters. Panning is used in showing movement and direction. Close ups are used to show the emotion of the characters.
These screen shots each represent a point in my evaluation. They show the high angle, low angle, 3 person shot and close up.
The mise-en-scene was selected carefully in order to create a child friendly atmosphere. The costumes of the characters were chosen to interest different personalities. The main girl character (Kimi) costume is very girly, the other female character (Lilah) is quite smart and the male character (Steve) is very scruffy. The villain character (Captain Charles) has zombie clothes with decaying body parts, but to make sure that it wasn’t too scary he has a pirate hat and sword. The use of pirate hat and sword helps in creating a representation that would be more positive towards children as the pirate hat might be recognised as a pirate adventure from childhood stories. The props used are a key and map and they add a sense of mystery to the teaser trailer as he audience are left wondering what they are for. The prop of the villain’s pirate sword although this is adding a sense of violence it is never used to harm anyone. The sword is also used by the villain character, therefore showing children that violence is wrong as none of the good characters have or use weapons.
These screen shots show each of teh characters and shows evidence that they are each represented differently, as explained above.
The main character (Kimi) is the first of the characters to be introduced. She is first seen by herself, accompanied by a voiceover specifically for her character. The other two characters then appear and each have their own voiceover specifically for that character. The villain character is then introduced, which is when the non-diegetic music changes to fast paced and loud.
Tension is built towards the end of the teaser trailer. This is when the villain kidnaps the character Lilah and ties her to a tree before stealing the map from her. As well as this the pace of the teaser trailer also increases as well as the pace of the non-diegetic music.
The teaser trailer ends with a close up of each of the character in turn in the order that they were introduced. Then the film credits are shown. After the credits is a close up of the villain character for approximately one second. This creates a sense of suspense and interests the audience as they want to find out more about the character and why they are staring evilly at the audience.
By looking at the four main aspects of the teaser trailer (camera work, editing, mise-en-scene and sound) it uses some of the conventions which would be seen in professional teaser trailers. These are the uses of a variety of camera angles, uses the costume to show different personalities and the non-diegetic voice over and background music with the diegetic voices of some of the characters.
Magazine
The main image on the front cover of the magazine has been taken by me. The image is positioned slightly to the right hand side of the frame. I edited this image first by selecting and removing the background, before adding text. The image has been placed over the text, making it appear as though the image is standing out or breaking out if the frame; this is something that I noticed was common in other peoples work.
The main heading is situated slightly towards the left hand side of the frame. The sub-headings are situated to the left hand side of the page with the sub-heading linked to the image across the bottom.
All of the headings on the magazine front cover use the same typography, with the sub-headings being in a smaller size. The main theme colour is red as it ties in with the red on the t-shirt of the person on the front cover. The second main colour used is white as this is also a colour featured on the character. By placing the headings on the left hand side of the frame to does not take the interest away from the image of the female actor on the right hand side of the frame.
The overall colour theme for the magazine front cover is red. As well as the font and the characters t-shirt there is also a thin rectangular box at the top of the page, which is red.
There aren’t any graphics or boxes on the magazine front cover. By doing this it will hopefully interest a wider audience, possibly the parents of children, so they may take their children to see the film.
Poster
The photograph on the poster was taken by me. The image on the poster is one of four of the main characters. This poster introduces the villain character. The concept behind this poster design is to introduce one character to the audience. When actually advertised there would be a series of four posters, each with a different character on. The poster is composed with the image slightly to the right hand side of the frame. There is a visual diagonal line in this image. It begins on the left hand side of the frame, where the grave stone is at its highest point. The visual line then slopes down as the height of the person is lower down. The dominant part of the poster is the eyes of the character. The eyes of the character draw the attention of the eyes of the audience. The eye is then drawn down and in a clockwise direction around the image. The lighting in this photograph is bright and the light reflects off the sword in the lower third of the frame. The main title is situated in the lower third of the frame. The image intrigues the audience as they want to know why the character is looking at them evilly.
The typography of the actors name, the character and the title is clear and easy to read. Despite this the main title is slightly difficult to read as the white colour of the title is similar to the colour of the image in the background. This then makes the letters ‘h’ and ‘e’ in ‘The’ difficult to read. On improving this poster I would change the colour of the typography for the title to make it clear to read. As well as this I would look closer into films which use multiple posters when advertising in order to show different characters. This would be to create an accurate adaption of their concept.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Overall
During this project I have kept to deadlines by following my production schedule. By doing so I was able to make sure that all each section of the coursework (the research, planning, production and evaluation). When working within a group and the work was divided up so that the work was completed in time I ended out doing some of the work not assigned to me myself. This included some of the planning stages and the two ancillary texts.
Although since starting my evaluation, almost two weeks after the ancillary deadline, one of the two ancillary texts has been completed by the assigned member of the group.
The products are successful in reaching the target audience as people aged eight to fifteen seemed to have an interest in the product.
Even though it was relatively successful in reaching its target audience the teaser trailer is not that professional. Some of the camera shots are not steady and the lighting in many of the camera shots is over exposed despite the white balance being set to ‘outdoor’. Then when trying to edit the exposure in iMovie it only downgraded the quality of the clip making it appear pixelated. The sound quality was also poor. When watching the teaser trailer back after saving it to disc it appears that after taking out clips to make the teaser trailer shorter two similar clips ended out beside each other. This makes the teaser trailer look unprofessional as the clips were not carefully selected.
If I was to redo the teaser trailer I would be the camera operator to make sure that the camera angles were steady and I would watch back all of the footage as I went along to make sure of this. In order to correct the over exposure of some of the camera angles I would have to make sure that the lighting in the area that was being filmed was not too bright and that the sun was in the direction behind where the camera was positioned.
When looking at the ancillary texts I would have looked more into magazines and studies the layout more carefully and in more depth as well as looking into Photoshop more carefully to discover how different tolls could be used effectively in creating different effects. I would also have looked more closely at the small details included on posters such as the film credits and logo that are used in the small print on film posters.
Overall there are many areas that could be improved upon if we were to have more time to make them appear more professional. Areas for improvement are video and sound quality on the teaser trailer, making sure every single clip is checked while editing before burning the file to disc and looking more carefully at existing products to try to recreate their effect.
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