Evaluation

For our media project, my group members and me decided to create a film trailer under the topic of film promotion. As well as the video project, we each designed our own ancillary tasks consisting of 3 separate individual tasks. These were a theatrical poster, teaser poster and web page. As a group we all set our minds to creating a magazine front cover, using the design influence of EMPIRE magazine. My role in the group was director and moderator and I assigned myself the task of creating the teaser poster/ all my work and contributions will be reflected in this evaluation and how we achieved our final projects. Eragon:

Q1.in what ways does your media project use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media projects?

Below are some examples of real media projects on which my project were based:

Teaser poster

 

Teaser trailer

 

Magazine article

 

As you can see from these products our chose genre was fantasy. Fantasy genre was quoted as “often in the context of the imagination, dreams, or hallucinations of a character or within the projected vision of the storyteller. Fantasy films often have an element of magic, myth, wonder, escapism, and the extraordinary. They may appeal to both children and adults, depending upon the particular film” (quote taken from filmsite.org) Our products very much fit the standards typical of the fantasy genre, audience feedback suggesting this through the use of quick cuts, fast paced editing and the enigmatic approach to our main protagonist. 1) The first product was an ancillary teaser poster task I assigned myself the task of producing. This was very conventional of regular teaser posters as shown in the example. It consists of an image that shows something or someone from the film in such a way it does not reveal anything about the film, raising enigmas. The clip of the red wolf eye from my poster is very similar to the iron man poster which shows a single eye of a character from the film. The conventions are furthered followed, the only information given is the date of release, the title of the film for us to look out for in the future and a slogan which gives minor information about the overall plot but still leaves enigmas once again. My inspiration came from this poster as well the harry potter poster and the avatar one. I made sure to give the look of the poster a fantasy feel, using a human face and eye and editing the design so it resembled the image of a wolfs eye on a human face, giving the hero that surreal and animal like persona. Another basis behind my poster was the assassins creed poster design which gave our protagonist his image.   Teaser poster

Assassins creed poster

 

Iron man poster 

 

2)The second displayed product was our Teaser trailer video project, the main assignment of our coursework. Our inspiration came from films such as avatar and batman. We wanted our protagonist to be the typical shadowed hero we are used to seeing in fantasy type films. The use of the teaser trailer is used primarily in Hollywood and enters cinemas, tagging onto the start of existing films. This convention we followed, rarely showing the face of the protagonist from under his hood. We wanted our hero to be mysterious and enigmatic so as to attract the audience attention. This proved successful as our feedback quite often came back with comments describing the viewer’s invigorated attention due to our use of enigmas and mystery around ‘Lone Wolfe’. Teaser trailers came months before the product itself is released, sometimes even years. Even when the film is still being made, they quite often give no film title or release date, leaving the audience interested. They do not need to develop narrative or character profiles and are usually full of enigmas. As described in the previous sentence a much required convention is once again the use of enigmas. Our video may contain a film title but it does not include a date of release nor does it give anything away about the motives of the protagonist. We show the training of the hero and his escape from some unseen threat but we are given no hint to the narrative, no explanation for why he is running or what he is running from and why. Our trailer fits very well to typical genre conventions. We have followed the conventions of the fantasy quite well. The use of a snow capped forest fits the typical Mise en scene. Forests are usually seen as the extreme signifiers for peace and solitude compared to the idea of a broken land as shown by the war torn wasteland, the vivid fantasy contrast to the forest setting. Swordplay is another factor which benefits to the fantasy genre. Combined with magic (also included in our video when our protagonist sends the villain backwards with a push of magic energy), it is the basis behind most of the genres action as well as the over the top acrobatics that create the hero as a character through his exaggerated skills and abilities. These are very frequently displayed as typical fantasy elements for villains and heroes alike. Trailers are generally between 30-60 seconds in total length but occasionally have been known to exceed this to a maximum of 90 seconds. The first teaser trailer created was for superman by Richard Donner, shown in Cinemas which was released in 1978, around 6 months after the trailer.

    This was the very first teaser trailer to be created and put into production. This was our inspiration for our trailer. Our video feedback was fortification for our beliefs that we followed the typical conventions. Our feed back told us that our video was not too long nor was it too short. As with typical production, our final product of 1:45 has been narrowed down from several hours of footage. Planning is necessary and therefore we need a lot of footage as to perfectly capture and edit each and every scene so as to achieve top quality filming in our final project. This is evident as our final production was a minor fragment of our overall filming. Our teaser trailer 

Screenshots

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3) Our third project was a magazine front cover and this was also a group effort. We were inspired by Empire magazine and this is the product we based our magazine on. We once again followed conventions of the empire magazine, the picture for the main article cutting over the title. This is done because it is what readers of Empire come to expect when they buy the magazine. The layout is typical of the magazine, the major main article title in big letters across the bottom of the page; usually in bold as to attract the eye to its importance.

Our magazine cover

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The picture for this article takes up most of the page and is centered in the middle of the page as to be the first item to be taken in when you see the magazine. This is evident in our magazine due to the large artificial tear down the page, the protagonist viewed behind it. As typical the minor articles are viewed down the sides of the page, around the main article picture, information given with a smaller picture and a small competition or prize giveaway notice included just below the main article information. My inspiration came from other magazines of similar caliber such as the issue with the Hulk breaking through the page. This magazine is typical of the fantasy genre. Most of the films featured in Empire are either of a science fiction of fantasy genre. Our film is a regular idea candidate for this particular brand of magazine.               Empire magazine, Hulk issue

Q2) how effective is the combination of your main products and ancilliary texts? Branding A logo is the main form of representing the product, the 'brand' that we come to recognise and associate to the product.

• our logo has been used on every product.

• Font was hobbiton brushhand, downloaded from Dafont.com.
• Very elvish, gives a fantasy element.
• Black background represents shadow, cut off from the world.
• White writing suggests either contrast of freedom/independence.
• Red eyes, relate to our character, "Lone Wolfe" red denoting anger, passion and the hint of revenge.
• logo creates a clear brand image. As our logo is imbued into each product we have created, this creates a clear brand image that sets our project apart from other brands. It is the recognisable feature for which to locate our product by, which is excatly what a brand image should do.

Teaser Poster. logo is shown at the bottom of the page.

 Magazine task. Joint ancilliary task  

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  Logo is used as the title to introduce the film and highlight the article  for the reader who is browsing. 
• Once again the theme is carried over from the teaser poster. the red, white and black colour scheme continuing the mysterious fantasy genre. 
• Artificial tear down page- wolf like slash linking to character and protagonist, also seen behind the slash in page.
•  Choice of magazine- empire has a strong influence with fantasy/sci-fi films. Most of the articles in this particular magazine generally follow the same genres. 

Video project

• The video is our main project.

• Theme and characters followed. from what we see, the protagonist in the video matches the person seen behind the wolf slash on the magazine cover. 

• linking to the poster, there is still the element of mystery. we still do not know who the lone wolfe is and we very rarely see their face. 

• final outro to the video. We are shown the logo for the film used in both the magazine and teaser poster. 

• The projects all have a strong link. This is down to the use of the title to signify the brand image and the constant use of mystery throught thr fantasy genre. Each project gives away a part or hint of the film but we need each task to fully grasp the concept or ideas behind "Lone Wolfe"

I believe that this project work well with the genre. we have designed Lone wolfe in the hope that it would suit a high budget hollywood production film

• Fast paced action scenes
• Assassin- sword play more commonly seen in the fantasy film.
• Human relation to animals- fantasy idea and personification of being "one with nature"

Q3 What have you learned from your audience feedback? Target audience- Focused strongly on teenagers interested in the fantasy genre. This audience is young and interested in films, a valuable audience able to give constructive criticism based on the products.

• i feel this audience is suitable for my product. We as teenagers enjoy the factor of escapsim. Therefore the fantasy genre is suitable for this age group. Fantasy has that element that allows a person to break free and let go, enjoying the film and immersing themselves in its depths.
• this film may be suited to a young teen audience but it does not mean that its is classified for this range only. My secondary audience would consist of a range of film critics looking to review the films and other lovers of the fantasy genre.

Research and audience feedback

• Questionnaires
• Audience feedback as shpwn in the video above.  
• used the feeback and questionnaires to review how successful our project has been for our primary audience.

Audience comments

Evaluation feedback questionnaire results

 

Technology used

• Apple Mac computers. Effective due to the Photoshop and final cut express programmes available. allowed me and my group to effectively create both our posters and video projects. this technology and software allows us to edit and create videos to a degree that would be impossible by hand alone.
• This was a great help in creating our final projects. It allowed for greater freedom and took our projects to new levels, giving us more choices on which to finalise our ideas.
• Use of bold fonts with text captured attention.
• we left our protagonist in a contant bubble of engimatic tension.
• During the video, frequent use of fast paced editing and quick cuts allowed for use to create the mysterious element portrayed around oru character as well as the enigmatic combination of close ups to establish protagonist and extreme long shots to establish the Mise en scene and setting on which our project took place. The snow in the video gave a strong fantasy feel to our project, the sense of escapsim to another world successfully administered to our audience.

I believe that we could have been more careful with our planning. The glimpse of the trainers could have been prevented to make the video seem more professional. the comment about the lack of release date has been taken into account for future reference and we will be careful to include that information in the future.  4)how did you use media technologies in the... Construction

• Apple Mac computers- these computer contained several software programmes that were beneficial to our product creations.
• Final cut express was perfect for our video creation. it allowed my group almost limitless freedom to edit our video footage, cut down and delete the information we did not need, add special effects to the video for dramatic effect (e.g the flash on the sword) and slow or speed up the action on screen. This was a step up from the editing programme "I movie" which did not have the full limit of its more professional counterpart. Final Cut Express allowed my group to extract the music from CDs and import it to the video, giving us our final soundtrack we settled on a soundtrack quite quickly.
• Photoshop and Indesign were great benefactors to the creation of my posters. They allowed me to adpapt the colour schemes to my will, giving me a flawless production and professional touch to my posters. It it these programmes that allowed me to greyscale my poster, then create my red eye over the top of the old image, giving it a contrast to the background and a sense of the fantasy element. The ability to cut and trim my images was simple enough yet effective to a level that gave my poster that finishing touch and sense of satisfaction, Indesign allowing my exported images to be augmented with text in numerous different choices of font and gave me the ability to add my brand logo. tools used included the pen tool, allowing me to cut down and shape my pictures. This, combined with the vector mask feature, enabled me to cut out elements of the picture which were unimportant and irrelevant.The use of the spray can tool allowed me to gain the colour finish i have achieved in my final product.
• i was able to save image from google to my harddrive to then be imported to these programmes onto my poster and then blogger. youtube was usefull as it allowed me to add videos to my blog by copying and pasting the HTML in a format that worked successful with the system.
• Use of Panasnoic Lumix cameras allowed for clear picture to be used for editing in photoshop.

Blogger

• Limited my ability to format my added information. Whereas for the most part it was useful, in large doses information becomes cluttered and stubborn to move, giving a messy layout.
• Videos applied would often delete information or push it out the way. same goes for uploading pictures
• Fonts often appear on blog enlarged way beyond scale and become bold, refusing to change back.
• successful at adding photos, but took a long time to add to blog and often failed to upload.
• Each software use was incredibly useful for the creation of my products but had its limitations. It gave me the ability to edit and create projects to a professional level but there were always problems, such as dowloading or aditing pieces of work.

I believe the technologies have been a great help. they have allowed me to finish my projects to a level that could not be achieved by hand. this year, i believe that due to more knowledge on these programmes it has given me ability to tone my work far sharper and more efficiently that last year. Google.com A good source of pictures for my blog page. I simply typed in the name to my search and i many pictures are instantly displayed for me to copy and paste to my work. Also a reliable link to Slideshare and blogger Slideshare.net Allowed me to download my powerpoint presentation. I was then given a code with which i can upload my presentation to my blog. Conclusion

• Research this year has been successful. I have used many videos from websites such as youtube to tone my project, looking at the typical ideoligies behind my ideas of the fantasy genre. empire magazine has been another factor which allowed me to add mre ideas to my magazine and poster projects. Audience questionnaires have told me and my group that the videos and other tasks we created have worked well for our teaser trailer, and effective combination of main task and ancilliary projects.
• The projects have been very strong, fitting the conventions of the genre and each displaying the brand image we have created. however we could have been more carful with the filming (trainers and missing release date).
• I myself believe that i have been a strong contribution to the group, helping out when i am needed and keeping the group working together. i feel however a little more planning could have taken place, care is essential for the completeion of projects.
• The Lone wolfe logo was successful as a brand image. It clearly defined out product and made it clear of our genre aims. Our audience came to recognise our product through the logo which was inculded on each of our tasks.