Evaluation Question 4

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

We used lots of different media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages of our coursework. Below are a few examples of technologies we have used.

Final Cut Pro

Motion

Blogger

YouTube

Photoshop

Google

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We showed several people our trailer and asked for feedback from them. We wanted to know what they thought was good about it and what they thought we could improve on. We also asked each person what their mark out of 10 would be on editing, mise en scene, shots and sound. We asked different people from different genders to different ages so that we had a large variety of opinions on our trailer and were able to compare what type of people liked it the most. Finally, we looked at the results we got for our survey with questions about our trailer.


Sarah
Editing - 9/10
Mise en Scene - 7/10
Shots - 8/10
Sound - 9/10

I thought the sounds used in there trailer were really good. They related well to the plot and made the trailer seem more like a horror. My favourite sound in the trailer was the 'Ring O Roses' music  that appeared when the main character was in the playground with her friend and then she disappeared and the ghostly character was standing behind her. I really liked this part as it presented the contrast of happy and sad with a pause in the music to present the change. One thing that could be improved on would possibly be the obvious quality change in the camera when filming in darker settings. They could possibly use a better camera or not film when it's quite so dark so the camera quality doesn't deteriorate.

Jack 
Editing - 9/10
Mise en Scene - 7/10
Shots - 8/10
Sound - 8/10

My favourite thing about Laura and Faye's trailer was the plot. I thought it was really different and creative and I've never really watched or heard of any film like that before. I also liked the fact that the main character was a young girl because it helped me and my friends relate to the trailer more because she is around the same age as us. I also liked the idea of how the main character was becoming possessed by some sort of demon or ghost as I quite like those type of films and so I thought it looked really interesting. One thing they could possibly improve on could possibly be the costume/make up of the 'demon' as they could've been a lot more creative with it or maybe used face paint or a mask so that the 'demons' face could be seen in possible quick shots to make it more scary.

Faye's Dad
Editing - 10/10
Mise en Scene - 8/10
Shots - 8/10
Sound - 9/10

The best thing about Faye and Laura's trailer was the different location ideas that they used. I thought they were very creative and well thought out to ensure that they had a variety of different locations to make the trailer more interesting. I also thought the editing they had done to the trailer was very clever and looked extremely realistic and it made it more enjoyable to watch. One thing they could possibly improve on were the shots used as they used quite a lot of 'Long shots' and I thought that they could include a bigger variety of different shots.

Laura's Mum
Editing - 10/10
Mise en Scene - 8/10
Shots - 9/10
Sound - 10/10

I thought Laura and Faye's trailer was very good and I was very impressed with the editing and filming! My favourite thing about the trailer was probably the sound as I felt it was extremely varied and it fitted in really well with all the different shots that were included in the trailer. I also felt that it faded in and out at all the right times and the type of sounds that were included really related to the genre of their trailer which was Horror. If I had to choose one thing to improve on, I think it would be the lighting in some scenes because it was slightly dark in a couple and then suddenly got very bright in the next scene.

Take Your Soul Survey Results

What was your favourite thing about our trailer?

What do you think we could improve on?

What genre would you say our trailer was?

Would you go to see our film after watching the trailer?

Do you think our trailer is scary?

What is your favourite part in the trailer?

Below is our feedback on the results we got from our survey

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

Below is our answer to the second question of the evaluation, we used a green screen when presenting our answer as we thought this was more effective when showing evidence.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Below is our answer to question 1 of the evaluation, please make sure you watch this video of a powerpoint in 1080p HD.

Take Your Soul Survey

Below is a survey of our trailer. Please watch our trailer and take our survey, expressing your own opinions. This is to help us when talking about our audience feedback!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Creators Feedback

Below is a video of our feedback for our trailer, poster and magazine cover. We comment on what we like best about each of our media products and what we think we could improve on for next time. We also say what our favourite product is and why. Enjoy!

Finished Magazine Cover

This is our finished magazine cover. We think overall that it came out really well and looks really professional and well presented. 

Magazine Cover: Balloons

When creating our magazine cover we decided that we should add a 'scary' face to the balloons to make them look like captured souls. By doing this we thought it would emphasise what the film is about and also relate to the title. 

We searched for a picture of a ghost to represent the captured souls in the balloons, we thought that this picture suited our magazine cover the best. We looked at other pictures such as a dolls face and a monsters face but we thought it didn't look as good when we edited them in the balloons. It took quite a long time to find a ghostly face that we liked because some of them weren't appearing well enough on our magazine cover or they didn't fit with the balloons properly. We finally found this face on google images. We felt that this was a good image to use on our magazine cover as it was the correct shape to fit inside the balloons and it appeared clearly on the cover. We also liked the way the ghost was appearing to be "screaming" which was the effect we wanted to make it look like they were being possessed. 

This is what the balloons looked like before we added the picture of the ghost into each balloon. We thought without the picture of the ghost the balloons looked plain and we could do something with them to make our magazine cover look more scary. We picked transparent white balloons so that we were able to add something into them we also thought this went with the colour theme in this picture which was black and white. We thought if we had red balloons which would represent blood may have been too bright and so wouldn't fit in with the picture. By having balloons in the picture it shows the innocence of the main character 'Ella' which we liked and we thought this could provoke sympathy and worry from the audience. 

When we added the ghost picture to the balloons we decided to mess around with how it looked so we used the tools, warp and distort.

When using warp and distort we were able to change the shape and features of the picture. We thought that this made the picture fit into the balloon properly and also looked as if the ghost was trapped in the balloon trying to come out. After using warp and distort we decided to change the fill of the pictures so that it faded into the balloon.

Magazine Cover: Realistic Aspects

When creating our magazine cover, we wanted to make sure that it looked as realistic as possible so it looked as best as it possibly could and make it seem like an actual real film was being advertised on the front cover. Below are some aspects we included in our magazine cover to make it look more realistic and the ideas we got them from.

Here (far left) we have the world 'Exclusive' taken from an example of a Total Film magazine cover. We copied this onto our blog (far right) because we felt it was just something that typically appeared on magazine covers because they contain lots of exclusive content e.g. interviews, facts, articles, posters etc. 

Here (far left) we see an advertisement on a cover of a Total Film magazine advertising the 'Lesbian Vampire Killers' killers. To make our magazine cover seem more realistic, we too included an advertisement (far right) of a new film that has been released 'The Devils Due' which we saw the trailer of recently on twitter. Also we felt that, because our trailer is a horror, the film advertised on our magazine cover should too be a horror so the readers of the magazine get the idea that this magazine issue is a horror one.

Here (top screenshot) we see an example of different words used to describe the content of the magazine and starts in between the words to make it look more interesting and to separate them. We really liked this idea as it just made a bit of a difference on the magazine cover rather than just having lots of advertisements on the front. We used the words 'Fear' 'Death' 'Possession' and 'Ghosts (bottom screenshot) on our magazine cover because we felt these adjectives described what was included in our magazine best and also related to the genre and plot of our trailer. We also decided to change the stars to crosses because we felt that this symbol was best associated with possession which is the main topic of our trailer.

Because our magazine poster was supposed to be an issue from 'Total Film' magazine, we decided to copy the date, issue number and price layout from the real magazines. Here (above) is an example of how Total Film lay out these aspects. They place them around 2cm above the m in 'film'. We really liked this idea and so copied this (far right) on our magazine cover.

Here, (far left), we copied the shape of this advertisement in this magazine but changed the text that was included inside because we wanted to be different. We really liked the circle advertisement idea because it made the advert stand out on the front of the magazine and this is what we wanted. On our magazine, (below), we chose to have a black circle to relate to the colour scheme of our magazine cover (black, white, red and grey), slightly lowering the opacity so the background was still visible through the circle. We then included the text 'THE MOVIE EVENT OF 2014' inside as we saw this advertisement on another magazine and thought it was really good to have on the front of our magazine cover.

We also included a bar code in our magazine cover which we think is the most realistic aspect to include because every product for sale includes a bar code. This bar code (far left) is very commonly used on Total Film magazines, however, we thought that this was too thin to include on our magazine cover and we didn't really like it so decided to use a slightly wider one, (far right), instead which we preferred the look of and fitted more nicely in the bottom right hand corner of our magazine cover. We also included the website of the magazine above the bar code.

Finally, we included the Facebook and Twitter magazine links on the front of the magazine cover. We felt this was a good idea as people that read the magazine can search the links and like the Facebook page or follow Total Film on 'Twitter'. We positioned the symbols of Facebook and Twitter next to the links too to make it look more realistic. We also included the trend '#takeyoursoul' for Twitter users in case they wanted to search for the film on Twitter.

Magazine Cover: Fonts

These are all the different fonts we have used that appear on our magazine cover. Every font was searched for and found on 'dafont.com' and each font has been chosen by us so that they all blend well together and relate to our chosen genre of horror.

For this advertisement on our magazine, we used the fonts 'INSTRUCTION' and 'October Crow'. We used 'INSTRUCTION' for the 'Inside' part of this advertisement. We thought this font was good because it's quite bold and clear and looks stereo-typically like a font that would be used on a magazine cover. We wanted a simple font for the 'Inside' part because it wasn't the main text and was meant to just basically present to the readers what is inside of the magazine.
We used the font 'October Crow' for the actual advertisement itself, 'Top 10 Horror Films Chosen By You!'. We decided to use this font because it is clear and bold, but has a spooky aspect to it and we really liked it because it linked in to the genre of our trailer and the magazine issue. 

For this advertisement on our magazine, we used 'DHF Story Brush'. We wanted this advertisement to make it look almost like it had been 'brushed' onto the front cover to make it look more spooky but at the same time, we wanted it to be clear and bold and eligible to read by the readers. We really liked this font as it looks really nice and blends in well with the other fonts we have used on the magazine. We also wanted it red to blend with the colour scheme of our magazine (black, white, red and grey) and to almost resemble blood.

Finally, to advertise the new film 'The Devils Due', we used the font 'Frisky Vampire'. We really liked this font as we think it blends really well with the font of the text 'The first look at the highly anticipated film' and looks quite creepy. We also decided to have this font in a different colour to emphasize the title of the film and make it stand out more from the text above it.

Magazine Cover: Location

This is our location for our magazine cover. We chose to take photos here as we liked the stone wall and the trees in the background. 

When we started to take photos we thought that this location looked quite mysterious, also the lighting was quite low key and so emphasised a scary look.

Magazine Cover: Photoshop Tools

The first tool we used in our magazine cover is the lasso.

We used the lasso tool to cut around the picture of Laura with the balloons. We thought that this tool was quite easy to use and helped us quickly get rid of the background. We used other tools such as the magic wand but this highlighted parts of the picture we did not want to get rid of. With the tool lasso we got to pick what parts of the picture we wanted to get rid of also it allowed us to neatly go around Laura and the balloons.

The second tool we used was an eraser which got rid of the background of a picture.














We also used this tool to get rid of the background on each picture of Laura. This also helped getting rid of the background quickly. The photo on the left shows the outcome of using these two tools (lasso and background eraser). By using these two tools we were able to have 3 pictures of Laura on one background.

We used the 'warp' tool (above) and the 'distort' tool (far left) on Photoshop change the shape of the demon faces that appear in the balloons. We used these two tools to make sure that the demons faces fitted properly in the balloons and took their shape as before we edited the face, it was not the correct shape and looked slightly odd once we had placed it in the balloon. These two tools allowed us to fit the demons face as much as we wanted to make it look as good as possible and so it wasn't apparent to viewers of the magazine cover that we had just copied and pasted the face into the balloon. We wanted the faces to appear as if they were captured souls and trapped inside the balloon and we think we achieved this with the help of these Photoshop tools.

Once we had placed the demon faces inside the balloons, we added the effect 'vivid light' to them. This made the faces appear slightly more faded and also, caused the picture colour to blend in better with the colour of the balloon, making it look as though the faces were actually trapped inside the balloons which is what we wanted to achieve. It also brighten the faces a bit more so you could see the facial features and made it more obvious to the audiences of the magazine that they were scary faces of some sort of demon. We think this effect really fit well with the pictures and the background image to make it look more realistic, well-edited and effective.

The opacity and the fill of a picture were very important on our magazine cover and mainly used on the demons faces. We changed the opacity to 92%, this made the picture appear less and didn't make it stand out so much or look so obviously copied and pasted to the audience of the magazine cover and it also made the picture look more ghostly like once it had been placed in the balloons. Then we changed the fill of the pictures to 19%. This made the image appear more see-through and link in more with the idea of "ghosts" as typically, they are made out to be see-through in different films. It also, again, made the image blend in better with the balloons and made it look more professional and realistic.