Evaluation Question Three

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I conducted my audience feedback in the same way as my research as I felt this worked well. I sent a Facebook message to people who fit my audience asking them to follow a link and fill out a questionnaire.



This shows that, overall, my target audience are intrigued by the teaser trailer with the biggest percentage (33%) saying they would be very likely to see the film based soley on the trailer. Only 20% of my audience fell below the middle of my scale showing that I have mostly met the requirements of my audience. This paired with the fact that all of my audience were successfully able to identify the film's genre of teen drama shows that I managed to meet most of the requirements of the genre.



One way I thought I could improve my trailer was through the sound. I was initially unsure whether it worked well with the narrative. However, the majority of my audience felt it did. When asked why many said they felt the change of music from the classical piece to the more electronic piece clearly showed the character development. On the other hand, a small number of my audience didn't feel the music worked well, syaing it was too comical for the darker tone of my product.


As the task was to produce 3 products that worked together to promote my film I felt it was important I asked my audience what they felt of the three as a whole. 75% of my audience believed they worked well ut 25%, a significant proportion of my audience, did not. They suggested I should have used similar font on all 3 products.

I wanted to see who had answered my questionnaire as I established a target audience of 80% female and 20% male in my initial audience research. My feedback had similar proportions. Interestingly, I found that the males were less likely the want to see the film, giving the lower ratings. This shows that I have met what I set out to do in terms of audience appeal.

Finally I asked my audience to state what they thought worked well and what didn't for both my magazine and poster:

Poster:
Worked well

• seperation of characters works well to hint at the plot
• colours went well together
• the photos at the bottom looked like mugshots hinting at the plot of deviancy
• font engages

Could be improved

• 'This Winter' is too hard to read
• brick wall is too busy
• one character is slightly cut out

Magazine:

Worked well

• composition is good
• has the conventions of a magazine cover
• simplistic style is clear and effective
• colours give a sense of youth linking to the genre
• text is clear
• articles are interesting

Could be improved

• too many different font styles
• use more colour
• too much white
• use the space on the right more effectively.

Evaluation Question Four

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used both Google documents and Facebook to conduct my audience research. I sent a message to people who fit with my target audience asking them to follow a link to fill out my questionnaire.
I feel this was very helpful to me as it was much more efficient than handing out paper questionnaires or even answering questions by email. I got a much higher response rate than I expected, which gave me a wider view of my audience, and I feel this is due to the fact that the process was much easier for people.
I also used Youtube when conducting my product research. There is a wide selection of teaser trailers available for all users to view which was extremely useful for me when I was trying to establish conventions. If Youtube did not exist it would have been a lot harder to conduct this research as I would have had to search for them using DVD content. However, as every user can upload content it was sometimes difficult to tell the difference between fan-made and official teaser trailers.

During the planning stage I used Google calendar to outline my long-term planning. The online calendar was useful for me as an overview of what needed to be done. I could also always access it and there was little chance of my losing it as there would have been in the past when using paper-based calendars.

During the construction stage I used high quality video cameras. This allowed me to have good quality video giving it a more professional feel. I also used Photoshop CS5 to construct my magazine and poster. I used a free font site (cooltext) and a polaroid picture creator. I had never used Photoshop before and I found it very useful as it allowed me to create a more professional look for both my magazine cover and poster. It was much more useful to me than an amateur photo editing program, such as Microsoft Paint would have been, as there were many more functions. For example, on my poster my background was originally too light and did not fit with the poster, using the layer function I was able to edit only this part of my poster and darken it, improving the overall dark theme of my poster. The polaroid creator enabled me to give my magazine cover the overall young theme I felt it was lacking. The site had lots of options so it gave me a fair bit of freedom when choosing my end pictures. It was also a great time saver as I would have had to construct the polaroids myself.


For the construction of my teaser trailer I used iMovie HD to edit and a free music site for the sound. iMovie is sophisticated software which allowed me to cut my clips with the precision needed for a fast-paced piece of film such as a teaser trailer. It also allowed me to mix music and sound to create a more conventional teaser trailer. The free music site was a great help to me as we were not allowed to use copyrighted music. Had I not had access to suitable songs that didn't have copyright, such as the ones on this site, I would have had to compose my own music or try to get permission from the PRS, both of which are very difficult to do.
Finally, in the evaluation stage I used Facebook and Google documents to conduct my audience feedback as I felt this had worked well in my audience research. This again saved me time and helped me to get it out to a wide range of people. I also used Blogger to post my answers which allowed me to make my evaluation more interactive. I could demonstrate ideas using pictures and link to websites and other posts.

Evaluation Question Two

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

In my audience feedback I found that the majority of my audience felt my 3 products worked well together.
I created continuity between my trailer and poster by using the same colour text. However, I did not use the same text which may have helped to improve the continuity. I also used the same vague release date of 'This Winter' on both to show they were released around the same time.
Although I did not use the same font on my magazine cover, this is not uncommon for film magazines, as their main function is to sell copies rather than promote a film. An example of this is the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Total Film cover and the film's poster.
Another way in which I could have improved the effectiveness is by using a tagline across the three products which many films use.

Evaluation Question One

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

When making my product I had to consider the conventions of both the form of the product (teaser trailer, film magazine cover and film poster) and the genre of the product, of which I chose teen drama.

I used the conventions of teaser trailers in many ways:

• I used fast paced editing to intrigue the audience and not give too much of the narrative away as teaser trailers rarely do this.
  

• A way of doing this is using tittle slates to hint at the plot, something the St. Trinian's teaser trailer does, using 3 title slates, interspersed with clips, to suggest the narrative to the audience.
  
  
  
  

• I used this convention in my teaser trailer to convey a sense of the plot to the audience yet also keep a sense of mystery.
  

• Also, by using title slates I gave a non-specific release date for my film of 'This Winter'. This is something often done in teaser trailers as they are released many months in advance of the film.

• Another convention of teaser trailers I have used is differing styles of music to show a change in the mood or tempo of the trailer. I used a classical piece of music at the start to show contrast to the rest of the darker, more serious trailer.
  

In my film I also used many conventions of Teen Drama films. A common theme in teen dramas is a sense of 'coming of age', often portrayed by:

• the consumption of alcohol and illegal drugs for the first time, something that is explored in the films Mean Girls and Thirteen. It is often caused by peer pressure, something that is hinted at in my film.

Many may argue that it is a fairly recent theme but we can see from the 80's film The Breakfast Club, one of the first successful teen drama films, that it is a constant theme.

• the formation and breakdown of friendships, something which is central to my plot, as my main character Tasha comes into it and becomes close to Lucy, which in turn effects her relationship with Jess. Many teen dramas focus on different stereotypes and how they become friends. In my film this is the 'geek' and the 'rebel', something also done in The Breakfast Club.

During my product research I found that film magazines often use 3 colours
Teen dramas are not often featured in film magazines as this is not the target audience for the magazine. As I was aware of this when constructing my product I asked my audience what types of magazines they most often read with music magazines coming out most popular. Film magazines rarely focus on documentaries but I decided to break this convention to include a documentary on a music festival which links to the interests of my audience.
In my product research of film posters I often found that early promotional posters had non-specific release dates so I incorporated this into my own product, helping to increase intrigue in my poster.

Teaser Trailer Final

Poster

Magazine Cover

My final magazine turned out quite differently from my mock-up. This is because after I had drawn my mock-up I discovered that I could only use images that I had taken myself, therefore had to take out the images of the films. Instead I decided to do an article on fictitious documetary The Music Festival. I chose to do this particular genre of the film as from my audience research I found that the majority of my audience read music magazines so I thought that this would be an article that particularly interested them.