Evaluation

Question 4- How did you use new media technologies in the construction and

research, planning and evaluation stages?

In Research

We used Youtube to research other teaser trailers to understand the length of time they needed to be. We

also used Youtube to view other teaser trailers to learn what sort of information and how much of the

storyline is given away within the short period of time. We also looked at well known horror film teaser trailers and understood the conventions of this genre of trailer. It provided us also with conventions of found footage horror. Youtube was very useful as there was a lot of

research and footage available, all in one place.

We also used the website Google to research other horror films and to look at the

conventions used in these. We also looked in Google Images for well known horror films to see if they had an iconic symbol or object in their production material. This helped us to

decide on the iconic symbol for our film and it highlighted to us the importance of having something iconic that can create synergy

between all of our media products.

We also watched horror films for research purposes and to learn more about the genre itself and to see how they

were created. ‘The Blair Witch Project’ is a found footage style horror film, which is the same as ours, this helped to

teach us how to play with the camera shots etc whilst filming our own trailer. We also watched the films and looked to find their iconic objects and/or symbols used throughout the film to identify the size of the part that

they play. We watched Halloween, Scream (the original) and The Blair Witch Project.

In Construction

Deconstruction of Magazine Cover

First Stage Of Creating the Magazine Front Cover

The first stage of creating the magazine front cover was creating a header with a suitable title. We decided to give the magazine the title ‘Epic Films’ with the tag

line ‘The Ultimate Movie Magazine’ as these are clear indicators of what the magazine will offer for it’s audience and relates to movies which then links to our

movie trailer. We filled a text box with a background colour firstly in order to make the title, when created, stand out better.

Second Stage Of Creating the Magazine Front Cover

The second stage of creating the header for the magazine front cover was adding in the title. We started with the second part of the main title. We designed the

title to look different to other plain titles, so we used TOTAL FILMS magazine for inspiration and liked the style of their title so used a similar style for ours. We used

InDesign to create the header, as well as the whole magazine front cover. We inserted the text and then played around looking at different types of font then

once we had decided on the font we played with different font strokes and weight, which resulted in the thick line outlining each letter. We chose this as it makes the

title stand out more and look professional.

Third Stage Of Creating the Magazine Front Cover

The next stage of creating the header was adding in the tag line ‘The Ultimate Movie Magazine’, this tells the audience what the magazine is about. We chose to use the same font for both the title as well as the tag line. We chose to use plain black font, to make it look professional as too many bright colours can make a magazine front cover look cheap and tacky. We chose a suitable colour scheme for our magazine

front cover which was red, black and white as there aren’t too many different colours and they are all subtle colours. We chose to use red as it signifies blood and danger

which relates to our horror trailer.

Fourth Stage Of Creating the Magazine Front Cover

After adding the second part of title and a suitable tag line, we added the first half

of the title which is ‘EPIC’. We chose to place this part of the title vertically as we used TOTAL FILMS magazine covers for

inspiration and liked this style so we created our own version similar to theirs.

It also makes it stand out from other magazine titles as it is interesting and aesthetically pleasing to the audience.

This it the final header for our magazine, the next stage is creating the rest of the

magazine front cover.

Fifth Stage Of Creating the Magazine Front Cover

We had taken photos suitable for our front cover with synergy to our teaser trailer. The photo we chose to use is the one on the final front cover, it has synergy to our

trailer as Beth is stood in her iconic fur trimmed hooded white coat and she is looking at the the wooden cross in the

middle of the woods. This is all in synergy to our teaser trailer as it is mainly set in the

woods, Beth wears the same coat in the trailer and the wooden cross is in the

teaser as well. Originally, the photo didn’t have the cross on it, Jack edited the photo

and added the cross in using Photoshop after he found the image that was suitable off of Google images. Once we had edited and chosen the image we placed it on the

magazine front cover on InDesign.

Sixth Stage Of Creating the Magazine Front Cover

In the sixth stage of creating the magazine front cover, we added in a barcode to the top of the magazine next to our header. We used Google

images to search for a suitable barcode and copied and pasted one onto our magazine. We added a barcode to try and make the magazine

look as original and realistic as possible.

Seventh Stage Of Creating the Magazine Front Cover

The next thing we added to our magazine front cover was some text to the lower half of the magazine. We continued using our planned colour scheme of red, black and white so it

stayed looking professional and aesthetically pleasing at the same time. We decided to

mention ourselves firstly to highlight to the audience that we are the main feature of the

magazine. As we are the main feature we decided that the text mentioning ourselves

had to be larger than the rest of the texts on the magazine cover, other than the header. We chose to place our texts differently to make it look interesting to read and to fit

around the image nicely.

Eighth Stage Of Creating the Magazine Front Cover

After adding in the main text, we added in smaller but similar text headings of

featured articles. We used TOTAL FILMS magazine covers for inspiration again as we

decided to place the texts around the image and mainly down one side of the

page, in our case the right hand side.

Ninth Stage Of Creating the Magazine Front Cover

We then added in more text down the right hand side, placing it carefully around our main

focus, which is our image with Beth and the wooden cross. We decided to add in a

magazine convention such as a possible prize for the readers if they buy the magazine, they could win VIP tickets to a premiere of a film.

We decided to add in some titles of other genre films such as ‘Inception’ as the magazine

doesn’t just focus on horror films, although our horror teaser trailer is the main feature. If we chose to release our film in Autumn and to

release it around Halloween time, then we could have created a magazine which focused

just on horror films for a Halloween special, but where our film is released in the summer

we were unable to do this.

Final Stage Of Creating the Magazine Front Cover

The final stage of creating the magazine front cover was to add in a magazine convention such as a plug. We decided to add in a red plug, to stick with the colour

scheme and it makes it stand out to the audience. We placed it in the last bit of free space, as we didn’t want to over fill our cover as it would look cluttered and would be too much for an audience to quickly glance at to gain their attention, so we chose to use the amount of text we did

as it’s not too much text to look at quickly but it’s enough to attract a potential reader. We added the plug which

highlights to the audience that inside the magazine there are ratings of other films by film critics, this attracts cinema-goers and an audience who enjoy films, who

would be interested in reading about our trailer and our cast.

Deconstruction of Trailer Poster

First Stage Of Creating the Trailer Poster

The first stage that occurred when constructing the poster for our film was to edit the photo that is on the front. This was done using Photoshop as this is the tool that

would make it look the most professional. We edited the colours so that the white of the coat stood out against the background

and the colours of the trees were more vivid. We also edited the space where Beth’s face

was originally to create an element of mystery within our poster. We simply

blacked our her features so that it wasn’t easy to recognize her and blurred the edges so that there was no difference and it was a

smooth transition.

Second Stage Of Creating the Trailer Poster

The next stage of our constructing our poster was creating and inserting a title. We had already come up with the name of our

film so we had to decide the typography that we were going to use. This looked through a range of fonts from internet providers but settled on one from word as it was both

aesthetically suitable and practical due to ease of editing. We typed it out on word and then inserted it onto Photoshop to edit. We started out with a plain white title but as a group decided that it needed some colour.

We then added small amounts of red to make it stand out against the background as well as show the detail on the font we chose.

Third Stage Of Creating the Trailer Poster

The third stage of editing our poster was to add all of the smaller bit of information on. At this

stage we added a date, a QR code, a web address and a twitter name. we feel that it is important to have all of these elements on the poster as they

all add to the final look. They also provide the practical aspects that actual film posters would posses. When doing our research we found that

films that produced good results in the box office all had interactive elements to their poster. This enables the audience to feel like they have ways to get more involved with the film. This was all done on a mix of Photoshop and In-Design and

this resulted in all of our skills using both increased. Although when using both it created problems such as formatting errors that would not have been a problem if we solely used one

program.

Fourth Stage Of Creating the Trailer Poster

After adding all the necessary information we felt that there was something missing. Again using the movie posters we had found

previously we decided to add small font under the title with names of people who are involved in the film. We started with our names and then

added others. We used In-Design to add the text as its easier to edit. However we encountered some problems as there is an iconic look to the

way movie posters display the actors names and we wanted to get it right. Eventually we were happy with the final product.

Eighth Stage Of Creating the Trailer Poster

After editing the image, shown to the left, on Photoshop we then opened it up on InDesign and carried on editing it using this software as it was easier and took less time. We are also

experienced on using In-Design from previous projects that we have done. This meant that we are more confident in using the tools that

are on the program and we feel that the outcome of this would be better. We decided that Photoshop is the best program for editing photos and In-Design is best for creating our

finished media products.

Ninth Stage Of Creating the Trailer Poster

The ninth stage was adding ‘IT WILL POSSESS YOU’ at the top of the poster. We added the text in

easily as we were now using InDesign rather than Photoshop. The font that we used was one that

we found using Word. This meant that it was easy for us to play around with the wording as it was easy to edit. We chose to put this as a tag line to

create an mysterious atmosphere about the trailer and to leave the audience thinking about the film. It also gives a hint about what the trailer is about.

We chose to put this text in red as red gives connotations of danger and blood which adds

atmosphere to the poster and also some colour, yet it still looks professional. The red accentuates the tag line and draws the audiences attention to it as the rest of the colour scheme is composed of

bland and dull colours.

Final Stage Of Creating the Trailer Poster

This is the final product of our media poster. We added in some font to give the poster some more depth and ideas to the audience. We also decided

to add the text in as it looked plain and there wasn’t a lot of information being presented. We

added in text to just underneath the tag line which says ‘The new era of horror has been born,

are you ready? – Epic Films’. We chose to reference the posters magazine as it creates

synergy between the two pieces. It also provides the film with a review which will intice the possible audience into watching the film.

In Planning

In Evaluation

Technology used in the Evaluation

We chose to use different types of media to make it more interesting to read and more interesting to create

for the members of our group. We used Prezi for Question 1. Prezi is similar to an online mind map, that guided the viewer through images as well as text is an aesthetically pleasing and in a different, more unique

way. We chose to use Prezi as it is an easy way of displaying large amounts of information in a different form than an essay, which makes it less daunting to

read as an audience.

We also used social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook for feedback on our trailer

poster and magazine front cover. Below are some screenshots of the feedback we received

on Twitter and Facebook…

We also used a website called Slide Share, which we used for Question 4. Slide Share is a way of

displaying PowerPoint’s online for others to view easily. It allows easier viewing.

We also used a Voxpop for Question 2. We chose to use this website as then our evaluation

questions would be mixed media and use different ways to present and display our question answers in a more interesting,

different way but a way that is still clear to read and easy to understand.

We used Microsoft Word to create questionnaires for feedback on our poster,

magazine front cover and also our trailer. We then used Microsoft Excel to put on the results from our questionnaires. We chose to use this software as it lays out information clearly, and

shows data in an easy to understand yet aesthetically pleasing way.

SOME IMAGES

OF RESULTS GO HERE