MY PERSONAL EVALUATION OF THE MAGAZINE COVER

I decided to reflect upon all the media products we have created as it forms a media

campaign. It was therefore important that our media products all linked in some way
so they were able to create a successful and recognisable campaign. I'm going to
reflect upon each piece in separate posts.

I'm going to focus on the cover image, the masthead, the coverlines and the puff.

The cover image usually takes up a large proportion of the page and is often a
person who plays the main protagonist in the film they are promoting. Hence our decision
to conform to this stereotype and use an image which featured both of our protagonists.
The medium shot used reveals the protagonists body posture, facial expressions, props
and costumes. All features which help to tell the reader more about both the characters and
the narrative of the film itself. If I was to re - do the magazine cover in the future I think I
would have only focus on one character as it is easier for a reader/ audience member to
relate to one character than it is two.

The masthead is conventionally placed in the top left hand corner as this is where the
western eye is trained to look first and follow. Hence, our decision to conform to this.
This bold and unique masthead acts as the brand image and stands out without overpowering
the main content on the page.

Our coverline is the title of our film which runs along the middle of the image. This placement
is ultimately because it should draw the eyes of the reader, especially due to the bold purple
colour used. The smaller tagline placed underneath reveals more about the film and
furthermore draws the reader in.

Puffs are conventionally used on magazine covers hence our decision to include one.
It is placed to the right of the main image in a circular shape. The information within the
puff is promoting content within the magazine. This information is used to entice the reader
in with exciting exclusive offers.

Overall, I am very happy with the final product. This is because I think we have followed the
conventions of a magazine cover really well whilst appealing to readers of our target
market. If I was to do this again in the future I may change it slightly by having a background
that relates to the narrative rather than just a plain white colour.   

MY PERSONAL EVALUATION OF THE THEATRICAL FILM POSTER

I decided to reflect upon all the media products we have created as it forms
a media campaign. It was therefore important that our media products all linked in some
way so they were able to create a successful and recognisable campaign. I'm going to
reflect upon each piece in separate posts.

I'm going to focus on the main focal image used, our chosen colour scheme, the title and
the tagline.

The main focal image is the focus of the poster and is most commonly the first thing an
audience member would look at. We chose to feature both our protagonists as we believed
the medium shot identified an instant connection between the characters through the
proxemics used. We believed this connection may appeal to our target audience of adolescent
females. It also helps to give a snippet of information about the narrative through the props,
costumes, facial expressions and body language used. We chose to have a neutral brick
wall as the background. This was predominantly because it was simple but edgy.

Our chosen colour scheme was a greyscale, this really simplified our film poster and gave it
a professional touch. We did originally have the image in colour however decided against
it as we thought it wasn’t as powerful.

Our title font is a combination of a number of different size and shaped letters. We ultimately
decided this looked better as it reinforced and portrayed the imperfections. However this
font did go against the other fonts used within the magazine cover and film trailer therefore
not following the conventions of titles.

I believe the taglines are significantly effective as it reveals a characteristic about each
protagonist. This method has been used on other film posters, for example ‘The heat’.
I think this idea is eye catching and may give an audience member more to think about and
question in terms of enigma codes.

Overall, I am very pleased with our final theatrical film poster as I believe we have captured
an intriguing image and have edited it a way that stands out. If I was to change anything
I would potentially use a higher camera angle for the shot, therefore it would appear as if the
audience are looking down on our protagonists reinforcing the conventions of weak and
vulnerable like the character Clio.

MY PERSONAL EVALUATION OF THE FILM TRAILER

I decided to reflect upon all the media products we have created as it forms a media
campaign. It was therefore important that our media products all linked in some way so they
were able to create a successful and recognisable campaign. I'm going to reflect upon
each piece in separate posts.

Shots:

When creating our trailer we were able to capture a number of different shots.
These shots showed that we understood the importance of changing
how the audience sees and perceives something. For example we used a
high angle shot to show the mother passed out on the bed. This shot
conforms to stereotypes as it portrays the character as weak and vulnerable.

We used a number of medium shots. These shots are commonly used in the coming of age
genre and are often used to capture facial expressions or body language of characters.
For example this medium shot shows the female protagonist returning home after having a
fight with her boyfriend. The shot allows the audience to see the distraught emotions
portrayed on the female protagonists face as well as her closed body shape.

Another shot we used throughout was close ups.
Close up shots are used to highlight specific details, in this case
the shot highlights the female protagonist paying the male protagonist
£20 for his babysitting duties.  

This is an example of a long shot we captured. This particular shot 
allowed us to capture both the background (setting) and the main image. 
This shot conforms to the ‘cheesy’ conventions of the coming of age genre.

We used an over the shoulder shot to portray the action from the 
character's perspective. We thought this was an important shot to use 
as it uncommon especially in this scenario. It is usually used in conversations.  

       

We used a number of panning shots throughout the trailer.
We believed our most successful panning shot was when the female
protagonist walked out of Sainsburys. We used the effect slow motion
to give our character an alter ego, it allows her to appear powerful
and strong headed. This effect with a similar shot is commonly used in
the coming of age genre were the protagonist has successful overcome
something. The slow motion effect also allowed us to show off what
skills we had learnt in our adobe workshops.

Lighting:

During certain aspects of the trailer different degrees of lighting were used. For example
low key lighting was used during the revenge scenes, this enabled us to reflect the
negativity/ darkness in what was occurring on screen by filming it when it was dark.

Sound:

We used both non diegetic sound and diegetic sound. The non diegetic sound involved the
use of two different soundtracks and a voice over. The soundtracks used were parallel
sounds as they highlighted the mood being portrayed through the action. For example a
slow song is used during the shots were Clio is at the station debating whether to run away
or stay. The voice-over we added over the top of the action narrates the trailer and reinforces
what is being shown. I am particularly proud of the voice-over as I think it helps to draw on the
emotions of the audience. It was also a new skill me and my group learnt how to do.

The diegetic sound is any sound from within the film. For example this sound was the
characters speech or any other natural sounds eg. the car doors slamming.  

Mise-en-scene:

Props -> We used props such as mobile phones and alcohol. These are commonly seen in
the coming of age genre.

Costumes -> The female protagonist wears quirking clothing eg. the cropped jumper and
ripped mom jeans. This distortion of her clothing resembles the unbalance and imperfections
she currently has in her life. The male protagonist is shown often fully covered in either jeans,
a jumper or a coat. This reveals his character is much more closed and secure.

Settings-> We predominately filmed our trailer either in a house, in a car, at Sainsburys or
at a train station. All locations are common places that teens would be seen/ spend their time.

MY PERSONAL EVALUATION OF MY ROLE IN THE PRODUCTION OF OUR FILM TRAILER

During the production stages of producing our film trailer, I particularly took the role of
directing the production. This involved a lot of initial planning, I sat down early before any
of the actors arrived and wrote a list of rough shots we definitely needed.
Below is an image of a snapshot of what the plan looked like. After I wrote down all the
possible shots we would collect, my attention moved towards organising the actors.
This was a stressful job as it was hard to show what I and the group exactly wanted from them.
We stopped between each shot, so I was able to explain how we wanted them to portray a
certain emotion.

When we filmed at sainsburys the role of directing our actors was rather complicated as

there was limited lighting and by this time we had spent roughly an hour filming, so we
found our actors had begun to lose concentration. Although this section was rushed due to
the above factors, I do think this section was particularly successful. Editing in later stages
may have allowed for areas of weakness eg. actors smirking, to be hidden.

I really enjoyed being the director as I was able to bring ideas and influence certain
decisions that we made. I feel like I organised the actors well to aid that the filming and
collection of shots ran as smoothly as possible. In the future I would like to potentially
be more involved in the actual filming and practice using different forms of technology
that we used to capture the shots.

EVALUATION TASK - AUDIENCE FEEDBACK ON FILM TRAILER FROM QUESTIONNAIRE

Question 1 asked viewers if they thought our trailer conformed to the conventions of a coming of age genre. Common codes and conventions in a coming of age film involve settings of schools, parties, general houses. They involve characters such as misbehaving adolescents, cheerleaders, geeks. Props are often alcohol, drugs, books, cars. The feedback revealed that just over 65% of viewers agreed that we used certain conventions in a coming of age genre. This highlights that to some extent we successfully portrayed the coming of age genre.

Question 2 asked viewers if they enjoyed watching our film trailer and if it was made into a film would they go watch it. Just over 55% of viewers answered yes, this revealed some positive responses from our trailer. Around 35% of viewers answered maybe, this highlights that in some way the trailer did grab their attention and they would consider watching it. The final 10% answered no, we do not necessarily see this as a negative, as many genres and films do not please all types of viewers. This viewer may have been an older male or female who does not enjoy the coming of age genre.

Question 3 asked viewers if they thought our film trailer conformed or subverted character stereotypes. Just under 70% thought our characters conformed to stereotypes. This is positive feedback as we particularly focused on trying to make her characters relatable and generic to the coming of age genre. Out of the remaining 30%, 20% answered that they weren’t sure. This just highlights that they didn’t necessarily understand the context of the question.

Question 4 asked viewers if they thought our film trailer would attract our target audience of young teenagers/ adults, predominantly female. Just under 90% answered yes. This is significantly successful as it means that our trailer would appeal to who we would target to sell our film to if it was released in the cinema for example.  

Question 5: How would you recommend we improve our film trailer?

From the responses that we got most of the feedback was constructive criticism. They gave us advice on how to improve which was exactly what we asked for. If we were to do this project again, or if we had time to adjust our final piece we would take all the ideas on board on how to improve. One issue we had with getting back feedback was that they were all anonymous so we couldn't approach people to elaborate on their answers.

Below are some of the feedback we received:

'Have a shorter opening section to allow more drama in the middle.'

'make the texting scenes more readable?'

'More catchy start, more colours, more text on screen, quicker flashes of brother, home, babysitter, mum etc with more precise speech around it to make it more snappy and focused to begin with.'

'The beginning sections when filming in the house maybe use alternative shots/ different lighting? This may give the trailer a more professional finish.'

'Do many different takes then when editing you can choose the best ones'

Question 6: Any other comments/ suggestions on our film trailer?

From analysing this response, again it was very positive feedback with a lot of responses being 'no'. Again we had some constructive criticism which can be seen below, this would help us improve if we had time to edit it. This, as a group, made us feel as if we'd done a good job on our editing and we are pleased with our final product.

Below are some of the feedback we received:

'No'

'Really enjoyed watching the film trailer. It was very gripping towards the end and particularly thought the voice over made the trailer successful.'

'It was excellent!'

'Really enjoyed watching. I particularly liked how you used a variety of settings and props.'

EVALUATION TASK - RESULTS FROM OUR MAGAZINE COVER AND FILM POSTER QUESTIONNAIRE

Question 1: Does our magazine cover relate to our film trailer?

Feedback: For this question we received 100% feedback which we were really happy with, as it was important to all of us that there was clear consistency between all areas of our media products. Having this link would mean that we created a media conglomerate that worked effectively together, with each aspect supporting the other.

Question 2: Does our theatrical film poster relate to our film trailer?

Feedback: Again, we received 100% feedback for this question which we were happy with, for the same reasons as our response to question 1.

Question 3: How could we improve our magazine cover?

Feedback:

-Focus on one character rather than both: We found this piece of feedback really interesting to receive and between our group found that some of us agreed that this would work, whilst others disagreed. In general, we collectively decided that if we were to complete our magazine cover again then we could complete multiple editions of the same issue, with different characters and character collaborations on each cover. This would then ensure that we are reaching every member of our target audience, as required.

-Improving the quality of our photoshopping: We are all in strong agreement with this comment and believe that if we had more time to focus on each individual aspect of our genre then they would be completed to a higher standard.

-Smaller pictures of celebrities around the edges: We decided to copy the layout of a 'Total film' magazine cover, and due to the lack of celebrity pictures on there, we also did not include them. We think that this decision has left us with a more professional looking result.

-Add a background behind the characters: We attempted to add a background on many occasions, but due to the rule about sticking to four colours, we were unsuccessful in finding a background that worked well. Furthermore, we continued to follow the 'total film' cover, and they did not have a background on theirs.

Question 4: How could we improve our theatrical film poster?

Feedback:

-Image in colour: As explained above, a professional looking product is one that has stuck to four colours in their colour scheme. I agree with this and hence we decided to put our image in black and white.

-More suited font: We struggled a lot with a choice of font that stood out and caught the audience's attention, but also portrayed the coming of age genre. We opted for a variety of different fonts that were all bold in order to show its importance, and the different fonts portrays the concept of 'imperfections.'

-Adding effects around each character: To be completely honest, we didn't even think about this! I agree that this would have made our poster more interesting and enable the image of our characters to stand out more.

Question 5: Any other comments or suggestions on either the magazine cover or theatrical film poster?

Feedback: All the feedback we received in this section was very positive. People highlighted the fact that they liked our short sentences below the characters on our film poster as this created an enigma code for the audience.

SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDBACK

We used social media to contact our target audience via a Facebook post.

You can view this post below. We used a website called 'Survey Monkey' which
we have used previously, we know this website is reliable and easy to use, therefore
we came up with a list and variety of questions which we knew we could then
analyse in depth and receive honest feedback from our peers. We thought that
using social media would increase the response rate and it would increase the
representatives and validity of the responses we got.

EVALUATION TASK 4

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

During the whole process of the production of our projects we used different types of new
media technologies, these include cameras and laptops to construct our final product.
However, when we were editing everything together we used adobe premier pro, adobe
Photoshop and adobe after effects.

When filming our trailer we used a camera to film. We decided to use the professional
camera as the video quality came out well and at a very high quality, whereas if we'd
decided to use a smartphone to film we would've struggled with the video quality as well
as the sound quality.

As a group we also decided to use the same camera to take photographs of our main
actors, Toby Payne and Orla Jordan, this was for our film poster. We wanted the two
main characters on the front, we tried out lots of different poses and lighting effects using
the flash, however we settled on our final photo, as we believe it would have the most effect
on  the audience and we thought it looked the best do to the proxemics and lighting.

To take the photo for the magazine cover, we used a smartphone as we didn't have the
camera on us at the time the photo was taken, therefore we had to use a lower quality
camera however overall we didn't have an issue for the final product.

When we decided to start editing the film trailer footage, we decided to use the computer
and use adobe premiere pro. This is a professional computer program which gave us a
good quality finish on our film trailer which we were very happy with.

We had mini courses on these programs which were very useful as we had a professional
come in and help us with our editing and construction of our film trailer, poster and
magazine cover. We learnt new skills and techniques to create exciting and original
media products.

EVALUATION TASK 3 (RESPONSE/ FEEDBACK FROM OTHER MEDIA A2 CLASS MATES)

We asked a few of our peers within our media class what they thought of our trailer.
Their responses can be viewed below, if we had more time we would've asked possibly
some girls as they were our target audience, however we thought it was important to get
a male perspective too.

EVALUATION TASK 2

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF COMBINING OUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS

In advertising our film, we have aimed to show continuity through our 3 texts to assist in creating a well advertised media product and a sort of recognizable identity for our film. This is essential in the media industry, as being able to associate your whole media product with a single symbol could be extremely effective in ensuring cheaper marketing and advertising. It is also effective in appealing to our target audience.

Firstly, a recognisable motif between two of our three media products is the colour purple/lilac. This stemmed from our attraction to the colour being in our film titles having completed our title research. The colour purple connotes creativity, devotion and independence - these are essential themes of this film and help portray our narrative. The motif appears as our feature colour in our magazine cover. It helps draw attention to those statement words that we want to catch the audience's eye with. It is also used in our film trailer as our film titles. This is obviously a key feature of our advertising and, having researched around other coming of age films, it is essential that we link colour between our different media texts. To use an example of how this could be useful in advertising, I will refer to the film 'it'. Due to the repetition of their red balloon, it has become a symbol of their film which, without explanation, connotes the themes of their media and creates a feeling of tension and panic. The lilac colour also attracts our target audience as it is a soft, pastel colour which is arguably popular currently among teenagers.

Another similarity across our media texts is our actors and images. The fact that our actors appear in our film poster, magazine cover and trailer helps to create a link, and hence when they are seen together, portray their relationship in the film and act as a marketing technique for our audience. On our film poster, they are seen to both look at the camera and hence catch the eye of the audience as they appear to be welcoming viewers, as opposed to being in their own world. In our magazine cover, there is Toby who is seen to look at Orla who is looking away: disregarding the loving help that she is being offered. This is attractive to a magazine audience as they tend to be interested in celebrity drama, and as a result, we also hope that they would be intrigued by on screen drama. Furthermore, our use of attractive actors and actresses would encourage the viewing of our audience, as proven by the male gaze theory. This is attractive to our target audience as they tend to follow different celebrities to their media products, so if they have appeared in another film that the individual likes, then they would be more likely to view another film that the actor has appeared in.

To conclude, although there is not many similarities across all our media products, our consistency with colour and characters helps to create a recognizable layout that our audience would be attracted to, and we would hope that our actors and the colour lilac would then be able to reflect our film in individual marketing techniques.