Three Final Products

Trailer





Magazine Front Cover

Poster

15 Second Trailer

This is the 15 second trailer I created. This version has almost all the footages but trimmed very short so that the audience still get a glimpse of everything. Also, lots of footages with small duration make the trailer seem faster and exciting and that's the reaction I wanted to achieve from my audiences.

30 Second Trailer

This is the 30 second trailer I created by re timing my original trailer and deleting some scenes. In my research I found out that 30 second trailers are usually full of subtitles which I didn't achieve because I simply couldn't think of any subtitles.

Evaluation Question 1

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

A2 Media- Evaluation question 1 from nusuribibi

Evaluation Question 2

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

Evaluation Question 3- Feedback

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

During my feedback I asked a variety range of audiences because Stuart Hall believes that different audiences that have different cultural upbringing read media text differently. I also asked audiences over the age of 15 because that's my film certificate and  therefore I used;

• My sister who's female, Bengali, Law student and 20 years old
• Liam, male, English, 17 years old and a college student in Media and Film studies
• Shagul, Female, Kurkish 18 years old and a college student in Law, Sociology and Media
• Misba, Male, Bengali, 20 years old and a Plumber

I asked them what they liked, disliked, what I could improve on and whether it's appealing for their age. I used different media technology and apps such as Camera, WhatsApp, Phone etc and these are the feedback I have received.

First Draft Feedback

This is the first feedback I got from my friend Eda (17) via WhatsApp on my first draft. As you can see here she's talked about having music through out and she's like the idea of the black and white pictures which I'm quite pleased about myself to be honest.

                             

This is the second feedback I received on my first draft by Coruna (23) her feedback was very useful as she pointed out something I didn't think was a problem witch was the pictures not being the same size. However I don't think I can change the transition, as the speed of the transition conventional because I was influenced by Ouija trailer.

Trailer Feedback

My sister's feedback I learnt that my sound could have been more interesting and scary but overall she liked the concept and the mise-en-scene and found it suitable for her age. She also liked the black and white pictures at the beginning.

This is the Feedback I received from a doing a focus group of media students from the age of 18. Because they are media students I knew that they would give me constructive criticism. I learnt that my framings and sound was still a bit random and that I needed more narrative but overall I met the horror conventions and successfully targeted it at 15+ year olds.

Ancillary Text Feedback

This is the feedback I got from Liam on my ancillary text using my phone.

This is the feedback I got from Misba on WhatsApp, he likes the poster but not the magazine as much as it's too bright. This could be the brightness level of the black and white filter. 

The feedback I got from Shagul Via whatsapp is that she personally didn't like the bar code as she thinks its dull. Overall I'm happy with the feedback as she knows the genre which is what I wanted to achieve. 

The feedback I got on the poster has been quite common, in the sense that I've had a few comments about the text at the bottom not being visible but its supposed to be like that as it shouldn't over power the important features on the poster. Again I successfully demonstrated the genre.

During my final edit I resized the pictures, fixed the sound and added more footages. In my

ancillary text I added a few changes made the text at the bottom more visible by increasing the opacity. In my magazine I didn't really make changes other than improving it my by myself.

Evaluation Question 4

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

Draft Trailer

After submitting my final draft, I got feedback on my trailer saying that the pictures at the front isn't conventional so I redrafted my trailer.

My Characters

The costumes I had initially planned for my main actress was sort of coming to live. I was quite proud of the make up I had done on her, this would successfully make the audience aware of the genre.

The costume and make up for my male supporting actor wasn't the way I had planned it. However after designing my costume mood board he understood that it had to be autumn clothing as it's Halloween season. For Halloween his costume wasn't scary but nowadays costumes are made to be more parody than scary.

My supporting actress didn't follow her costume mood board but wore cardigans to give the  autumn affect. Because she had delayed filming her costume wasn't right as I decided to film urgently. However I just compromised her Halloween make up and kept it simple.

Ancillary Text- Magazine Front Cover

This is a Slideshare of how I created my magazine front cover.

A2 Media; Ancillary Text from nusuribibi

audience feedback questions

Male or female

which product is better?

poster or magazine front cover?

Do they both match in design?

Would have you bought that?

Is it appealing?

Can you tell the genre?

Ancillary Text- How I Created My Poster

More Trailer Research

15 second Trailer


In this 15 second trailer, there's not that much footage. It shows key scenes and screams to emphasis the importance of the little fly. Although it is 15 seconds there's so much happening and still includes all the features such as titles voice overs and release date. At the bottom of the trailer there's the film title along with the age certificate. This is quite simple and I'm inspired by the text at the bottom which I would like to include in mine. However I don't want a voice over other than a sound track.


 30 second trailer- In this trailer there's a lot of subtitles with one footage that's been edited quite fast. I believe this trailer will be the same as my actual trailer, the only difference would be that the trailer would be faster .

Cast

1st Draft

This is the first draft, half way through completion. It follows my narrative up to 34 seconds. From the previous draft I had published on here was quite basic and empty. I put in more pictures and edited in more footage that I thought I had lost. As you can see from the first draft I had changed the colour of the font from red to purple to keep the continuity of purple through out my product of trailer, front cover and poster.

In one of my footage; of the girl screaming, I didn't like the lighting which I would like to re film again if i have time. So in the mean time I just used Final Cut Pro filter called Hue/Saturation as it looks vintage and dark but in the future I will manage my lighting the way I way I want it to be shown on screen as I will achieve in giving the right connotations of horror. Another change that I have made in my narrative is the baby part, because I can't arrange a baby instead I just used a black screen with a voice over on top with a baby crying to make it realistic as possible as when babies are born they are heard crying at first.

This draft might not make sense that is because I sill have some footage to film and edit.

Film Magazine Questionnaire- Research

Film Magazine Questionnaire

1) Age? (Circle one of the following options please)

   15-17  18-20  21-24  25-30  31-35 36+

I gave a range of different options because I wanted to know which age is more interested in magazines and which age chose the price as I believed that 21+ in age would be working class (c2)  and could perhaps buy magazines for £8 but in actual fact people older than that age had chosen the price of the magazine to be between £2-£4 even after giving the questionnaires out to specific working class people, such as teachers.

2) M or F

3) Do you know of any film magazines? If so, which one?

•  Empire
• Sight & Saw
• Total Film

4) Can you suggest me a name to call my magazine?

•  The Scope 
• Everyday News
• Cinematic 
• Pulse
• Film Times
• Films 4 You 
• Gidişli (Trending)
• HD Films
• Reel
• Groovy Movie 
• Reel To Reel

5) At which price would you buy the magazine for?

• £2- £4
• £5-£8
• Non above

6) What are your usual reasons into buying a magazine?

•  Cast And Crew
• Locations 
• Special Effects 
• New Film
• Free Gifts 
• Interest In Films
• Fashion/celebs/gossip and products
• Front Cover 
• Articles

This Question really helped me because I will keep in mind how to make my magazine effective and appealing, I have already decided that my free gift would be posters. 

7) Would you buy a film magazine based on a horror film?

8) Do you prefer a digital magazine or a hard paper copy?

This question helped me into deciding whether to create a digital magazine or a hard paper copy as this research has told me no matter what age you are, 80% of the people like hard copy. As I had stereotyped that perhaps older people would like hard paper copy because they can't keep up with technology. 

Thank you for your time

Feedback

I told my Twitter followers to give me some feedback on my first draft so that I can get an Idea of what the audience are looking for. I also shared it throughTwitter  because majority of my followers are my age and probably Uni students and I find that people on Twitter are very honest with their comments which I need to be honest. 

1st draft

This is just a draft that I have put together following my story board, there some blank parts, no sound and that's because there are some footage that I still need to film. This draft is to personally help me in what I need to because so that I'm more faster with my coursework as the deadline is near. Today's date is 25/2/14 and i'm hoping to finish and film the rest of my footage in two weeks, the only thing that's delaying me is male actors.

Everything in this trailer is my original work, I created everything by myself including the production logo and black and white pictures. Up to now I have included the conventional features such as titles, subtitles and pictures.

Subtitle & Production Logo Design & Research

As you can see here, I've used different fonts on Photo Shop to give me an idea of what I want my logo to look like. I want it simple but memorable. I think I like the font Kozuka Gothic Pro,  it's different and matches my style I also like French Script MT and Sakal Majalla; this is a mixture of both fonts as I wanted my initials to stand out and keep the 'films' simple.  Overall I'm going to choose French Script MT and Sakal Majalla and have it in the colour white with a black background. 

In this picture I've also tried out different font styles for my 'coming soon' subtitle. As you can see here, I've researched the conventions of coming soon subtitles in horror trailers. There are 6 screen shots of subtitle from different trailers and the fonts are very simple and usually in the colour white. Even though some trailers feature the releasing date, the style still stays the same and the background is always dark. From the list of fonts that I have tried out I like all of them however I'm going to choose Adobe Fangson because it's quite similar to existing subtitles. 

I designed this production by using my college's logo and turning it into a film logo by simply adding a text that says production or adding another image of a film strip from Google images. I like the first one I created; by adding a film strip to it because usually production logos are not simple. As you can see in the below picture the production logos are very colourful however I was inspired by the simplicity of the 'New Line Cinema' Production logo as this company also produced 'The Conjuring'.

Film diary

Date; 11.2.15
Time; 3:15
Location; Green Room

I filmed all the sequences where my witch is featured alone. The lady screaming at the beginning of my trailer is the witches mum and I didn't bother looking for another because I thought I could use the same face as they're mother and daughter and are bound to have similar faces.

I filmed after college as that's the only times my actress and I have matching free time. I had quite a few problems with camera and lighting. The lighting was initially meant to be dark to connote horror and to meet the iconography of a horror film, my teacher and I playing around with the lights it still seemed bright. I took photos of the actress for my magazine before I filmed the sequence. I also filmed me doing her make up. Overall that day was stressful everything was going wrong and didn't meet my expectations but too much time was waisted as I thought I could do an hour and a half as I planned to do her make up in 30 minutes and then film photograph in the remaining time. However, I used more time as expected and wrapped up at half 5.

There was one lunch time were I filmed my actors meeting for the first time during lunch time.


Date: 26:3:15

I was supposed to film today, after college of all of my remaining sequences that I had planned. I got my main actress ready according to my research and my supporting actor had already got ready and went to the cemetery; location. However one of my actresses went home without telling us as she had a family emergency. I respected her situation but disappointed, which then I only managed to film the last scene in the green room whilst she had her make up done. I was initially planning to get the remaining filming done during half term but they were either busy or not in Hull and finding a date for everyone to get together was difficult.

The Monday we returned back to college on 13:4;15 I arranged to meet my two supporting actors as I needed to film a crucial part in the narrative. This was successfully done on college campus.

I finally found a date for filming which was on 18:4:15 in the morning in the cemetery of Spring Bank West. My main actress couldn't wear the make up I had planned because from filming she had to go straight to work. So whilst filming I had to dismiss her face. Once again I was disappointed as my supporting actress didn't turn up which made me impatient. I contacted her a several times but she wasn't responding. I then just carried on filming following my story board but I added another scene in where my main actress is looking at a grave stone to add more footage. If I knew that my supporting actress would fail on me again I should have just filmed on the 26:3:15 and would have learnt my mistakes and made improvements sooner.

DEADLINE DAY! 20/4/15

 I had quickly made arrangements to film my supporting actress screaming whilst she had constantly delayed me before. I couldn't do her make up the way I had planned it but to so I just compromised and drew wiskas, eye-liner, lipstick and eyebrows.

2nd Draft

This is my second draft, however this is an incomplete second draft because I have filmed other stuff but I am having technical difficulties and therefore couldn't edit the sequence. I also haven't designed a production logo just yet.

This draft doesn't quite follow my story board and it's also quite long but I don't know what to delete because In my honest opinion I kind of like what I filmed and edited.

Anciliary Text- Poster analysis

Conventionally posters are very simple and less detailed because they don't to give too much away. However in my research I've realised that the iconography of horror genre still remains the same even in a different text format.

In a horror film poster the colours are very dark, conventional colours such as black, red and white are seen. The text is usually written in white . At the bottom there's all the names of institutions, directors and other technical information. As you can see from the posters above; they are very simple but appealing. This could be because they don't want to give too much away. However, demonstrating the key element of the narrative such as main characters or important props are seen on the poster to give the audience an idea of the film would be about . The conventional layout of posters are very basic they include features such as masthead, main image, listings, reviews, release date technical information and tag line. The main image is usually dark to connote fear and and death. Dark colours are iconic in a horror genre and therefore it is used on posters so that the appropriate audience can identify the film genre just by looking at the features.

There's always one image at the front, this could be because the object featuring is key to the narrative which will get the audience intrigued to know what the film has in store for them. The similarities between all these posters would be that they all have more or less white fonts. This is a contrast to the dark main image and this could because they give an opposite connotations of victim and innocence. This could also just perhaps be that it stands out because from a distance dark images are seen not clearly therefore the font needs to be noticeable. The technical information at the bottom always has it's opacity down this could because the information isn't that important as the masthead, tagline and main image however it saves the company from anyone stealing the poster and claiming it's theirs.
I like the Trick R Treat poster because of the house style of orange connotes Halloween as well as the pumpkin because this narrative matches my Halloween themed narrative however I'm following the conventions of a recent horror film which is Ouija because it's simple and effective.

Photo-shoot and Make Up For The Magazine Front Cover

Location; Green Room
Date 11.2.15

 After I applied some makeup to my actress, I had to quickly take some pictures to feature it on my front cover. My colour theme on my front cover is purple and black, to match the purple make up that I had initially planned when planning my costume and make up. However I was rushing through and managed to get couple of pictures. I already knew the conventions of a front cover main image; close up is key and therefore I honestly didn't bother trying different angles because I had to film too.

 Another problem I had was the lighting, I wanted it a bit dim but after playing around the lights I still couldn't manage to get it how I wanted it. Also when I was rushing my brain stops working and I completely forgot that I could have used the black backdrop instead of the white wall. Now when i'm editing I have to carefully remove the background which is quite difficult to do when there's the actresses hair's out, whereas if I used the black curtain behind her I wouldn't have needed to crop her out the background because my front covers background is black anyways.

(unedited pictures)

This is the make up look I created inspired by Glam&Gore. I recorde myself applying make up on my actress by leaving it on record and on a tripod. I edited this recording on Final cut pro as that's the programme I feel comfortable with. To save time I just retimed the recording to 2x faster. As you can see this clip had already started with the actress with eyeshadow on that is because I forgot to press record. I t doesn't quite look like what I saw on YouTube but I can edit the pictures on PhotoShop. 

Anciliary Text - Textual Analysis

This EMPIRE magazine front cover is very old, I believe it's from 2001. I am going to do a textual analysis of this front cover and compare it with another EMPIRE magazine from 2009.

I have annotated the conventional features of the magazine; which without wouldn't look very appealing. The Masthead of the magazine is the magazine name; the font of the masthead is sharp as well as round. The sharpness of the pint connotes evilness where as the round connotes soft and gentle. These connotations are opposite in meaning and therefore could cause confusion for the audience.The colour scheme of the font is just red; this colour connotes blood, danger and devils. However this colour could also symbalise love. Similarly on the Empire magazine of Twilight the masthead also has the colour scheme of red and the alphabet 'M' is still the same font; sharp and chunky. This suggests that this magazine is still carrying on its iconic style but the only difference is the font has changed a little.

The main image, is on the right side of the front cover and it's only showing half of the face to make the cover look more creepy. The red eye colour matches the colour scheme, which indicates that the magazine is about his character. There's low key lighting on one side of his face and high key lighting on the other side. Once again this gives ambiguous connotations and suggests the character has two personalities. The main image also also informs the audience that he's the main Character of the film. However, on the Empire magazine of Twilight is different, the main character is seen making direct address whilst the camera angle conventionally is a mid close up. This tells me that the style of Empire magazine has changed over the recent years. However the background; low key lighting hasn't changed, this could be because the iconography of horror/fantasy uses a lot of black to connote death.

The Sky line is always above the masthead and usually advertises important information such as 'free posters' and other information. Magazines always have different features and styles when it comes to the sky line. There isn't a iconic style that gets carried on.

From the 2001 EMPIRE magazine the sell lines/cover lines have decreased a little bit, this could be because the magazine doesn't want to give too much information away and keeps the audience focused on the main image. However the colour scheme has been carried through as the colour of the writing is still white. This is so that the black background and its deathly connotation is emphasized.

The date and price hasn't changed its position on the magazine and it's still placed on top of the 'M' even after 9 years. However the price has increased rapidly from £2.95 to £8.95, this could be because the magazine has developed and improved in its quality, over time. This is also a very conventional feature on any types of magazine, because without it the audience would not be able to decide whether they should buy the magazine or not. This also suggests that the audience are going to be C2 (possibly D) and above as this table below demonstrates. This is simply because they'll be earning and it'll be easy to accept the price. However, the price also identifies the target audience of the magazine as to be a skilled worker you need to be 18 and above in age. Twilight the film has age certificate of PG 13, the young audience would have not been able to afford an £9 magazine because they're not earning.

The bar-code is still at the front left bottom corner of the magazine. This is also a conventional feature which without it wouldn't look like a front cover but rather a magazine. Also the web address is also a conventional feature which allows the audience to read the magazine but in a different format. One thing that has changed about the web address it would be that it's gone from '.co.uk' to .'com', meaning that the magazine's institution has developed and improved and have gained audiences worldwide.

Hand Drawn Magazine Front Cover

This is my first draft on my magazine front cover I will produce in the up coming week. The background will be black and it will look like a horror magazine. I was inspired by EMPIRE magazine as it's very simple but appealing. My main image would be of my main character in her Halloween costume; because it's conventional of the magazine to have the main actor of the film featured on the magazine front cover. 

I have also included conventional magazine features such as; Masthead, Main image, bar code, price, web address, cover lines, tag lines, sky line, date etc. Without these features, the magazine won't look like a magazine as it will lack in detail and information.

The colour scheme of the masthead and tag line is orange because it's a Halloween theme colour. However there would also be other colours such as red and black blended in with the colour orange on Photoshop so that it looks more professional and not cheap. My overall colour scheme would be white for font, orange and red and hints black.  

Research; Film Magazine Questionnaire

Film Magazine Questionnaire

1) Age?

2)          M           F

3) Do you know of any film magazines? If so, which one?

4) Can you suggest me a name to call my magazine?

5) At which price would you buy the magazine for?

• £2- £4
• £5-£8
• Non above

6) What are your usual reasons into buying a magazine?

7) Would you buy a film magazine based on a horror film?

8) What would you like to see in my this film magazine?

9) Do you prefer a digital magazine or a hard paper copy?

Thank you for your time


Although it's personal, I've chosen to ask about age and gender because it will help me judge on the price as it will define which age belongs to a social group as they choose the price. I've also asked for magazine name suggestions because I can't think of any.  I gave them a list of prices because stereotypically, I know that teenagers would choose the low price and adults who are possibly employed would choose a high price. Also question 6 might sound weird but what I meant was that sometimes the audience choose the magazine because of what's featured or sometimes they're just a regular customer. Question 9 will tell me which age range commonly use web 2.0 and proliferation.

Potion Tutorial and Inspiration

These are some videos I found on YouTube on how to create a potion using juice and dry ice for the extra effect. It's easy and harmless and will not be dangerous to be carried out in college.  However if I 'm doing it in the green room then I must be cautious for safety reasons, I don't want to spill any juices when there would be wires around.

I will have to purchase the dry ice from online somewhere and buy juice from local shops. I quite like the idea of the twigs in the bowl so I might also find some twigs outside and stick it in too. To make the fog green I might have to use green spotlights which I can get Ben (Media Technician) to help me with the lighting.