Cerys Kirby-Thirlwell

Media Evaluation

Media evaluation-

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?The name of my film is The Forgotten One and I think this helps to explain what
the film trailer is about and the overall storyline of the film. I have called it The
Forgotten One because it links to the main character who is a psychopathic
serial killer that was left when he was younger because both his parents were
murdered. It is a common convention that horror/thriller films link the name of
the film to the plot to give the audience members an idea of what its about, an
example of this is Halloween which was about a serial killer called Michael
Myers who killed people on Halloween and who also wore a mask like my
character. Normally horror films have one word titles such as Scream, Saw and
Insidious because it is effective and helps the audience to remember the name
but I challenges this convention because I couldnt think of an effective one word
name for my film and think that The Forgotten One is effective because it goes
straight to the point of the film. The name of my film production is Scare Fest
Productions and this was also made to establish the genre which is also a
common convention of horror films because normally the production company
have a scary logo or name to tie in with the genre of the film.
The locations I shot my trailer in conform to the general stereotype of horror film
trailers. The opening scene to my trailer starts in a forest and I decided to shoot
here because from the research I done I found out that most horror trailer have
scenes in isolated areas. An example of this is The Evil Dead where a group of
teenagers go to a cabin in the forest and many of the gory scenes are seen when
they go deep into the forest. I think this is because it can be seen as a setting
where dangerous and negative events can occur because the victims, such as
the girl in the start of my trailer, are seem defenceless and unprotected. I tried to
portray this by having a couple taking a walk in the lonely and dark forest and
they seem to be alone until we see the serial killer grab the girl and murder her.
Locations such as forests help to build suspense which is very important when it
comes to making a horror film trailer so that I can capture the audiences
attention and this is because it builds tension and will make the audience want to
see whats going to happen because of the cliff hanger ending. The second part
of my horror trailer is seen in a suburban house with a new family moving in, the
house I choose to film is a very suburban house, surrounded by over homes and
is fairly new. This challenges the conventions of a horror trailer because the
houses that are commonly seen in horror films are very old and in the middle of
nowhere to give the sense that the victims inside the house have nowhere to go,
an example of this is seen in Sinister 2 where the family live in a big house
which is in the middle of nowhere. I thought Id challenge this convention
because there arent many horror films that are seen in suburban areas and
suspense was created in my horror film because the family have moved into a
new area and dont know what lies ahead for them.
Horror film trailers generally follow Todorovs narrative theory, this means that
they start of in a peaceful environment (equilibrium) which is then disrupted by
some sort of problem (disruption of equilibrium) and then ends with the

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Media Evaluation
equilibrium being restored. I have similarly done this is my horror trailer but the
only difference is that the disruption of the equilibrium does not get restored so
this leaves the audience wanting more by creating a suspense of whats going to
happen. In my media product I have started with the couple walking through the
woods and joking about, then the music changes and we see the girlfriend being
dragged by the killer which shows no restoration, the second half of my trailer
we see the family moving into their new home and having a new start but again
we see the killer and hear the screams and thats how the trailer ends. I did a lot
of research into horror trailers to see what structure I should use in mine, I then
decided to use the same structure as in The Purge because I thought this made
me want to watch more.
The props that I decided to use in my trailer conform to the usual horror film
trailers. In my trailer I decided to have a close up of the knife being pulled out of
my main characters jacket and close ups of weapons are generally shown in
trailers to help convey the genre to the audience. That characters in which I
chose to play in my trailer also follow the general conventions of horror and my
serial killer is seen wearing a bear mask because I decided to keep the identity of
my serial killer so theres some mystery in who it is and because my character
was called ugly by his dead parents he wears the mask because he doesnt want
people seeing his face. The reason I chose an animal mask is because there
arent many horror films that wear animal masks and when I watched Youre
Next I liked the masks they used which were sheep and tiger masks because it
was different and scarier than the usual masks. The family that I use portray a
normal family otherwise known as a nuclear family which has parents that are
still together and children , this generally isnt seen in horror film because
normally the family has gone through some problems such as Sinister 2 where
the family have split up because the father was abusive. My main character
portrays the same conventions as most serial killers/murderers and this is that
they had some sort of problems with the way they were brought up and
examples of this are abuse and neglect as seen in Halloween.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
My A2 media coursework required me to make a film trailer for my main task and
then I decided to make a poster and magazine front cover to promote my film for
my ancillary tasks. Because I decided to make a horror/thriller I had to look into
the codes and conventions and the unique selling points that I could combine
into my three tasks. I wanted to make sure that the film expanded to a wide
audience and to make sure that I kept the audience engaged and interested in
my trailer because if my trailer engages the audience this will increase the
effectiveness of the whole package.
I researched and annotated many film posters that fitted the genre I was doing
so I could see how popular films such as The Purge: Anarchy reached out to
their target audience. After researching film posters it became clear to me that
the purpose is to advertise the film through the title, images, actors names,
design/colours and the tagline. After researching through these and needed to
make sure that my poster was attractive and connected with the other products,
I needed to do some more research into the colours that are used in horror
posters which are mostly dark colours with eerie pictures. I also wanted to make

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Media Evaluation
sure that I had a tagline that grabbed the audiences attention, when I looked at
horror/thriller poster taglines I figured out that most of the taglines include the
audience, for example If this movie doesnt make your skin crawlits on too
tight! which is the tagline for Black Christmas, even though I liked the taglines
that included the audience I decided to go with If you believe in God, say hello
to the devil because I think comparing my main character to the devil makes the
character seem scarier and this will make the audience want to watch the film to
see what hes like. Below I have annotated my film poster-

Cerys Kirby-Thirlwell
Media Evaluation

Cerys Kirby-Thirlwell
Media Evaluation
As you can see I decided to go with a simple film poster, but I believe that my
poster is effective because with the black background I have focused on the
mask of the serial killer. My film poster attracts the audience and its associated
with the film trailer and magazine front cover. This is done through the central
image of the killer which I mentioned before. This stands out and is the first thing
that captures the audiences attention because its one of the first things they
see when they see my film trailer as well. This creates synergy by because the
mask is involved in the media trailer and magazine front cover, I also changed
the fonts on all of my tasks to create synergy, in my first draft I had a font (which
you can see in construction) that was really tacky and unprofessional and in the
end I decided to change it to this font because I thought a thinner font looked
more professional and scarier. I decided to move TheForgottenOne.com line
closer to the bottom because this is what it usually looks like on a general film
poster. I changed the One to an actual 1 which reminded me of the Scre4m
poster which I liked the look of because it all merged in together.
After researching and analysing magazine front covers for films, I especially
looked at Empire magazine front covers because this is the most popular film
magazine I know of. After researching magazine front covers I found out that
magazine front covers generally include the main character, the actors names,
bold writing and the USP of the films. Once analysing film magazine front covers
I decided to go with a front cover that is similar to the Empire front covers, with
the same style. I also decided to make my magazine front cover a special edition
magazine for the release of my film which says it has gossip and behind the
scenes images. Below is my magazine front cover-

Cerys Kirby-Thirlwell
Media Evaluation

Cerys Kirby-Thirlwell
Media Evaluation
I think that my magazine front cover displays effectiveness in combining with my
trailer and poster because firstly it continues with the image of the mask but in
my magazine front cover I decided to do a whos behind the mask image
because this will entice the audience to want to see who the killer is. I have
added all the general magazine front cover things such as the barcode and the
issue number/price because I thought it made the magazine look more realistic. I
decided to use bold writing to make it stand out, as well as using bold writing I
decided to use the colours red and black, this is because the colour red connotes
blood and the colour black connotes darkness. If I could change my magazine
front cover I think I would change the costume of the character because it just
seems like its thrown on and I didnt put much effort into it. In my first draft of
my magazine front cover I had The Forgotten One in the same font as
everything else on the front cover but decided to change the font to the same as
on the poster and in the film trailer to keep it consistent.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

For my audience feedback I decided to create a questionnaire to ask my target
audience specific questions about my A2 coursework and to then gain feedback
from it. To ensure that I had accurate results I asked 20 people with a mixture of
males and females of different ages to represent representativeness. I asked a
range of open and closed questions which I made on SurveyMonkey, this is to
gain qualitative and quantitative data which would be reliable and valid. I also
made my questions to link to all of my media tasks which were a film trailer, a
magazine front cover and a poster.
My first question was What age range do you fall under? and this was just to
see what the general age would be that would watch my film. I started from the
age of 15 because this is the age rating of my film and this is because there is a
small amount of swearing a long with a strong amount of violence and horror.
From looking at the results 60% of the people I asked were aged 15-20 and the
rest were a majority of 21-30 so I can see that my film has a younger audience
which is what I wanted because they are generically more interested in
horror/thrillers.
My second question was What genre do you think my film trailer, poster and
magazine front cover represent? and this question was to see whether I was
able to represent my genre successfully in all of my media products. From my
results, out of the 20 people who I asked the majority of the people thought that
my A2 asks represented either a horror or a thriller and this is good because I
wanted my film to be in between a horror and a thriller. Only a tiny percentage
thought that it was either a comedy or a sci-fi but I would rather no one thought
this because its the opposite of what I wanted. I have learnt from the results of
this question that overall I was successful in conveying the genre in my media
products but I could have made it a little bit scarier by maybe adding more
weapons to my poster/front cover or adding more violent scenes to my trailer
because this would add more suspense and scare the audience more.
I wanted to know what age rating the audience thought my film trailer looked
like to see whether I was able to convey the rules of the age rating. As I said
before I had put the age of my film to a 15 because of the strong violence and
horror. Out of the 20 people I asked 12 of them thought the age rating was a 15
with a small amount thinking it was an 18 and an even smaller amount thinking
it was a 12. I thought that it could be helpful to have an idea as to whether we

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Media Evaluation
displayed the age rating clearly and from the results of the questionnaire I can
see that I have successfully portrayed that but I could have added more so
people didnt think it was an age rating of 12, I didnt add any swearing into my
film trailer which could have portrayed the age rating of 15 more.
The music is a big part of the trailer because it can establish the tone and
atmosphere of the trailer and therefore convey the genre. Therefore I wanted
dark and eerie music throughout the trailer as well as The Teddy Bears Picnic to
play at the start because it is creepy. 18 people said yes and 2 didnt, this could
be because they dont watch horror/thrillers often and dont like the genre.
This was an open ended question as I thought that it would be a good idea to
have some open ended questions as well as closed to gather the best
information. The answers I got revolved around my trailer being a tad short for a
trailer because it runs just under two minutes when most trailers are a minimum
of two minutes long. However some people did say the length of the trailer was
fine and that it was just the right amount of time to grab the audiences attention
but not bore them. I think that I should have shot some more scenes so my film
trailer would have been a lot longer but I ran out of time so I had to work with
what I had, however I dont know what I would have added in and I feel like if I
did add some more scenes in that it would have lost the audiences attention
because it would have just dragged.
I wanted to ask my audience questions about all main task and my ancillary
tasks so I know if they all worked well together. I asked the question From
looking at all three aspects of the promotions for this film, do you have sense of
the films plot?. Over 80% of the people I asked said that they did have a sense
of the films plot which is essential in the role of a trailer. The plot and the genre
are the most important aspects that influence the audience in whether they want
to go and watch the film and I feel that I presented my film well and had an
interesting and scary plot that my target audience would enjoy. Only 4
respondents said that they didnt understand or were unsure of the plot which
means I may have had to be a bit more obvious about what the film was about. I
also asked if my target audience thought the magazine front cover, poster and
film trailer worked well together and if so why did they. 18 people out of the 20
answered that they did all work well together which is really pleasing because it
means that I managed to portray the same image across all three tasks. The
main answer to why my tasks worked well together was because the character
behind the bear mask was linked in all three items which made the audience
intrigued as to who this masked man was, this is good because I wanted to build
suspense as to who the character was and what he was about. I think that using
the same font in all of my tasks helped because it tied everything together.
I wanted to know whether my target audience thought my editing helped the
trailer out so I asked whether it was aesthetically pleasing. 15 people said yes
and a big 5 said no which I agree with because I had very little time to edit my
final version and this was because Adobe Premiere on the school computers
stopped working and I couldnt get sound half the time so I couldnt really do
anything. Editing is what takes the longest time and I wanted to make sure my
trailer ran smoothly and looked professional and I am still very pleased that 15
people said that it was pleasing.

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Media Evaluation
I also wanted to know whether my magazine front cover and poster were able to
influence the target audience by themselves and if so why. A trailer is the best
way for the audience to see what the film is about but I wanted to have an idea
of the effect of my two other products. Over 75% of the people who answered
said yes which is pleasing because it means I managed to convey the genre and
aspects of the plot into pictures. Even though 4 people said no it may because
they dont prefer magazine/posters to get their information from. Out of the
people who said yes, the reason why was mostly because of the mysterious
masked character of the front of the cover/poster. I think that the way our
generation has been brought up, it is more interesting to see something like a
video clip to get the best idea of whats happening and I am the same way so I
am not surprised that some people needed more influence than pictures.
My final question was if my audience would go and watch The Forgotten One
and if so why. This was just to see if it was successful. Because this is an open
ended question it allows my target audience to give their honest opinion of
whether or not they would go to see my film after looking at my trailer, poster
and magazine front cover. Overall, 80% of my respondents said that they would
go and watch the film which is very pleasing because it means that I conveyed
the genre well and was able to influence them to go and watch my product. The
reason that people said that they would go to see my film was because of the
suspense in my trailer as well as a good plot. The 20% of people who said they
wouldnt see my film was because they didnt like the genre that much or said
that the plot didnt interest them and everyone has their own opinion but I'm
glad a high percentage would go and see my film

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
Whilst planning and researching for my A2 project I used a number of different
programmes which include Blogger, Word, Slideshare, Scribd, Prezi, Youtube and
more. To research for my horror trailer, I got most of my help from the internet
and used websites such as Youtube to look at trailers. I did this on my school
computers as well as my laptop at home which gave me more access to websites
my school didnt allow me to view. Google was the only search engine I used
whilst undergoing research, I used Google to find photos and videos of films from
my genre such as posters, magazine covers and trailers to get an idea of what I
wanted to do. I sometimes used my phone to search the internet when I didnt
have access to a computer which was hardly ever. I used my phone to quickly
find information to help my media project, for example to look at directors and
years of films.

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Media Evaluation

I used Blogger a lot in my project to upload all of my documents and write about
what I had learnt. Blogger is an easy way to keep track of my progress and
because I used it in my previous AS coursework I had a clear understanding of
how to use it. I blogged every step of the way and started with my introduction
and ended with my final video and this evaluation. Blogger is extremely useful
because I am able to embed pictures and videos to show where I was getting my
ideas and inspiration from. I used Blogger like a diary, constantly updating my
progress and ideas. The only problem with using Blogger so much is that if I
wrote all my documents on to Blogger it would have looked boring so I used sites
such as Slideshare to upload my PowerPoint presentations and make my
coursework look more interesting.
In my construction stage, I used the school computers to operate various types
of software. The camera I used was a Canon 100D which were new cameras that
my school recently bought, this camera was used to film my film trailer as well as
taking pictures for my ancillary tasks. Along with the camera I used a tripod to
hold the camera still whilst filming and this made the trailer look a lot more
professional. After filming I uploaded my footage onto the school computer with
a SD adaptor and uploaded it to Adobe Premier Pro. Adobe Premier Pro is a
timeline video editing software application which supports many video editing
cards and plug-ins for accelerated processing, additional file format support and
video/audio effects. Whilst on this editing software I went through my footage
and decided what I wanted to keep and what I was going to delete, once that
first stage was done I had to put the footage into the correct order, edit the video
by adding transitions and music to make it look like a more realistic film trailer. I
could have spent a lot more time editing my film to make it look more
professional, if I planned out my coursework and filming I may have been able to
spend a lot more time on it. Once my filming was over I used Adobe Photoshop
which integrates with Premier, Photoshop files can be directly opened from
Premier Pro to be edited in Photoshop but I mainly used it to edit my ancillary
tasks. First of all I upload the pictures I took and then started editing them to
make my film poster and magazine front cover, because I have had experience
with Adobe Photoshop from media before I was able to get on with my ancillary
tasks with very little help and think that they look like theyd intrigue my target
audience.

Cerys Kirby-Thirlwell
Media Evaluation