Evaluation - Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When deciding on our initial plot for our horror trailer we decided we wanted to follow  Todorov's theory of narrative and the structuralist theory. When watching various horror trailers that were similar to what we wanted, like Prom Night, Scream and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, we soon came to realise that there were certain paradigms and codes and conventions that we had to follow in order to create the trailer that we wanted. These were an isolated setting, which would create fear and uncertainty within the audience, as it plays on peoples fear of the unknown. A knife and blood which is a classic form of killing your victim in horror films, but is also a more personal way of killing and it is available in every persons household, leading the audience to believe the killer is closer to their victim then they think. 

The final paradigm we used was a promiscuous blonde female, as this again is a trait you see throughout in real media products. This shows her as being helpless and unable to defend herself, which would then conform to the conventions of existing media products. However we went away from this and showed her trying to escape. We chose to dress the killer in black and hide his identity. And therefore followed the normal portrayal of how a killer would be. Which created an air mystery, which surrounded him throughout the trailer.

When we came to editing our trailer we made it continuous with a period of equilibrium at the begining that was easy to differentiate from the rest of the trailer. This was done through the fade in transitions through each scene.  We added tone cards to help with the flow of the narrative. We also put two tone cards at the end of the trailer showing the credits of all the people involved, we thought this helped to make it look proffessional. We also opted for putting a production logo at the start of the trailer to help with the professionalism and realism of the final outcome.

Overall through researching existing media products and theories, we were able to create a trailer that both used, but also challenged forms and conventions. This helped our target audience in identifying clearly with our trailer, as they are able to make the association to other horror films through the various paradigms we chose to follow.

Evaluation - Question 2

How effective is the combination of your media product and ancillary tasks?

I think the combination of my main product and ancillary task work well together, as they both convey the specified genre of horror. I made sure there was a consistency between my trailer, poster and magazine, which I achieved through displaying the film name ‘Obsession’ clearly and using dark colours, to tie in with the dark and eerie tone of the film. By doing this, it meant that my target audience can easily identify with the products. I chose a font that not only was clear to read and understand, but was still relevant to the horror genre.

For my poster I chose to use the silhouette of the stalker, which can be identified in a scene from the trailer. By doing this both products are both automatically linked with each other. However by using a picture of the stalker instead of the main protagonist shows the dominance and control he has throughout the trailer as well as making it clear for people to identify it as a horror poster.

For my magazine I again used an image of the stalker. This meant continuity is running through both my ancillary tasks and my main product. I stuck with much the same colour scheme as I did for my poster, but played around with the tones. I feel from using these colours people can associate them with the horror genre, especially with the red and it's connotations with fear, blood and danger.

Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback? How did you use market research to develop your ideas?  What did you target audience say about your finished products?

We decided to create a Twitter account for our trailer 'Obsession' (@ObsessionA2Media). We uploaded our film posters and magazines in order to gain feedback and comments for improvement. This was a quick way for us to get our feedback in a short space of time, as our target audience is aged 15-23, and the easiest way to do this was through social networking websites.We were able to interact with our target audience as well as getting feedback from a wider audience.This gave us a variety of different opinions on our work. I also posted my images onto Facebook asking for feedback, where i received comments saying what my target audience liked and what they would change.I found this very beneficial as I was able to tweak bits here and there on my work as and when i received the feedback. This meant my ancillary tasks were catered solely for my target audience. 

Evaluation - Question 4

Evaluation question 4

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Final 'Obsession' Film Trailer

Final Magazine Cover

Final Film Poster

For my final film poster I decided to go back to the way the quotes were positioned drafts one and two. This was so I had room at the top of the page to put actor’s names. This helped with giving my poster a professional look. I decided to use the same font and colour as I did for the tagline, and put a white border around them both, to help them stand out against the background. To help my image and font of ‘Obsession’ connect, like the original ‘Friday The 13^th’ poster I added blood dripping off the knife onto the letters, to make it look like ‘Obsession’ has been written in blood. I also added an age certificate of 18. Even though though the target age of my audience, which I found out from the results in my questionnaire is 16. I figured out it would have been better to raise the age to 18 from 15, because there is no age certificate of 16+. This would then stop anyone aged 15 going to watch the film. I changed the website name from 'www.obsession.co.uk' to 'www.obsessionthemovie.co.uk' because my first decision for a website name may more than likely already have been taken.