Drafts of both my products.

Magazine Draft.

Poster Draft.

These are the original planning ideas of my ancillary texts. I drew these up on paper before I began to create my magazine cover and horror poster. However, these were only draft ideas, and when I began to actually create my products, these changed quite a lot.

Original Photos for my ancillary products.

Above on the left hand side in my original photo that I used for my horror poster. I photographed Becci standing behind a door looking in. As she was the character at the beginning of the trailer, I decided to photograph her, as though she was looking in on the present time. As we can see I completely darkened the image, and then added a strange coloured tint to the poster, creating a horror effect. I then cropped a background section from another similar photo to place in the window that is seen. However, this photograph is not the exact photo I used to produce my poster. I believe I re-saved the final copy over the original copy. This would be something I would need to take care of next time.

             

Above on the left hand side is my final front cover of a film magazine, and on the right hand side is my original photo. I cut the image of Becci out, and changed the brightness of the image. I then placed this onto a plain background to create the effect of a professional studio shoot.

"The Strangers" Trailer- Initial Post.

I watched this horror trailer of 'The Strangers' and really enjoyed the content within it. I felt the trailer had 'jumpy bits' which genuinely made me jump.  The main aspect of this trailer that I thought really worked well was the music. I like how the soft gentle music at the beginning of the trailed almost connoted a sense of binary oppositions. The piece of music that appeared later which sounded like a record player jumper worked really well. I felt this matched up to the speed of the trailer, and helped to lead the trailer to a sense of suspicion. I liked the close-up shots of the main characters face's, which led me to gain an understanding of their emotions. Watching this trailer has definitely made me want to go watch this film.

Story Boards

As a group, we designed some storyboards which would be the layout and guideline that we would follow within the production of our trailer. This way we were able to film the trailer step by step, and plan how we wanted each shot to filmed, and we could write down the technical codes we would use. This was not going to be the final way in which we would film our trailer, but it was a help, and a way to get started.

Empire Magazine Cover.

Click on the cover to view annotations.

empire03sept1 a photo by ChelseaC22 on Flickr.

Total Film Magazine.

Click on the cover to view the annotations.

alba6 a photo by ChelseaC22 on Flickr.

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

These images below are all stills from both my trailer and currently existing trailers. The images that are shown on top are stills from existing horror trailers, and the images below are stills from my horror trailer. I explored the trailer and horror conventions of the stills and how they linked to one another.

1. The first image is of a slam of a door closing. This is a typical shot that can be found within horror trailers. We particular liked this shot within our trailer as it adds speed to the trailer and also causes suspicion to what is going on behind the door. I also like how both of the settings that the doors are shown in within the trailer are very light. This almost creates a sense of binary oppositions of a strange light setting in a horror trailer.

2. This second shot is more focused on the technical codes of horror trailer, as we use a  close-up of the main protagonist's face. This enables us to understand the feelings and emotion of the main protagonist and too almost understand their thoughts on what is happening.

3. In this third shot from both mine and the existing trailer, our character within the shot is seen in a bath, which we assume she is about to drown. In terms of horror conventions this links into the idea of the setting of where the main incident happens. This shot is particularly strange and links in with the idea of it being psychological.  This was filmed in the setting of a bathroom, which was the setting where the main storyline developed from.

4. This fourth shot contains both characters approaching a door. This creates tension and fear into the shot to what could be behind the door. In both shots the door is seen as the main focal point.  This was an over the shoulder shot, so that we were able to what what was going on and so we were also able to see the main character at the same time, allowing us to see their movement towards the door.

5. Within this shot, both characters from both trailers are having some form of interaction with a mirror. Mirror's are a typical thing to find in horror trailers as they can be seen as very abstract and strange. Mirrors also imply the sense of a split personality, and shattered mirror can connote the psychotic fragmenting of the characters personality. The setting in which these have been filmed in are in a bathroom. Many shots for horror can be filmed in bathrooms as they are known to be very small and isolated which could create fear and panic, the mirrors also add to the iconography of the bathroom setting.

6. This shot is of a tap. This shot is very strange and almost relates back to the concept of binary oppositions. Taps are not typically a scary item that could be seen as horrifying, however the fact that they are not scary could imply that they are. The taps are the main focal point of each shot and could be seen as quite abstract, and also link in with the horror conventions as being iconography to the setting of this part of the trailer.

7. Within these shots, there is a character in both, about to open a door. This shot was filmed as the character opened the door very, very slowly to create tension to what will happen next, and this has been done as a close-up in terms of technical codes.

8. These shots here are of the faces of the characters in the water whilst they are drowning. Both images contain the same setting and in terms of technical code are extreme close ups to the faces. This enables us to see the struggle and almost pain in their faces. This is a very strange shot and as part of the trailer conventions, it will gain the attention of the target audience to what the film is about. This is an extreme close up shot which enables us to understand the feeling and emotion within the characters expressions, which is then linked with the storyline at the current time within the trailer or film.

Magazine Cover.

The Music Box Poster.

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

Above is an image in which I created myself on Photoshop. Within this image is the technologies I used throughout my process of creating my products.


Throughout the process of producing my trailer, there were three main stages in which these media technologies were incredibly useful for. The first stage was research and planning. For this I used Flickr to produce analysis of current horror posters and magazine covers. This was able to give me a set structure for how both had to be presented and to help me gain ideas for my own. I also used Flickr later on within my work to upload many photos that I wanted to put onto my blog, and I linked them together so that I could annotate these images. I also used Youtube within my research as I was able to endlessly look through professional horror trailers in the industry, and notice the horror and trailer conventions in which they contained, enabling me to gather ideas for mine in terms of camera shots, editing techniques and many more. I then used Dafont, which is an online website where you can choose from a very diverse and wide variety of fonts. This website became very useful for my group and I as we tested many fonts that could we would be able to incorporate into our final ancillary products, and even our trailer.

The next stage of work in which I used the variety of technologies was Production. The main programme in which I used the most to produce my trailer was Final Cut Studio. My whole trailer was produced over many weeks on Final Cut Studio and from this I gained skills of uploading film, cutting and editing the film and many other qualities which helped me to develop the trailer. I also gained the ability to learn many editing techniques such as cutting out sections that I did not want to use, placing filters on shots, and speeding or slowing the pace of shots. This programme was used on a Mac computer and enabled me to produce a trailer that was similar to the trailers in which I had studied and analysed on Youtube. Photoshop was the next programme in which I created the ancillary products on. On this I edited the photo's that I had taken which were going to be featured within my horror poster, and magazine cover. Both of these were also created on Photoshop as I was able to add and remove layers that would all build up into one image. Many products within the industry are created on Photoshop as it is a very reliable source of creating these types of products, and I again developed my skills by learning how to create a layout for my magazine cover that was similar to Empire. Lastly,  Physically within the production of my work, I used video cameras and a digital SLR camera. All of the film we filmed for our trailer we filmed on the video cameras. This was a new experience for me as I do not regularly use video cameras. From learning the skills of using a video camera whilst filming my trailer, I have now been able to include this skill within other college subjects. Using a digital SLR camera was normal to me also being a photography student, however I still learnt new skills whilst using this to create photographs for my ancillary texts, which is something very different and was also really interesting to learn these new skills.

Lastly, through the evaluation stage of my product I used this online site, Blogger. This site enabled me to upload all of my work and evaluate the content in which I had produced within my work. Using Blogger was a very big advantage to evaluating my work in contrast to a normal every-day evaluation. It was able to be shown digitally on a computer, and I was also able to change the layout and colouring of my work. Using Blogger allowed to contain the use of images on my evaluations and also Youtube clips. This made my work more enjoyable for the reader and less tedious. Using Blogger through this A2 work has enabled me to develop on the skills I already gained from my AS work, but to explore them further. It has also been a way for me to analyse my own work, similarly to how I evaluated professional work during the research and planning stages.I would most definitely use nearly all of these programmes in the future as I have developed skills in which I would be able to involve within other subjects and for my personal life. I believe they have been very useful in producing my products to a high standard that look quite professional.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Once we had produced our first version of our trailer, we had a screening in which we played the trailer to the rest of our class, and see what they thought of it, and how we could improve the trailer to make it better and more suitable, and what worked well and that we should keep in our trailer. We used our class as our target audience as they were their ages represented the average age for our target audience, so we would gain valid responses on how to improve our work by their opinions. We also produced some audience research. This enabled us to find out that the target audience age was between 17 and 24. This was essential so we could base our trailer around something that would attract this age group. We also found out that the audiences favourite sections of horror trailers were the ‘jumpy bits’ and they particularly liked the suggestion of a horror setting being underwater. The idea of underwater being a horror setting meant to us that the underwater feature would be a key part of our trailer in which we would film to gain the audiences attention and interest. We also found out that the target audience liked psychological horror’s containing a fear of the unknown. We combined all these ideas together to produce our trailer to supply the needs of our target audience.

From screening our trailer to our class, we found that the audience seemed to be very pleased with the way in which our trailer was produced, however they did make many suggestions on how we could improve the trailer, we which took on and replaced with things that worked better. The main concern about the trailer was our use of inter-titles. We tried to create a water effect background behind the text, however this did not link in as a horror convention, and in fact seemed almost quite the opposite. We decided to completely change the idea of our inter-titles, and we kept it very plain and simple which was very similar to trailers in the industry now. Our screening audience also said that they felt we could improve the second half of our trailer which was the ‘2011’ section. This was due to the audience having a lack of understanding on how the two sections related. They also suggested that we needed to establish a main protagonist that they could identify with throughout the trailer. We decided to film some more footage and make it a lot clearer in what was happening by using our music box as an almost flash back to the past for our main protagonist. These were the two main key features that needed to be changed within our trailer. The target audience also suggested that we applied some more filters to our work as it seemed a little too bright in places for a horror trailer, and that it needed a more grainy effect. Gaining the feedback from the audience enabled us to discover what didn’t work so well and helped us to improve our product. Film distributors gain feedback in a very similar way to my screening tests as they show the target audience for the film similar posters to gain feedback for their own films.

The audience also explained the things they particularly liked about the trailer that conveyed typical horror conventions. Most of the audience really liked our choice of music for the trailer as they thought it linked in well with our initial idea, and worked well within the horror genre. Many people also commented on how they really liked the first 1943 section, as it was a very unique idea, and all seemed to flow continuously. 

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

All together, my horror movie trailer, poster and magazine cover make a promotional package. My magazine cover and poster are there to promote my film to audiences. My film is based on a cursed music box which is involved with family history of the main protagonistt. Although the music box is the key feature, there is also a theme of water throughout the trailer, which implies to the audience that there is in somewhat way a connection between the music box and water.

A trailer is not the only way in which a film can be promoted. A horror poster is able to advertise the film, and then be placed anywhere for audiences to notice it. I also decided that promoting my film on one of the biggest film magazines in the country would allow its fan base, which would contain a lot of my target audience, to notice the film, leading them to possibly go watch it. This would result in my movie being advertised to a large demographic.

However, the trailer, poster and magazine as a package must be strong, and must all link in somewhat way to ensure that they engage the largest possible audience. At the beginning of my trailer, we see an unknown character drowning herself underwater for an unknown reason. I believe this helps to create an abstract sense from the very start.

On my poster I had the same

character from the beginning of the trailer looking through a window, but with her face very darkened. This was a low key image that would imply a sense of secrecy and to hide her identity and her role within my trailer. I particularly like the image featured on my poster as it is not a spoiler for my trailer, and does not reveal any content about the film. On the poster I decided to create a tagline which would follow the film, and for this I chose “sleep in heavenly peace?” I thought this worked particularly well as the music box tune from within my trailer was the tune of ‘Silent Night.’ I thought this would link the poster and trailer together further. I placed the production values of cast names at the top of my poster to enable them to be clear and to stand out to my target audience. I also made sure my font was a much brighter colour than the poster as the image and background of my poster were very dark and dingy.

On the other hand, my magazine cover , which is another section of publicity, was very different to my movie poster, yet they were still in link with one another. I researched many Empire movie magazines to see what types of images were shown on the front covers. Most of the images were studio shots of the cast, gaining an even higher production value to their film. I decided to do the same for mine, and I photographed the same character that appeared on the poster of my film, which perhaps was very opposite to my poster as here we are able to see her perfectly. I chose Empire to be the magazine that I would advertise my film on as it is one of the biggest movie magazines within the UK and would definitely promote my film excellently as it has a very committed audience. I chose to place screen-shots of my trailer on the front cover so that my target audience would be able to recognise parts of the trailer as my magazine image was not a film shot. I tried to situate my text in a bold way so that it stood out to the audience, still implying it was a horror by the use of the world ‘monster.’ I also chose not to over focus on other films as I wanted my film to be the main aspect of Empire’s front cover of the week.

This is how I would choose Empire's magazine to look if I was personally designing it. However, I understand that if my film was going to be distributed in real life, I would have no control over this, and the decisions would be made by Empire's company.  However when creating my poster, the decisions would be made by me as this is the poster from my own company, advertising only my film. However Empire would play a marketing tool, and would help me to advertise my film to my target audience.

By using Empire as the magazine in which my movie would be advertised on, it enables the magazine to gain more publicity for people choosing to watch my film. When others buy the magazine for other stories within, there is also a high chance they will also read my story.

The Music Box Teaser Trailer 2011

The Uninvited Horror Poster.

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uninvited-movie-poster
Originally uploaded by ChelseaC22

Frozen horror poster.

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Frozen horror poster.
Originally uploaded by ChelseaC22

Forget Me Not horror poster.

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Forget Me Not horror poster.
Originally uploaded by ChelseaC22

How does the horror genre represent gender?

Within our media studies lesson, we watched three horror films, and compared them in terms of the way in which they represent gender. The three films we watched were the 1979 Halloween, 1982 The Shining , and the 2008 film Eden Lake. We noted to see whether the representation of gender had changed throughout the years, and how it had changed if so. We also looked at a theory, and compared it against each film, with the theory being that women were still represented in the traditional stereotypical way.

Firstly we looked at the visibility contrast of gender within the films. The first film we closely looked at was the 1979 original film, Halloween. We noted down each character that particularly had a speaking line in the film, and that were seen as they ‘main characters.’ We come to a conclusion that the women were equally visible on the screen to men, and gave us a 50:50 result. This then implied to us in terms of the theory we studied that women were not represented in the stereotypical way. We then went through, and again noted down the speaking characters from The Shining. We easily recognised that there were more males within the film to females, and that the main casting were 2/3 men, leaving us with a 60:40 result. Then lastly we watched Eden Lake, and we straight away recognised that there were many more males in the film to females. However, the lead female character Jenny takes up a vast majority of screen time, which enables us to see her ‘final girl’ route, but, there is still evidence that there is a lack of females within the film, approximately 3:8.

Next, we went on to look at the roles of the women in the three films. We decided upon whether their roles were domestic, sexual, consumer or familial. In the film Halloween, we discovered that Laurie, the main protagonist was domestic in that she was babysitting in the film for her younger brother and throughout the films she was cooking and cleaning. We also see two other characters Annie and Lynda being portrayed in a sexual way, therefore taking on the sexual role within the film. Lastly, the familial role is taken on by Annie, as her father is the sheriff within the film, and by the character Judith, who appeared for a short while at the beginning of the film, as she is a sister to Mike Myers, the main killer/creature of Halloween.  We then looked at the roles of the women within The Shining. Wendy is the leading female within the film, and also the final girl, and within this she is very domesticated in that her life consists of her being a housewife, and yet she is also familial as she is a wife and mother. She is also very submissive and weak, and this could possibly imply that she takes on a sexual role. When Jack enters room 237, he has the strange visual of the woman from the bath, who at first appears in a sexual and lustful way to the audience, although, as we see in the film, she forms into a dead body, however, this could also state that she takes on a sexual role. We can also relate to familial concept to the film in that Grady’s wife and twin daughters are shown within the film for this role to be expressed a little further. Lastly, in Eden Lake, Jenny is the main protagonist and takes on a domestic role due to her career as a primary school teacher, and also adapts the sexual role in that she is on a holiday with her boyfriend, and is going to become his fiancé, currently unknown to her. The woman that the couple meet in the cafe is also domestic in that again, her job allows her to follow this role, and she is also familial in that she refers to her son’s as “my boys.”

Next we focused on the gaze within each film, and whether the females were seen as being objectified or as being identified. In Halloween, on one hand, Laurie is seen as being identified as she has a gender neutral name, and she doesn’t wear any make-up, and doesn’t particularly dress girly. On the other hand, there is a male gaze aimed towards both Judith and Lynda, as Judith’s first scene within the film is her being objectified by her boyfriend, and Lynda is seen in the laundry room, not long before she is killed, in just a thin shirt over the top of her underwear, and is almost being watched by Mike Myers. In terms of the stereotypical theory, this seems to even out as we have two cases, with one implying women as being identified with, and the other that women are being objectified. In The Shining, the male gaze is again used with the scene of the woman in the bath. Relating back to my point made earlier, the woman is seen sexually by the audience, through Jacks eyes, and appears to be sexually appraised as she is being objectified. However, when she turns into the corpse, it almost undermines the objectification process, making the male viewer ashamed of the way in which he looked at her beforehand. Wendy is seen within the film as being identified as she is the final girl. This proves the theory correct and that women are seen as bring stereotypically objectified by the male gaze to men. Lastly in Eden Lake, there is a male gaze towards Jenny, in particular when she laid on the beach from a males point of view, but as she is approached by the gang, who are immediately implied as ‘bad,’ we understand that she is very uncomfortable, helping the audience to understand how she is feeling throughout the majority of the film. This again, proves the theory that there is a strong male gaze, and that Jenny is objectified in this film.

Lastly we studied the narrative of each film, focusing on the females in particular again. Within Halloween, 3 females die, and 2 males die, meaning it is relatively equal at 2:3, but the death of the females are more mainly focused on throughout the film, however the surviving girl is not, she is virginal and survives, so this implies that maybe there is a reactionary sexual agenda to Halloween. This leads the film to disagree with the set theory. Similar conclusions are applied with The Shining as 3 females die, and 2 males die. However, all of the main females shown within this film die, apart from Wendy who is the final surviving girl. Finally within Eden Lake, 2 out of 3 females die, which is the majority of them, yet 4 out of 8 males die, which is only half. There is not really a reactionary sexual agenda within Eden Lake due to the fact that the final girl does not survive.

In conclusion there was a great mixture of combination within each film, and each category to whether females are still applied in the traditional stereotypical way. The Shining is the film which received the majority of conclusions that it did not match the theory, implying that this is the film where the women are identified with more than being objectified. I would say that lastly Halloween wad the film in which the woman were mainly objectified with rather than identified with.

The Role Of The Distributor

Distributors have the job of gaining the largest possible audience for each film release that they are supporting and working for. This is in no way an easy job for the distributors as so many other entertainment options are open both in and out of the home. Distributors have to promote upcoming titles to the market place, and gain a higher interest in their film than others. They have to first find out what the possible amount is that the film could earn, and then they can prepare a budget to release it. The higher the production budget of a film is, the more likely that film is to have a distributor.

Distributors have to find out:

• Who is the target audience?
• Who can be convinced by the distributors to buy a cinema ticket?
• What sort of audiences have films of the same genre previously attracted?

The marketing plan of the distributors:

• First they budget the release of the film- covering both the launch and the sustaining of the film post-release.

They they organise the advertising:

• They create the poster, advertising the movie itself, which can they go on to lead into social construction of 'word of mouth' advertising.
• They then create the films trailer which is seen as one of the most useful advertising ideas.
• Then the distributors set-up the movie through online services for things such as trailers,galleries of stills, behind-the-scenes footage and much more.
• They then set out to gain an active, not passive approach to the audience for the sake of media advertising.

Publicity is then taken into consideration:

• The distributors publicity team arranges interviews to take place within the media, containing member's of the cast from the film, and also the artists attending premieres of the film.
• Publicists create a press kit for the journalists, containing things such as cast and crew lists, biographies, facts about the film and the production of it, and a synopsis.
• They then construct screenings for national critics and set visits for the distributors.
• Also things such as merchandise from the film is created, promotional partnerships, premieres and preview screenings.

To the right is an image of Harry Potter merchandise which has been released due to the success of the films. This also enables the film to be advertised.

Distributors also take it upon themselves to arrange promotional partnerships. They allow customers to interact with the film characters by entering a particular competition, or perhaps collecting premium items.

Our Audience Research.

Our group in media created a questionnaire, in which we asked 18 people questions about the horror genre that we thought would be useful to us throughout out work. These are the results we gathered and created into graphs.

From the selection of people we asked, we found out that the majority of them were female. However this was not crucial information to us as we chose people at random, but we thought some of the answers may be able to reflect the gender split.

We then asked our selected audience how old they were. We found out that the main target age was between  17 and 24. This was then decided within our group that we should aim the trailer at this age group to gain the highest rate of audience.

We then discovered that the majority of people either watch horror films at the cinema, or on DVD. This meant that they spent money on the films, rather than waiting for them to come on TV. 

From surveying our audience, we found out what they preferred to see in a horror trailer, and what was their favourite part. All round, the majority of them said they liked the 'jumpy bits' but others also liked to see a lack on information and fast action. This was vital information that we needed to focus on within the making of our trailer.

We then gave 6 typical horror settings, and asked the audience which was their favourite one. Underwater gained the most votes, and so we decided to produce our trailer around this. We believe they chose this as it was something quite abstract and unusual. 

We then asked the selected 18 how they preferred to watch horror films. The vast majority chose the 'group' choice. This was just more backup information to help us along with the development of our trailer.

The majority of people we asked about their viewing habits of horror films said that they only watched them occasional, or rare. This meant we had to produce a trailer that would really attract the audience to come watch our film, so we needed to make it very unique.

Half of the people we asked, said that psychological themed horrors were their favourite. We decided that this was going to the the sub-genre for our trailer so it would attract in a lot of viewers.

Lastly, we asked what components in a horror trailer scare you. The majority of people answered 'the unknown' so we decided that could be a main feature of our trailer, and we then linked this to the idea of our trailer being involved with underwater and that they could work well together.