Final Post Of A2 Media Studies: Candidate Details

Matthew David Archer
Candidate number: 7017
Centre number: 17131
School name: John F Kennedy School

Final Draft Of Film Poster:

Final Draft Of Film Magazine:

Final Draft Of Film Trailer: 

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In creating this trailer I and my partner firstly researched into other movies of the ‘Thriller’ genre, to see what we could covet for our trailer. The movie followed the conventions of structure, at the beginning all is normal and there is happiness, then there is a happening which distorts this, finally all order is restored. So the movie plot follows the same plot structure conventions, of numerous films that have been produced before ours. The way Todorov's theory has been applied; In the beginning the husband and his wife lived happily together, this stage represents the equilibrium. The destruction of this equilibrium comes in the form of the husband’s boss and the cheating wife and the order is restored by the killing of the wife. However a section of the target audience would say that order is not restored because the happiness is not rekindled, this makes the movie plot to lean towards the conventions of a Greek tragedy, like Romeo and Juliet and Othello.  The plot also uses various aspects of a ‘Greek tragedy’ which is the implication is that the tragic (sad) outcome is an inevitable result of the key character's personal flaws. He or she was 'doomed' to disaster (death) from the outset.

Mise en scene:

When researching we analysed the inception trailer and came across elements of it that we thought in replicating would give the trailer a more sophisticated and professional feel. One clip in particular epitomised the conventions of light and dark shadowing to provide a mysterious effect. From the classic thriller/horror don’t look back; we copied the use of shapes to provide an enigmatic sense. In general the mise en scene of our final trailer helps to follow the conventions of normal film trailers, especially thriller, with the use of characters and the acting that was completed.

Inter titles:

Like many other trailers, we used inter titles to communicate with the audience more and to make sure that the audience understood each section of the trailer, be we did not want to overdo this, because our target audience does not need everything to be spelt out for them since they like to work situation and scenarios out for themselves. My partner and I defied the conventions of a thriller movie with the colouring of the text, red. Red is normally linked to the horror or romance genres but not to thrillers. The reasoning behind the choice of this colour so that the movie contains both horror and romance and we believed that there should be subtle hints to illustrate this

Characters: 

We stayed with the conventions when casting the actors. The boss had to be domineering and had to possess a physical presence in which he demands respects, the colour of the boss plays a huge part because black is linked to bad and there is not difference is this situation. The Character Danny is a simplistic character, whom is shorter and of smaller build than his boss to represent the inferior aspect of this character. He is clean shaven this represents his naivety and lack of wisdom, which is reflected in the fact that he was oblivious to his wife cheating on him. When casting the Danny’s wife we had to take into consideration the ability to play two parts, both the loving wife and the vindictive adulterer, her ginger hair is symbolic of a playful mentality which will influence her to cheating and her wide smile  illustrates her happiness as a wife.

Location:

The locations selected for our trailer were, in 2 different offices and a corridor, this is a typical convention of a movie of this plot, the movie ‘horrible bosses’ uses every day locations such as these and we believed that it was very effective and presented notions we liked to copy. The technique highlights how the happens in the film could happen to anyone, because nothing seems out of the ordinary, therefore the audience could put themselves in the position of the actors. The use of the offices shows the boss and Danny in their work environment and doing what normal men do, helping to run with the conventions of professional trailers.   

Editing:

The trailer speed we have adopted is quite slow; we have a few scenes and very little cuts. This does not follow the conventions of a thriller; a thriller normally has a collection of long to short scenes, shorting in the build-up of tension. I and my partner decided to defy this technique, because we believe that the trailer would be far too confusing with the shortening of the scenes due to the complexity of the plot. So we opted for longer scenes to provide a more narrative approach so that the audiences are able to gather knowledge on the happenings of the trailer.

Music:

The instrumental we used was a tracked originally produced by Ed Sheeran called I Love you. The sound track takes on a reflective tone, with slow tempo strumming. This can be seen in two ways, the characters could be reflecting upon what will happen or the couple who are pictured in the opening scene could be reflecting on their wonderful relationship. The soundtrack allows the audience to make up their mind in how they want to perceive the song, this gives the audience the choice and choice will be further evident within the movie, as in what person will the audience support.   

Conclusion:

In conclusion I believe the trailer that I and my partner created helps to use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products through the use of camera shots allowing the audience to establish connections with the characters, also through the use of mise en scene, the interties used, the music in the trailer, the location and editing, all helping to show an effective film teaser trailer.

Magazine and Poster:
Me and my partner on this project also created a video evaluating the film poster and magazine, the video features below:

Question 2: how effective is the combination your main product and ancillary texts?

My partner and I both made separate ancillary texts, a magazine, poster and a trailer but we kept to the same house style because we believed that this house style reflects the thriller genre the most.
Being that posters are very simplistic and do not acquire a lot of text to be displayed on the them, it is vital for whatever that is showcased on the poster to link  well and professionally to the rest of the products associated with the poster. By researching current magazines for movies we came to the realisation that compared to your gossip magazine, text on the cover lacks, so again we had to make sure that we had a strong house style which would represent the notions found in the main product of the film trailer. If all of the above is taken on board we would achieve an effective combination of our main product and ancillary texts.

The house style of the products were structured around the colours used for the movie title ‘The Decision’, this consists of red, grey, black and white titling. The colour red is used in the trailer for the inter titles; this is duplicated throughout the products, by the predominant use of red and black text. The combination of the products relied fundamentally on the use of similar colours to provide an obvious aesthetic link.

Although the magazine and poster use different photographs in their products, it is evident that the photographs were taken for the same production to enhance the link between the ancillary text and the main product. The photos are of the same actors wearing the same clothes in each of the ancillary products, as well as this the actor are wearing similar clothes in the trailer, so it could not be mistaken for another movie in which all three of them star in together, all that is different is the poses they are using. Through the use of good photographs the magazine and poster link well with the trailer, being that ancillary text portray and promote the 3 actors in which the trailer is based around.

Lastly the film trailer, poster and magazine all feature the film title ‘The Decision’ which I feel is an essential and also very effective feature that gives all three ancillary texts a unique link.

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feed back?

For the purposes of simplicity I have developed a wordle for each my poster, magazine and film trailer audience feedback. This programme allows for a professional blend of many words and sentences; this helps break up the normal text that is used.

Poster Positive Feedback:

The positive feedback I received on my poster allowed me to develop the confidence and go and create a final products using the product I had already produced, I received honest feedback from my friends and family through the use of social networking websites etc. They thought that the characters poses were professional and the editing of the photo was effective; this was good to hear as it allowed me to keep the photo I had shot and edited originally.  Also I was told that I had a good use of colour in the poster, this relates back to question two of the evaluation and helps to show that the poster fits in well with both the magazine and the trailer. The feedback I received also showed that the use of the official univers 39 font coupled with the large release date of the film in red on the bottom of the poster really helped to give it that final professional look that I needed.

Poster Negative Feedback:

The negative feedback I received was also very positive as I did not receive very much negative comments on the poster, the only thing that I was told to change was to make the male characters in the poster slightly brighter. This I took into account and did complete in the editing stage.

Magazine Positive Feedback:

The positive feedback I received on my magazine helped me a lot in terms of learning what the audience liked so I could emphasise that on the final draft of my film magazine. I was told that the different fonts gave the magazine a professional look, also the way in which they were positioned were also effective.  This allowed me to expand on this in the final draft to be able to attract the audience to the magazine. Also I was told that the house styles used were consistent which I have previously said help connect all three pieces of media text I have produced. The title of the magazine was sized correctly said one person, this allowed me to keep that the same size as I learned it attracted the audience. Finally I was told that the positioning of the characters was very good in terms of establishing a connection with the audience.  After all this feedback it was clear that the product I had produced held the key features of a successful product.

Magazine Negative Feedback:

The negative feedback I received on my magazine allowed me to finally complete the product and to its full affect in terms of attracting the audience. I was told that the initial blurred title effect should be taken off as it not conventional of magazine front covers and will not attract the audience. Finally I was told to make the characters slightly bigger as they will stand out more and therefore attract the audience to the magazine and therefore the film.

Film Trailer Positive Feedback:

For my film trailer feedback, this was the main piece of feedback I focused on in order to produce a professional film trailer. I was told that the trailer featured a good use of sound as the music at the beginning drew them in and caused them to want to watch the rest of the trailer. Also the use of camera angles and effects in terms of over the shoulder shots, establishing shots, head and shoulder shots, point of view shots were all used in my trailer to give it a more rounded and somewhat conventional look and the audience showed a liking to this. The editing was very good I was told with the use of different cuts and also transitions between different scenes, also the syncing of different pieces of sound in the trailer helped emphasise the overall affect. Finally the acting in the trailer was good, helping to make the trailer more professional and causing the audience to want to see the film.

Film Trailer Negative Feedback:

The negative feedback I received on my trailer allowed me to edit it again to suit the needs and requirements of the audience to cause them to want to see the film. I was told to ‘speed up’ the trailer by making the cuts quicker and the scenes shorter to draw the audience in more. Also I was told to take out some scenes as it gave away too much of the story, so I did that, this is to leave the audience on more of a cliff hanger and will cause them to want to go and see the film. 

Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?

For this question i decided to create a prezi to display my work, this is an interactive web based application that allows you to click between different pieces of information or play through the entire show in order. The prezi is featured bellow.

Link: http://prezi.com/yyfznyvsi3vj/how-did-you-use-media-technologies-in-the-construction-and-research-planning-and-evaluation/