Closed Blog Notification

Centre Name: Norbury Manor BEC
Centre Number: 14343
Candidate Name: Shari Powell
Candidate Number: 9535
Unit: G324

Evaluation Question Four - How Did You Use New Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

The reason that I keep looking down is because I had written a script of what I was going to say. I preferred to have a script so I knew exactly what I was talking about.

Evaluation Question Three - What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Audience Reactions on Dipity.

The + signs on the bottom of the timelines are more posts that will open if you click on them, they can't all fit on the timeline.

Evaluation Question Two - How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Ancillary Texts?

Question 1 cuts off a bit so im typing it here so that it's easy to read: The chain on the poster links with the title of the movie. This was done so that the audience could paint a picture that the necklace plays a big part in the narrative. The chain is also in the beginning of the trailer so it shows a running theme. The title of the film is called 'the chain', we used a chain as a prop as it is a cursed object and it's what sets off a chain of events. Cursed objects are usually found in supernatural horror movies and that's the sub genre that my group and I decided to have. Having an image of a chain in the trailer and the poster was really effective as it shows the object which is causing so much destruction. The necklace is the first thing shown in my horror trailer which helps set the narrative and shows just how important the prop is. Throughout the trailer, it's apparent that the necklace connects to the villain and the victim, It's even shown in one of the last scenes in the trailer when Lilith (villain) is laying next to the final girl (Riley) and Lilith is holding the necklace. This is significant in showing the development of the narrative; it reiterates the saying 'don't touch what's not yours'. On the poster, it was important to have the necklace showing as it's being held by the villain. The chain on the poster helped to create an illusion of a downward cross on her face which represents evil. The necklace in the poster is in colour and the necklace in the trailer is in black and white; the colours being shown in the necklace are dark colours. A colour of one of the gemstones is a dark red and the colour red connotes blood and danger. Blood is evident on the villains face in the poster so the colour of the gemstone also links in with the makeup. The colour of the gemstone and makeup link in with the colour used for the title of the film as well. Having all these connections of the chain would hopefully signify the purpose and relevance of the chain to the audience. My group and I really wanted to show off the necklace as it was a symbol we used to symbolise danger.

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

Final Trailer

This is my official final trailer. The narrative that is displayed in my trailer is of the final girl (Riley) picking up a necklace that wakes the dead (Lilith). Lilith is the villain and starts to haunt, torment and hurt Riley as Riley took the necklace which belonged to Lilith. Dead Silence and Evil Dead helped influence the narrative. We used Lionsgate production logo as Lionsgate is the company that we went with as they have produced several well grossed horror films. The sub genre of the trailer is supernatural horror and we decided to have a supernatural horror because of the audience feedback I received which showed that supernatural horrors are popular and also supernatural is a common theme in the horror genre. Supernatural themes include curses which links in with the narrative that I helped create. I filmed several different shot types so that the trailer wasn't full of just one shot types. I used over 6 different shot types to make the trailer have a variety in it. I feel like it would've been boring for an audience to just watch a trailer filmed in constant mid-shots.

Conventions Of A Trailer:

• Showcase the stars of the film
• Voice Over's used to tell the story and give credit information
• Music plays an important role in creating atmosphere
• Story is not shown in narrative order
• Trailer builds to a climax, where it ends
• The title does not appear until the end
• Unusual angles to show events or characters

Showcasing the stars of the film is a typical convention that you would find in a trailer. For well known movies, showcasing the stars will appeal to a big audience, they may want to watch a film just for the people starring in the film especially if it's their favourite actor/actress. The villain and victim are showcased a lot during the trailer. The villain is the main person who causes conflict so she was a big importance in the trailer. She needed to have enough scenes to illustrate to an audience her role in it and to also highlight the narrative. The victim was showcased in the trailer as she was the one who was being followed by the villain.

 

Voice over's in my trailer weren't necessarily used to tell a story but the voice over used at the beginning allowed a flashback scene and the voice over at the end shows the destruction. The voice over at the beginning introduces part of the narrative and it says "that's a nice necklace, where did you get it?". The scene was filmed in colour but we changed it to black and white during the editing process to make it look like a flashback. The next scene then answers the question and shows that Riley got the necklace from a graveyard. To an audience this may appear really weird and Riley could be seen as the villain because she's in dark clothing and also taking a necklace from a graveyard. It's not ideal to be in a graveyard unless your there to pay your respects to someone who's passed away. The voice over at the end says "Riley, you need to return this necklace". The word necklace is used in both voice overs to show the audience that the necklace is the main problem that's causing so much chaos. The word 'need' shows urgency to return the necklace, it's clear from clips in the trailer that the necklace is a dangerous cursed object.

 

Music plays an important part in creating atmosphere is conventional in a trailer. The music used in my trailer changes at different scenes, the past varies from slow to really fast. We used several different soundtracks in the trailer, using up to 3 different songs to create different atmospheres. We even added sound affects to create atmosphere such as the heartbeats and scream. The heartbeats came when Riley was running away from Lilith which would exemplify exactly how Riley was feeling fearing for her life. Story not being shown in a narrative order is one of the biggest conventions of a trailer. In any trailer for any genre, it would be highly unlikely for the narrative to be shown in narrative order. It's not shown in narrative order because the story would be given away to an audience. They wouldn't want to go away and watch the movie if they've practically seen it in a trailer. Trailers are meant to pick out the most exciting bits which would captivate an audience and make them want to watch more. In my trailer, the story is not shown in narrative order, my group and I wanted to conform to the conventions of a trailer and this was a good way to do it. In my trailer it wouldn't be clear when certain events took place.

The trailer builds to a climax, where it ends is conventional of a trailer and this is what my group and I have done when making this trailer. We put all of the action packed events throughout the trailer and then at the end we have a minor character walking away and an audience is left wondering what will happen to the victim. The scene before the minor character walking away was the first time you get to see the villain laying next to the victim. The villain has the necklace in her hand which could mean more problems for the victim but the audience will never know what would happen as it's reached to a climax. The climax stage is meant to seem as though there's a sense of calmness. The title not appearing until the end of a trailer is evident in my trailer. We kept the title at the end of the trailer because I researched a lot of horror trailers on Youtube and found that typically the title goes at the end. It's at the end as the name of the film will stick in an audience's head, they'll remember the title of the movie because it's the last thing they see after all the action they've seen during the trailer. Unusual angles to show events or characters was present in my trailer when a canted angle was used to show the event of prayer. Riley was reading out a prayer and the props of the Bible and candles helped to show the event of a prayer. This was a way to incorporate religion in my trailer which is an iconography that can be found in the horror genre frequently. 

 

In my opinion, I feel my trailer conforms to the conventions of a real trailer. My trailer manages to involve most of the conventions for it.

Final Magazine Cover

 

A medium close up shot was used for the main image. Typical conventions of a magazine cover are: Main image, masthead, barcode, slogans, colour scheme, dateline , website, cover lines, variety of fonts on the cover and sell lines.

 

The main image is showing direct address and engaging with an audience. Her face really stands out because of the blood and bruising created by using makeup. Her appearance is meant to look quite deathly as she is a ghost and she's representing death. She's the villain so she needs to look menacing to an audience. The makeup was enhanced on Photoshop but all the makeup was done before hand. If the blood needed to be darkened then we would change the contrast or exposure levels in Photoshop. A close up shot is used so the audience can actually see her face, the sole focus is the main image. It's the first thing you see on a magazine cover. I wanted the magazine cover to have a close up shot so that the main focus was on her blooded makeup and on the film poster, the shot type was a medium close up shot so that the costume and props could be displayed as well as still being able to see the face quite close up. The two different shot types illustrated her being the villain and her expressions looked menacing.

 

The masthead is always featured on a magazine front cover. It is telling the audience what magazine it is; 'Empire' is the masthead. Empire was the chosen magazine as it's the most popular film magazine. I also did research into the magazine's history and I found that for the 18th Birthday issue in 2007 for Empire, they picked the top 50 rated 18-rated movies. This showed me that Empire magazine took an interest into the horror genre, knowing that they've had an interest in the horror genre made it easier for my group and I to decide to have them be the company we chose for the magazine cover. On the masthead we put a blood splatter on it. As blood is a typical iconography that shows up in horror movies, we wanted to emphasise this on the magazine cover. Our production company is called 'cut throat productions' and the cutting of the throat in horror movies usually sees blood splattering out of the neck. The production name links in with the blood splatter on the masthead. It made the masthead stand out more as well because usually the Empire magazine isn't covered in blood and is left plain. To a reader, it will still be easy to establish that Empire is the magazine name as the blood isn't covering that much of it. Whilst I was researching horror film posters, I came across the Boogeyman 2 movie poster and it gave me inspiration to have the blood coming off of the 'M' in Empire. On the Boogeyman 2, blood is dripping just from the M and I felt it looked effective. It stood out to me as a reader and I wanted the masthead to stand out to my audience as well.

 

The barcode is conventional on a magazine cover. It makes the magazine more legit and makes it sellable; it shows how it could be a real magazine as it would be distributed. On a typical magazine cover, a barcode is used as the barcode is the thing that needs to be scanned in shops in order for a customer to buy it. The slogan is conventional on a magazine cover as it reels the reader in. In this case the slogan could be passed off as 'evil never dies' which is the tagline associated with my movie. It's the only text in the colour black because the colour black is associated with such negative things. It reiterates what the slogan is saying that evil is black, someone who is evil never sees anything positively. The colour scheme is black, white and red which is a colour scheme that has been kept consistent for both the magazine and poster and even the trailer. A colour scheme is conventional for a magazine cover. It helps allow the readers to know what issue of the magazine it is. If it was a summer issue, you'd expect to see a lot of bright colours such as pink and yellow but with a horror issue, an audience wouldn't expect to see bright colours but instead expect to see dark colours such as the black and red which is evident on my magazine cover. The red and white colours really stick out on a black background and draws attention to all the texts on the cover and also highlights the image.

A dateline is conventional to have on a magazine cover as it tells the readers when the issue will be coming out and also lets the readers know the price of the magazine. The issue date is February 2015 as this is the month and year that we finished creating the magazine cover. Magazines are usually quite expensive so we wanted to put a realistic price of £3.99 on it instead of something cheap which wouldn't of been realistic to a reader at all. My group and I tried to make the magazine cover and film poster look as realistic as possible. Conventionally a website is featured on the magazine but with my magazine cover, the website wasn't put on it. The website wasn't featured on the magazine cover but was featured on the film poster, so it was better to have the website on one of the ancillary texts rather than none. The cover lines are all the features on the magazine. They are normally placed on either the left or right. "Cooking for cannibals" cover line came from an Empire issue in March 2001 when it said "What's cooking?". We decided to spin the cover line and change it by not asking a question but making a statement instead. A cannibal is a person who eats the flesh of other human beings. Cannibals can be found in horror films such as The Descent (2005), The Cave (2005) and Catacombs (2007). It's ironic cooking for cannibals as they're normally the ones feeding off of raw human flesh and they never cook. 'How Psycho are you?' makes reference to the horror film Psycho (1960), it's seeing if the reader will be on a level of psycho like Norman Bates. A reader who hasn't seen the film may not know what it means, it looks just like a simple question but it links in with the real film. 'Top 5 villains' is showing the villains that have proved most popular over the years. As a villain is the main protagonist in a horror movie and they cause the most conflict, essentially they make a horror movie as without a villain, a horror movie is nothing. It's good to give recognition to villains as although they're the evil ones, the horror genre depends on them; they drive a story forward. The word 'special' in the cover lines makes it seem as though you can only get the interview exclusive to this Empire issue. Dawn Gallant is the person who played the villain in my trailer so divulging into her fears is effective as playing a villain, the villain normally doesn't fear anything.

A variety of fonts are usually seen on a magazine cover to keep it interesting. It would look rather bland and dull if there was only one font. The font used for the title of the film and the slogan are the same fonts which were used on the poster and in the trailer; it keeps a reoccurring theme, it makes them stand out amongst the other fonts. The font was found on the website called da font whereas the other fonts were taken from the fonts list in Photoshop. The fonts chosen are simple and don't draw too much attention away from the things that should be the most important: the main image, masthead and title of the film. The sell line is the introductory headline, on my magazine cover it says 'the world's biggest movie magazine', this just emphasises how Empire is well known and the most popular movie magazine, it's rated higher than any other movie magazine. It's put directly underneath the masthead as 'Empire' is the masthead and that's the magazine the sell line is talking about. It's put in small print so that it can be seen by readers and to show it's just not the main text on the magazine cover.