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.

EVALUATION TASK 1

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

(Film Poster, Magazine Cover and Film Trailer)

Film Poster:

This first media product that our group produced was the film poster.
We did a few variations of it before we settled on our final one which can
be seen below. We had the challenge of getting the right colour scheme
as initially we wanted to have a purple colour scheme as we associated
this colour scheme with the coming of age genre.

After careful consideration of our first poster we produced we really
liked it, however from feedback we realised the title didn't stand out and
it was very bright with little or no contrast on the background and the text.
We looked at and had analysed real media products which can
be seen in research and planning posts. From this we gained inspiration
with how to make our text bolder and to stand out. We also wanted to be
different so we developed it to be black and white colour scheme as
there are very little black and white coming of age genre film posters.

The font was a real challenge for us as a group as we needed the
title to stand out. we used a white to cover part of the clothing of the actors
on the film poster as this stood out more yet we couldn't settle on a final font,
therefore we thought we'd challenge the stereotypical film posters
and use a variety of different fonts as it includes irony as it is associated
with the title with 'Imperfect'. However, the text is also a convention of a typical
real media product as we used billing blocks and the star ratings.
This looked more professional we decided, as we associated it with real
example which we had looked at.

We developed on other film posters which we had previously analysed,
this can be seen with the limited character descriptions which can be found
under the characters on the poster, we produced this idea as we wanted
the audience to have a slight insight into the characters characteristics before
they watched the film to gain an insight into their lives and it creates an
enigma code as to why these are their traits. We also thought that
this would make the audience feel as if they know the characters
when they watch the film.

Magazine Cover:

Our second media product that out group produced was a magazine
cover which referred to our film trailer, Imperfect Promises. Before we
started to create our media product we analysed a variety of magazine
covers looking at Total Film and Empire. These helped us develop our final piece.

We then started creating and developed our draft into a second draft.
These can be seen in another post, of draft one and draft two of magazine cover.
After this we then decided to try and create an 'Empire' and 'Total Film' replica.
From this we decided that our final piece should look more
professional so we developed further to get our final piece.
This shows that we had developed from a real piece of media,
and we were very happy with our outcome as it looked very professional.

Our first draft, looked quite childish like it hadn't had much effort
put into it, so once we'd finished it, we immediately decided we needed
to change it as it wasn't industry standard.

Our second draft of our magazine challenged the conventions of a
typical media product in the real world, this is due to the angle of the photo.
The image didn't replicate or look like any other magazine covers we analysed.
We decided that it didn't look professional. We decided that both drafts
challenged the conventions of  real media products, but they weren't
industry standard.

Film Trailer:

Our final media piece of work was the film trailer. The film trailer took the
longest to finish as it was our biggest task.

We used ideas from other film trailers which we analysed to enhance our own
ideas to make our film trailer look professional. We analysed in the
early stages, film trailers based on our genre (Coming of Age) such as;
The Duff and Easy A. We used these trailer to look at the aspects in which we
wanted to incorporate into our own trailer. We took ideas such as slow motion
from the duff, we really liked this as it created a variation in the speed as well as
changing the way the audience viewed a character.
We then moved on to develop these ideas.

We took these ideas and developed them to make them our own.
For example the slow motion shot we used it to also change the music to create
an increased effect and impact on the audience, it changed the way the
audience viewed the character theoretically and physically as we changed the
camera angle. We developed our initial idea of slow motion to make it to suit our
own project. Other ideas we developed was using a voice over. We found that some
film trailers used this such as the duff. We developed this however as we used both
the characters voices. We found that this was unusual and there would
stereo-typically be one constant voice over, yet we changed this and developed
the conventions of a film trailer in the professional real world.

We then challenged the conventions of film trailer by using the same sort of shot
and footage repeatedly, when looking at and analysing different film trailers, we
realised that this wasn't usually used. We were very proud of this ideas as it would
make our film trailer stand out and make it different to other peoples.

IMPERFECT PROMISES FINAL FILM TRAILER

IMPROVED MAGAZINE COVER BASED ON FINAL FEEDBACK (FINAL)

This is our improved magazine cover, having received feedback from our target audience
and classmates. The main improvements that we have made are:

-We added two extra pictures of different actors which linked to the puff.

-Changed the color of the wording for 'drinking, drugs and depression' to make it more
visible to the audience.

-Introduced a black rectangle behind our 'Oscars special' text and slightly changed the
color of it to maintain an effective color scheme.

-Smoothed the edges of our editing around our actors to make sure it looks more
professional.

-We also slightly rearranged the layout of our puffs so that the eye flows through our
work from top left to bottom right, then goes to bottom left after.
This is use of the golden triangle.

Although these are only small improvements, we feel they have made a reasonably
large impact in terms of how professional our work looks.

FINAL MAGAZINE COVER AND EVALUATION

We decided to come up with our own masthead name, which was ‘Top Feature’. We chose this name as it was short and snappy. We placed it centrally at the top of the cover. The layout for our masthead was similar to how ‘Total Film’ had presented their masthead. We choose to follow this design of one word within another as it was quirky and had already successfully worked well on the Total Film magazines.

Our main focal image was our two main protagonists ‘Clio’ and ‘James’. This image is similar to our theatrical film poster however slightly different. The theatrical film poster is more of a mug shot of the two characters as they are looking directly at the camera and appear shocked. The magazine cover shows the characters in the same position and proximity from each other but this time they are looking elsewhere. ‘Clio’ is looking into the distance whereas ‘James’ is looking down at ‘Clio’. This indicates to the audience a potential connection between James and Clio, however James might be fighting more for their friendship/ relationship. The same costumes and props have been used in this image as the theatrical film poster, all conforming to codes and conventions of a coming of age genre.

We have used two prominent colours for the different typography located around the magazine cover. Important information eg. the title of the film, the actors involved and quotes from the film are placed in either purple boxes or purple text. Any other text is black, for example the skyline. As a group we associate coming of age genres with fun, bright colours such as red, blue and pinks. Hence are decision to use purple as this is also a bright and bold colour. It also follows a pattern as the colour is used amongst text in our film trailer. Below the title of the film we have used a language code to entice the audience to pick up the magazine, it reads ‘Drink, drugs and depression’. This alliteration has been used to draw the reader in and encourages them to ask questions about the film itself.

We chose to locate our puff around the main focal image, this is because it is another eye catching piece of information. The written code which reads ‘On set with Orla Jordan’ reveals an exclusive offer which may excite audiences.

The bar code, price and issue number and placed in the bottom right hand corner. These features must have been included in order for the magazine cover to look professional.

In conclusion, we are extremely happy with our final magazine cover. Ultimately because it follows the tradition of what should be on a film magazine cover, but also looks appealing and exciting to a potential audience member. We took certain sections out of our draft versions such as the film strip. Originally we thought this gave the cover a edge however after re evaluating over magazine covers, we decided it looked tacky. Similarly we changed our main focal image as we thought it didn't follow the tradition of what should be on a film magazine cover and was potentially to personal.   

  

FINAL THEATRICAL FILM POSTER AND EVALUATION

This is our final theatrical film poster. There are a number of distorted features such as
the typography used in the title of the film, or the proximity of the main
characters within the focal image. We chose to have these distorted features as it link
with the narrative of our film that Clio’s life is imperfect and unbalanced. The text used for
the title of the film also resembles test used within text messages, linking to
stereotypes of adolescents always being on there phones. It is placed centrally and covers the
middle section of the main focal image. We ultimately chose to place the title within the
middle to inform audiences straight away the name of our film.

Below the title we have placed a one or two worded character descriptions for both
James and Clio. Jame’s character description reads ‘Saviour.’ and Clio’s character
description reads ‘Lost Cause.’. We chose to use these words as it reveals a little more
about the two main protagonists and potentially encourages audiences to read more into
our film. It creates enigma codes and questions that an audience would want to
know the answers to.

The main focal image is a medium shot of our two main protagonist
characters ‘Clio’ and ‘James’. Clio’s body posture within the image is slightly
bent over in comparison to James body posture which is straight.
This comparison represents how Clio is less stable than James and relies on
others to help her. We chose props and costumes which would help to give
our characters an identity and a role within the film. For example Clio is
wearing a baggy cropped jumper and ripped jeans, this may signify how her
character is used to being let down and poorly treated. In comparison to James
who is wearing black trousers and a coat. This could symbolise that James character
is more closed and stable. Clio is shown holding a cigarette which supports
both the instability of her character and conventions of a coming of age film.  

We chose to have a black and white colour scheme as it was simplistic but powerful.
It would stand out amongst other film posters and follows the pattern of being unique/
different as often film posters have a colour scheme involving 4 or more colours.

We have placed the billing block at the bottom of the film poster, which describes
information about the film eg. Directors. We chose to place this information here as it is
commonly placed at the bottom of film posters and we liked the idea of following tradition
and the final look being professional.

Along the top of the film poster runs 3 different pieces of information. Firstly, the two
actors names who are seen on the film poster. Secondly, information about when the film
can be viewed. Finally, information about the directors. We thought it was important
to include information which would entice audience members. We also added two
ratings/ reviews around the main focal image. This information is similar to the
information that runs along the top.   

In conclusion, we are extremely happy with our final theatrical film poster. We think
it looks very professional, unique and follows codes and conventions of many film posters.

FILM POSTER DRAFT 5 WITH EVALUATION

To improve this final draft, we will ensure
that the billing block is completed with the information for our film and that the
actors, director and title are all
positioned in line and equal from
one another.

The improvements made from our
last draft to this poster is an
increased boldness of font, ensuring
the title stands out far more and
captures the audience's attention.
This is essential in the success
of our poster. The title is also
re-positioned so that it is central and equally in between the actors and directors.

FILM POSTER DRAFT 4 WITH EVALUATION

Again, there is just a slight adjustment
between this poster and the last.
Firstly, the director line of text has been brought down the poster slightly, this is so
it is more central and gets rid of this slightly
blank area at the top of our poster.
Secondly, we have adjusted the font of our previous film shoutout to match the font
used on the title for that trailer.
This would make it more recognizable and shows consistency from our AS to our A2 work.

FILM POSTER DRAFT 3 WITH EVALUATION

The main difference between this poster and our
third draft is the alter in colour of our director and
actors shout out. We decided to take it from black
to white to ensure it stands out and captures
the audience's eye, as this could be a main
selling point for the audience.

FILM POSTER DRAFT 2 AND EVALUATION

This is our second film poster draft. Below is a table which weighs up the pros and cons of the poster. Looking at the cons we will hopefully correct these and try alternatives.   

FILM POSTER DRAFT 1 AND EVALUATION

This is our first film poster draft. Below is a table which weighs up the pros and cons of the poster. Looking at the cons we will hopefully correct these and try alternatives.