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

The conventions of a teaser trailer
*No longer than a minute
*Title
*Quite often, not much text, doesn't give away too much to the audience
*Sometimes doesn't even show the main character
*Usually shows a recurring symbol
*Antagonist- or a sign of the antagonist is usually shown
*Released long before the film is released
*The pace usually is fast or starts slow and picks up

How my teaser trailer has conformed to conventions
*My teaser trailer is only about 45 seconds, so about perfect amount of time.

*The clocks within the trailer were my recurring symbols.

*The antagonist was shown often within my trailer- in fact you see the antagonists before you even meet any of the protagonists.

*They are then shown again later right at the end of the video.

How I didn't conform to conventions
*My trailer ends slow paced- I thought this was good to build tension within the trailer and would have made people wanting more. It creates more of an enigma code- what is going to happen next? sort of feeling.

*I've included a bit of text in it- Time is Ticking, although in teaser trailers, you often see a bit more text- or have a narration, however with the editing, I could not fit it in- especially since when I had changed it (so text was within the trailer) the music had been already made, meaning that if I changed the positioning of any clips, it would have made the music out of sync. However I also thought that only have a bit of text did not 'clutter' the trailer- as it would have meant too much information would have been included in a short amount of time- in the end with more text- it would have made my trailer look rushed and just filling in some space.

*You saw two of my protagonist characters (out of the seven that would have been in it)- this is unusual because teaser trailers often only focus on one character or even not have a protagonist at all and purely focus on the antagonists.

The conventions of Sci-fi/Thriller genre

How I did conform to conventions of these genres
*The music is usually a massive give away to what type of genre the teaser trailer is- often it is the only clear indication of what genre the film is! My music was eery, there were lots of overlaying of sound. The clock sound told the audience that time was running out. Although the music was a bit eery- it did not have any sudden jumps within it which meant it strayed away from the horror genre. The sort of music that was most appropriate for my teaser trailer would be like the soundtrack of Moon- a famous sci-fi film- the conventions of this soundtrack match my teaser trailer- showing that the music made the trailer sound more sci-fi!

*The trailer was enigmatic- this usually matches both Sci-fi and Thriller genres, because Thriller is usually based around suspense and 'what's going to happen?!' whilst Sci-fi genre/films often about the discovery of something such as a new world or a revolutionary experiment!

How I didn't conform to conventions of these genres
*My trailer could have included a lot more 'jumps' in it to match the thriller conventions as you almost always have one jumpy part in a thriller trailer. However as it is a hybrid genre- I didn't want to make it more a dominant thriller trailer than sci-fi/thriller. Also, I wanted to stray away from Horror conventions and I thought too many jumps would have made it seem more like a horror film.


I conformed quite a lot to the conventions of Sci-fi/Thriller- purely because as Sci-fi especially is a hard convention to portray on the level of quality film we have (no SFX!!), it's quite hard to convey them.

Other information about my idea/trailer/genre
Here's some other information about my idea/trailer/genre! One of the things that had influenced my idea was Surrealism- I think that surrealism is very interesting, and often works well with the sci-fi/thriller theme! I like the dark theme of surrealism and the fact that it's out of the ordinary, Salvador Dali being one of my greatest influences with 'The Persistence of Memory'(it even has clocks!)!! My Film Poster and Magazine front cover best show surrealism- as the fact the face in my poster is made out of lots of different people's body parts! Also my Magazine front cover had a face (Tick) within the clock face!
If my trailer had been made into a full film- there would be a lot more surrealist traits- I mean the world of these people to start off with is artificial!

That's all I have to say! Naomi out!

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Here's is me reading my answers to my questionnaire on audience feedback.


Here is another opinion about my teaser trailer who gave me their thoughts about my trailer instead of a questionnaire:
"To be honest, I really like it! It's pretty interesting, and it made me wonder about all these clocks and ticking and such.. and at 11.11.11 when that kind of well, glitch thingy happens, I was like "hmm, well, I wonder what that means? what is going to happen now?" It does build suspense, and makes me want to watch the whole movie to answer my questions! I like it a lot, and the music fitted in very well, too :) it was actually really good.. I know that videos like this can be difficult to make, so well done! :)"
Genre
There were quite a few people who thought that my trailer was Sci-fi Thriller genre which is good since that's what I had intended. Although, there were quite a few people who thought that it was Pyschological Thriller which I can understand why they think that, as there are a lot of connatations of Pyschological- as it seems like people are being watched, that are paranoid. Also, there was one person who said Action/Adventure, which was unusual I thought, I think maybe the reason they thought this was because it seemed like time was running out, and maybe they thought it was an escape mission (which in a way it is-but that would be if the project was actually made into a film). But all in all, I'm happy with the feedback I got with genre!

What people liked
A lot of people said they liked it a lot, and commented that they liked the editing and thought that it was 'invisible'. There were also some comments on the music saying that they thought it made the trailer- or the match was perfect. Generally, I'm very pleased with these results!

What people didn't like
There was only one negative feedback in all of my questionnaires- although it was more constructive critism, they thought that the positioning of some scenes could be slightly different- I can understand why they've put that, since there was only one person who said that, it probably was not a unanimous agreement, however apart from that, everyone else said they liked it.

Multiplex or Small Cinema?
I think everyone said that they thought it would be in a multiplex cinema, this probably because it fitted quite a few hollywood film conventions, and although it is a bit surreal, it does not match conventions of an 'arty' film.

What rating would you give this?
As I've mentioned quite a few times, I have a mixture of ratings of the film and age ratings. With ratings of the film- the majority gave me good marks, such as 5/5! Although there were a few people who thought that the trailer was an age rating of 15, which was slightly off what I originally intended, however, at least one person said it was a 12. But I fully understand why it might have a 15 rating as because it is eerie, these people may have thought that the actual film might be a bit too scary or violent for a 12.

All in all though, I am VERY pleased with my audience feedback, i'm glad to have found out that the majority of people had agreed with what genre the teaser trailer was, proving I must have protrayed the sci-fi thriller genre pretty well. Especially as I thought it would be very difficult for people to realise it was sci-fi as well as thriller.

Target Audience: Who are they?

I thought what is the best way to explain my target audience...filming myself seemed like a good idea, although I seem a bit of a numpty! But there we go, here's my target audience!!

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

First- lets discuss my teaser trailer:

My teaser trailer is sci-fi thriller genre, it features four different characters in the trailer- two of them are antagonists and two of them are protagonists!

So.
How does my film poster relate to my trailer?
My poster- as I've said in previous posts - is one face made up of different people's faces- this is to represent there is many different main characters in my teaser trailer!

Hopefully the combination of my poster and the trailer will make people want to go see the film because I think that they are both have an enigmatic element to them- what are the masks on the poster? what are the people in masks doing on the tv?

I have used connatations of my film in both my trailer and my poster:
*Tick and Tock Masks
*Clocks
*11.11.11

This is why they both work well together, because the audience can easily remember that if they see the poster for this film, then see the trailer, they'll instantly be able to think whilst watching the trailer- 'ah! this is for that new film Glitch, the one that has a poster of mismatched faces!'. This is what I'm often like for films that I see myself. Both the trailer and Poster have given a specific date of when the film is out, they both have the tagline 'Time is Ticking' on it, and of course, the clocks and Tick and Tock!! So all together the combination of them both has proved very effective!

Here is a few opinions from other people about my poster:


How does my magazine cover relate to my trailer?
My magazine front cover has the green text at the bottom, which matches the film poster style of text and colour! The magazine front cover carries on to relate to my trailer by the recurrance of the clock- except this time it is a grandfather clock to match the length of the image. There are three hands which grip around the door of the clock- this gives connatations of being trapped- you can relate this to my trailer in the last few images of the girl who is in the empty room, being watched. You also see the image of a notebook next to the girl saying leave me alone. This can also give connatations of being trapped. Also, the cover shows one of the antagonists within the clock face- Tick. The aim of this poster is so people will double take at the cover and each time will notice something new about it!

Again, the magazine front cover features the tagline- Time is Ticking- thus matching the trailer!

Overall, the combination of my main product (teaser trailer) and ancillary texts (magazine front cover and film poster)provide a clear, but enigmatic effect that will make you want to find out more about the film! They provide the balance between giving enough detail for people to want to see the film and not giving anything away. Therefore, encouraging people to go pay to watch the film!

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

Media technologies!-
What did I use for the research/planning?
Lets start with Blogger- the website I'm using to record all this work! Originally, work had to be hand written, you had to create a portfolio for yourself and it was sent separately to the examiner. Now however, you can easily record what work you've done without the paperwork! It also means you can upload pictures and videos to the assigned piece of paper- this way you show more creativity than just a hand written piece of work. Another way of expressing yourself- some people find it easier to write essays, others talk to a camera.

When it comes to media, Youtube possibly has to be the most useful website ever! Throughout my research I would go onto youtube and search for teaser trailers, normal trailers and compare them. For instance, when analysing trailers I posted videos onto blogger, then wrote about them, without youtube you wouldn't be able to have the clip accessible for everyone to see! Youtube was useful when it came to uploading your own videos as well, it meant I could just film myself talking, then send it to everyone I want to. There's not many cons to using youtube apart from sometimes the audio can be a bit out of sync with the video, but this happens rarely. The pros being that you can easily search for anything you want!!

Televisions were very useful when it came to research and planning- more importantly adverts! Even though most people think that adverts are the most annoying thing in the world, you'll be suprised when a trailer comes on during the adverts how much people are engaged to watch them- a bit like a mindless robot. But it was useful in my planning as it meant I could watch what times certain trailers came onto the TV,

for instance for a film such as Happy Feet 2, it was often shown about 4 o'clock on channels such as CITV- this captivates their audience being children who just came home from school, watching childrens TV. Whilst a film such as Sherlock Holmes 2- although it is not scary as such, it tends to be shown on channel 4/E4, at about 8 o'clock, as their audience is older teenagers, young adults.

Media Technologies I used for Construction-
Lets start by talking about the cameras I used.

For filming of the trailer itself I used:
A Sony Handycam dcr-sx30!
It's a really good video camera!
*Simple to use
*Very few buttons (adds to it's simplicity)
*Compact- so when you are filming in public places (such as when I was filming in Norwich City) it doesn't draw attention to you filming- which is always good as people will be more likely to act naturally within your film (passers-by).
*Good quality film for it's price
*Last, but not least, it has a memory card slot, which is SO much easier for uploading videos from camera to computer (especially if you have a SD slot on your pc!!)

For taking still pictures (such as Tick and Tock)I used:

Lumix G1-
Pros of this camera!
*It produces good quality pictures!
*Has a good zoom lens on it
*Many settings that you can change on your camera, e.g. grayscale, take pictures at night etc.
*Because of the quality of camera- it's really easy to edit (pictures aren't pixalated)
Here's some pictures taken with my camera (click on the photo to see the quality of them

There's hundreds more photos I could of posted...but there's a limit to the amount you can/should upload!

Cons of this camera
*You couldn't just pick it up and instantly use it- it's pretty complicated due to the fact it has many settings.
*It's compact in a way. But in comparison to newer models, it's huge. However if you like the feel of the SLRs, you'd probably prefer this model to the newer ones.
*Again, in comparison to newer models it's not quite as good (new models can film HD, this camera takes still pictures only)

All round though, it's very good! And the pros completely outweigh the cons!

What I used for photo editing (this is for the magazine cover, film poster and photos in general for media):

I used Photoshop CS2- this was used to "manipulate" photos, as you can tell in my poster- I've made lots of different parts of people's faces into one big face- this creates the effect that there are an equal importance (this is explained in more detail in my film poster). Photoshop CS2, is easy to use...when you know how, it takes a few days when you get the hang of it, but I have used it many times in the past so it didn't take half the time making my poster as it would have if I didn't know how to use it!

As a sidenote, I also used Picnik.com for my text!

What was used by my brother for music:
I don't have too much information on this media technology, but the program that was used to make the music is called Logic Pro! Here's a screenshot of the program, sometimes pictures are better explaining than words!

Last but not least! I used Sony Vegas to edit my video!!! Much like the rest of the media technologies I've used- once you know how to use it, it's simple- if not, it'd take ages!! However, I used this for my last (AS) media project, and I've had much experience before that as well.
Pros:
*It's a good quality video editing software
*Lots of different effects!
*Lots of different transitions!
*Alongs you know how to use it, you can literally make anything that you think of, want a lion in the background? Done. Green Screened!

Cons:
*Expensive!!!!
*Takes a long time to learn how to use it!

Again, pros outweigh cons!

And with that, it concludes this evaluation question!

Shooting Plan

Here is what my timetable for filming/editing etc. It actually was quite similiar to what actually happened:

*Filming in the summer- I filmed the part that is in Norwich in the summer as my cousins live in norwich.

Other pieces of film were filmed at the beginning of October

Editing by October Half term

Because I was on a group of my own, it meant that I could choose when to film, and also because I was in the film, it meant that I could just be like- it's time to film, walk into my living room and film a scene.

Locations

Since it's only a teaser trailer- there aren't many locations but here is where I filmed my trailer anyway:
In chronological order-

*Ticking clock at the beginning- my House- clock just sat on a stool against a screen for a background (makes sure nothing distorts the image)

*The next images are actually pictures not film but they were taken in my house anyway

*Scene of boy looking over city- Norwich City

*Scene of glitch (person on a bike)- Norwich City

*Scene of first clock pendulum swinging- my cousin's house

*Scene of close up on clock- my house

*Scene of close up on pendulum- my house

*Scene of clock again- my house

*Scene of girl sitting in room- my living room

That's about it, like I said - not much to comment on in terms of locations, but I guess this way it doesn't overcomplicate the trailer.