Final links

FINAL WEBSITE

FINAL POSTER 
 

Evaluation Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?

Whilst constructing our media products, we used many technologies to help us create our trailer and ancillary tasks.

Research and Planning

To carry out our research and planning we used a number of technologies which were mainly in the form of websites such as YouTube to watch clips such as the trailers we deconstructed, the main ones being ‘Halloween’ and ‘Scream’. This helped us to research into our genre and figure out the codes and conventions of a typical horror film to help us on what to include in our own trailer. We additionally used YouTube to post our own videos onto the website as we set up an account so that we could get feedback on what we had done so far.

In order for us to figure out our target audience we created a survey on Survey Monkey where we made up a selection of multiple choice questions for people to answer so that we had some proof to back up our choices when making our trailer.

Another website that we used was DaFont.com which helped us to decide on which font we were going to use for our poster and trailer. After browsing the fonts we chose the one that we felt suited our theme of horror and clowns the best. We decided on Extrakrebel 1987. 

In order to present some of our information on the blog, we tried to use a variety of forms in which to represent the research and planning. One of the ways in which we did that was to use the website Prezi to show the evolution of horror movie posters.

We also used iMovie to show our storyboard and then uploaded it to our blog so that the viewers would be able to see it in a more exciting format.

Construction

Trailer:

To film our trailer we used a Panasonic Lumix model for some scenes in our trailer because we found that the school camera, which was a Samsung, was not of a good enough quality during the strobe light scenes and we found the Lumix model focused a lot more, making it more effective. We also used an SD card so that we could store all of our footage and then later on transferred this to an Apple Mac for use in iMovie. We also found that the school camera was better for shots in the dark, for example the corridor scenes.

We also used the tripod to make some of our shots more stabilised such as the scene where the girl runs down the corridor.

In our trailer we decided to feature a montage of clips that represent destruction and violence to help create the right mood and build up for our trailer. We did this by searching on YouTube particular scenes that we wanted to include in the montage, for example clips of animals fighting and the atomic bomb. We then used an MP4 converter to access the clips in iMovie to edit together.

Website:

We used the Lumix model, which can also be used as a camera, to take photos of the clown mask for our poster and website in the dark room at our school to give the affect we needed for our poster idea.

The program in which we used to construct our website was Wix, we selected a template which we thought would suit our film concept and then created it by importing the background photo of the clown as well as embedding links to our social networking sites and actual trailer.

Poster:

To create our film poster we decided upon a photo that we had taken of the clown mask and edited the colours on the website pixlr.com. The effect we decided to use was named ‘Polak’. We then used the program Microsoft Word to create our poster by importing the picture onto a blank document. In order to get the correct font from DaFont.com, we had to download it onto the computer and then import it into the font section of Word. However we did have some issues with this as we needed to print it off in A3 which would have to be done at school and found that the font would not download from the website onto the school computers. We solved this by printing it out onto an A4 size at home where the font was downloaded and then photocopying this to blow it up to A3 size.

Editing and post-production

Footage:

To edit our trailer together we used iMovie. This program was very crucial towards our end product as it allowed us to add certain effects to make our trailer more successful. Examples of this include the amendment of the brightness/saturation of some clips. The most noticeable examples are the scenes where the clown was seen in their day to day life outside of the party as we wanted to change the colour to make it darker and more chilling.

We also experimented with Photoshop because we found that the scenes where we had lowered the saturation/brightness took away the attention from the clown. This was especially true when the student was in her car driving away from the school. In order to make the red on the clown costume become more prominent in the shot we took inspiration from a YouTube video and googled how to colour edit. There was a step by step guide which we attempted to follow, however this failed to work because it could not be exported back into a moving image.

We also used the Ken Burns function on iMovie to zoom into this same clip so that the clown was more apparent in this particular scene as we could not edit the colour.

We also altered the speed of some of the clips such as the scene where the victim is backing towards the wall as we felt it went with the speed of our soundtrack as without editing it, it was too slow.

To put the scenes together we mostly used the ‘fade’ transition so that it was a smooth changeover between each party scene. 

Sound effects:

We used our soundtrack by importing it from iTunes onto iMovie. This was the main source of sound throughout our trailer and we edited it using the fade out tool so that it did not continue playing until the very end and helped to stop it subtly so that it wasn’t too sudden. To get other sound effects in our trailer such as the heavy breathing at the beginning and the evil laugh at the end, we used a YouTube converter to receive the sound onto our iTunes, then did the same as our soundtrack and imported it onto iMovie.

We muted some of our scenes because we had the soundtrack to play over most of the trailer and therefore some of the sounds that went with the clips did not fit in with the music. However we did keep some sounds for effect, for example the sound of the victim running up the stairs.

Typography:

In order to use the font Extrakrebel 1987, we downloaded it from DaFont.com then imported it into iMovie. To create the flicker effect we recorded the screen using Quick Time by moving the mouse back and forth the clips of the text placed in iMovie.

Evaluation

Social Networking:

In order to receive audience feedback on our products (trailer, poster, website) we used a number of social networking sites so we were able to interact with people and ask for their opinions. We were particularly looking for opinions on what we needed to improve and to write about it in our evaluation.

YouTube – We created a YouTube account so that we were able to update any work we had done towards our final product, including our trailer. We then promoted these videos on Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook – we created a Facebook page for people to ‘like’ so they could keep updated on the progress of our project. This included us posting a link to our draft and final trailer from YouTube.

Twitter – We created a Twitter account where people could ‘follow’ our progress and we kept it updated by tweeting the links to our trailer so that people could give us feedback. We also advertised our blog on these sites so that people could read about our project if they wanted to.

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learnt through your audience feedback?

Audience feedback has been a vital component in creating our teaser trailer, allowing our audience to give there views and suggestions enabling us to make our media product of a high standard, fitting with the needs of our target market. Our target audience are aged 15-25, they are into video games, enjoy music of a metal genre such as slipknot and may have also watched the films 'Halloween' 'Scream' and 'The Strangers'

The first audience feedback we got was from a questionnaire that we made on survey monkey in order to see what our target audience likes, we had chosen to aim our film at people aged 15-25 and therefore sent it out to a group of people of this age range. We chose to use survey monkey to make our questionnaire as this allowed us to email it round easily and share it on Facebook. The questionnaire consisted of questions about genre and from this we decided to base our film around clowns as clowns, masked people and murderers were some of the things our target audience found the scariest, and therefore we decided to based out storyline around this, we found this very useful as it meant we would be creating a media production that meets the needs of the consumer as well as our own.   

Our teachers gave us feedback on the first draft of our teaser trailer and from this we decide to break up the party footage at the beginning of the trailer with screenshots of the victims in order to make it more like a trailer than a scene from the film. We also added shots of the clown in discordant places as recommended by our teachers. We feel there advice was very useful in creating our final product.

Once we had finished editing the first cut of our teaser trailer we decided to show it to our target audience and asked what they like about it and what could be improved. By asking the audience what to improve in our trailer proved very useful as it showed what our consumer wanted, it seemed that giving a background story to the clown and the characters would make the storyline clearer and improve the trailer as a whole. 
We were also pleased to see that people understood the concept of our film and it was reassuring to see that our teaser trailer fitted in to the horror genre through the codes and conventions we used in it.




Another way we have received audience feedback throughout the course of creating our teaser trailer is through social networking sites and YouTube, this has allowed us to keep the consumer updated throughout the course of making our trailer and given a chance for the audience to give there views. 

This was reassuring as it showed that our trailer was being well received by audiences and enabled us to get views and opinions from our target market to ensure that our media production was meeting all users needs and expectations. 

When creating our poster we had trouble deciding between what font to use, we thought it was best to gain the audiences feedback as they are the consumers of our product and therefore the people that the poster needs to attract. We therefore showed the two posters to a range of 16-18 year olds and asked people to vote on which one they liked best in order to help us create our final poster design.

This poster was the clear winner. It fits in with the typical conventions of a horror film poster as it is of dark colours and clearly shows the masked killer.
We think that this font fits well with the theme of our film, as it looks quite creepy and we think that the crosses through the 'O''s could symbolize death and crossing the victims off as he kills them. The only problem we had with this font was that it could be hard to read, however after showing it to our audience this didn't seem to be a problem. 

The final audience feedback we received was at a viewing of our trailer in which we showed it to our peers. For this we created a questionnaire in order to get a final set of feedback. We were overall pleased with this feedback as it proved to be very positive, we learned that our trailer had a clear concept and included many codes and conventions of a typical horror movie trailer. 

Throughout the course of creating our teaser trailer we have learned that audience feedback is very valuable, and there were a number of changes made to our trailer from the audience responses:

1. Cut up the party scene using screenshots of the victims, making it look more like a trailer 
2. Included footage in order to show a back story to the clown
3. Added shots of the clown in discordant places 
4. Used the font Extrakrebel 1987 

 We have relied heavily on our audience feedback and as a group have learned to listen to our audiences feedback as they are the ones who are consuming our product and this has allowed us to create a trailer that is well received by our target audience. 

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary task?

Iconic Batman logo

We wanted our trailer and our ancillary products to link together in some way and have a common theme which would be instantly recognizable to an audience, for example they could look at the plain image of the clown and immediately know that it was for the film ‘Coulrophobia’. This has been done for films such as ‘The Dark Knight’, where the bat symbol is an iconic image that is recognizable throughout the world. 

Therefore, we chose the photo of the extreme close up of the clown mask as the image that would be iconic and instantly identifiable. 

Image of the clown mask

This also links to the other movie posters from the slasher and horror genre, which often have the killers mask, for example Scream 4 and Smiley. We felt that this particular image of the clown was good as it would fill most of the page of our poster and most of the screen for our website and would be a memorable image. 


Scream 4

Smiley

Screenshot from the trailer

Although, the image of the clown mask is one that we took on a photoshoot for our poster and website, there is a very similar extreme close up shot at the end of our trailer. We think that our poster is simplistic and so easier for the audience to remember as the image of the clown stands out and is the main feature. Additionally, we feel that our poster does not reveal anything about what actually happens in the film, apart from that it involves a clown. This is good when paired with our trailer as the trailer gives slightly more away than the poster. 



Our poster and website are almost exactly the same, creating a strong link between the two, and therefore, again, making them more memorable. 

Final website

Final poster

The website does not reveal much of the narrative of the film, but has the trailer embedded into it, so that the viewer of the website can watch it. The trailer is on autoplay so that as soon as the page loads the trailer starts playing, making sure that they are aware of the trailer and gives them more information on the actual narrative of the film.

Another feature that links our trailer and ancillary tasks together, is the font. We spent a long time finding and deciding on the right font and eventually chose Extrakrebel 1987. We felt that this font was right for our film as it has creepy feel to it and fits well with the theme. Additionally, we think that it fits well as the clown stalks his victims before he kills them, and the x’s through the o’s could symbolize the killer crossing them off his list as he murders them. 

Font we chose

The trailer and both the poster and website are fairly dark, adding to the horror genre. Low-key lighting is common in horror films and promotional packages, such as The Woman In Black and Mama (see below), and we think that we have used this well and to our advantage, to convey the horror genre but also to create mystery around the clown character. It also links to the theme of adolescence as we have used a strobe light in our trailer to create the party scene but this links back to the horror genre as, although the characters look as though they are having a good time, you do not know what will appear after the screen flashes back up from being black. We played on this in our trailer by making the clown face appear in an extreme close up at the end, which appears at the same time as a crescendo in the music.



Mama website

Mama poster

The Woman in Black poster



The Woman in Black website


The combination of our main product and ancillary tasks are effective as they all feature the same, recognizable image of the clown mask, which the audience would instantly recognize from the film ‘Coulrophobia’. We also managed to keep the same style throughout, by using the same fonts and images, creating a common theme between them all. The trailer and ancillary tasks reflect the genre of our film well, making the audience members aware of the genre and therefore making it more effective. 

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

When creating our trailer we looked and researched into Coulrophobia, which is the fear of clowns. Following the interest in clowns and the popularity of the fear, we chose to base it on this. When we were researching trailers, we looked at conventions and codes which were similar to ours such as titles, hints of the films, symbols and intentions.

Due to our
decision we researched into this and how it affects people in order to understand how to use the clown in our trailer to scare the audience, gaining the reaction we want. We were inspired by films which use masks to hide the killer, as we cast our killer in a clown outfit. These films include IT and scream, due to their use of masks to create the unknown killer which is a convention of a slasher film. We also looked into films such as Halloween, The Strangers, Scream and films which included a party in them such as Project X, Prom Night and Sorority Row. Although Project X is not a horror or slasher film, we still gained inspiration for how to shoot the party scene and conform to the codes of a party genre, such as strobe lights, alcohol, girls in provocative clothing and scenes of dancing.

When researching our genre we studied the films we had already watched the trailers for, and took note of the ways in which the horror and slasher films made it clear what the intentions were, for example in prom night you are aware of who the killer is and that is part of the story so they make that clear throughout the trailer, however in sorority row the killer is unknown, however they focus on the killer when he is dressed in a robe similar to the Grim Reapers black hooded robe. We gained a clear view of what our genres codes and conventions are which lead on to finding our target audience. We chose certificate 15 due to the hinted violence, gore scenes, nature of the film and alcohol use in the party scene. 

When looking at the film Halloween we paid particular attention to the fact that many people were scared of the unknown, so having a masked killer plays on the fact they are at the disadvantage because they are unsure if they know the killer, or want to see what is under the mask. Having the killer in a mask is a stereotype of a slasher film, having the killer in a mask creates the unknown which is a common fear, causing the audience to feel uneasy as they aren’t sure who the killer is.  Another film which inspired us and allowed us to conform to the codes and conventions is Sorority row, as the killer in that is acknowledged and seen, as our clown us, although you never see his face to identify who he/she actually is. The killer also mainly kills girls which is a convention of a slasher film as girls are stereotypically more vulnerable than men. However, just as in the film Sorority row, our trailer projects the ‘Final Girl Theory’ as there is one girl who is left surviving, which is hinted at in the trailer as she is seen alone, from the clowns point of view, running away and backing up into a corner.

Although, it was not only from films that we gained our influences and inspiration for our trailer, it was also through music. Slipknot are a band who wear masks and jumpsuits, making them all look united and in uniform. Although this can seem intimidating and scary, the use of masks have made audiences feel uncomfortable and scared which is our aim for our clown. The mask used is a grimace smile, which is similar to the distorted grim reaper mask used in Scream. The use of a distorted mask is a convention which is constantly seen in media products in the slasher and horror genre.  Slipknots use of masks and jumpsuit to make the audiences feel unsettled was developed into our trailer from a real media text in order to attempt to make audiences feel uneasy and unsettled as they did when they watched Slipknots videos.

When considering how our mise-en-scene would be able to follow the stereotypical slasher/horror film, we researched into location, sound and costumes. Our characters had to wear party clothing and due to our main killer being in a clown costume, we decided to have a costume Halloween party. This enabled the girls to dress more provocatively, making them more vulnerable and following a convention of slasher films. For our location we decided to shoot somewhere that was isolated and had enough space for a realistic party. We decided to shoot in a basement which has previously been used for parties, so there is writing on the wall and tables and sofas as there would be in any average basement party for teenagers. In our media product, we mixed the genre of slasher and horror and made it modern and up to date by using a social networking site to demonstrate who the clown was stalking and then killing. This is a convention of social realism.

The music we used is a modern dubstep score which was specifically made for our film, using fair ground music quietly in the back ground and using words such as ‘They will die’ to build up the within the film. The genre of the music is also what we would expect our target audience to listen to, therefore it would appeal to them and entice them to watch the film.

 

When creating our website we looked at a variation of websites, and our biggest inspiration was the Saw website. We discovered that within the  a stereotypical slasher film website was short video or a cut down trailer on the home page to show what the film is about. The website would also have screen shots which demonstrate key themes and key moments in the trailer, for example a clown shown behind the girl, and the clown shown half hidden in the party scene. The Saw website uses certain images to also show key themes and points about the film, for example a chainsaw. When a film contains one key killer, for example Jigsaw in Saw, the grim reaper in scream and the clown in IT, the websites and posters would focus on their image, influencing us to have the clown as the background of the film, which is another key convention of a slasher/horror film website.

Improvements #2

Following the audience feedback we got from the screening of our film we decided to further edit the montage of YouTube clips which hints to the clowns back story as this seemed unclear and random to a few viewers. We have therefore taken out a few clips which we felt didn't portray the right meaning and added

Here is the new edited montage of clips:  

We have included these clips in our teaser trailer as we wanted to hint at the killers back story in order to give an idea of why he was killing the girls, however as it is only a teaser trailer we didn't want to give the whole story away. We encoded the clips to show destruction and violence to portray the killer as disconnected from society however the audience may decode them in a different way, agreeing with Stuart Halls reception theory, which may raise questions within the audience such as, 'why is he doing this?' however we feel this is a good aspect of the teaser trailer as it encourages the viewer to go see the film as they want to know the whole story. 

Problems we ran into aka. technology sucks

We ran into a few problems while editing together our trailer and making the website and poster. These problems that we ran into were mainly down to the technology we were using (hence the title).

The first problem we ran into while editing together the trailer was that the clown did not stand out enough in the shot of him standing next to the tree while one of the female characters is driving away. We had previously color edited this shot to make it darker and more mysterious. However, we felt that the clown did not stand out and was not noticeable enough. To fix this problem we decided to color edit the footage so that the clown was in full color but the rest of the shot was darkened. As we were not editing on Final Cut Pro, we found a way of doing this on Photoshop [see previous post]. 
The first problem we ran into with this was that it took us a while to change the colors on each individual layer (there were 168). Once you had saved the project once, you could no longer use the history tool to change the color of the clown. As we were color editing in hour slots, we ran into some problems with this. 
The second problem was that once we had finished editing the colors, we couldn't export it back into a moving image. 
Therefore, we couldn't use this. To fix this we edited the color on iMovie, to create a darker image, but used Ken Burns to zoom in on the clown. 

The second problem that we faced involved the website. At school we were creating the website on a widescreen Mac. This was fine for viewing the website on that particular computer. However, when changing the website at home or on another regular PC, the website did not fit onto the screen. 
To solve this problem, we changed the website so that it fit on a regular sized computer screen.

The final problem that has occurred (and still isn't solved) is one that involves the poster. As we made the poster at home, we had the font downloaded at home but not at school. The printer at home does not print A3, like we need it to be printed, we have to print it at school. However, whenever the poster is sent to school, whether it be through email or on a memory stick, the font does not work and the poster does not work how it should. 

We have come up with a temporary solution to this, as we had a photo of the poster that was sent through Twitter that we printed in an A3 size. However, this lowered the quality of the photo as it became slightly pixelated. 
Another method that we are going to try is to print the poster in an A4 size at home and then try to blow it up to an A3 size at school. Hopefully this should work.