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

The 9 pictures above are from my media product, film poster and film magazine front cover. There are 3 from each, with the media product being the top 3, poster the middle 3 and magazine front cover the bottom 3. During the research of other thriller films and their trailers, there were several conventions that I identified were popular in this genre.

The first image is a close up of the character Owen as he is taking a bottle of whiskey from the fridge. This shot is a interesting shot and develops conventions of the thriller genre as it shows that the character is having a challenging time and has many problems, turning to drink in order to resolve this. Since he is underage it shows that he is extremely troubled but also reflects everyday life and underage drinking does exist. This is an example of British social realism which is a USP for our film and many British thriller films, however it challenges the conventions of American thriller films which often glamorise violence and issues.

The second image is from my film poster and it is the tagline that can be found at the bottom. Having it at the bottom is a convention as it does not take away from the impact of the masthead and the images. However it is still an important part of posters as it gives the audience something to think about and to remember the poster and film. It does this since it is a rhetorical question and doesn't give the audience an answer until the watch this film which is a convention of the thriller trailer. Again, it is in red connoting the danger and violence which is a stereotypical convention of  the thriller trailer. The font that I used was called "Chiller" and it looks like a conventional serif font used in the thriller genre as it reminds people of the supernatural since it looks 'creepy'.

The third image shows the ratings that I used on my poster. They are stars since these are the conventional shape for positive feedback. Stars are used in childhood as a reward symbol for good behaviour and so people often associate them with a positive image. When people see stars on texts such as magazine front cover or film poster, they associate them with rating even before seeing the writing. These are all reasons i used stars for my reviews of the film instead of number ratings. Also having the stars in a black font connoted the unknown aspect of the film trailer. The font looks fancy and is white to show that it is from a respected source and also connotes class and elegance.

The fourth image is an extreme close up from our thriller film trailer that shows text messages between the two characters Owen and Chloe. They show the audience that he is controlling towards her and this is often a convention in thrillers, where the male is dominant over the female character and shows that in modern life technology makes it easier for relationships to be interfered with or become controlling and complicated. This shot was repeated more than once in our trailer, further establishing to the audience the character of Owen.

The fifth image above is again taken from our thriller film trailer and it shows the two characters Katie and Chloe comforting each other. This is a use of conventions from the thriller genre as a female 'damsel in distress' is stereotypical. It also develops this convention since there are two females and one is comforting the other, showing that two damsels in distress can stick together and overcome the threat of the dominant male. Also the high key lighting challenges conventions since the lighting in thriller films is usually low key connoting the threat and fear of the unknown. This high key lighting emphasises the point about the two females combining to be more dominant than the male

The sixth image is an example of one of the title's we used, "How will she escape". The title was in a white, sans serif font with a white glow outside and it had one red word which was 'Escape'. Each title we used had one red word which helped to highlight it and connote the danger that the character was in. The ellipsis at the end of the sentence shows that it is left on a cliff hanger so the audience do not know how or if she will escape. As a trailer this works effectively as it keeps the audience anticipating and guessing what will happen, and they will want to go and see the film. All of the above reasons show that the titles are similar and develop conventions of real thriller products.

The seventh image shows the title of my thriller film, on my film poster. The font is again 'Chiller' which connotes a spooky feeling, which is a convention of the thriller genre and found on film posters, mainly to do with the supernatural. The white font supports this and also connotes the innocence of the characters and also the audience as they don't know what dangers they characters will get in. The title name itself 'Under Control' is threatening to the audience and so tells them briefly what the plot will be about. The date underneath  is a convention of film posters in general since this is important institutional information. It tells the audience when the film will be released so they know when they can see it in cinemas.

The eight image is an over the shoulder shot from the film trailer that shows the character Owen walking up to the house that Katie and Chloe are in. Thrillers use this shot as it shows the person who is threatening and also the object they are targeting, making it clearer and more tense for them. Also in this shot you can see that there is low key lighting, another feature of thrillers. The dark clothes that Owen is wearing shows that he is threatening and again creates tension and shows that he should be viewed in a negative light.

The ninth and final image is from my film magazine front cover and are the pictures of two of the main characters from the film trailer. These characters were Owen and Chloe. Real magazine front covers often use one or two characters on them, one if it is a single character narrative and doesn't involve much conflict and tension between characters. However two characters are often seen on magazine front covers if the conflict between them is important to the narrative. The pose and facial expression are often important in showing the audience how the characters feel about each other and so make the audience feel like they want to see how their relationship works out.

Evaluation 3- What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Feedback?

Our main audience feedback came in the form of our classmates and our teachers. Asking our classmates for feedback on the main products and the ancillary texts was useful since they are the target audience age and social category. The feedback was useful as it enabled us to see where we could improve since when working on something you often get too involved and can't see where improvements are needed. The following are some of the improvements that were suggested for our main product, the thriller trailer;

 - It looked a bit too much like a film opening
In order to fix this we added more titles and sped the trailer up to make sure the pace matched that of conventional trailers instead of film openings. Doing this was successful since more inter titles broke it up a bit more and made the trailer look more conventional.

- More diegetic sound to help narrate it a bit more
Before we had no diegetic sound and so it was unclear about some of the narratives. By adding diegetic sound over the scene where Owen gets exams results and scrunches them up before storming off, was unclear. However we aded diegetic speech of Owen's parents and it became clearer that he was stressed and under pressure from them. 

- Make the main character Owen look  more controlling and aggressive
We did this by speeding up the last shot of Owen putting his foot in the door. Before it was slow and he did not look aggressive like he is supposed to, however speeding up the footage made it look more demanding and aggressive and so shows the audience what they are supposed to think about him.

- Add colour to the intertitles
At first we had intertitles that were just white, however after seeing this many people thought they were too plain and did not connote the genre. To improve this we added one red word on each intertitle. This connotes danger and violence that is assoiciated with the thriller genre and also shows the audience that there is a threat in the narrative.

- Come back to the shot of the phone more than once
Our class mates thought that the shot of the phone was effective in displaying that Owen was a agressive, controlling boyfriend so they suggested it be on the screen longer. We didn't want the shot on the screen for too long since we felt it slowed the pace of the trailer so we decided to use the shot more than once allowing the audience to read the texts and see how controlling and threatening Owen is, This improves how easy the trailer and narrative of the film is to understand. 

I also received feedback for my ancillary texts which were the film poster and film magazine front cover. Some of the feedback was as follows;

-On the Magazine front cover, the images were too small
This was a suggestion made towards the end of the production of my magazine front cover. People thought that the images should be bigger as they are often tell people what is inside the magazine and a lot about the film. For example, the images on my front cover are of two of my main characters showing the conflict in the narrative, so making the images bigger than anything else on the front cover was an important idea as it shows the audience the conflict.

-On the magazine front cover, the subtitles of articles inside the magazine were too small
These were the titles on the left of my magazine and were one words that try to sell the article to the audience. At first these were similar size to the descriptions below them, which people said didn't make them stand out as much. I made these one word titles bigger so they would be clearly different from the descriptions below as they are USPs for the magazine.

-On the poster; Have more than one image
I was planning on having just an image of one character on the poster however after showing a few people they suggested trying it out with two images of different main characters, similar to the magazine front cover. By doing this it made it look more detailed and again, showed the conflict between them. This makes the poster more interesting and so the audience will pay more attention to it and may be willing to research more and go and see the film

-On the poster; The layout doesn't make sense, the question doesn't seem to link to the title
At first, on the poster i had "how will you escape..." and "when you are..." followed by the title "Under Control" however they were spaced out so a few people couldn't understand or follow the question. To make it clearer and also not cover the image, i decided to just get rid of these texts and just put one question " How will you escape?" at the bottom of the poster. This made the poster clearer and also had more of an effect with the question in a red font.

Poster Progress

These images show the progression of my film poster. For the film poster i decided to use a red and black background as this matches the title and the background on my magazine front cover. It also connotes danger and violence as well as fear and the unknown. In the first image you can see this background and that it gets progressively darker which reflects the narrative of the film. The names of the actors and actresses also appear in a medium sized fonts as if they were well known, this would be a USP. The release date is important and so is quite large as if the audience is interested they will want to know when it is out, sometimes needing this information at a quick glance. The billing block is placed at the bottom in small font because it is often looked at if the person viewing it is very interested in details about the film industry. 

The next image includes reviews and ratings from well known institutions that are known for their film reviews. This makes people more likely to go and watch the film as people they trust in reviewing a film have rated it highly. Many people often look at reviews and ratings before deciding to go and watch a film and for this reason, they are placed at the top and take up quite a large space meaning the audience will easily see them. Also added at this point was the tagline "How Will You Escape?" this rhetorical, snappy question may be remembered by the audience as it directly targets them and makes them worried about the characters in the film and that the film is dangerous. 

The final image is where I added the 2 images of the characters and the title of the film. Katie who is pictured, is facing away from Owen and her pose shows that she is innocent and the audience are supposed to support her. Owen on the other hand is looking directly at the audience, breaking the 4th wall which makes the audience feel uncomfortable and builds tension. The title 'Under Control' connotes that someone is in danger and builds suspension. It is white connoting the innocence of Katie and it has a white outer glow which connotes the thriller genre and maybe something paranormal. The images and the title are the largest features on the poster as these are the things you want the audience to see first as they will remember these things and can research them at home.

Magazine Progress

This is the progression of my magazine front cover. I started off deciding i wanted a dark coloured background as this connotes the thriller genre. The title is red as this is another key colour in the thriller genre as it connotes danger and violence. The film strip connotes that this a film magazine and the fact that it is red, again connotes the thriller genre. The tagline "Your Number 1 Place For Films" tells the audience that this magazine is very high quality and there is no other magazine that gives them as much information if they want to read about films. The blood splats are generic conventions of the thriller genre as they connote danger and death which may suggest something about the narrative of the featured films.

This next image is further into the progression and shows that the next thing i did was to add text about the articles that are inside. Using words such as 'Exclusive', 'Win' and 'Sneak Peek' tells the audience that there are exciting things inside and so they will want to buy it. This is highlighted by the red glow around this subheadings. I chose to advertise the competition inside the magazine, on the front of it as this is a USP for film fans. I put on institutional information such as the website and the price as this gives the audience information about the magazine. The website means that they can look in more detail at the magazine and what it includes. I also decided to put 'Limited Edition' at the side as i thought this would make people want to buy the magazine more since it is a special issue.

The next decision i made was to add the photos of other films along the film strips. This adds more variety withing the magazine and so provides more information about films that the audience may be interested in. Also added in at this point was the line at the bottom that says " The best thrillers of the year". This targets people who like thrillers and so will be interested in the magazine and our film which is featured in it. 

The last features i added were the pictures of two of the main characters. The character featured are Katie and Owen. The conflicting poses and emotions of the characters make the audience intrigued as to what the narrative and relationship between them is. Also being teenagers, it targets the teenage audience as they will be able to relate to it.

Evaluation 4- How Did You Use New Media Technologies in the Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages

I used many technologies this year during all the stages of involved in creating our film trailer and my 2 ancillary texts. Many of the media technologies I used I had previously used while making my AS teen angst film opening, however this year I have used some new technologies that have enabled me to progress my media skills.

Just like last year we used YouTube to upload both the draft and the final film to YouTube which then allowed us to put these on to our blogs. YouTube is easy to use and because I have used the website before, it was simple for our group to upload the videos and it is also easy to link these videos and put them on to our blogs. YouTube is the most popular video sharing site and used by millions of people everyday and so it is the best way for people to see your videos and pieces of work while being completely free. Also it is very popular with our target audience and so YouTube is an important way of the film trailer being seen by a large audience globally and this way it can also be shared on social media.

Other online services we used included Blogger, Gmail and Facebook, all of which we used last year. I kept all of my notes and ideas together via blogger and it also helped me to monitor my own progress with evaluations and posting ideas and research from other thriller films and their trailers. I also posted my first draft of the film trailer on blogger which allowed me to get feedback from other members of the class and then use these comments to improve the film. I could also post any ideas that I had but decided not to use in the final media product. Gmail was key in sending items that were important in the creation of our products such as pictures, design ideas and planning ideas. It is accessible on phones and laptops so is accessible and always available. Facebook was used to communicate with the rest of the group as we had a group chat that allowed us to plan a schedule to film, where to film and the roles that each of us would take. 


Adobe Photoshop is one piece of software that we used last year and again this year. It was used in order to make our new production company logo and also to create our ancillary tasks which were the film magazine cover and the poster. This software is quite detailed and can be complicated to use, however, having used this before I was able to do many of the basic skills which then allowed me time to practice some more advanced skills to help improve the look of my ancillary texts. It was accessible on any of the computers in the school and so was easily accessible and meant that I could work on the texts whenever I wanted to.

The camera itself was a HD video recorder which allowed us to capture the footage in the best quality possible and this made the film trailer better quality. Making the film trailer quality the best we could would suit the genre as the target audience use modern technologies that have the options to have HD on and so lots of teenagers in today's world use HD whenever they can. Having the film in HD would appeal to the target audience more than if it wasn't in HD. Also the camera was small, light and wireless. This made it much easier to film in places around the school and outside of school. A disadvantage to this was that the camera had quite a short battery life and needed to be charged frequently.

Using my phone allowed me to communicate with others in my group via Facebook during the planning process of creating our film trailer. I also used my phone (YouTube and the internet) for researching about other thriller films and film trailers and the conventions they have. This was helpful as I know how to use my phone quickly and effectively and so it was easy to do the research for my own film trailer. This is also useful as I can access blogger and Gmail via my phone which are key ways of communicating.
 Freeplay music was one website that was particularly useful while making our film opening. It allowed us to search for copyright free music that would be appropriate to use. We could access it form any computer and so looking for the right song did not take long. During our film trailer we use one track that is taken from Freeplay music and it was important that we got this right as music can help to set the genre of the film and the mood. As a group we had used this website before so we knew how to work so once we had found the music we wanted to use, it was quick and easy to put this into our product.

Last year we used Final Cut pro to edit our film opening however this year, due to circumstances, we had to edit on Adobe premier pro. This meant that everyone in our group was a beginner on this software and so we had to get an understanding of the basics first before we could try anything special like effects on titles. There were problems with this software and computer combination as the footage and video would often not completely render or would take a long time to load completely and so slowed the progress of us editing. Once we got used to this software though, it was relatively simple.

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

My film trailer was a psychological thriller and so this influenced many attributes and decisions on my poster and magazine front cover. The target audience is male's between the ages of 15- 26 and in the social categories E-C2. Although the narrative may attract a female audience due to the female characters and problems.
There are many elements that are common in my film trailer, magazine front cover and my film poster. One of the main features is the pictures of the characters in my film, who were then on the magazine front cover and the film poster. The pictures that I took of them were mid shots as this allowed their body language and facial expressions be shown, which displayed the tension and conflict. In the film trailer, mid shots and close ups were the most commonly used for the same reason again as this helped to tell the audience what genre of film this was. Having them on both allows the audience to recognise the characters and associate them with the film especially with them in similar poses on both texts with the character Katie facing away from the character Owen showing the conflict between them in the film as it is a big part of the narrative. We also kept them in same/similar clothes, which were casual clothes that teenagers would be expected to wear, which again allowed the audience to recognise them and link it to the film trailer.  Another feature of all 3 products is the colours that I used, which were predominantly red, white and black. The text, background and lighting were all examples of these colours being used since I had a red and black background with a white title on the poster and a white and black background with red and white titles on the Magazine. The trailer itself had white inter titles with the one red word per title, and a black background. It also had low key lighting which linked to the dark colours on the poster and magazine cover. These are examples of synergy throughout the poster, magazine cover and film trailer. Synergistic features are important as it allows the audience to recognise the film using elements such as the image, colours, names, and titles.

The title we had was 'Under Control'. We decided on this name as it gave the audience an idea of what the film is about so they can begin to formulate ideas of their own about what will happen in the film. The poster had the biggest title and I used a white glow around it to highlight the fact that is a thriller and connote the suspense and tension. I used a simple font that looked innocent but spooky. On the magazine front cover the title was in the same sans serif, white text as the rest of the article descriptions, but it was slightly large than the rest in order to make it stand out. In the trailer the title was the same as the other titles in the trailer in order to keep the same theme running throughout, however it was also white, like the ancillary texts so the audience will recognise it easily.

An example of iconography in all 3 products is the colours that i used, predominantly white and red. Red is used as it connotes danger and this is one of the common themes that we want to get across to the audience. The colour white is also used as it connotes the innocence of the female characters. I used these colours on the titles a lot for the exact reasons mentioned previously and also that it continues the theme of the colours red white and black used throughout. Another example of iconography is the blood splats i used on the magazine front cover. These are often a generic convention of the thriller genre as it agian connotes something bad has happened and someone is hurt quite badly. Another generic convention is that the 'damsel in distress' is a young female. This adds threat to our target audience as they are often around this age and know the dangers to young females. The damsel in distress is shown in our film trailer and also in our ancillary texts as this allowed the audience to get to know the characters before even watching the films. It also allows them to recognise the film.

The narrative that we tried to show on the poster and magazine front cover was that of tension and conflict between Katie and Owen. We did this by showing Katie in an innocent way with her facial expression and that she was facing away from Owen. Owen on both the poster and magazine is looking angry and on the poster is looking directly at the audience breaking the 4th wall. The fact he looks at the camera and that he is wearing black clothing suggests that he is the antagonist and the audience are not supposed to support him. The colours of red and black throughout the film trailer, the magazine and the poster connote that the narrative means someone is in danger and may die. The white colour connotes the purity and innocence of Katie in the film. These attract our audience because if they enjoy thrillers than they will like the threatening narrative of Owen towards Katie as they don't know how far it will continue and this builds tension.

The institutional information such as the certificate and release date are both found on the film poster and just the release date in the film trailer as it keeps the audience informed about the film so they are aware about important information. I put neither the release date nor the certificate on the magazine front cover as conventionally this information is found inside the magazine. The main feature of the magazine front cover is the images of the characters from my film trailer. I did not use the production company logo on the magazine front cover or the film poster as this is not a USP since the company is unknown.

Overall my film magazine front cover, film poster and film trailer were effective as you can see the links between them clearly. Colour images and the title were the most effective visual synergistic features in recognising that all 3 products were linked and these helped the audience to remember and want to see the film.

First Draft- Video