Introduction
The aim of our media product was to create a teaser trailer similar to existing material. The teaser trailer we decided to make was of the horror genre. So I knew that we would have to research what the similar conventions are of the horror genre and how horror is branded.
In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For my research on genre I looked at existing media products for both my ancillary task and for my video project I looked at firstly different teaser trailers and posters from horror films that had already been released I looked at some very recent and some old media products to distinguish the different conventions that had occurred over time. For the teaser trailer I looked at the very first teaser trailer ever shown this is the teaser for the film Superman this can be viewed on YouTube under this link.
The group decided on making a hybrid of the genre we wanted to add different conventions into the final product. During editing I attempted to create a surreal effect it was my desire for my product to create enigmas from almost the very start of the film. To achieve this I used the Colour corrector video filter and the glow distortion effect in video filters to give the footage we had gathered a red and glowing tint which can be seen to the left. It was my aim to make the setting of the teaser alien to the audience. Another factor we took into account while we were filming our footage was to gather shots that were handheld. We wanted to establish realism in the footage so that the audience would believe that the events could be filmed using a mobile phone these types of films are recently becoming popular this can be seen in the films paranormal activity, The Blair witch, REC, Quarantine and Cloverfield that all use handheld realistic camera shots to provoke the audience into a sense of realism that the events could actually occur. An good example of this could be taken from the REC trailer below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSmaEJW3fCgcom/watch?v=aSmaEJW3fCg the teaser was very basic it showed me that too make a teaser trailer it is not a necessity to show the audience a great deal. It is not even necessary to introduce a character. The teasers that I looked at that were a little bit more recent where the teasers trailers for paranormal activity, Signs and the forth kind. The link to the trailer for paranormal activity is here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSSqxrh5kp8 this is an example of a more recent trailer for a horror film. When our group decided that we wanted to make a project that was in the genre of horror I looked into the different types of horrors that were out there I found that there were many different sub categories of the horror genre I found some examples for each of these different subcategories the subcategories come under the headings of
Gothic horror -Frankenstein/Dracula
Techno horror -The Paradox of the Posthuman
Body horror – Dawn of the dead-Dead of Night
Stalk and slash- Halloween/ the Texas chainsaw massacre
Torture porn - Hostel / Saw
Psychological horror - The sixth sense/the others
Zombie horror – 28 Days later/ 28 Weeks later
The group decided on making a hybrid of the genre we wanted to add different conventions into the final product. During editing I attempted to create a surreal effect it was my desire for my product to create enigmas from almost the very start of the film. To achieve this I used the Colour corrector video filter and the glow distortion effect in video filters to give the footage we had gathered a red and glowing tint which can be seen to the left. It was my aim to make the setting of the teaser alien to the audience. Another factor we took into account while we were filming our footage was to gather shots that were handheld. We wanted to establish realism in the footage so that the audience would believe that the events could be filmed using a mobile phone these types of films are recently becoming popular this can be seen in the films paranormal activity, The Blair witch, REC, Quarantine and Cloverfield that all use handheld realistic camera shots to provoke the audience into a sense of realism that the events could actually occur. An good example of this could be taken from the REC trailer below.
How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?
It was essential to get the right kind of brand for our project. During research I searched the internet for inspiration after we decided that we wanted to do a horror project that was mostly handheld I began to look at other products that were similar such as the Blair witch etc. I watched clips of YouTube and looked through various blogs and forums discussing movies. Here is a link to one of the videos I looked at during research
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMQQpmm5u3w it is a clip from the Blair witch project I looked at the way that the shots were gathered and looked at how the cinematography was unique to other films. It was good to look at the Blair witch because of it being an Indie film making it able to shoot a film that was alternative in format as apposed to Hollywood films which follow conventions established by the specific genre focusing on “The same but different” the Hollywood films in 1999 were more focusing on other genres I discovered this by looking at a page on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_film I felt although the innovation used in the handheld shots in the Blair witch was a turning point of the horror genre it focused on horror being more realistic as apposed to a killer diving out of your cupboard or raising from the dead.
It was necessary to think about what audience we were aiming our project on so I set out our groups GRASS. GRASS stands for
Gender
Race
Age
Social economic
Status
Our audience was aged 16 to 23 Males and females of any race this is because people at this age are the most likely to visit the cinema. The GRASS also influenced the creation of the teaser because we were aiming at a younger audience of 16 the film wasn’t to be certificate 18 this meant that we couldn’t have too much violence in the trailer. To discover if our target audience also enjoyed the innovation of handheld movies while making the audience questionnaire we wrote a question asking if people liked horror films to seem realistic everyone we asked answered yes. From the beginning of the project I believed that the advertising campaign for the project must be used to show that the film is realistic. An effective way that films promoted there product was through they’re use of taglines. The two I found most interesting were the taglines from Quarantine and The Blair witch.
Quarantine:
On March 11, 2008 the government sealed of an apartment complex in Los Angeles. The residents were never seen again
No details
No witnesses
No evidence
Until now
The Blair witch:
In October 1994 three media students disappeared in the woods near Burkitts Ville, Maryland whist filming a documentary….
a year later there footage was found
The taglines for the two films alone make the consumer interested they establish enigmas even before viewing I thought that this was another factor I would need to take into account whist creating the Ancillary task and the teaser. An advantage with my research into the Genre and Brand was the fact I managed to accumulate an idea of what films of a similar genre were like and the conventions that they followed and how in my project I would be able to create a project with a few different conventions. Also the Branding research taught me various things I would need to do in order to create an effective ancillary task. I believe that the final teaser managed to challenge some forms of the handheld horror genre by using the red tint and non diegetic music I think that I managed to create a project that was similar to projects of a similar nature but would provide the audience with something that was the same but different.
How I used media technologies in the…
construction
research,
planning,
and evaluation stages
In the creation of the project i was introduced to alot of new technology. In my first project in AS level i had only used Imovie and a cannon video camera and tripod to capture and edit my work i think that the technology used this year has helped me to develop new skills and create a better project.
Different websites and programs used in research, planning and production;
- http://www.blogger.com/
- http://www.youtube.com/
- http://www.photobucket.com/
- http://www.google.com/
- http://www.creativecommons.com/
- http://www.wikipedia.com/
- http://www.empireonline.com/
- http://www.totalfilm.com/
- http://www.associatedcontent.com/
- http://www.slideshare.net/
- Microsoft Powerpoint
- Microsoft word
- Digital stills camera
- Cannon video camera and tripod
- Final cut express
- Photoshop
During the project we also used Photoshop, we used Photoshop to create our ancillary tasks during filming we took stills around the area while we were filming these were used in Zoe and Anthony’s ancillary poster tasks. For my poster I took a freeze-frame picture from some of the footage we had gathered I did this because I liked the look of the hand after I had put on the colour corrector filter on it also I found in my research that in some film poster advertisements shots from the actual films are sometimes implanted into the advertising campaigns examples of this are posters such as Predator.
Photoshop was a useful application in the making of our project it allowed use to crop and edit out parts of the pictures that we did not need. Also it allowed us to implant in other pictures to help make the poster look authentic. On my poster I inserted the certificate 15 logo by using the insert cut and paste options on photoshop. I found photoshop difficult to use at times the use of keyboard shortcuts were the main issue i had the reason being is that i did not know them i sometimes even had to look on google on how to copy and crop the poster.
The studio we thought our project would best be created by this was Fox searchlight. We choose this because Fox searchlight has created many good horror movies such as 28 Days Later and The hills have eyes these films alone made a gross profit of 86.7 Million dollars. I discovered this on this site http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1667431/top_10_highest_grossing_films_from.html?cat=40
The studio we thought our project would best be created by this was Fox searchlight. We choose this because Fox searchlight has created many good horror movies such as 28 Days Later and The hills have eyes these films alone made a gross profit of 86.7 Million dollars. I discovered this on this site http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1667431/top_10_highest_grossing_films_from.html?cat=40
Another application that was very critical to the creation of the project was Final cut express. Final cut express was the application I used to edit the raw footage that we gathered. The application allowed me to crop, add and edit almost anything I wanted. The most interesting tool on final cut express was the use of the various video filters the video filters allowed me to change a very normal woodland setting into a completely new design helping in the creation of the alien surroundings, final cut express allowed me to crop the footage up into sections that we needed and place them onto a timeline. What made final cut even more useful was the ability it gave us to add music. I uploaded the mp3s for the two non diegetic music tracks we used in our project these were long walk and teddy bears picnic. Both tracks were copyright free and uploaded from Creative commons websites. Another advantage with using final cut express was the ability to fade in and out different footage and sounds such as the music at the end of the teaser I put in an fade out audio transition and fade out video filter to introduce the other non diegetic music and final clip. This transition was useful for the concluding clip of the teaser I think the use of the nursery rhyme with the image of a hand falling down a window was effective in creating enigmas for our audience.
What I have learned from audience feedback
The audience feedback that we gained was usefull in finding out if our project was a succes or not it was intresting to hear how different people reacted to the project and what different people thought had made the project good and bad.Here is a slideshow showiung the questions and an example responce gained from each.
The results and feedback we gained from the audience feedback was mostly positive areas for critique were mostly from the start of the trailer. I originally planned to make the teaser slow pace but it was a factor that did not recieve praise from the audience so if i was to redo the project i would take this factor into account. When asked the audience confirmed that the project is similar to teaser trailers and media texts of the same brand, this positive praise gained from the target audience makes me belive that overall the project was a success.
Adam
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