Evaluation Task 3

Evaluation Task 3

• 1.
  Evaluation Task 3 Notes
• 2.
  Is there adistinct ‘house style’?  In order to ensure that my ancillary texts and main product maintained a professional appearance, I decided to create a distinctive house style that would be used throughout the 3 pieces so that each one could be easily interlinked with the other. To ensure my house style suited the horror genre I decided to conform to conventions by using certain colours, lighting, fonts and imagery that are common of this genre.  The 3 predominant colours used in my pieces are black, white and red. The colours black and white are the obvious choices with their strong connotations with good and evil which are major themes in the horror genre as there is always a villain and victim character type. The colour red has connotations with blood; a symbol of the horror genre, and danger; a theme often associated with the genre.  Another convention I followed was to consistently use low key lighting as this helps to create a moody, sinister appeal to my pieces. In my ancillary pieces I altered the brightness and contrast settings to make my images darker. I also added shadows as this helped to add an element of mystery. I used low key lighting in my teaser trailer by filming some scenes during the night.
• 3.
  Continued…  The fonts I have used throughout my ancillary pieces are not the typical ‘cheesy’ ‘horror’ fonts you might find in Microsoft word, but simple distinctive fonts. I chose to do this as they help to maintain an element of professionalism. Simple fonts are also more effective in creating a more sinister feel.  My ancillary texts conform to my chosen sub-genre, (psychological) as they include no people or locations; the only image I included was of a diary. This conforms to the psychological sub-genre as there is an element of mystery that is hidden from both the characters and the audience, until it is exposed at the end of the film. This is something that influenced the production of my teaser trailer as both the audience and characters are unaware of the character or forces controlling the diary.
• 4.
  How would theywork together in promoting the film?  To ensure my texts could work together to promote my film, I made sure that they interlinked with each other. My poster contains multiplatform in the form of a web address so people who like the look of my poster can also access the website. Furthermore, my website includes links to my trailer and poster. To make sure my poster can be seen by my target audience I would have it positioned on buses, billboards and appropriate magazines such as NME.
• 5.
  Which clearly targetsthe intended target audience successfully and why?  Although all of my media pieces are effective in targeting my intended audience of 15-24 year olds, I believe that my website is the most successful.  This is because it has lots of multimedia, including a poll, links to twitter and Facebook and links to my teaser trailer and poster. This provides interactivity for the audience that they will not only find entertaining but would also make them more inclined to visit the website again.  The internet is a key medium in which I can target my intended audience directly. It is the easiest means of accessing information quickly and efficiently making it the most popular with my target audience. Social networking sites would also allow my target audience to ‘share’ my website with friends and family meaning that it would have high exposure.  Furthermore, the internet is used primarily by a younger audience who on average spend 3-4 hours per day browsing the web. Therefore, they are more likely to hear about my film via the webpage then by the chance of seeing my poster at a bus stop for example.
• 6.
  Which elements wereyou proud of?  In my poster, I was proud of my picture editing skills. As I’m not one of the best photographers, my picture of a diary looked pretty bland, but I was successfully able to manipulate my image to create something that looked sinister and mysterious, and would work as the focal point of the poster. I did this using Photoshop to alter the brightness contrast settings. I also added a blood splatter by using a blood brush tool and altered the saturation which gave a ‘sepia’ effect to the diary giving it an antique feel.  I am also proud of the editing in our teaser trailer. Although we didn’t have the skills of the professional film editors who can take up to 5 months perfecting each and every transition and fade, I think that the editing in our trailer looks quit professional. We used numerous fade to blacks and cuts as these transitions are popular amongst the horror genre to create sudden suspense. From our feedback, I can see that our editing was of a high calibre.  In the pre-production stages of my ancillary and main task development, I created some mock-ups which outlined the design of my website and poster and a storyboard which clearly detailed every aspect f my teaser trailer including the shot used, lighting, shot length, camera angle and so on. These models helped me to construct and develop my final pieces; therefore I am also pleased with my designs as they helped contribute to the success of both my ancillary pieces and main task
• 7.
  Is one piecestronger than the others?  I believe that my poster stand out amongst the other pieces in my portfolio. This is because unlike my website and trailer, it doesn’t give the audience too much detail about the film’s narrative, but instead offers them subtle hints.  The simplicity of my poster makes it stand out against other posters in this genre. My one image of a diary is effective in making the audience question the narrative of the film. It offers little information of who the starring character is, where the film will take place and why the diary hold such importance, and this adds mystery to the poster, therefore allowing the audience to make their own assumptions, making them more inclined to go and watch the film to see if these assumptions are true.  I believe that my tagline ‘memories are never forgotten’ is good at attracting my intended audience as it offers subtle clues to what the narrative of the film is and makes the audience ask the question, ‘what memories are forgotten?’
• 8.
  If you hadto make improvements in one piece, which would it be and why?  If I had to make improvements to one piece, it would be my teaser trailer. Although I have confidence in this product effectively promoting my film, I think that with more time, I would be able to make it even more successful. Another issue we were faced with was the equipment we were given to record and edit with. Had we have been given equipment to a similar standard as used by the larger film companies such as ‘lions gate’ or ‘working title films, we would have been able to produce something a little more professional. Another improvement which I would make would be to add a filter to our day scenes as I think that this would add to the overall tension of the piece.
• 9.
  How have yourskills developed over the course of the advanced portfolio?  My research skills have developed over the course of the advanced portfolio. For my research into my ancillary tasks I focused on internet based research which included using websites such as ‘UK tribes’ and ‘film council’. Although this enabled me to find out some information into my intended target audience, I wasn't able to gain a clear picture into what their own personal tastes were and what they wanted to personally gain out of watching a horror film.  When conducting research for my main task, I was more thorough in my secondary research using a wide variety of websites. I also included more primary research as I believe that asking members of my intended audience is an important aspect in finding out how I needed to develop my own product which in this case was my teaser trailer. This was an effective method to undertake, as I was able to gain rich, detailed information into my audience’s tastes which allowed me to successfully include all of these in my planning stages of my main task.
• 10.
  Continued…  My creativity skills have also developed during the course of my advanced portfolio. Although my ancillary tasks needed some level of creativity i.e. title, photo layout etc. I had to closely conform to the poster/website conventions which meant that my creativity was limited.  I believe that there was more room for a creative outlet in the main task as I was able to control what footage was chosen in the final edit, the transitions from one shot to the next, the camera angles and the soundtrack, which meant that I was able to conform to and challenge the horror genre conventions. We were able to create our own soundtrack using Adobe Audition using multiple mp3 files to create something different and unique which makes it stand out amongst other horror soundtracks which usually have one simple non-diegetic sound playing throughout the course of the trailer.