Below is the brief which I chose to complete for my A2 Media Studies Advanced Portfolio in Media coursework:
A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with the two following ancillary texts:- a film magazine front cover, featuring the film;
- a poster for the film
My task required me to research, plan, develop, construct and evaluate my promotional package, using new media technologies to enable me to produce the best possible portfolio.
Before I could go on to produce the practical elements of my coursework, I had to carry out extensive research and planning to develop my ideas and consider how I was going to make them reach my target audience, which I have defined as young teenagers (aged 13) to young adults (aged 25) primarily made up of females, as typically they are more interested in subjects such as dance and drama, however my film also could appeal to males within this same age group. To give myself a background of the medium I had chosen to create, I firstly looked at the history of film trailers, uploading some early examples of teaser trailers onto my blog. Once I had decided that the genre I wanted to work with was musicals, I went on to textually analyse products similar to what I was looking to create, for example the film trailers hit musicals such as "Hairspray" and the re-make of the classic film "Fame". To learn what kinds of features my target audience (teenagers to young adults) felt were of the most significance and importance in all three of my chosen mediums, I devised several polls on my blog which I then asked a wide range of people within my target audience age group to carry out. Their feedback gave me a good indication of what I should be focusing on when creating my products to appeal to my target audience as best as possible. One very important aspect of the planning process was casting the actors which I wanted to use in my trailer. My chosen genre being musicals, I wanted people who were skilled in the arts of dancing and acting, and are of a similar age range to my target audience. Therefore I chose two female and two male actors who are both skilled and experienced in acting and dancing, all of them having studied dance or drama to an Advanced Level standard. When it came to gathering audience feedback, I decided to show my film trailer to an AS Media Group and devised a questionnaire for them to fill out on my product, asking them to score different elements (diegetic sound, quality of footage etc.) between one and ten, allowing me to work out overall average scores and giving me an indication on what elements needed work before I handed in my final product. The age of the pupils within the class were between 16 and 19 years of age, in the middle of the age band of age of my target audience. Again this gives me a good indication of how my trailer would realistically appeal to my target audience.
I found this brief much more challenging compared to the AS Media Studies Foundation Portfolio because this year we had to produce three separate high quality products across three different medium, so I was required to learn new sets of rules and conventions for these mediums, whereas last year we only had to concentrate on the conventions of magazines. The volume of the work also increased greatly, so it has been even more important to effectively plan my time to make sure I completed each task to the best of my potential.
How my media product uses, develops and challenges the forms and conventions of real media productsI believe that all three of my media products follow the traditional forms and conventions of real media products from the same medium. My film trailer contains all of the conventional features of other film trailers, which I learnt from my initial planning and research. My product contains a range of shots and transitions to give the film a sense of excitement, which is important because film trailers are made to attract an audience to see the whole film. I found that the most frequent shots used in film trailers were medium close-ups and close-ups, which are used to convey the emotions of the characters. I adopted this style and used several of these kinds of shots in my own trailer, for example when the actors names appear on screen alongside a close-up of the corresponding character. I also included a range of graphic captions in my trailer to highlight eye-catching or important moment or slogans, again to create excitement and drama but also make my trailer memorable. I accompanied some of these graphic captions with conventional Hollywood style voiceovers, further exaggerating these climatic moments. I imported transitions onto some of the graphic captions, enlarging them on the screen to make it seem like they are coming out towards the audience. This again is a conventional technique used on film trailer to give the product a sense of professionalism and depth. I also used a backing track on my trailer, which I cut up and edited in order to reflect the mood created on-screen, for example increasing the volume during particularly dramatic scene. The title of the song I used, "Don't Stop Believing" also has strong links with my films title, "Believe". I created a logo for my film which I have used across all three of my products. I created the logo as a .jpg file and imported it onto the end of my trailer, where the title of the film is usually revealed. Following the title I also created a billing block, containing information such as the producers name and the directors name, which again is conventionally placed at the very end of the trailer, which I mirrored in my own product. I also used the conventional font and sizing techniques on my billing block.
My two ancillary texts also follow the conventions of real media products. My film magazine front cover contains all of the features of real magazine covers, such as a masthead, the price, the issue and release date, a barcode, a headline and a strapline. These features are also all placed in the position where they are conventionally located. The framing of the feature photo on my magazine cover is also conventional of magazine covers, as I chose to use a medium-close-up as these convey the strong emotions of the characters in the image to the audience, making the product feel more direct and personal to the reader. I established a relationship between these characters and the audience through the use of audience address, in which the characters focus upon the camera. I also used plugs on my front cover, which covered two conventional features in one, as I used a plug giving details of a competition within the magazine. Plugs are used to inform the audience what other features can be found within the product, whilst competitions and prizes persuade the target audience to buy the product. I also found that the colour red is very popular to use on magazine covers, presumably because it is very bright and eye-catching. I therefore decided to use a red, bold font for my punchy masthead "Epic". When I analysed other film magazines such as "Total Film" and "Empire", I found that the front covers did not conventionally contain the films logo, but rather a font similar to the logo. I used these conventions in my own product, using a gold font upon the film title "Believe" which is stylistically similar to my logo.
My film poster contains conventional features such as the film's official logo, which I used in a gold font to create tangible links between my three texts. It also contains the film's release date "January 2010" and the film's slogan "They have a dream to perform", which likewise I produced in a gold font. The use of a slogan creates further links between my three products, as this will become unique to my product. At the bottom of the poster in a smaller font I also included the film's fictional website and the production company logos. At the top of my poster I also revealed who the film is directed by, which is found on a large amount of film posters, and I chose to include it because my pole revealed that my target audience believe that this is important information to have on my product. I decided to use long-shot photographs on my product because I wanted to represent the characters in my film as dancing or acting to re-enforce my film's genre as a musical. I used bright colours on my poster to make it eye-catching, placing each character against a different coloured background. I placed the two female characters against red and orange backgrounds, as these colours hold connotations of anger and warning, reflecting the girls' fiery and competitive nature in the film. I placed the male on the far right of my poster against a blue background, this colour representing his confident, masculine character. I placed the other male character however aganst a green background, as in the film his nature is much more reserved and placid, and these are connotations that this particular colour holds. The use of this frame of photo could be challenging the conventions of film posters, as a lot of products I looked at in my research and planning used medium-close-ups, although some did use long-shots. I also gave the names of the actors in my film above the corresponding photographs, as this is another conventional feature and one my target audience revealed they felt was very important in my poll.
The combination of my main product and ancillary texts
I believe that the promotion pack for my new film, including the trailer, the magazine cover and the poster, work well together with clear tangible links between all three of the products.
Firstly I produced a logo for my film which is used on both my trailer and my poster, and a font very similar to my logo was used on my magazine cover, as conventionally magazines do not use the full logo of the film's they are advertising. I also repeated the colour gold throughout each of my products, which allows me to create an individual identity for my film. On the film trailer I used gold graphic captions, whereas on my poster and film trailer I coloured the film's title "Believe" and the logo in a gold font. I think that the colour gold was a suitable colour to use throughout my three texts as it holds connotations of richness and fame, ideas that are commonly associated with musicals. Furthermore I produced a slogan for my film, "They have a dream to perform", which I again used both as a graphic caption within my trailer and on my film poster above the feature photographs, creating further links between my products.
What I have learned from my audience feedbackAudience feedback was a very important part of my evaluation process as it informed me as to what a realistic non-bias audience thought of my three products, and, in the case of my film trailer, gave me tips on how to improve the final cut edit before I handed it in for assessment.
I decided to create a seperate questionnaire for each of my three texts, asking participants to score different features of my products between 1 and 10, known as the Likert Scale. I chose to do this kind of quantitive research because it is much easier to assess and analyse, as I was then able to work out the overall average score awarded to each of the different features.
For my film trailer feedback, I decided to show the second cut-edit of my trailer to an un-biased AS Media Studies class. The highest score average score (6.9) was awarded to the non-diegetic sound in my film, such as the backing track and voiceovers, which tells me that my audience felt that this was one of the strongest elements of my product. The lowest average score however (.) was given to the diegetic sound on my trailer, such as dialogue, which told me that in order to make my product appeal to my target audience as best as possible, this was the main area I needed to address and improve before handing in my final edit. A high average score of 6.7 was given to the framing of my shots, so again this is another area of my trailer which I know my target audience particularly liked. Another area which I learnt I needed to improve from the feedback was the graphic captions in my trailer, which were given an average score of 5.5. I addressed this by adding a transition effect onto the captions, making them zoom in on the screen as they do in professional trailers, so I now feel this area is much stronger. A total of 18 out of 26 of my voters rightly believed that the genre of my film was a musical, which tells me that the majority of my target audience felt that my product followed the conventions of this specific genre. In my final edit though I have addressed the fact that 8 of the participants did not recognise this, and made these conventions even clearer, for example raising the volume of my backing track during the climactic dance scenes.
I then went on to produce similar questionnaires for my two ancillary texts, again asking people to score different features of the two texts between 1 and 10. I was very happy with the audience feedback I gained for my ancillary texts, as it revealed that my target audience felt that both of my products were of a good quality and could imagine my texts being professional products.
For my magazine cover, the highest average score (9.1) was for the overall layout of my magazine, which tells me that this is a strong aspect of my product. I was also awarded high scores, (8.8) for the name of my magazine and the feature photograph, so I know that these aspects of my cover are also successful in attracting my target audience which is important because I also feel that these are two of the most important features on magazine covers. Even though the scores were not particularly low, the lowest (8.6) were given to the use of colour on my magazine cover and the use of plugs, so if I were to go back and improve my product these would be the areas I would look to enhance. 17 out of 18 of the voters also said that they could imagine my cover being a professional product, which informs me that I have successfully made my text look like mainstream product.
For my film poster, I learned that the strongest element of my product was the layout of the elements on the page, as this received the highest score (9.4). The layout is very important on film posters because they are often only seen for short time, so it is important that the product is attractive without being overwhelming. High scores (9 and 9.1) were also given to the logo I have used on the poster and the use of colour respectively. The logo/film title was a feature which my audience research poll revealed was of importance to my target audience, so it is good that this area has scored highly. The lowest score (8.4) was given to the slogan, "They have a dream to perform". This tells me that if I was to improve my product, this would be the first feature I would change, perhaps using a shorter, punchier version of the slogan on my poster. All 18 of the voters felt that my poster could be a professional product, which tells me that my product appeals to my target audience, and looks like a mainstream film poster.
How I have used use new media technologies in construction and research, planning and evaluation stagesBecause I also used Blogger.com in the creating of my AS Media Studies Foundation Portfolio, I already had a grounding knowledge of how to use the website and the extra gadgets I could add to my blog such as polls, images and videos. In the research and planning process, I created polls on my Blog to gain research from my target audience on what kinds of features they felt were the most important in trailers, posters and magazines. I then posted the web address for my blog on social networking sites such as "Facebook", asking friends to complete the poll to ensure that I gained as much feedback as possible. The people who had access to my poll are also teenagers to young adults, the primary target audience for my promotional package. When it came to producing the script/screenplay and storyboard for my film trailer, I used my home scanner to transfer the files into .jpg format, which I was then able to simple add onto the relevant posts on my blog. Something new I learnt how to do this year was to embed "Youtube" videos into my trailer, as a part of the textual analysis of existing products process. I learnt how to do this myself, copying the HTML code for the video from "Youtube" and simple pasting it onto my blog. Another new skill which I have developed this year was how to create my own videos and then embed them onto my blog. For example I created my Animatric for my trailer on a piece of editing software I have on my home computer called "Sony Vegas", which I tried to embed onto my blog straight away but the file size was too big and needed compressing. I then saved the video in a .wav format instead, which compressed the file into a suitable size and then I was able to upload it onto my blog.
The biggest challenge I faced with media technology in the creating of my promotional package was learning how to use the software on the college editing suites, "Adobe Premier Pro". I recorded all of my footage using my own digital video camera and recorded the material onto a Mini DV tape, so I was already familiar with how to use it. After I had completed my first lot of recording, I received a tutorial within my Media Studies lesson on how to use some of the basic features on the editing software. I picked up these skills relatively quickly, and also learned new techniques myself through experimentation, always making sure I regularly saved my work just in case. After I had been shown how to do something on the editing software, I could then go on to do it confidently myself. For example I brought it my film logo as a .jpg file on my memory stick, and I was shown how to transfer and import the file into my trailer. Then when it came to importing more images and the backing track .mp3 file, I could import these without any help because I had already developed my skills to enable me to do these myself. Another example is adding graphic captions to my trailer. As I grew closer to the completion of my film trailer, I learnt I variety of new editing techniques to make my product look as professional as possible, for example how to adjust the volume level of the dialogue so that it did not overpower the backing track, and making the graphic captions zoom in on the screen.
My next task was to create the two ancillary texts of my promotional package: a film poster and a film magazine front cover. Firstly, I took the photographs I wanted to use on my own digital camera, and then uploaded these onto my blog. I then decided which were the best photographs and edited them using a piece of software on my home computer called "Microsoft Picture It!", which is stylistically very similar in it's layout to the Industry Standard Graphics and Image Manipulation software "Photoshop", therefore I do not believe that it limited by creative ability. I then went on to produce both the poster and the magazine using this software, saving the finished products as flat .jpeg (Joint Photographic Experts Group) files so that I could upload them onto my blog. I had already used this software last year in the production of my music magazine for my AS coursework, so I was already very confident and familiar with using the programme.
I also used media technologies to transfer both the first cut edits and my finished trailer onto a CD and onto my blog. I had to have help with this because first the format of the file needed changing to compress it, but once I had been compressed I was able to upload it from my work area onto my blog myself. I also used the first cut edit of my trailer on the CD as a part of my audience feedback in the evaluation process. I copied my film from the disc onto my teachers work area, and we were then able to project my trailer onto the interactive whiteboards and show it to an AS Media Studies class, who then filled out a questionnaire I had devised on Microsoft Word giving me their feedback on my product. I completed the written section of my evaluation on the blogger website. Throughout the whole production process of my A2 Media Studies Advanced Portfolio, I have backed all of my work up on a Microsoft Word document.
The InstitutionWith the increase of digitalisation and postmodern media, film trailers are taking on a whole new image as they begin to break traditional conventions and use a lot more special effects to make them look as exciting as possible. Musicals, however, still aim to reach a mass audience by using or releasing new big hit singles and containing dramatic dance scenes with stereotypical, often teenage characters. Musicals also often take new talent and aim to turn them into mainstream big-hit Hollywood stars, examples including the popular Disney film "High School Musical", which has created a Hollywood status for names such as Zac Efron and Vanessa Anne Hudgens The musical genre is also very diverse as it is often coupled with a range of additional products and merchandise, for example CD's, figures, soundtracks and sing-a-long versions. This is an example of vertical integration and media convergence, in which the institution releases several media products from one initial media text.
Above: High School Musical 2 Sing Together Doll Assortment
Source : http://www.argos.co.uk/wcsstore/argos/images/333-3832639SPA70UC510928M.jpg
I considered this new diversity of the musical genre in my own production as I followed all of the conventions of musical film trailers, which I learnt from textually analysing existing products. Following these conventions means that my product can be stylistically compared to films such as the re-make of "Fame" and "High School Musical", not only through the way they are presented on-screen, but also how they might be received by the institution.
What I would improve about my productionIf I were to go back and improve my film trailer, the two main areas which I would concentrate on would be the lighting of some shots, and the quality of the diegetic sound. I filmed a lot of the scenes for my trailer in the college theatre, which I booked for use during lunchtimes and after college hours. Once I had uploaded my footage onto the college editing suites, I realised that the lighting was quite poor, because the room is completely black and the camera was struggling to pick up the dramatic dance routines effectively. Therefore I then went on to re-shoot some of the scenes using the professional theatre lighting, but because I am not authorised to use it, I had to have assistance from one of the media technicians. One of the biggest problems I faced that was not all of the cast in my film could turn up in the slot I had booked to re-film, so I was not able to re-shoot everything I wanted to. Therefore if I was to go back and improve my film, the first thing I would do would be to re-shoot all of the other shots I filmed in the theatre with the professional theatre lighting.
The next element that I would improve in my trailer would be the quality of the diegetic sound, for example the dialogue. Particularly in the fifth shot in my trailer, the quality of the sound could be improved if I were to re-record the dialogue using a standing microphone, and then slot it over the shots in my trailer. This would also reduce the natural buzzing noise the camera picks up when you record dialogue from quite a distance away. Another option would be carrying out post-production re-dubbing to replace the dialogue sound.
Something else which I would want to improve in my trailer is the way I set up the final shot, in which the two boys walk through a curtain. In this scene I aimed to mimic the situation of the boys walking onto a stage to undergo their final performance, but I feel that once again the lighting could be improved here. If I were to re-shoot this scene I would position a standing light on the other side of the curtain, so that when the two boys walked through, it would look much more like they were walking onto a real stage.
My audience feedback has given me a good indication about which features I would want to work on if I were to improve my two ancillary texts. On my magazine, I would include one or two more bright colours to add a little more interest to the page, as the use of colour was the feature which received the lowest average score (8.6/10) on my questionnaire, along with the use of plugs which gained the same score. Therefore, in addition to this, I would also look to include another plug on my magazine, perhaps one that uses an additional photograph and includes information on another fictional article which would be found inside my magazine.
The aspect of my film poster which I would look to improve would be the slogan, "They have a dream to perform", which can be found at the top of the page, as again this received the lowest average score (8.4/10) from my audience feedback. To improve this I would use a shorter version of the slogan, perhaps simply, "They have a dream", so that it would be much shorter and punchier, which is the effect film posters aim to create. I would also make the text slightly bigger so that it stands out more on the page.
