1. In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When my group came together we wanted to make the best A-Level Trailer product that we could possible produce. To do this we decided to undertake some research. We did this by watching various trailers with different genres. Then we talked about what genre trailer attracted us the most. After our discussion about, which genre we were going to choose we decided to go with teenage/thriller horror.
Then we analyzed three trailers they were “When A Stranger Calls, SAW and My Soul To Take”. We talked about the conventions that we thought we should include in a trailer. We came up with fast editing, confusing story (dew to the genre we picked), dark coloring, exiting cinematography, good background music that sets the mood, artistic and a cliff hanger so that the viewers are interested to see the actual movie.
I have made a 3 by 3 style grid to illustrate this in more detail. To make this as compact and detailed as possible I chose the 9 most important screen shots throughout the trailer and explain why I believe this.
Screenshot 1
I chose this shot, as I believe that the opening trailer scene makes a huge impact on the audiences because as soon as they see a person with a gun there are different thought processes going through the audiences mind. For example in “When A Stranger Calls” the opening is bright and there is a conversation between the two characters. This gives the sense that it’s a normal day, until the night approaches were all of a sudden mood, atmosphere, color and facial expressions change. With this screenshot this is what we tried to achieve, as we wanted variations of emotions flowing through the viewers. We also used a close up on the face with the gun to give a clearer image of what the character is holding, as it is dark and hard to identify what the prop is.
Screenshot 2
I chose this screenshot as I thought that many trailers with different genre used this kind of technique to allow the viewers to interact so that they get concentrated in a variety of content. Also I think that this is a critical convention in trailers as it allows audiences to pause and think about what’s going on and try and figure out a “puzzle” that’s why it is important to not give out too much information so that they keep thinking about that trailer and find themselves in knots. This shot is important not only because it allows audiences to think about what is happening, but it also allows a free flowing transmission between different scenes, therefore there aren’t any sudden stops to that specific scene but twist.
Screenshot 3
This was one of the most important screenshots I think as it introduces another character, which makes the trailer more exiting. Also it shows the characters expression and gives some of the storyline to the viewers so that they kind of have a picture about what is going on. If you look closely above the female character (Sonia Routlage) you can see a pair of feet. This illustrates the artistic side of cinematography, which a lot of teenage/thriller horror trailers contain. This just really adds to the excitement of watching the trailer so that the audiences do not get bored as at the end of the day that’s what trailer try and achieve. This would be a key convention for a trailer of our genre, therefore that’s what we tried to do and mimic.
Screenshot 4
I like this screenshot because our trailer does not have much action in it, therefore like most trailers we decided to add some action in it. If you watched the trailer it’s a sudden move so the audiences do not expect it and I think that’s one of the key conventions in a trailer where you add something unexpected, which makes the trailer more thrilling to watch.
Screenshot 5
I chose this shot as I thought that it was necessary to get the viewers more synced into the trailer. With many professional trailers they show or mention a death in horror/thriller trailers to back up the fact that the film is the genre it is. Also it adds some excitement into the whole project. If you watched the trailer the scene were Sonia is a corpse is very quick so that it shocks the audiences, again this is to build tension and show the unexpected.
Screenshot 6
This is probably my favorite shot in the whole trailer as it looks great and artistic, also it has a mysterious look, which is what we tried to achieve throughout making this product. Using key conventions is important for a trailer, but I think using the environment is also important for example ‘My Soul To Take’ has amazing scenery in the trailer as they use the environment and its shadows, colors and so on. Therefore we tried to base our trailer with a variety of different professional trailers and pick out the most exiting and important parts in each of them, so that our product had the best practice from each of the trailer that we chose. In most trailers they like to make their scenes look stylish by making the character look good in this case making the character mysterious, therefore I think identity of the character is a key convention.
Screenshot 7
If you look at our Film Poster and Magazine we built a theme on this screenshot as if you look closely the costume that he is wearing is identical to what he is wearing in the poster and magazine cover. Many upcoming films do this for example ‘Thor’, which is not even a horror/thriller genre film or ‘Clash Of The Titans’ that has already been released undertake these kinds of techniques, therefore we thought that we should theme our magazine cover and film poster as well. This is why I thought this screenshot was important as the key convention of a trailer can affect other external things like the poster and magazine cover.
Screenshot 8
I chose this screenshot because when I watched trailers with different genres all of them had a title either at the beginning middle or at the end of the trailer. So obviously this was a very important convention that had to be featured, therefore my group came up with a title and created a font that suited our genre of our trailer.
Screenshot 9
This screenshot is nothing exiting but I thought it was important as it gave information about the film like who distributed our film, which studio it was produced, who the actors/actresses are and so on. This information is shown in every trailer so it was really necessary for us to also include it; therefore I thought that this was a key convention and an important screen shot.
2. How effective is the combination of your film trailer and ancillary texts?
To answer this question I have produced a video vlog that is around 7 minutes long. I talk about how effective our three products are and compare it to another film called 'Thor'. I have embeded the trailer for 'Thor' to show and illustrate my thoughts to these products.
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
As you know we had to upload our trailer in ‘youtube’ and ‘facebook’. We did this so that we could get feedback from audiences around the world, friends and classmates. This was very helpful for us as we got to find out what people thought about our product and how they affected them. You can find our video through this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitUAA2UBXg. There has not been a lot of views as we just posted the trailer on the website. The countries that have viewed the product the most have been firstly form the UK then USA, Canada and France. The video was most popular with teenagers aged between 13-17, which was our primary target therefore it was successful in that concept.
To get more accurate feedback we thought that we should get a live comment on our trailer, therefore myself, Henri and Sonia decided film our classmates commenting on our video. There were more positive notes than negative, which was very reassuring. The negative comments that were given by our classmates were very accurate as we thought the same thing they did before we interviewed them for example the warning at the begging about piracy was American, this fault was due to our error of research. Another criticism that we also thought was good was the fact that we didn’t center our writing in-between the scene, but apart form that our classmates thought the trailer was good and would recommend it to others.
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
To answer this question I have made another vlog to explain what we did and how we used our technology to produce the products that we have now. The video is about 10 minutes, I dont only talk about technology like Adobe Flash Player 2.0 or Photoshop CS3 but also the internet and how we researched through it by using things like google and youtube.
Posted by Sultan Mackinnon
Candidate Number 3641
When my group came together we wanted to make the best A-Level Trailer product that we could possible produce. To do this we decided to undertake some research. We did this by watching various trailers with different genres. Then we talked about what genre trailer attracted us the most. After our discussion about, which genre we were going to choose we decided to go with teenage/thriller horror.
Then we analyzed three trailers they were “When A Stranger Calls, SAW and My Soul To Take”. We talked about the conventions that we thought we should include in a trailer. We came up with fast editing, confusing story (dew to the genre we picked), dark coloring, exiting cinematography, good background music that sets the mood, artistic and a cliff hanger so that the viewers are interested to see the actual movie.
I have made a 3 by 3 style grid to illustrate this in more detail. To make this as compact and detailed as possible I chose the 9 most important screen shots throughout the trailer and explain why I believe this.
Screenshot 1
I chose this shot, as I believe that the opening trailer scene makes a huge impact on the audiences because as soon as they see a person with a gun there are different thought processes going through the audiences mind. For example in “When A Stranger Calls” the opening is bright and there is a conversation between the two characters. This gives the sense that it’s a normal day, until the night approaches were all of a sudden mood, atmosphere, color and facial expressions change. With this screenshot this is what we tried to achieve, as we wanted variations of emotions flowing through the viewers. We also used a close up on the face with the gun to give a clearer image of what the character is holding, as it is dark and hard to identify what the prop is.
Screenshot 2
I chose this screenshot as I thought that many trailers with different genre used this kind of technique to allow the viewers to interact so that they get concentrated in a variety of content. Also I think that this is a critical convention in trailers as it allows audiences to pause and think about what’s going on and try and figure out a “puzzle” that’s why it is important to not give out too much information so that they keep thinking about that trailer and find themselves in knots. This shot is important not only because it allows audiences to think about what is happening, but it also allows a free flowing transmission between different scenes, therefore there aren’t any sudden stops to that specific scene but twist.
Screenshot 3
This was one of the most important screenshots I think as it introduces another character, which makes the trailer more exiting. Also it shows the characters expression and gives some of the storyline to the viewers so that they kind of have a picture about what is going on. If you look closely above the female character (Sonia Routlage) you can see a pair of feet. This illustrates the artistic side of cinematography, which a lot of teenage/thriller horror trailers contain. This just really adds to the excitement of watching the trailer so that the audiences do not get bored as at the end of the day that’s what trailer try and achieve. This would be a key convention for a trailer of our genre, therefore that’s what we tried to do and mimic.
Screenshot 4
I like this screenshot because our trailer does not have much action in it, therefore like most trailers we decided to add some action in it. If you watched the trailer it’s a sudden move so the audiences do not expect it and I think that’s one of the key conventions in a trailer where you add something unexpected, which makes the trailer more thrilling to watch.
Screenshot 5
I chose this shot as I thought that it was necessary to get the viewers more synced into the trailer. With many professional trailers they show or mention a death in horror/thriller trailers to back up the fact that the film is the genre it is. Also it adds some excitement into the whole project. If you watched the trailer the scene were Sonia is a corpse is very quick so that it shocks the audiences, again this is to build tension and show the unexpected.
Screenshot 6
This is probably my favorite shot in the whole trailer as it looks great and artistic, also it has a mysterious look, which is what we tried to achieve throughout making this product. Using key conventions is important for a trailer, but I think using the environment is also important for example ‘My Soul To Take’ has amazing scenery in the trailer as they use the environment and its shadows, colors and so on. Therefore we tried to base our trailer with a variety of different professional trailers and pick out the most exiting and important parts in each of them, so that our product had the best practice from each of the trailer that we chose. In most trailers they like to make their scenes look stylish by making the character look good in this case making the character mysterious, therefore I think identity of the character is a key convention.
Screenshot 7
If you look at our Film Poster and Magazine we built a theme on this screenshot as if you look closely the costume that he is wearing is identical to what he is wearing in the poster and magazine cover. Many upcoming films do this for example ‘Thor’, which is not even a horror/thriller genre film or ‘Clash Of The Titans’ that has already been released undertake these kinds of techniques, therefore we thought that we should theme our magazine cover and film poster as well. This is why I thought this screenshot was important as the key convention of a trailer can affect other external things like the poster and magazine cover.
Screenshot 8
I chose this screenshot because when I watched trailers with different genres all of them had a title either at the beginning middle or at the end of the trailer. So obviously this was a very important convention that had to be featured, therefore my group came up with a title and created a font that suited our genre of our trailer.
Screenshot 9
This screenshot is nothing exiting but I thought it was important as it gave information about the film like who distributed our film, which studio it was produced, who the actors/actresses are and so on. This information is shown in every trailer so it was really necessary for us to also include it; therefore I thought that this was a key convention and an important screen shot.
2. How effective is the combination of your film trailer and ancillary texts?
To answer this question I have produced a video vlog that is around 7 minutes long. I talk about how effective our three products are and compare it to another film called 'Thor'. I have embeded the trailer for 'Thor' to show and illustrate my thoughts to these products.
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
As you know we had to upload our trailer in ‘youtube’ and ‘facebook’. We did this so that we could get feedback from audiences around the world, friends and classmates. This was very helpful for us as we got to find out what people thought about our product and how they affected them. You can find our video through this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitUAA2UBXg. There has not been a lot of views as we just posted the trailer on the website. The countries that have viewed the product the most have been firstly form the UK then USA, Canada and France. The video was most popular with teenagers aged between 13-17, which was our primary target therefore it was successful in that concept.
To get more accurate feedback we thought that we should get a live comment on our trailer, therefore myself, Henri and Sonia decided film our classmates commenting on our video. There were more positive notes than negative, which was very reassuring. The negative comments that were given by our classmates were very accurate as we thought the same thing they did before we interviewed them for example the warning at the begging about piracy was American, this fault was due to our error of research. Another criticism that we also thought was good was the fact that we didn’t center our writing in-between the scene, but apart form that our classmates thought the trailer was good and would recommend it to others.
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
To answer this question I have made another vlog to explain what we did and how we used our technology to produce the products that we have now. The video is about 10 minutes, I dont only talk about technology like Adobe Flash Player 2.0 or Photoshop CS3 but also the internet and how we researched through it by using things like google and youtube.
Posted by Sultan Mackinnon
Candidate Number 3641
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