Evaluation: Bethany Eddleston

Introduction
My Project is a promotions package for a British horror/thriller called 'The Sight'. The promotions package includes a teaser trailer, a magazine cover in which my film is the main article and a teaser poster. I worked with one other person called David Perkins. the work was spread out evenly between the two of us with David doing most of the filming and photography, and I did most of the ancillary task work. The editing of the trailer was done equally between the two of us.
The target audience for my project is 16-25 year old males, the majority of which would fall into the mainstreamers group in relation to psychographics. The pleasure that my film would satisfy in relation to Blumler, Katz and McQuail's uses and gratifications theory is the diversion/escapism pleasure. I think my product will appeal to this audience because it is a British film rather that a Hollywood blockbuster. The age group my product targets is the main audience for cinema and film, and my product particularly targets males because of it's genre.

Question One: In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?
TEASER TRAILER:

The genre of my teaser trailer I have created is British horror/thriller. The genre is conveyed through the use of generic conventions. The generic conventions I have used are:

• Voyeuristic point of view shots (shown in picture)
• Low key lighting
• The use of sound/music to create tension and fear
• Typical mise en scene e.g. scary contact lenses

It is important to use typical elements of the genre in the teaser trailer to convey the genre properly. If you deviate from the genre too much it could cause confusion as to what genre the product actually is, typical elements create an instant recognition for the audience and it is this recognition that makes the genre enjoyable.

"The story makers depend on this recognition (of the genre) for instant communication with the audience"

-Graeme Burton (2000)

However, my product does have elements that make it different to other typical products of it's type. These differences are:

• Music is experimental, however the audience said that it was effective
• Colour filters are not very typical of the horror genre but my group got positive feedback about them

It is vital to do something new to the genre because the product needs to deviate away from the norm enough to make it exciting and different, bit not too much as to put the audience off.

"(A product needs to be) a mixture of the familiar and the unexpected"

- Graeme Burton (2000)

I thought that my innovation would prove to be successful because they demonstrate parts of the narrative as well as looking effective. The blue colour filter represents the world that the protagonist sees when his eyes are closed and the red colour filter represents the world through the eyes of the creature. Also, the music adds a more gritty feel to the trailer which is typical of British films.
This teaser trailer for '28 Days Later' (2002) Danny Boyle, has elements in it that are typical of British horror films and therefore elements that I have used in my trailer. For example the shots in which shadows are used to represent the monster:

MAGAZINE COVER:
The magazine cover that my group has created is that of a film magazine called 'Empire' We have used many of the conventions of a magazine cover in our product, the horror genre is also conveyed effectively in the product due to the colour scheme of black, white and red:

As you can see my group have used many of the typical conventions of a magazine cover.
There aren't many differences to a typical magazine cover in my product. However one difference is that we didn't use direct address in our magazine cover which is something that is very typical of magazine covers. I think this worked because it creates enigmas and adds mystery to the picture.

POSTER:
The genre of the poster that my group has created is a teaser poster for a British horror/thriller. It has many of the typical elements of a teaser poster as shown in this comparison with the teaser poster for 'Cloverfield' (2008) Matt Reeves:

None of the posters give away any information about the film, however they do convey the genre of the film. The cloverfield poster obviously shows that the genre of the film is a disaster/horror film, and the poster that my group has created clearly conveys the genre to be horror. This is done through the images such as the destroyed Statue of Liberty in the cloverfield poster and the colours such as the black and red used in my poster.

We gained very positive feedback for the poster in our audience testing, in which they commented that the eyes used in the the poster are very effective in creating fear.

Question Two: How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Acillary Texts?

BRAND IMAGE:

The brand image for my product is a scary, supernatural and unique. This is reflected in the logo for our film:

My ancillary tasks also reflect the brand image of my film, they do this in many ways such as:

• The same colour scheme is used across all three of my products, we used black, red and white to convey the genre of the film and also to push the brand image of the film. The connotations of these colours are danger, blood, evil etc. which clearly demonstrates my brand image.
• The music used in my teaser trailer also conveys the brand image of my film due to it being eerie and creepy, to show the supernatural and scary traits of my brand image, but the beat that is added to the music shows that the film is unique.
• The editing of the trailer is of a slower pace than most other horror film teaser trailers, this creates a creepier atmosphere showing the supernatural trait of my brand image.
• When I created the magazine cover I replicated the layer of the two girls stood behind the protagonist to create a sense that there is many of them, they are also in black and white and blurred. This potrays the supernatural side to the film as it creates a sense that the two girls may or may not be real.

The institution that would distribute my product would be a British film company like 'DNA'.

This is the company that we added to the beginning of the trailer to make it look more authentic. This company would distribute my product because it has created similar films before, such as '28 Days Later' (2002) Danny Boyle, and the sequal to this film; '28 Weeks later'(2007) Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. This is the teaser poster for '28 Weeks Later':

As you can see, this poster has the same colour scheme and gritty style that is pushed in our brand image.
Question Three: What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?
To illustrate my audience feedback my group has filmed our class watching our trailer and giving us feedback on it. This is the video of this feedback:

• The target audience for my product would be 16-25 year old males, with a socio-economic status of B downwards.
•  The majority of the audience would probably fall into the mainstreamers group in relation to Young and Rubicam's cross-cultural consumer characteristics. This is a good audience to target as it includes the age group that visits the cinema the most, this also means that targeting this group would be good for the film financially aswell.
• The secondary audience for my film would be independant film fans. This is because my film is British rather that a big budget Hollywood blockbuster.
  We have used audience feedback a lot in our project. The font for the logo was chosen by the audience as we created a sheet with many different fonts on and got the audience to choose which one the felt was the most suitable for out film. The design for the poster was also chosen by the audience as I drew up many different designs and, again, asked the audience which one they liked the most. The audience have therefore had a massive influence on my groups work.
  

The feedback that my group gained from questionnaires that we created after we had created the final product, was extremely positive and showed that we had created something that our target audience would enjoy. Reflecting on the feedback my group gained, if I could have done anything differently the only thing would be that I would have shot the trailer in a few more locations to make it more varied.

Question Four: How did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction, Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?
I have used many new and different technologies to create my products:

• Apple Mac: All of the work me and my group did was done on an Apple Mac computer. Although the internet was slow, using a Mac made it easier for my group to complete our project. This is because the programs on the Mac, such as the editing software, are much better than those that would be on a PC.

• Final Cut Express: To create our teaser trailer, I used a program called 'Final Cut Express'. This program was quick and simple to use and made it simpler for my group to create our trailer, I found it to be much better than 'Imovie', which is the program i used to create my AS media project last year. However, my group did encounter some problems whilst working with 'Final Cut Express. When we tried to upload some more footage into our project, the footage that we had uploaded before this became corrupted. This meant that we had to upload all of the footage again and re-edit it. This took up valuable time when we were creating our project. Another problem that I encountered was trying to edit a particular part of my teaser trailer. In one scene in the trailer the protagonist is walking down an alleyway and two males are behind him, the boys then fade and disappear out of the shot. This was very tricky to edit as the timing of the fade had to be absolutely perfect or the protagonist would look like he was missing a step and jumping forward. It took me nearly an hour and a half to get this absolutely perfect.

• Photoshop: To create both ancillary tasks my group used a program called 'Photoshop'. This was the most reliable and problem-free program I used in creating my project. It took a while to fine-tune the products, but the products look authentic because of the time spent on them. I found the paint brush tool to be the most useful tool in the program, as this was the tool that was used to create things such as the blood splatters in the title of the trailer and the speckles used on the eyes in the poster. This tool was the most helpful in creating an authentic and professional looking product.

• YouTube: I used the internet in my project to research similar products and the history of the teaser trailer amongst other things. I used 'www.youtube.com' to find and upload similar teaser trailers, and to gain inspiration for my product by watching other teaser trailers.

• Google: 'www.google.com' was another useful website that my group used a lot in our project. The things we used google for include: researching other/similar promotions packages to the one that we were planning to create and finding a copyright-free soundtrack.

Nearly all of the technologies I have used in creating this project were new to me, but I now feel that I can use them with ease.
Conclusion
In conclusion I think the project as a whole has been a success. This is because all three products do what we intended them to do and convey the genre of the product effectively. The trailer restricts the audience's knowledge enough to create enigmas and make them want to watch the film, but not too much as to confuse them. The magazine cover and teaser poster catch the eye and draw people in so they watch the film. The planning my group did beforehand helped greatly in the production of my products. This is also true of the audience feedback my group gained throughout. All in all, I believe this project to have been a successful and productive one.