Storyboards

Ross Storyboards

Feedback Sample

Final Poster image

Final Magazine image

Poster Edit

Evaluation 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

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

There are several ways in which our media product both has similarities and differences compared to the standard teaser trailer. The first clear difference that we have established is the length of time that our trailer runs for. Our teaser lasts roughly 1 minute and 40 seconds, allowing us to put more images across, and entice the audience in to wanting to understand more. The average time for a normal teaser trailer would usually be just under a minute, around the 50 second mark, and there are some that may stretch to the 90 second mark, however it is incredibly rare for a teaser trailer to stretch to 100 seconds. The second difference that we included was the amount of detail put across in the product. Usually in a commercial teaser trailer the basic layout will include a small amount of dialogue, and small amount of information about a few of the key characters, and maybe a small clue towards the story line, however in our piece, we have a constant flow of dialogue throughout the whole piece, we introduce the two main characters with lots of depth, and give a series of large hints as to what may happen in the film. However in order to keep the product as a teaser trailer we had to ensure we still included that element of tease, which is the reason for our series of clashing flashbacks throughout the product.
As well as the formal conventions, we have also used lots of the generic conventions by integrating much of the thriller iconography in the teaser trailer. An example of this is at the end of the piece, where we have included images of the lead character ‘Jessica’ holding a knife. This is also used to create the element of tease. Every thriller also sets up an enigma, which sets up a mystery, which is another key element to our teaser. For example, we have created a product leaving the audience wondering who these characters are, what’s happening between them and what’s going to happen with the knife. We did this by including the flash backs in reverse order, with the sex scene, and the moment the characters met. They want to know questions such as ‘who is this girl?’, ‘who is she going to kill?’ and ‘what happened to this relationship?’ which is why we did the piece in reverse order. Another way in which we have tried to conform to the stereotype of a thriller is with the use of costume and music. We have included an eerie soundtrack to create the suspense, and then used as little costume as possible for ‘Jessica’ to portray the stereotype of sex in thrillers.

Evaluation 2 - How effective is the combonation of your main product and Ancillary texts?

Our main product is based around two specific U.S.P’s. The first of these is the use of major stars in our film. We have assumed that in real life our two actors would be major stars, and so in both the poster and the magazine front cover we have tried to highlight their presence. For example, in the poster you can see that both the main actor and actress are present, which is one of the selling points attracting the audience into watching the film. You can also see this in the magazine cover, as our main actor Tom, is on the front cover, and the articles inside the magazine, are focused around the process that the actors went through during the making of the film. Another one of our U.S.P’s is that the two main characters are supposedly sex icons in real life. ‘Tom’ is a heart throb, which is why we have used a model shot on the front cover, attracting a female audience to want to see the film.
The poster is also heavily linked to our main product through the use of genre. We have created an element of tease and suspense with the poster, by facing the main actress away from the camera, holding a knife. This is also evident when you look the magazine cover, which is heavily linked to the trailer. You can see that Tom addresses the camera with a provocative, sexual, smouldering look, which is part of our U.S.P, of Tom being a heart throbber. This image is also heavily linked to a moment in the film where the character Michael is giving Jessica a sadistic, disturbed look as she walks away from him.
Another U.S.P is the use of a possible female killer, which again is shown in both the main teaser trailer, and the poster. In both products, the use of a knife plays a major part in the message put across. In the poster you can see Jessica holding a knife, with her back turned away from the camera, and this exact same image is how the trailer ends, with Jessica holding a knife, facing away from the camera. Not only does this leave the audience wondering what’s going to happen, but this also creates quiet a sexual dynamic, showing her power and intelligence.

Evaluation 3 - How did you use media technologies in the construction, research and planning, and evaluation stages

Powerpoint technology evaluation

View more presentations from Kerim Aytac.

There were three main stages throughout our film where we used various different types of technology, starting with the planning stage, the production stage and also during the evaluation stage.
Throughout all of the planning stage we were using different technologies, mainly based around the internet. A fast majority of the planning was done through research and blogging, which is all done through the use of internet. For example, we would research teaser trailers through the use of you tube trailers, and other media blogs, and compare these to our own ideas. We also used various different types of software. Examples of this is through the use of software’s such as Microsoft word, excel, PowerPoint, and also Photoshop which was vital during the process of developing our posters, and also our magazine cover. We used the PowerPoint programme for the comparison of our posters, to other film posters, and we did the same with our magazine cover. We also used online software such as slide share, scribd and wordle. The used the software to embed PowerPoint document, such as our comparisons onto the blog. This is also the case for Scribd. The online software Wordle was used to create a title for the piece, which we eventually made deadly obsessions. We also used lots of media technologies in the process of staying communicated with each other in the pre production stage. Considering we are all friends in the group, we could use facebook to message each other, and stay organised. And we could also use e-mails, to keep our schedule organised, and again, keep in touch with the others in the group in order to stay organised.
We also used lots of technologies in the construction stage. The first keys stages where we used technology in the construction process was during the shoot, where we used a Digital Camera. This was obviously used to film the product. We also used a studio and lighting during the shoot days for our magazine shots, and our poster shots. We also had the use of image editing, making the construction of out poster and magazine cover a much easier poster. We also used a digital cam cored for the filming process, along with a tripod, and separate sound equipment, to achieve the best volume quality as possible. These were essential pieces of technology for the result of the end product to be of as higher quality as possible. The editing stage was also a highly technological process, as we completed the whole product on the computer, using adobe premiere non linear editing soft wear.
The use of technology doesn’t stop their. We also used several different features on you tube in the evaluation process such as the annotation feature to annotate our final product. We are also going to record each member of the group, in an interview setting and then add a directors commentary to a separate cut of our product.

Evaluation 4 - What did you learn from your audience Feedback (annotated video)

After the product was complete, we than had to get on with the feedback. For this we created a questionnaire which would include many different questions shaped towards finding out as much information as we possibly could about what the audience thought of our piece.
We started off with questions like ‘what sex are you?’, ‘how old are you?’ ect ect so we could find out if the people we were asking were our target audience. We then went on to ask about the actual piece, and what they got from the piece, enabling us to understand what we would need to improve the next time round.
One thing that we noticed from our audience feedback was the amount of people who were unclear on whether out product was a standard trailer, giving lots of information on the piece, or a teaser, leaving an element of tease on the viewers mind. This goes to show that maybe we were to unclear on some of the points we were putting across, making it less of a teaser trailer. Another point that was slightly negative, but was constantly being raised in the questionnaires was the quality of the volume in the piece. People were repeatedly saying that they struggled to make out what some of the characters were saying during the flash back scenes, and that although they enjoyed the suspense that the soundtrack created, they though it did drown out the voices at points.
However despite these two negative points constantly occurring, there were also many positive vibes given back in the questionnaire results. The first of these which was mentioned in every single questionnaire was that they actually enjoyed the piece. They all seemed to understand the general points being put across in the teaser, and the vast majority of the audience also felt a large element of tease from it, leaving them wanting to find out firstly what was going to happen, and secondly who the hooded figure was, which were two points we were going for. Another piece of positive feedback was that they though the editing was very good, and precise and slick.
One point which was neither positive nor negative was that the audience sometimes struggled to grasp whether the genre was a horror, or a thriller. However this isn’t necessarily important as long as the audience enjoyed the piece.
Overall the feedback was mainly positive; however the most useful feedback was actually the negative points, as it allows us to understand where we went wrong, and how we would be able to improve this in the future.

Our Shoot Day

Our shoot day was on 23rd February on the Wednesday of our half term. On the day, I was the director, and Antonia Formosa was the camera woman. In order for it to be a successful day we needed to make sure that we were completely organized, and that all of our preparation in the pre-production stage was completed. This would mean that we would have a planed schedule that we could use, and also story boards that we could use as a structure to the piece.

We decided to arrange to meet near the first location for our shoot at 8.30 in the morning, which would give us time to organize our self's and prepare the equipment for the day. We started shooting our first scene at 9.00, which was our scene in the bedroom. For this location we used one of our crew’s bedrooms. This scene went reasonable well, as we had all of the scene story boarded and scripted, so we knew exactly what we wanted to achieve, and exactly how to do it.

By the time we had finished this scene, we were already we ahead of our schedule, and instead of going to the location we had originally planned for our next scene, which was meant to be in Hyde park, we found a bench in the gardens of the location for our first scene, and so decided to shoot our next scene there instead. Again, this made the process much faster, and much like in the first scene, we had a storyboard for the scene set and so we just had to follow the plan, and film the shots. This ran very smoothly, and we had almost finished this scene by 11 o'clock.

This meant that we had completed the corridor scene, the bedroom scene and also the park scene, and we were already 3 hours ahead of our schedule, meaning that we had extra time to film some additional footage, which is when we decided to do the scene on the street, where the couple meet, which would end up being another one of our flashbacks.

For this scene, we encountered a few problems during the filming process. The first of these was that because of all of the ambient noises such as cars and people, it made it incredibly hard for the camera to pick up the dialogue of the characters. We also struggled to find a space of time when either a car wasn’t passing, or a pedestrian wasn’t passing, interfering with the shots. However, we had finished the filming by 1.30, meaning that we had completed the filming process 4 hours early.

Overall the day was a large success, and I feel this is primarily down to the level of organisation that the group had out in to making the day run smoothly.