The first thing my group and I had to decide on was what the storyline of the film would be – we knew that this was going to be the hardest part of the process as we needed to come up with something that would grab the audience. My group and I had recently all seen the film ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ and noticed it had the genre ‘Drama’. After doing questionnaires, we found out that ‘Drama’ was the genre people most enjoyed and ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ had a positive feedback. We then thought it would be perfect to do something along the same lines as we knew it would be successful on the market and would appeal to the audience. From the questionnaire’s, my group and I, found out that our target audience was 17-40 – although this is a large age group, we knew that we could cater for what they wanted. From doing research into teaser trailers, I found out that they don’t give much of the plot away, they just give the audience a ‘sneak preview’ of what the film is about – they want the audience to want to see more. I then did research into existing magazine covers and posters, e.g. Empire magazine, Avatar posters etc. This was so I knew what my group and I needed to include in both and made me have a better understanding in what to do.
Before we started filming, my group and I needed to complete a storyboard showing what the teaser trailer would include, a props list, location recce etc. We gave ourselves deadlines for these tasks so we would stay on top of everything and be able to film when planned. We managed to have good time keeping as we stuck to the schedule and got everything completed in the time allocated. After we had filmed we started to edit using iMovie. One of the group members, Elle, was more experienced in using this software so she did slightly more editing than Alice and myself. However, we gave Elle input into what to keep and what to disregard. We all did our fair share of work to varying degrees throughout the task, which worked well as we all have strengths and weaknesses in different areas, so no one member of the group was left to carry the load.
After the teaser trailer was completed, we started working on our magazine cover and poster. Elle insisted that she could do it at home as she had the software that was suitable. Alice and I both gave Elle pointers in what we wanted to be included and agreed that because Elle was more than happy to complete the magazine cover and poster at home that she could do this and we would go over everything together and do a final edit as a team, which we did.
1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The teaser trailer uses conventions of real media products by including two songs in it. This was what was used in the teaser trailer for ‘My Sisters Keeper’ which also has the genre ‘Drama’. My group and I thought it would be a good idea to create something similar to this as we had all seen and enjoyed the film. Plus, we liked the style and overall impression left after watching the teaser trailer. The teaser trailer is also under 1 minute long. This is one of the main conventions of a teaser trailer – they normally last between 30 seconds – 1 minute. Another way in which my group and I have used conventions of a teaser trailer is by including the producers name in the start. After researching into all types of different teaser trailers, it came to our attention that in nearly all of them, the producer is revealed at the start of the trailer. My group and I, have also put the words ‘Coming Soon’ at the end of the teaser trailer, this is another main convention because it keeps the audience intrigued as they want to know when the film is out.
The main job of a teaser trailer is to give away an indication of what the film is about but not giving the storyline away. After looking at teaser trailers, my group and I could see that this was true – they all did their job. I feel that our teaser trailer does this as the audience knows it’s about a young girl and a letter. But they don’t know who the girl is, what is in the letter and why it is so significant. Our teaser trailer does however challenge/break the conventions of a teaser trailer as it doesn’t contain a voice over. My group and I had planned to include a voice over but then decided not to as we thought it would look and be more effective by just including the music. We included text instead which we thought fitted better overall.
After researching into advertisement posters, my group and I noticed that they all contained one main image and little text – just when the film was coming out, the title, producer and who was in it. Our advertising picture uses the conventions of this as it contains an image of the letter, the title (Alice’s Wish), the actors and producer. By using the one main image, it catches the audience’s eye and makes the poster stand out. We also made the title quite big so the audience reads it and it stands out from the other text on the poster.
From looking at film magazines like ‘Empire’, my group and I noticed that on the front cover, the main image is from the main feature film of the magazine. We followed this by the main image being Aimee as ‘Alice’s Wish’ is the main focus of the magazine. Our magazine cover uses the main conventions of a magazine as it contains a magazine title, a main image, an issue number, the date, a bar code and other information about the contexts of the magazine. The magazine name and information about ‘Alice’s Wish’ is in a bold, big and eye-catching text as this needs to grab the audience so they pick it up and buy it.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our teaser trailer, magazine front cover and advertising poster are all intertwined successfully in our opinion. They are all centered around the cast; the magazine front cover includes a main image of Aimee, the poster contains a picture of the letter which is shown in the teaser trailer. Plus, the teaser trailer itself includes clips of all main cast. All of the above means that the audience remembers what/who is in the film and recognise that we are advertising the same product but just in different types of media. My group and I tried to have the same font throughout so the audience can link between advertising and know that we are advertising the same film. We managed to do this for the magazine cover and poster but we unable to do so for the teaser trailer. This was because iMovie didn’t contain the same font, meaning we had to choose another one that was similar.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
From audience feedback, we found out that the audience’s favourite genre was ‘Drama’; this was what made us decide on doing this genre as it was most popular and my group and I knew that if we did a film with the genre ‘Drama’ it would do well in the market and we would be able to connect to the audience. Before making any of our products, we did a range of questionnaires to see what the audience would prefer/look for in them. This helped as we then knew what we should and shouldn’t include.
When finding out about our teaser trailer, my group and I interviewed 20 people (10 males, 10 females) and asked them three main questions we thought would help us in gaining feedback. In the link below you can see three examples of the interview from our target audience. From our results we found out that none of the males would go and see the film as they said it seemed very feminine and ‘girlie’ and that the majority of females would go see it. All of the people interviewed said that the teaser trailer did its job in ‘teasing’ them and wanting them to see more – they were left intrigued.
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction, research and planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the coursework, my group and I have all used a range of different media technologies. Below are the majority of them:
1. YouTube - we used this site to a great extent. We searched a range of different teaser trailers and it gave us insight into what we needed to include in our own trailer - it helped us find the codes and conventions necessary to use in our final product.
2. We used software on the Mac OS X to make our teaser trailer, magazine cover and poster.
3. iMovie was used to edit our teaser trailer - this was very useful as it contained a variety of different editing options and effects which appeared on our trailer.
4. Photoshop was also used in editing the pictures used in both the magazine and poster. My group and I were able to re-touch pictures and make them look more professional.
This was when my group and I were first using Photoshop and were getting used to the software.5. We filmed all of our footage on the DV camera - without this we wouldn't have a video media product.
6. Windows Movie Maker was also used in making short sequences to show audience feedback.
7. Excel was used to produce a range of different graphs to show results from our questionnaires.
8. Microsoft Word was used in typing up all of the work and making the draft magazine cover and poster.
9. Blogger has helped us present all of our work in a timeline style way - it has also been able to save data and videos.
10. Google - I searched a range of different magazine covers and advertising posters on here so I could see existing products already on the market.
