Here is my audience feedback;

 

and here is my final trailer;

My Media Evaluation

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

 My media product consists of my Media magazine cover, my poster and my trailer. The ways in which each of these have been created to look authentic but cohesive within each other at the same time, is by the following;

First, my media magazine cover looks authentic because I have used a barcode like every other magazine and also I have written the date it was issued and also the price of the magazine itself. Along with the basics of a Bold, large Masthead and sub headings, I wanted it to look more detailed and professional, so I did some research and saw things like ‘stickers’ which had, for example on my magazine I had written, ‘ULTIMATE REVIEW OF 2014’ which just grabs the reader because if it is ultimate review of the year, they would want to read that more than another. I also, whilst researching, found that some magazines had added information at the bottom of the page written in a ‘strip’ almost. I used this for my magazine and instead of having it straight across the bottom, I decided to have it diagonally across the bottom right hand corner of the page. On this it states that there is an Exclusive inside. This would also grab the reader because in my case, mine says, ’EXCLUSIVE INSIDE! A DAZ FERGUSEN SPECIAL!’ Daz Ferguson is the writer of the story line for my movie, so readers would be really interested to know what he was thinking.

For the background of my media magazine cover, as for my trailer, I wanted to get across the idea of an indie, comedy, comic-type trailer, I really wanted that portrayed. So to do this I used a big flash of light but in a cartoon way. I used this picture with an array of colours; white, yellow, orange, red, burgundy, brown and black. In front of this, I had a picture of two of my Superheroes. I wanted it to really pop, so I had them in dark clothing in the contrast of the white, bright flash behind them. They, in keeping with the indie, comedic, comic theme, were standing in a Super Hero pose which made it funny because they look slightly ridiculous. As you can see, the ‘Hero’ in the pose, looks blurred, as if he had been running in super-speed. This was achieved by using Photoshop. I just smudged the whole right hand side of him to make it look authentically comic book worthy. Also I added headings under the Masthead such as, its webpage, ‘upgradeonline.com’, and also a statement, ‘THE WORLDS BIGGEST MOVIE MAGAZINE.’

 

For my poster, I started off with my background. I wanted something ‘comicy’ whilst eye catching but also cohesive with my magazine cover. So I decided to go for another dramatic flash. For my poster I used just a simple white, yellow and red colour scheme. I then also added the title right in the centre of the flash. At the top of the poster, I added the names of the main characters involved in my movie trailer in the way so that the forename is above the surname. I did those in a white so that they stood out on the red background. I added a heading underneath my main title that states, ’from the studios that brought you ‘THE MORTAL ESCAPE’’. I did this to make it stand out that this movie must be good because it was written by the same man who wrote a successful film before this one, this should help people want to watch it. Below that, there is also a ‘coming soon’ caption. I just added that to make it look more authentic. At the bottom of the poster, I made the blurb that shows all of the details of who did what. I saw this when I was doing my research and thought it looked soo good and detailed, so I made it myself. I then just added an age rating sign of PG at the bottom of the poster to make clear that there was an age range and so the audience knew what that age range was. It is a PG just because there is no swearing and it is a child friendly comedy.

 For my movie trailer, I watched lots of trailers and did a lot of research because I didn’t know where to start. I then broke them all down to what they all, if not most, had in common. They all started with a page that had, in my case, a ‘BBFC’ page giving the rights/certification etc. so I made one of those and it started my trailer off. Also at the beginning of my trailer, just after the BBFC certificate, I added a slide which had my cartoon style title on it. This started my trailer off to look how I wanted it to, to give the idea straight away that it will be a comic book theme. My movie trailer was intentionally going to be an indie comedy filmed like a Blair witch project kind of film, not following the normal conventions of a serious movie. So for mine, I made sure that the filming could be as basic as I could get it to make it funny and then add sarcastic comments throughout by the narrator which added the comedic feel. With it being an indie film also, I wanted it to be my priority to make it look indie, but good at the same time so that it did actually look like a trailer. With it being a comic book themed trailer/story line I really wanted to add some fight scenes so that I could make some onomatopoeic words to pop up on the screen when someone gets hit of falls etc. This made my trailer look better because of the detail I was going into making the trailer and adding the comic book styles such as the onomatopoeic words.

For my music I wanted to definitely use indie, cool music but with the slight hint of cheesy comedy in places to in keep with the themes. The cheesy comedy sounds I added were the hitting sounds I used in the fight scenes and also a dramatic dick scratching sound when it got to the point where you can see the heroes and the villain could not be taken seriously.  I wanted my villain to look corny so I had him strike an overdramatic pose and added dramatic music underneath, not too much but just a hint. All in all he looked very not scary. Again I didn’t want to story line to be taken seriously only to get the vibe of comedy.

 Over all, I think my poster, magazine cover and movie trailer are cohesive because I have added the cartoon-comic feel with them all. With the bright flash backgrounds, the dramatic cover photo of the super speed hero, the main title and even the onomatopoeic words , I made them all look as professional as I could whilst in keeping with the cartoon comic book feel.

 

How effective is your combination of the main products and your ancillary texts?

I think they are very effective because I have made them all as cohesive as possible by overlapping such features as colour schemes and my main cartoon title, as well as dramatic use of colour in the sense of bright, big and bold with the use of onomatopoeic words. For my magazine cover, I have used bright colours with a dark contrast on top and then on my poster, I have used the same idea of bright colours for my background with the contrast on top. I have also used the same backgrounds for each just with different colours. For my trailer, I have used bright colours but just a hint. I used them with my title, my onomatopoeic words and also my film I edited. Lastly I incorporated the title on my poster along with my trailer to tie them together.

 

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used YouTube for the research part of my trailer; I used it to watch to watch lots and lots of different movie trailers to see how I had to do different things to make it realistic.

I then used a Digital DSLR camera for my planning. I used it to take pictures of potential places for my scenes to take place, these were for my blog. I also used the camera to shoot footage for my trailer, to take pictures for my poster and magazine cover. I also used it to record my audience feedback for my trailer; all of my onomatopoeic words and my title were photographed as well to upload to the computer.

I used a camera phone to shoot some of my trailer footage, this was intended to make it look like a Blair witch project kind of documentation but I didn’t use it throughout because I didn’t want to overdo it.

I used Google for all of my research such as magazine covers, posters and also trailers. Also Google helped me use Photoshop and InDesign when I needed it.

I used Google blog/Blogger to put all of my research and planning on. This was like a diary to keep up with all of my work.

I then used InDesign to make my poster and magazine cover. All of my layouts for my final poster and cover were made on InDesign.

I used Photoshop to create my onomatopoeic words and title. First I drew them, by hand in black and white, uploaded them to Photoshop and them edited them by making them bolder and rounded and coloured them in bright comic colours. I also used Photoshop to edit my picture for my magazine cover and also my ‘BBFC’ certificate on my trailer.

I lastly used Movie Studio Platinum to piece together all of my footage for my trailer. This being music, film or sound effects and pictures.

 

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I have learned that my magazine and poster were noticed to be very cohesive. The audience said that they liked that I used the same basic background but with different colours, because for both it does give the clear idea of what I was portraying without being the same. Also, the first person said that they liked that I used the barcode on the magazine cover, as well as they age rating on the poster. They said it looked more professional which is definitely what I was going for.

The second person said that they liked the cohesion between the poster and the magazine cover and the trailer which was due to the cartoon comic book theme. I did this by having the same distinct colour scheme throughout and also by tying the magazine cover and poster together and then the poster and the trailer. I tied the magazine cover and poster together by using the same colours and backgrounds. I then tied the poster and the trailer together by using the same title in both, and then the bold cartoon lettering in the fight scenes that I used, as similar to the bold cartoon lettering I used for my main title.  He also mentioned that my trailer was rather short, but that was the idea, I wanted it to be a teaser trailer leaving the audience not really knowing which should make them want to watch and find out. So when he said he will have to see what will happen, by watching the trailer, I realised I had done the right thing.

The third person seemed to like my poster and mentioned it was because he liked the colours because they stood out and that he also liked that I used those colours in my trailer in the fight scene. The way I tied those together was by using the same colours/bubble writing for the onomatopoeic words that occurred in the fight scenes. I like that he noticed that, because making the onomatopoeic words and editing them onto the film, took up a lot of time.

The last member of the audience mentioned again that I used the same backgrounds for my magazine cover and my poster and said that it was cohesive because it tied them together. When I decided to use the same background for both my poster and my magazine cover, I wasn’t sure whether they would be too much alike, but the audience made me feel as if it was the right choice because it helped tie them together, and not too much. Lastly they said that it was a nice thing to put the title in both the trailer and on the poster. I felt like I wanted to put it everywhere I could because it was the main title, and then because I also worked really hard on it... but yes, I am glad I didn’t put it on the magazine cover because it would have been too much.

Over all, I have learnt that I have done well with trying to make all of my products cohesive but I could have made my trailer a little bit longer to give some more away.

This is my Movie Poster;

This is my final Movie magazine cover;